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Paleozoic Life. Life forms in the Paleozoic. The paleozoic begins with the appearance of fossils of marine animals. For the first time, ocean animals that have easily fossilized hard parts.
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Life forms in the Paleozoic • The paleozoic begins with the appearance of fossils of marine animals. For the first time, ocean animals that have easily fossilized hard parts. • The paleozoic contains the history of animal and plant diversification in the oceans and colonization of land Crinoids
Important Paleozoic Invertebrates • First we will examine the anatomical plans of Trilobites, Brachiopods, Molluscs (clams, snails and cephalopods), Echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins and especially crinoids), and Graptolites. • Later we will look at corals and sponges
Trilobite shell morphology Arthropod – “jointed-leg” Related to Horseshoe crabs What other arthropods do you know of? Varied niche, predators, scavengers or filter feeders. Some swam, feeding on plankton
Brachiopod morphology Sessile benthic filter feeders related to bryozoans
Articulate BrachiopodsBrachiopod life positions 1 Brachiopods sort of look like a clam. However, notice that each valve is symmetrical about its middle line.
Brachiopod life positions 2 Inarticulate Brachiopod Lingula Infaunal sessile benthic filter feeders intertidal
Bivalve morphology Clams, Scallops Individual valve is not symmetrical about a middle line
Crinoid morphology Stalked echinoderm related to starfishes, sea urchins, etc
Graptolites Related to ??? Often found in black shales, deep shelf waters, no other fossils Great index fossils
What was the Cambrian Explosion? • The Paleozoic is marked by the abrupt appearance of animals with skeletons in the rock record • a mechanism that would trigger this event is not agreed upon, but is surely due to a combination of geologic and biologic factors • Predators prominent • shallow water, animals must be protected from UV.
The Emergence of Shelly Fauna • Organisms with hard parts have many advantages • protection against UV rays, allowing animals to move into shallower water • helps prevent drying out in an intertidal environment • provides protection against predators
Small shelly fauna Photos Drawings A. Mollusk B. Sponge Late Proterozoic (Ediacaran) to Early Cambria, before trilobites.
Cambrian Marine Community • Many body plans are observed in Cambrian fossils, more than in any other period • trilobites – many niches, e.g. benthonic mobile sediment-deposit feeders that crawled or swam across the sea floor • brachiopods - primitive benthonic sessile suspension feeders • archaeocyathids - benthonic sessile suspension feeders and reef builders
Invertebrates with hard parts Brachiopods Note how the valves have symmetry Trilobites Crinoids Sponges
The Burgess Shale Biota • Consists of a rare preservation of soft-bodied organisms – Mid Cambrian • Some phyla near the basic stock from which some present-day invertebrates have evolved • Other unique and without issue • current debate centers around how many phyla arose and how many extinction events took place in the Cambrian
Charles Walcott’s Burgess Shale -middle Cambrian shale in the Rockies of western Canada
Anomalocaris A huge predaor Hallucigenia Pikaia A chordate!!! Sidneyia Remarkable preservation of animals’ soft tissues, plus the first predator, Anomalocaris
Modern Brine Shrimp Artemiasalina Similar swimming mode to Anomalocaris? Anomalocaris A huge predaor
Marella, a trilobitomorph or “Lace Crab” Anomalocaris and some known prey. Bite marks on fossils
Leanchoilia--China Leanchoilia--Burgess
Interpreting Hallucigenia Like the modern Peripatus, moist forests of Cameroon, Discussion: preadaptations to land if food is present
Pikaia Totally unexpected find. Cartilage but no bone. Jawless ancestor to fish, and us. Maori legend of Pikea, the ancestor. Lancelets in comparative anatomy Link to lancelet info Pikaia – an early chordate! from the Burgess Shale
Ordovician Marine Community Note large Orthoceras A Cephalopod Mollusk • Vast epeiric seas opened new marine habitats • bryozoans, stromatoporoids, tabulate and rugose coral reef builders • reefs with high diversity - suspension feeders • massive extinctions end Ordovician, glaciation in Gondwana & falling sea-level Cephalopods as Index Fossils
Bryozoans Possibly related to Brachiopods “Moss Animals” Filter Feeders Mostly marine tropical Make hard exoskeleton, chitin or CaCO3
Bryozoans In fossils, just the exoskeleton is preserved
Silurian and Devonian Marine Communities • Rapid diversification and recovery followed the Ordovician mass extinction • reef building by tabulate and rugose corals • NEW PREDATOR : Eurypterids were abundant • Ammonoids evolved quickly and are important as index fossils • mass extinction at the end of the Devonian collapsed the massive reefs Marine “Scorpions” Track ways in coastal sands Probably laid eggs as horseshoe crabs do along the foreshore Pterygotus
Rugose Corals – individual animals Field Trip, Stroudsburg, PA
Devonian Tabulate Corals Colonial
Carboniferous and Permian Marine Communities • Renewed diversity and recovery with adaptations mark the Late Paleozoic marine communities • bryozoans and crinoids reach their greatest diversity • patch reefs replace the massive reefs of the Devonian –TEMPS? • fusulinid formanifera are important index fossils
Fragments on Field Trip Stroudsburg PA Types of Staked Echinoderms 3 - Crinoids
Vertebrate Evolution • Chordates have, during at least part of their life, a notochord, dorsal hollow nerve chord, and gill slits • Vertebrates have backbones and are a sub-phylum of chordates • ancestors were soft-bodied and left few fossils • a close relationship exists between echinoderms and chordates and they may have shared a common ancestor
Fish • Fish range from the Late Cambrian to the present and consist of five classes • Ostracoderms • Placoderms • Acanthodians • Cartilaginous fish – sharks and rays • Bony fish
Ostracoderms- Jawless fish Field Trip Bony plates in Shf Silurian High Falls at Delaware Water Gap
Placoderms – first fish w jaws Dunkleosteous (Dinichthys) a Devonian arthrodire
Placoderm - Bothryolepis • Today we will examine another Placoderm • Named Bothryolepis • It’s armor is similar to that of modern South American catfishes that live in shallow, fast moving, jungle streams in South America