FINAL PROJECT: Abstract and Reader's Reponse > A Guide to Early Permian Wildlife
G, this wonderful study area can be improved by a specific audience, context, purpose. What if you wrote this as way to support AP bio and AP environmental science teachers in taking the dinosaur phenom AND teaching about the Permian period. The weeks post the exam are good opportunities for such work.
And, you can help students see careers in science that study such zoology in a paleontology and/or evolutionary frame.
How is that?
Email me.
And, you can help students see careers in science that study such zoology in a paleontology and/or evolutionary frame.
How is that?
Email me.
May 10, 2018 |
Marybeth Shea
Marybeth Shea
Most people know very little about prehistoric times, and even then, they mostly only know of the age of dinosaurs. However, of the 540 million years that complex multicellular ecosystems have existed on this Earth, the dinosaurs only appeared 230 million years ago. The hundreds of millions of years before then were full of even stranger creatures. Of these various pre-dinosaurian worlds, the most interesting to me is the Permian Period. The Permian directly preceded the Age of Dinosaurs, and by 285 million years ago, the period was in full swing. The climate was cold, but the sea levels were hundreds of feet higher than today’s. Oxygen levels were at an all-time high. Primitive plants formed towering swamp forests, while more modern plants spread through the dry interiors of the supercontinent Pangea. Meanwhile, the waters in the swamps contained freshwater sharks and other ancient fish. Ancient relatives of the amphibians swam through the same waters, growing to the size of crocodiles. On dry land, the bugs were enormous. This was the result of the high oxygen levels. Giant dragonflies patrolled the skies, with wingspans of up to three feet. But the largest arthropod ever—the giant millipede Arthropleura—dwarfed all other bugs at a whopping ten feet long. But the top of the food chain was occupied by fully terrestrial vertebrates. Waterproof eggs had recently evolved, and the vertebrates that possessed them quickly took over. The largest and most successful would later evolve into an unlikely group: the mammals.
Reader's Profile: someone who is curious about prehistory, but doesn't know too much.
Reader's Response: Hmm. This Permian Period thing seems interesting. There's a lot of questions that this abstract leaves unanswered, and I'd like to try and wrap my head around this subject. The idea of a crocodile-sized amphibian sounds pretty insane.