fandomhigh | Entries tagged with zoology

That morning instead of their normal professor, Jo was standing in front of the class awkwardly, “so Professor Cutter got called back home and couldn’t be here for his final class, he had a dinosaur related emergency back home” she began, not entirely sure how you could have a dinosaur related emergency, “he didn’t actually give us any instructions on what we’re supposed to do for class, but he said we can watch a movie” she said, rather embarrassed but at least a movie was something that she could manage to play.

itsananomaly

“Last week we took a look at habitats,” Cutter began that week’s class, “this week we’re going to look at ecosystems,” he said as he handed out his usual stack of notes for the class, “An ecosystem includes all living things, plants and animals and organisms in a particular environment and how they interact with each other,” he explained, “this also includes their interactions with non living environments such as weather, earth, sun, soil climate and atmosphere,”

“There are eight main ecosystems,” he continued, “these are temperate forests that exist in the Eastern United States and most of Europe, these include hardwood trees that lose their leaves in Autumn, temperate forests are also home to animals including racoons, deers and salamanders. Tropical rain forests include Central and South American jungles and includes many species, characteristics of these include tall, tense trees where dense vegetation blocks out the sunlight on the forest floor and most plants are evergreen,” he explained, “Then we have desert ecosystems where annual rainfall ranges from zero to 10 inches and includes plants such as cacti, sagebrush and mesquite and animals tend to burrow to escape the dessert heat and search for food after dark.”

“Next we have grasslands which is where grasses and herbs tend to be found more readily than forests, the grass provides food but doesn’t offer much protection from animals from predators, then we have the Taiga which is found in northern circumpolar forested regions characterized by long winters and moderate to high annual precipitation,”

“The last ecosystems we have to cover are the Tundra, which is where trees grow little or not at all due to the extreme latitudes and has a short growing season that produces little, The Chaparral is a coastal biome found in California and consists of plants that are mostly oak, grapes, olives and figs and eucalyptus, the plants here are usually dormant in the dry summer but thrive in the wet winter and finally the last ecosystem left to cover is the ocean and the ocean has more saltwater than fresh water and starts with plants and plankton and works it way up smaller fish and crustaceans to whales and dolphins,”

itsananomaly

“This week we’re going to take a look at animal habitats,” Cutter began that week’s lecture, once he handed out this week’s notes , “we have covered the evolution of animals a few weeks back when we looked at the Cambrian explosion but I did want to note that habitats began to evolve as animals did, after life began to evolve in the sea ,they began to move into fresh water and then on land in the Ordovician period when plants became a source of food,”

“A habitat is the natural environment where an animal, plant or organism lives,” he continued, “and there are 16 different types of habitats - these are Artic, Aquatic, Coastal, Desert, Manmade Deserts, Forest, Grassland, Tundra, Mountain Ranges, Steppes, Wetlands, Microhabitats, Extreme Habitats, Deep Oceans, Volcanos and outer space,”

“Most resources will officially list between six and eight habitats,” he explained, “and the ones that we’re going to cover today in particular are Polar, Tundra, Evergreen Forests, Seasonal Forests, Grasslands, Deserts, Rainforests, and Oceans,”

“Polar habitats are found at the North and South Pole and they form at the highest latitudes on Earth while tundra is part of the polar habitat that is on land and not covered in ice, in the South Pole you can find colonies of penguins, leopard seals and whales and in the North Pole you can find polar bears and narwhals, ” he went on, “and continuing on with the polar themes, evergreen forests are just outside the North Pole and they cover a region from Canada, Northern Europe and Russia and what is notable about this habitat is that they have more trees than anywhere else, here you can find animals such as snowshoe hare and the Canada Lynx,”

“Next we have seasonal forests which are in areas that are found in places around the world that are not to extremely cold, dry or wet. Owls are the main predators here and will feed off a variety of prey ranging from fish and frogs to snakes. Grasslands grow under conditions that are warm enough to support life but are too dry for trees but not dry enough that a desert forms,” he went on, “it is in the grasslands where the largest groups of mammals are found like in the African Savanna, where the herds support the largest land predators such as lions, hyenas and crocodiles,”

“Deserts are habitats that form in the driest places on earth but they don’t always have to be hot, such as deserts like the Gobi Desert in Western China and Antartica and animals such as the fennec fox and the sidewinder snake are particularly well adapt to survive the harsh desert conditions,”

