1978 In Paleontology
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1978 In Paleontology
Paleontology, palaeontology or palæontology (from Greek: ''paleo'', "ancient"; ''ontos'', "being"; and ''logos'', "knowledge") is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised faeces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because mankind has encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred in the year 1978. Expeditions, field work, and fossil discoveries * A paleoanthropological team led by Mary Leakey found 3.5 million year old human footprints. * Baby hadrosaurs were discovered in the Two Medicine Formation. Invertebrates Maurits Lindström, described the earliest known octocoral in Sweden shifting the first known appearance from the Cretaceous to the Or ...
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Prehistory
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Ir ...
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Hiodontidae
Hiodontidae, commonly called mooneyes, is a family of ray-finned fish with a single included genus ''Hiodon''. The genus comprise two living species native to North America and three to five extinct species recorded from Paleocene to Eocene age fossils. They are large-eyed, fork-tailed fish that superficially resemble shads. The vernacular name comes from the metallic shine of their eyes. The higher classification of the mooneyes is not yet fully established. Some sources have place them in their own order, Hiodontiformes, while others retain them in the order Osteoglossiformes. Species *''Hiodon alosoides'' (Rafinesque, 1819) The goldeye, ''Hiodon alosoides'', is widespread across eastern North America, and is notable for a conspicuous golden iris in the eyes. It prefers turbid slower-moving waters of lakes and rivers, where it feeds on a wide variety of organisms including insects, crustaceans, small fish, and mollusks. The fish has been reported up to in length. *†''H ...
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Fabrosaurus
''Fabrosaurus'' ( ) is an extinct genus of ornithischian dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic during the Hettangian to Sinemurian stages 199 - 189 mya.Ginsburg, L., (1964), "Decouverte d’un Scelidosaurien (Dinosaure ornithischien) dans le Trias superieur du Basutoland", ''Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris'', 258; 2366–2368. It was originally placed within the now obsolete family Fabrosauridae (now considered basal Ornithischia). ''Fabrosaurus'' was named and described by paleontologist Leonard Ginsburg in 1964 based on the holotype specimen, a partial jawbone with three teeth. The name ''Fabrosaurus'' means "Fabre's lizard", honoring Jean Fabre, a French geologist and a colleague of Ginsburg on the expedition that collected the fossil in Basutoland (now Lesotho). The type species, ''F. australis'', was named for the location of the fossil in the Elliot Formation, Lesotho, Southern Africa (''australis'' being Latin for "southern"). ''Fabrosaurus' ...
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Junior Synonym
The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name (under the currently used system of scientific nomenclature) to the Norway spruce, which he called ''Pinus abies''. This name is no longer in use, so it is now a synonym of the current scientific name, '' Picea abies''. * In zoology, moving a species from one genus to another results in a different binomen, but the name is considered an alternative combination rather than a synonym. The concept of synonymy in zoology is reserved for two names at the same rank that refers to a taxon at that rank - for example, the name ''Papilio prorsa'' Linnaeus, 1758 is a junior synonym of ''Papilio levana'' Linnaeus, 1758, being names for different seasonal forms of the species now referred to as ''Araschnia l ...
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Early Jurassic
The Early Jurassic Epoch (geology), Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic series (stratigraphy), Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, 201.3 Ma (million years ago), and ends at the start of the Middle Jurassic 174.1 Ma. Certain rocks of marine origin of this age in Europe are called "Lias Group, Lias" and that name was used for the period, as well, in 19th-century geology. In southern Germany rocks of this age are called Black Jurassic. Origin of the name Lias There are two possible origins for the name Lias: the first reason is it was taken by a geologist from an England, English quarryman's dialect pronunciation of the word "layers"; secondly, sloops from north Cornwall, Cornish ports such as Bude would sail across the Bristol Channel to the Vale of Glamorgan to load up with rock from coastal limestone quarries (lias limestone from S ...
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Peter Galton
Peter Malcolm Galton (born 14 March 1942 in London) is a British vertebrate paleontologist who has to date written or co-written about 190 papers in scientific journals or chapters in paleontology textbooks, especially on ornithischian and prosauropod dinosaurs. With Robert Bakker in a joint article published in ''Nature'' in 1974, he argued that dinosaurs constitute a natural monophyletic group, in contrast to the prevailing view that considered them polyphyletic as consisting of two different not closely related orders Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ..., thus initiating a revolution in dinosaur studies and contributing to the revival of the popularity of dinosaurs in the field of paleontology. Publications * * * Galton, P.M., 1974, "The ornithischian dinosaur ...
