Bill

Bill

THE DINOSAURS: The Monsters Emerge
This video traces the development of paleontology from 1770 to the 1990s with particular
emphasis on dinosaur paleontology. The video concentrates on the chronology of dinosaur discoveries
and the personalities of some of the scientists who developed dinosaur paleontology. Most of this
information is presented in Chapter 3 of your textbook. The following is a summary of the video.
Answer any questions or fill in the blanks based on the video and your text.
The first part of the video concerns the start of paleontology and specifically the first recognition
that the fossil record contains the remains of EXTINCT organisms that may be closely or distantly
related to modern organisms. George Cuvier, professor of comparative anatomy at the National Museum
of Natural History in Paris, developed this idea when remains of mastodons (an extinct elephant species
- NOT a dinosaur) were found beneath the streets of Paris. Cuvier also classified the mosasaur jawbone
whose discovery in a limestone quarry in Maastricht, Holland, is described in the beginning of the video.
1 Mosasaurs are enormous giant marine _____lizard___ (a kind of reptile). The first part of the video also
2 describes other marine reptiles including ichthyosaurs (whose name literally means ____fish_____
lizard) from the Late Triassic of Canada and Plesiosaurs.
3 What marine mammals do Ichthyosaurs look like? _______________dolphin_________________.
These marine reptiles are NOT dinosaurs either. The first part of the video ends with a discussion of
pterosaurs, or flying reptiles (there is a nice picture of a pterosaur on page 169). Although closely related
to dinosaurs, pterosaurs are NOT dinosaurs.
The second part of the video returns to Europe to explain the circumstances of the first dinosaur
find - in Tilgate Forest, Sussex, England. Dr. Gideon Mantell and Mrs. Mantell are credited with the
4 discovery in 1822 of the first dinosaur remains, namely...