The transformation of a single species over time
Anagenesis
Species identified from the fossil record based on PHYSICAL SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES with other species along an evolutionary line (lineage)
Paleospecies
The formation of one or more species from another time
Ex: humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas
Cladogenesis
Originally proposed by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould (1972), it proposes that most species will exhibit little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history, remaining an extended state called STASIS. When significant evolutionary change occurs it is generally restricted to rare and rapid (on a geologic time scale) events of branching speciation called cladogenesis.
Punctuated Equilibrium
Two different methods to study fossil record
Relative Dating & Chronometric Dating
Relative Dating
- Utilizes the geological process of superposition (the accumulation over time of the earth’s surface)
Stratigraphy/Strata
The older the strata (layers, singular=stratum) are on the bottom, and the younger strata are on the top
Principle of Superposition
The study of the temporal and spatial distribution of fossil organisms
Biostratigraphy
Provides an ‘exact’ date (plus or minus statistical variation)
Chronometric Dating
-Divided into two eons
Geologic Time
(4.6 billion years ago to 545 million years ago)
Precambrian Eon
-545 million years ago to present Broken into 3 geological eras: -Paleozic (545-245 mya) -Mezozoic (245-65 mya) -Cenozoic (65 mya-present)
Phanerozic Eon
- Mammals radiate to fill vacant environmental niches left by the extinction of the dinosaurs
Cenozoic
- last time land was above sea level
Pangea
Epochs
65-54 mya B.P
Paleocene epoch
Eocene epoch
- Radiation to anthropoids
Oligocene Epoch
Miocene Epoch
At the end of the mezoic, the earliest likely ancestors of the primates existed
Nocturnal, Arboreal, Insectivores, (like the tree shrew)
An order of mammals adapted to insect eating
Insectivores
Plesiadapids
Not mammals
Plesiadapids