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Lesothosaurus
''Lesothosaurus'' is a Monotypic taxon, monospecific genus of ornithischian dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic in what is now South Africa and Lesotho. It was named by paleontologist Peter Galton in 1978, the name meaning "lizard from Lesotho". The genus has only one valid species, ''Lesothosaurus diagnosticus''. ''Lesothosaurus'' is one of the most completely-known early ornithischians, based on numerous skull and postcranial fossils from the Upper Elliot Formation. It had a simpler tooth and jaw anatomy than later ornithischians, and may have been omnivorous in some parts of the year. Discovery and naming Fossils referrable to ''Lesothosaurus'' may have been known from as early as 1959, when a right Mandible, dentary (lower jawbone) fragment bearing three teeth was collected by French geologist Jean Fabre from the Red beds, Red Beds of the Elliot Formation, Upper Elliot Formation near Mapheteng in Lesotho, Southern Africa, dating to the Early Jurassic (199(?)-190 mi ...
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Jose Bonaparte
Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ''Yose'', which is etymologically linked to ''Yosef'' or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods. * Jose ben Abin * Jose ben Akabya *Jose the Galilean *Jose ben Halafta *Jose ben Jochanan *Jose ben Joezer of Zeredah * Jose ben Saul Given name Male * Jose (actor), Indian actor * Jose C. Abriol (1918–2003), Filipino priest * Jose Advincula (born 1952), Filipino Catholic Archbishop * Jose Agerre (1889–1962), Spanish writer * Jose Vasquez Aguilar (1900–1980), Filipino educator * Jose Rene Almendras (born 1960), Filipino businessman * Jose T. Almonte (born 1931), Filipino military personnel * Jose Roberto Antonio (born 1977), Filipino developer * Jose Aquino II (born 1956), Filipino politician * Jose Argumedo (born 1988), Mexican professional boxer * Jose Aristimuño, American political strategist * Jose Miguel Arroyo (born 1945), Philippine lawyer * Jose D. Aspiras (1924–199 ...
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Coloradisaurus
''Coloradisaurus'' (meaning "Los Colorados lizard") is a genus of massospondylid sauropodomorph dinosaur. It lived during the Late Triassic period ( Norian stage) in what is now La Rioja Province, Argentina. It is known from two specimens collected from the Los Colorados Formation of the Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin. Taxonomy ''Coloradisaurus brevis'' was originally named ''Coloradia brevis'' by José Bonaparte in 1978, but that genus name was preoccupied by the pine moth '' Coloradia'', so it needed a replacement name. In 1983, David Lambert used the name ''Coloradisaurus'' for the genus, but did not indicate it was a replacement or diagnose it. Lambert had gotten the name from Bonaparte in a personal communication and mistakenly thought that Bonaparte had already published it. Peter Galton was the next to use the name ''Coloradisaurus'' in 1990, which he credited to Lambert, when he gave the taxon a diagnosis in his review of prosauropods in ''The Dinosauria''. Autho ...
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Sergei Kurzanov
Sergei Mikhailovich Kurzanov (Сергей Михайлович Курзанов, born 1947) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) paleontologist at the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is known mainly for his work in Mongolia and the ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia. In 1976 he announced the discovery of ''Alioramus''. In 1981 he announced the discovery of ''Avimimus''. In 1998 a species of iguanodont dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ... from Mongolia was named '' Altirhinus kurzanovi'' in his honor. References Living people 1947 births Russian paleontologists Soviet paleontologists {{paleontologist-stub ...
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Nomen Dubium
In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium'' it may be impossible to determine whether a specimen belongs to that group or not. This may happen if the original type series (i. e. holotype, isotype, syntype or paratype) is lost or destroyed. The zoological and botanical codes allow for a new type specimen, or neotype, to be chosen in this case. A name may also be considered a ''nomen dubium'' if its name-bearing type is fragmentary or lacking important diagnostic features (this is often the case for species known only as fossils). To preserve stability of names, the ''International Code of Zoological Nomenclature'' allows a new type specimen, or neotype, to be chosen for a ''nomen dubium'' in this case. 75.5. Replacement of unidentifiable name-bearing type by a neotype. When an author considers that the taxonomic identity ...
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Amtosaurus
''Amtosaurus'' (; " Amtgai lizard") is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur based on a fragmentary skull collected from the Upper Cretaceous Bayan Shireh Formation ( Cenomanian to Santonian) of Mongolia and originally believed to represent an ankylosaurid.Kurzanov, S. M., & Tumanova, T. A. 1978. n the structure on the endocranium in some ankylosaurs from Mongolia Paleontol. Zh. 1978:90-96. Hadrosaurid affinities have also been suggested. However, per Parish and Barrett, this specimen is too fragmentary to be reliably classified beyond an indeterminate ornithischian. A second species assigned to the genus, ''A. archibaldi'', has become the basis of a valid ankylosaurid taxon, ''Bissektipelta ''Bissektipelta'' (meaning "Bissekty Formation, Bissekty shield") is a genus of ankylosaurine Thyreophora, thyreophoran dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous in what is now the Bissekty Formation of Uzbekistan. ''Bissektipelta'' ...''. References Ornithischian genera ...
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