“Tropical Rainforests in particular, are well known for supporting plant life as they are warm, dry and wet and they form near the equator so that they can get as much sunlight as possible and here animals such as the flying lemur have learned to survive in a tropical rainforest where sometimes the trees can grow so thick that light doesn’t reach the ground and so they learn to adapt by flying or gliding through the treetops,”

“And finally the last habitat that we’re going to cover is oceans, which as I explained at the start of the lecture is where animals first evolved so it seems fitting to end with this habitat, while there are some species that can only survive in specific types of water there are those than can survive in nearly every ocean environment like the starfish,”

“For next week’s class I would like you to write a report on a habitat of your choosing and on an animal that lives in it,”

itsananomaly

That morning Cutter had arranged for both his classes to meet at serenity cove, he was feeling a lot better from the weekend and his bandages were now gone so he had more use of his hands, “this morning we’re going to be doing something a little different and go on a fossil hunt around the serenity cove and light house area, this area has proved to be rather successful in finding fossils, so I thought that we could have ourselves a bit of a hunt around this area and see just what we can find here,” he said with a smile.

“There are four types of fossils that you can look out for,” Cutter continued, “they are trace fossils - which are preserved with an animal’s behaviour or activity such as trilobite tracks,” no one was surprised at all by this point that Cutter had mentioned trilobites were they? “And then there are fossils with some organic material preserved such as a removal of all organic material except carbon, which remains as a film in the rock and mineralised fossils which is where a organic matter is replaced gradually by mineral such as Replacement of organic material in bone with minerals and finally impression fossils, which when the remains decay completely but leave an impression in the sediment and examples of these can include internal impressions such as trilobites and external ammonites or impressions of armoured fish or tree barks,”

“and today I’m being joined Connor Temple, he teaches Dinosaurs 101 with me, if you need help or having any questions you can ask either myself or Connor and we’ll be happy to assist,” Cutter smiled over at him, trying not to worry that Connor would be doing so much walking but Connor had assured him that he was fine with small brace and he would be able to manage to do the hunt, “happy hunting,” he said with a smile and let his classes go off to to explore.

itsananomaly

“Since we’ve covered the role that both evolution and extinction have played in the animal kingdom, the next part we’re going to be looking at is fossils, what we can learn from them and how they help us understand the links,” Cutter began that week’s lecture as he handed out his usual stack of notes.

“To help us understand the past and what the fossils tell us, we use the the fossil record,” he began, “the fossil record is the history of life according to fossils and include the remains or imprints of organisms and from earlier geological periods found in sedimentary rock,”

“The study of the fossil record has proved useful in three different purposes, the first one being to describe the evolution of a specific animal group, this includes the acquisition or loss of specific features in a species and that these adaptations can prove to be the better adaptation in a particular environment,”

“Fossil records can also make it easier to assistant when assigning an age to the strata where they occur and finally they can also be used to tell us more about the climate and the environment in which they originated and how the environment may have shifted over time,”

“Next week we will be doing some field work looking for fossils along serenity cove and the lighthouse, so we will be meeting there next week,”

itsananomaly

“Last week, we looked at the Cambrian Explosion and the impact that the explosion of diversity had on early evolution for the animal kingdom and now we’re going to look at the opposite end and look at what was responsible for the end of the Cambrian Explosion,” Cutter began that week’s lecture as he began to hand usual his stack of notes.

“At the end of the Cambrian Explosion, there was a mass extinction event that became the largest mass extinction that the Earth has ever known, this occurred at the end of the Permian Period and was responsible for wiping out 90 percent of life at the time,”

“The Permian Extinction was responsible for wiping out 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial species,” he continued, “and this is where the trilobites from last week come in since this is where they met their end,”

“To give an idea of just how long the trilobites did last, the Cambrian Explosion took place roughly 538 million years ago and the Permian Extinction Event happened roughly between 299 million to 252 million years ago, so Trilobites lived for nearly 300 million years,”

“While it was mostly marine invertebrates that were wiped out, the Permian Extinction also saw aquatic vertebrates, including the acanthodian, which are believed to be the earliest jawed fishes were wiped out,”

“In terms of the Terrestrial species that were wiped out these include the pelycosaurs and Moschops and there were also numerous insect families that were lost at this time,”

“It is believed that causes for the Permian Extinction were due to the nutrient cycle being disrupted by biological and physical causes and this includes changes in the temperate and changes to the carbon cycle,”

“For next week, I’d like you work on a report on one of the species that were lost in the Permian Extinction,”

itsananomaly

Cutter’s date with Connor to the museum and been very … inspiring to say the least and it had given him at least one topic to cover in his class. He had actually been working on his lesson notes all week because there was so much to cover in this particular topic that he was considering that maybe expanding it to two lectures wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Rex was sleeping in Connor’s jacket on Cutter’s desk, he hadn’t been able to pry Rex from the jacket since it was still a little cold for him but decided to let him keep sleeping.

