Vocabulary
Scientists may learn what from an animal's footprint?
How big the animals was, how many feet it walked on, if it lived in herds
If Mrs. Ivenskiy sees a shark tooth in a cave in the mountains of Alabama, what can this tell us about how this habitat has changed over time?
What are things you cannot learn from a fossil of an animal?
We cannot know how it sounded or the color of the skin or hair because they rot away.
Jan is making a model of a plant fossil. She presses a leaf in clay, took the lead off the clay, and then she poured glue were the leaf had been. What step is she showing of the fossilization process?
If a paleontologist finds a megalodon tooth fossil and notices it is much larger than shark teeth today, what can the paleontologist conclude?
Modern sharks from today have adapted to be much smaller than sharks in the past. Smaller animals have smaller teeth. Sharks may have become smaller over time so that they needed less food to survive.
If a paleontologist discovers large sea mammal fossils and petrified (fossilized) trees around present day Antarctica, what does this tell us about that habitat?
The habitat must have been much warmer than today to support tree growth and large animals. It is very cold there today it has no trees.
Scientists discovered the fossilized remains of an unidentified animal. They can tell from its remains that it had gills and fins, but no legs. What conclusion about the animal can they draw from the evidence?
The animal most likely lived completely in water.
What is a paleontologist?
A person who studies and finds fossils of once living organisms to learn about past environments.
We do not know what many ancient plants look like because they did this before they could form a fossil.
This is because the soft parts were not covered by sediment quicks so they rotted away.
Scientists compare animal fossils to similar animals that are alive today. For example the elephant and the mammoth both have these.
What are tusks?
Finding these explains why scientists believe southern Georgia was once covered by an ocean.
Finding clam fossils, fossil whale bones, and shark teeth where there is no ocean today tells us this used to be underwater in the past.
A mosquito in amber that is preserved in tree sap tells us what about these two organisms?
The mosquito and that tree species lived in the same environment.
It is common to find fossils. True or false?
False most things decay because they are not quickly covered by sediment or they get eaten by another animal.
Which is not a body fossil?
a. a backbone
b. a tooth
c. a foot print
d. claws
A foot print is not a body fossil because it is an imprint of a foot, not an actual foot.
If two fossils are found in the same rock, scientists can infer that these two things did this.
What is lived at the same time in the same environment.
A fossil of a plant that looks similar to a palm is found in a cold desert. What does this tell us about how that environment has changed?
Palms need warm, moist (wet) air and not the environment is cold and dry, so it must have changed.
An animal still looks much like it did millions of years ago so we can infer this about a fossil of that animal.
That animal has not had to make many adaptations to continue to survive.
When an insect gets stuck in tree sap and the sap hardens it forms what?
It forms amber.
Describe the steps for a fossil to form.
1) soft parts of the animal decompose 2) hard parts of the animal are buried under layers of sediment 3) the bones and sediment turn into rock, 4) it is found by a paleontologist
By looking at a fossil of a tooth you may learn....
What did an animal eat? How large was the animal?
Animals over time have become smaller than similar looking animals from the past, how does this tell us that environments have changed?
Environments must have once had a lot of food sources and animals have adapted to be smaller so that they can survive on less food.
Suppose a plant and animal die on the same day. Which one will most likely become a fossil? Why?
The animal because it has more hard parts than the plant