00758 - Vertebrate Paleontology

Learning outcomes

This course aims to provide the basic knowledge and critical elements to independently analyze the problems related to the study of fossil vertebrates. In particular, the student will be able to: - operate professionally within a paleontological excavation, including identification, inventory and mapping, and extraction; - provide a description based on morphological and morphometric basis; - place fossils within a chronostratigraphic and paleogeographic context; - evaluate the paleontological and geological data available for paleoenvironmental considerations; - discuss with competence the characters useful for a taxonomic classification of the finds.

Course contents

Vertebrates paleobiological and paleontological significance through time; taphonomy of fossil vertebrates and vertebrate-bearing deposits; field methodology: field mapping, collecting, preparation and inventory; Vertebrate microsites; Biology and fossil vertebrates; Phylogeny, synapomorphies, homologies, analogies, ontogenesis; Paleozoic early vertebrates and fish; Review of macroscopic anatomy of vertebrates; first tetrapods and amphibians; Permian amniotes and Triassic reptiles; Evolution of fish from the end of the Paleozoic to the Cenozoic; reptiles of the Mesozoic; Birds; Mammals; Outline of vertebrate icnology; Examples of paleobiogeography and vertebrate biostratigraphy; The main fossil sites in Italy; Three-dimensional digital morphological and biometric analysis techniques; Vertebrate paleontology in the educational and museum field.

Readings/Bibliography

Additional volumes

Vertebrate Palaeontology , 3rd Edition . Michael J. Benton. 472 pagine. Blackwell.

Bonebeds – genesis, analysis, and paleobiological significance. R. Rogers,. D. Eberth, and A. Fiorillo (Eds.) 499 pp. University of Chicago Press.

Atlante di Anatomia Macroscopica dei Vertebrati . E. Giavini, E. Menegola., M. Broccia., G. Scarì (Eds.) 54 pp., Springer

The Dinosauria: Second Edition . D. Weishampel, P. Dodson, H. Osmòlska (Eds.), 861 pp. University of California Press.

Teaching methods

Students are requested to attend classes in person

Assessment methods

In person test

Office hours

See the website of Federico Fanti