Some fossils are just more important than others. It's fun to find an ammonite at Doniford, but the discovery of some fossils has changed or confirmed our understanding of evolution.
What the Syllabus Says - and the Details
Major finds include:
• The rare and exceptional preservation shown in the Burgess shale fauna. The Burgess Shale contains fossils with the soft parts of many Cambrian sea creatures preserved which means we have been able to work out far more about how they lived, what they ate etc than we could have done from just shells. Many of the creatures don't have a shell - so we wouldn't have known about them at all without his exceptional preservation. For more details click here
• Fossils such as Archaeopteryx that have shown how different groups of organisms are linked through evolution. Archaeopteryx shows us the link from dinosaurs to birds. For a really useful short bit on why archaeopteryx is so important click here .
• Complex fossil skeletons of dinosaurs, mammoths and other large animals that have had to be interpreted from incomplete and disarticulated remains have helped us to understand how the animals 'fitted together' and this has been useful in interpreting such things as: -
What did the animals look like... Making of WWD - Appearances
How did they move... The Making of WWD - Movement
How did they breed... The Making of WWD - breeding
What the environment where they lived was like... The Making of WWD - environments
• Early hominids such as “Lucy”. Lucy is not an ancestor of humans, its line splits off the cladogram quite early and we evolved rather differently. Lucy does provide lots of evidence about the 'hominids' (human-like organisms) that we both evolved from. For more detailed information click here .
• Exceptional current discoveries - keep an eye on the news! Examiners are likely to ask questions about the things that are in the news, or have been recently, when they write the exam questions.
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