“You might remember this little guy from class last semester?” Cutter said with a fond smile while he gave Rex a gentle chin scritch as he slept, “this is Rex, he’s from the Permian period and the reason I brought him in today for class is to highlight just how prevalent the Cambrian Explosion was,”

Cutter had been a bit distracted by Rex so had decided to hand out notes notes before class started so that they were already on the students desk when they arrived.

“I did briefly talk about the Cambrian Explosion last week but I feel that it is such an important topic when talking about Evolution that it deserves a topic on its own, well really I could do an entire course on the Cambrian alone but that’s a topic for another time,” Cutter explained, “now the reason I brought Rex in specifically for today is that he was around at the same time as some of the creatures that were a result of the Cambrian Explosion, namely Trilobites - Trilobites are especially important to understanding our concept of Evolution and they were arthropods, marine animals and we know this because of the type of rocks they were found in.

“Trilobites first appeared in the Cambrian Period and became prevalent during the Cambrian and Ordovician Seas, they went extinct at the end of the Permian Period,”

At this moment, Rex began to wake up, letting out a sleepy yawn and perked right up when he saw Cutter and started chirping rather excitedly. Cutter gave him more scritches as he continued the lecture.

“There was no life on Earth at this point in the early Cambrian period,” he went on, “so life was contained to the seas, particularly in the ocean shallows … no life inhabited the ocean depths as well so that is what makes this explosion of life particularly fascinating, that they were able to form here and diversify in these regions,”

Rex continued to chirp happily and then at that point he took off and happily began flying around the room, it was a good thing both the door and windows were locked.

“I would like you to do a report on the Trilobites for next week and in particular I would like you to focus on their development and the role they played in early aquatic ecosystems,”

itsananomaly

Cutter had briefly considered what would happen if he didn’t turn up to his class for the third week in a row, even though really one of those week’s they’d been on vacation so he felt that didn’t really count but in the end he had finally prepared a class and was ready Friday morning to give his lecture. At least preparing for class gave something to focus on and not feel so nervous about his date with Connor.

“This week we’re going to be begin covering animal evolution,” he began that week’s lecture and handed around the usual stack of notes that he’d made for the class, “animals first appeared in the Ediacarian Period, which was roughly 635 million to 541 million years ago and these were soft bodied forms that left traces of their bodies in shallow water sediments,”

“Most of the animals in the Ediacarian period were thin and their cells were capable of diffusing nutrients from the water,” he continued, “the first mass extinction event ended the Ediacarian and this in turn led to the Cambrian Period, which set off the great evolutionary radiation to lead towards creating the very first group animals or phyla,”

“Evolution also occurred very quickly in this time period, in the Cambrian Period we have our first known appearance of sponges. A few more examples of evolution include after the Permian Extinction where a group of sea anemones evolved a skeleton and then diversified into modern corals,”

“Anthropods have been the most diversity phyla since the Cambrian, Myriapods diversified into insects during the Devonian period,”

“The fossil record can be particularly useful to us when studying these evolutionary patterns, this is the history of life from fossils, the remains or imprints of organisms preserved in sedimentary rock, it is important for describing the progressive changes within an animal group and the evolution of that group,”

“For next week, I’d like you to prepare a report of an animal or insect of your choosing from one of these time periods and talk about how their evolution progressed,”

itsananomaly

“This week we’re going to start looking at extinction and evolution,” Cutter began that week’s lecture as he handed out his usual stack of notes

“Extinction is the process where it results in the disappearance of a population of species,” Cutter continued once he had handed out his notes, “there are a number of causes that can explain why a species went extinct, these range from asteroid strikes to loss of habitat and samples of extinct animals include the Dodo, Tasmanian Tiger and the Mammoth,”

“Meanwhile Evolution is the change in the characteristics of a species over several generations, relying on the process of natural explanation,” he explained, “there are different types of evolution, convergent evolution is when the same adaptations evolve independently under similar pressures and coevolution is where two species or groups of species have evolved alongside each other and they adapt to changes each other and finally adaptive radiation is where species split into different forms after there is a change in the environment makes new resources or creates new environmental challenges,”

itsananomaly

Despite his lack of sleep the last few days, Cutter had not been able to fall asleep last night so he had stayed up all night working on his lesson plan.

