BY 256 Final Exam Comprehensive Questions

Questions based on points emphasized in class

When did the first vertebrates appear in the fossil record?

500 million years ago

What were the first vertebrates to appear in the fossil record?

Jawless fishes

What Kingdom do vertebrates belong to?

Kingdom Animalia

What phylum do vertebrates belong to?

Phylum Chordata

What subphylum do vertebrates belong to?

Subphylum Vertebrata

What are the four basic chordate characteristics?

Notochord
Dorsal Hollow Nerve Cord
Pharyngeal Slits and Pouches
Postanal Tail

Do all vertebrates have a notochord?

Yes, it is present during embryonic development in all vertebrates

What is the most primitive living vertebrate?

Hagfish

What is an example of a primitive chordate?

Amphioxus

What does Paleozoic mean?

"Old Animals"

What is the Devonian Period known as?

Age of Fishes

What is the Mesozoic Era known as?

Age of Reptiles

When did the first mammals appear in the fossil record?

Early Mesozoic Era

What is the Cenozoic Era known as?

Age of Mammals

What is the first bird to appear in the fossil record?

Achaeopteryx

Who proposed the Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics?

Jean Baptiste-Lamarck (i.e. Lamarkism)

Who wrote Principles of Geology?

Sir Charles Lyell

Who is known as the "Father of Geology"?

Sir Charles Lyell

Who developed the Geologic Time Scale?

Sir Charles Lyell

Who wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population?

Thomas Malthus

Who was first to propose survival of the fittest?

Thomas Malthus

Are the Galapagos Islands isolated?

Yes, 600 miles West of Equador

How old are the Galapagos Islands?

Relatively young, 1-4 million years old

Who proposed evolution through natural selection?

Charles Darwin

Who independently generated the idea that evolution occurs by means of natural selection? (not Darwin)

Alfred Wallace

Why was Gregor Mendel's work important?

It provided a basis by which traits are passed on from one generation to the next

What is Neo-Darwinism?

A combination of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics

What is evolution?

A change in the genetic composition of a population over time

What is natural selection?

The environment favors traits that are advantageous and works to increase the fitness of an organism in a given environment

What is fitness?

The ability to survive and reproduce

What does the term homologous mean?

Structures that have the same embryonic origin

Who coined the phrase "Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny"?

Ernest Haeckel

What are the two components of the modern species definition?

Organisms that are genetically distinct and genetically isolated

What is allopatric speciation?

Geographic isolation which results in speciation

What is sympatric speciation?

speciation without geographic isolation

Sculpins of Lake Baikal are often used as an example of which type of speciation?

Sympatric speciation

Darwin's finches are believed to have evolved through which type of speciation?

Both allopatric and sympatric speciation

What is a common example of allopatric speciation?

Galapagos Turtles

Who used "Binomial Nomenclature" for species names?

Carolus Linnaeus

Who is the Father of Modern Taxonomy?

Carolus Linnaeus

What is a monophyletic group?

a group that includes all members hypothesized to be derived from a common ancestor

What is a paraphyletic group?

a group that that does not include all members hypothesized to be derived from a common ancestor

Carbon-14 is useful for dating fossils that are how old?

Less than 50,000 years old

How old is the Earth?

Approximately 4.5 billion years old

What is the "Cambrian Explosion" known for?

The significant increase in the number of organisms in the fossil record

What is the oldest chordate known in the fossil record?

Pikaia

What is the species name for humans?

*Homo sapiens*

What is the species name for dogs?

Canis Familiaris

When do the first amphibian-like tetrapods appear in the fossil record?

Devonian Period

Where does the Carboniferous Period gets its name from?

It gets its name from the fact that the sediments are rich in Carbon and fossil fuels

Was the Dimetrodon a dinosaur?

No, the Dimetrodon was a mammal-like reptile

When do the first mammal-like reptiles appear in the fossil record?

Permian Period

What species appear during the Triassic Period?

The first turtles, first dinosaurs, first crocodiles, and first mammals

When do the first birds appear in the fossil record?

Jurassic Period

Were the Pterosaurs birds or dinosaurs?

Neither, they were a group of flying reptiles

When was the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) mass extinction?

End of the Mesozoic Era

Who published The Geographical Distribution of Animals?

Alfred Wallace

What is the Wallace Line?

Line determined by Alfred Wallace denoting the divide of species in Southeast Asia and Australia

When do the Ostracoderms appear in the fossil record?

Late Cambrian Period

What Era do both mammals and birds raditate?

Cenozoic Era

In what environment do we see fishes during the Devonian Period?

Fishes are abundant in both maire and freshwater environments

Who developed the theory of continental drift?

Alfred Wegener

Who proposed the existence of a supercontinent called Pangea?

Alfred Wegener

When did Pangea exist?

Triassic Period, 200 million years ago

When did Pangea break up?

At the end of the Mesozoic Era

When did the Panama "land bridge" form?

3 million years ago

Are vertebrates protostomes or deuterostomes?

Deuterostomes

Why are tunicates considered chordates?

Their free-swimming larva have the 4 main chordate characteristics

What was Walter Garstang's hypothesis?

First vertebrates could have developed from larval stages of invertebrates that did not undergo metamorphosis to adult stage

What is paedomorphosis?

Retaining larval characteristics into ddulthood

Where do Urochordates and Cephalochordates live?

In Marine environments

When was the height of the last Ice Age?

18,000 years ago

How many living vertebrate species are there?

60,000

What are the two groups of Agnathans?

Hagfish and Lamprey

What is considered a shared derived characteristic of mammals?

Hair

What are the oldest fossils that have been found on Earth?

Prokaryotic fossils estimated to be 3.5 billion years old

When are the first Jawed fishes (Acanthodians and Placoderms) found in the fossil record?

Silurian Period

What are the most advanced group of fishes?

Teleost fishes

What are the most primitive ray-finned fishes?

Chondrostei (sturgeon, paddlefish, bichir)

What class do ray-finned fishes belong to?

Class Actinopterygii

What class do fleshy, lobefin fishes belong to?

Class Sarcopterygii

What groups of organisms make up the Chondrichthyes?

Sharks, skates, rays, and Holocephali (chimeras)

Who explored the Amazon, Malaysia, and Indonesia?

Alfred Wallace

What are the 5 traditional groups of vertebrates?

Fishes
Amphibians
Reptiles
Birds
Mammals

What is a "simultaneous" hermaphrodite?

An organism that is both sexes at the same time

What is a sequential hermaphrodite?

An organism that changes sex during its life

What does gonochoristic mean?

Animals with two separate sexes

When do the oldest hominid fossils appear in the fossil record?

5 million years ago

What was the first book Darwin published?

The Voyage of the Beagle

Who popularized the Biological Species Concept?

Ernst Mayr

What is the Biological Species Concept?

Species are groups that:
1. Have Similar characteristics
2. Are Capable of interbreeding
3. Are Reproductively isolated

What are "primitive" characteristics?

Characteristics hypothesized to be the same as ancestral characteristic

What are ''derived' characteristics?

Characteristics hypothesized to be newly acquired

Where have the best fossils from the Cambrian Period been found?

In the "Burgess Shale" in British Columbia near Calgary, Canada

When is the first appearance of the amniotic egg?

Carboniferous Period

What is the Jurassic Period known as?

Age of Dinosaurs

When do the first placental mammals appear in the fossil record?

Tertiary Period

What period are human fossils found?

Quaternary Period

When do the first reptiles appear in the fossil record?

Late Carboniferous Period

How many pairs of cranial nerves do the Hagfish and Lamprey have?

10 pairs