User:Abyssal/Portal:Permian

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The Permian Portal

Introduction

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Selected article on the Permian world and its legacies

Sponges are animals of the phylum Porifera (/pɒˈrɪfərə/; meaning "pore bearer"). They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through them, consisting of jelly-like mesohyl sandwiched between two thin layers of cells.

Sponges have unspecialized cells that can transform into other types and that often migrate between the main cell layers and the mesohyl in the process. Sponges do not have nervous, digestive or circulatory systems. Instead, most rely on maintaining a constant water flow through their bodies to obtain food and oxygen and to remove wastes. (see more...)

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Did you know?

... that the group Pareiasauromorpha includes parareptiles that lived from 271 to 252 million years ago?"
... that fossils of the temnospondyl amphibian Kourerpeton were notoriously discovered in the window of a barber's shop in Arizona?
... that although it was first classified as a reptile, the extinct genus Batropetes (restoration pictured) is now known to be a microsaur amphibian?
... that the largest known ovules produced by any non-flowering seed-plant came from the Medullosales (fossilized leaves pictured), an order of extinct seed ferns?
...that the extinct crocodile-like Prionosuchus is the largest amphibian known to have existed?

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Selected image

Reconstruction of Dimetrodon from "A Great Permian Delta", Popular Science Monthly, 1908.
Photo credit: Unknown

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Selected article on the Permian in human science, culture and economics

Edward Drinker Cope (left) and Othniel Charles Marsh (right).

The Bone Wars is the name given to a period of intense fossil speculation and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. The two paleontologists used underhanded methods to out-compete the other in the field, resorting to bribery, theft, and destruction of bones. The scientists also attacked each other in scientific publications, attempting to ruin the other's credibility and cut off his funding.

Originally colleagues who were civil to each other, Cope and Marsh became bitter enemies after several personal slights between them. Their pursuit of bones led them west to rich bone beds in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. From 1877 to 1892, both paleontologists used their wealth and influence to finance their own expeditions and to procure services and fossils from dinosaur hunters. By the end of the Bone Wars, both men exhausted their funds in fueling their intense rivalry.

Cope and Marsh were financially and socially ruined by their efforts to disgrace each other, but their contributions to science and the field of paleontology were massive; the scientists left behind tons of unopened boxes of fossils on their deaths. The feud between the two men led to over 142 new species of dinosaurs being discovered and described. Several historical books and fictional adaptations have also been published about this period of intense paleontological activity. (see more...)

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