“This week we’re going to cover the remaining different kingdoms, we’ve covered animalia and plantae,” he began that week’s lecture as he handed out his usual stack of notes, “and we’re going to take a look at Kingdoms Monera, Protista, Fungi ,”

“Starting off with Kingdom Monera,” he continued, “typically with the Monera Kingdom, these are organisms that do not have a true nucleus, this means that their DNA is not enclosed in the nucleus and these also are some of the oldest microorganisms on Earth,”

“Meanwhile Kingdom Protista contains of protists that are eukaryotic organisms and these are grouped together because they typically don’t have anything in common with other kingdoms,” he explained, “they are typically microscopic and unicellular organisms,” he went on, “there are protists that can make their own food and are photosynthetic while others are heterotrophic and this means they seek out their own food,”

“The last Kingdom we have to cover is Kingdom Fungi,” Cutter concluded, “these are organisms that are heterotrophic and cannot make their own food and they play an important part in nutrient cycling in the ecosystem, fungi cells are do contain both a nucleus and organelles like plants and animals do however they do not contain cellulose, which does usually make up plant walls,”

“For your reports next week, I would like you to write up a report from two kingdoms of your choice, using the classification system that you’ve used for your previous reports,”

itsananomaly

“The last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at Kingdom Animalia,” Cutter began that week’s lecture, “this week we’re going to be looking at some of the other kingdoms and we’re going to start with Kingdom Plantae, which is the plant kingdom” he handed out his stacks of notes.

“There are different classifications for Kingdom Plantae and that is determined by whether they have a well differentiated body and whether they have specialised tissues for transport and the ability to bear seeds,” he explained, “these classifications are Division Thallophyta, which is the lowest of plants of the plant kingdom, these are commonly referred to as algae and are aquatic,”

“Next is Division Bryophyta, these are small terrestrial plants and they show differentiation with the body design such as such as stem, leaf-like structures and root like structures, they do not have the ability to conduct water and other substances,”

“Meanwhile Division Pteridophyta, does have the ability to conduct water and has tissue that can let it conduct these substances from one plant to the other. It is also among the oldest vascular plant,”

“Division Phanerogamae is a seed bearing plant and they have reproductive tissues that let them them produce seeds. This division also has a further two classifications depending on whether the seeds are naked or enclosed and these are Gymnosperms and Angiosperms, Gymnosperms refer to plants with naked seeds and Angiosperms refers to plants with that are seed bearing,”

“For class next week I’d like you to prepare a report on a plant, using the above classification system,”

itsananomaly

“This week we’re going to be having a movie day,” Cutter began that week’s class, “and we’re going to be continuing looking at Kingdom Animalia with insects,” he explained, mostly because he didn’t feel like giving a lecture but he figured at least this way he was still technically turning up to teach.

This was considered an improvement where Cutter was concerned.

“I would like you to present your report from last week and then we’re going to watch a movie about a colony of ants trying to defend themselves against the of grasshoppers,”

itsananomaly

“This week we’re going to start looking into what the animal kingdom is and how it is classified,” Cutter began that week’s lecture, he handed out quite a few detailed sets of notes and then once that was done he stood at the front of the classroom, “all animals are members of the Kingdom Animalia, also called Metazoa and they are classified according to what characteristics they have, what distinguishes these animals from the Kingdom Monera, which includes bacteria and algae among its members, is that animals are multicellular and they rely, whether directly or indirectly on other animals for their nourishment,”

“These classifications for animals,” Cutter continued, “include whether they have a backbone or they don’t, or if they are cold or warm blooded,” he added, “there are seven major groups overall in the classification system, Kingdom, Phylum or division, Class, Order, Family, Genus and species,”

“For our class next week, I would like you to prepare a report on an animal, using the above classification system,”

itsananomaly

It was the second of two classes that Cutter was teaching this semester and it had actually been a while since Cutter had taught a zoology course but in what was perhaps another first, Cutter was also there for his other class so that was two different classes that he had turned up for in a week.

“This is An introduction to Zoology,” he began, “my name is Professor Nick Cutter and I’m an Evolutionary Zoologist, I do normally teach palaeontology but this semester we’ll be focusing more on the general zoology side of things,”

“I’ll keep things simple to start with this week,” he continued, “and we’ll start off with introductions, so I’d like to know your name, any experience you may have with what you’d like to learn in particular from this class and what your favourite animal is,” it had seemed to work for his dinosaurs class so he thought he’d keep it simple for zoology.

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