What Does a Vertebrate Paleontologist Do?

An important branch of paleontology, specializing in studying all types of vertebrates in the geological period, including their morphology, classification, living habits, distribution and origin, evolution, and development history. From the research method, especially from the history of scientific development, it is the twin sister of "comparative anatomy". French zoological home Ville, G. Applying a method of comparison with modern animals to study ancient vertebrate fossils in the Paris Basin, published four volumes of "Research on Bone Fossils" (1812), and proposed "organ-related laws" (animal The morphology and function of the various components of the body are interconnected and consistent), opening up new directions for the study of paleontology, pioneering the study of comparative anatomy and paleontology, and promoting their development.

Paleontology

In the biological world, vertebrates are just one sub-category of more than 30 animal families. However, it is undoubtedly the most important animal group. Vertebrates not only include some extinct organisms (classes or orders) of major species, such as the Shield class, Echinops, Head fish, dinosaurs, etc., but also many of the most important animals, such as mammals The outline includes human beings themselves and various primates as their "close relatives, distant ancestors."

The history of the earth is now known to be about 5 billion years, and the emergence of higher metazoans was about 600 million years ago.

In the study of ancient vertebrates today, the vertebrate subclasses are often divided into 2 superclasses and 9 classes according to different morphological, anatomical, and physiological characteristics. Among them, the fish-shaped superclasses include the jawless class and the scutellum class. Echinopoda, cartilaginous fish, osteochondria, and tetrapod superpoda include amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The division of various classes in fish-shaped animals has been divided. The division of the quadrupeds is more consistent. Recently, some people have advocated the formation of birds and dinosaurs into a new outline. Some people have proposed a new program based on the new discovery of possible fur on the pterosaur fossils. As for new subjects, subjects are more often found. The reason for the above is that new fossil materials are constantly being discovered, which is different from the classification system established by vertebrate scientists based on living vertebrates. Multi-level transition classification elements between heads and families, such as superclass, superhead, superfamily, subclass, suborder, subfamily, and sub (sub) class.

The main object of paleontology research is animal bone fossils. The main outline of the Chinese mainland has basically formed and remained stable since the Permian Period more than 200 million years ago. Therefore, China is one of the few countries in the world that is rich in terrestrial and freshwater vertebrate fossils. Since the first publication of "Description of Ancient Mammal Fossils Collected in Sichuan" by R. Irving in 1870, China has become an important center of ancient vertebrate research in the world. Since the 1970s, significant progress has been made. For example, a large number of research results on Devonian fish fossils have been published, and a new hypothesis on the origin of terrestrial vertebrates has been proposed. The history of continental drift and the origin of mammals provide many important data. The discovery of a large number of dinosaur fossils in the southwest (Yunnan, Sichuan) and the north (Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, etc.) has made China the most active dinosaur research area in the world. Based on vertebrate fossils, the most complete Tertiary section on the Asian continent was established.

In terms of primates and human fossils, China also has many unique and important new discoveries.