A fossil is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the fossil record.
A trace fossil, also known as an ichnofossil, is a fossil record of biological activity but not the preserved remains of the plant or animal itself. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, which are the fossilized remains of parts of organisms' bodies, usually altered by later chemical activity or mineralization. The study of such trace fossils is ichnology and is the work of ichnologists.
The Decapoda or decapods are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, including crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, and prawns. Most decapods are scavengers. The order is estimated to contain nearly 15,000 species in around 2,700 genera, with around 3,300 fossil species. Nearly half of these species are crabs, with the shrimp and Anomura including hermit crabs, porcelain crabs, squat lobsters making up the bulk of the remainder. The earliest fossils of the group date to the Devonian.
Energy development is the field of activities focused on obtaining sources of energy from natural resources. These activities include the production of renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuel derived sources of energy, and for the recovery and reuse of energy that would otherwise be wasted. Energy conservation and efficiency measures reduce the demand for energy development, and can have benefits to society with improvements to environmental issues.
Panthera atrox, better known as the American lion, also called the North American lion, or American cave lion, is an extinct pantherine cat. Panthera atrox lived in North America during the late Pleistocene epoch and the early Holocene epoch, from around 340,000 to 11,000 years ago. The species was initially described by American paleontologist Joseph Leidy in 1853 based on a fragmentary mandible (jawbone) from Mississippi; the name means "savage" or "cruel". The status of the species is debated, with some mammalogists and paleontologists considering it a distinct species or a subspecies of Panthera leo, which contains living lions. However, novel genetic evidence has shown that it is instead from a sister lineage with the cave lion, evolving after its geographic separation. Its fossils have been excavated from Alaska to Mexico. It was about 25% larger than the modern lion, making it one of the largest known felids.
The Achelata is an infra-order of the decapod crustaceans, holding the spiny lobsters, slipper lobsters and their fossil relatives.
Hadrocodium wui is an extinct mammaliaform that lived during the Sinemurian stage of the Early Jurassic approximately 195 million years ago in the Lufeng Formation of the Lufeng Basin in what is now the Yunnan province in south-western China (25.2°N 102.1°E, paleocoordinates 34.3°N 104.9°E). It is considered as the closest relative of the class Mammalia.
Hippoidea is a superfamily of decapod crustaceans known as sand crabs or mole crabs.
Paleontology or palaeontology 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 feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have 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 or were published in the year 1980.
Paleontology or palaeontology 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 feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have 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 or were published in the year 1966.
Iteaceae is a flowering plant family of trees and shrubs native to the eastern USA, southeastern Africa, and south and Southeastern Asia. Some older taxonomic systems place the genus Itea in the family Grossulariaceae. The APG III system of 2009 includes the former Pterostemonaceae in Iteaceae. Consequently, it now has two genera with a total of 18 known species.
Homolodromiidae is a family of crabs, the only family in the superfamily Homolodromioidea. In contrast to other crabs, including the closely related Homolidae, there is no strong linea homolica along which the exoskeleton breaks open during ecdysis. The family comprises two genera, Dicranodromia, which has 18 species, and Homolodromia, with five species.
Carpilioidea is a superfamily of crabs containing a single extant family, Carpiliidae and three extinct families. The modern range of the family includes the Indo-Pacific, Western Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. The fossil record of the group extends back at least as far as the Paleocene.
Eubrachyura is a group of decapod crustaceans comprising the more derived crabs. It is divided into two subsections, based on the position of the genital openings in the two sexes. In the Heterotremata, the openings are on the legs in the males, but on the sternum in females, while in the Thoracotremata, the openings are on the sternum in both sexes. This contrasts with the situation in other decapods, in which the genital openings are always on the legs. Heterotremata is the larger of the two groups, containing the species-rich superfamilies Xanthoidea and Pilumnoidea and all the freshwater crabs. The eubrachyura is well known for actively and constantly building its own burrows. The fossil record of the Eubrachyura extends back to the Cretaceous; the supposed Bathonian representative of the group, Hebertides jurassica, ultimately turned out to be Cenozoic in age.
Cheiragonidae is a small family of crabs, sometimes called helmet crabs, placed in its own superfamily, Cheriagonoidea. It comprises three extant species, Erimacrus isenbeckii, Telmessus acutidens and Telmessus cheiragonus, there are no yet evidences of Cheiragonidae in the fossil record. Many of these crabs were formerly treated as members of the Atelecyclidae.
Goneplacoidea is a superfamily of crabs containing 11 extant families, and two families known only from fossils.
Eryonidae is a family of fossil decapod crustaceans which lived from the Upper Triassic to the Lower Cretaceous. It contains four genera: An aggregation of three unidentified eryonids was reported in 2012 inside a Late Jurassic ammonoid of the species Harpoceras falciferum; they represent the earliest evidence of gregarious behaviour in decapods.
Egg fossils are the fossilized remains of eggs laid by ancient animals. As evidence of the physiological processes of an animal, egg fossils are considered a type of trace fossil. Under rare circumstances a fossil egg may preserve the remains of the once-developing embryo inside, in which case it also contains body fossils. A wide variety of different animal groups laid eggs that are now preserved in the fossil record beginning in the Paleozoic. Examples include invertebrates like ammonoids as well as vertebrates like fishes, possible amphibians, and reptiles. The latter group includes the many dinosaur eggs that have been recovered from Mesozoic strata. Since the organism responsible for laying any given egg fossil is frequently unknown, scientists classify eggs using a parallel system of taxonomy separate from but modeled after the Linnaean system. This "parataxonomy" is called veterovata.
Vulpes skinneri is a species of extinct fox in the genus Vulpes from the early Pleistocene, identified based on fossil remains dated to about 2 million years ago. The species is known from a single partial skeleton discovered in the Malapa Fossil Site at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa and is associated with the fossil hominin remains of Australopithecus sediba. The fossils have been dated to between 1.977 and 1.980 million years ago. Hartstone-Rose and colleagues described the remains as a newly discovered species of fox, which they named skinneri after the African mammalogist John Skinner.
