HISTORY OF LIFE

1. The Origin of Life
   
2. Earth's Earliest Life
   
3. Sex and Nuclei: Eukaryotes
   
4. The Evolution of Animals
   
5. Life in a Changing World
   
6. Extinction
   
7. The Early Vertebrates
   
8. Leaving the Water
   
9. Amphibians and Reptiles
   
10. Reptiles and Thermoregulation
    
11. Triassic Takeover
    
12. Dinosaurs
    
13. Warm-Blooded Dinosaurs?
    
14. The Evolution of Flight
    
15. The Origin of Mammals
    
16. Marine Reptiles
    
17. Why Flowers are Beautiful
    
18. The End of the Dinosaurs
    
19. Cenozoic Mammals
    
20. Geography and Evolution
    
21. Primates
    
22. Evolving Toward Humans
    
23. The Ice Age
    
24. Humans and the Ice Age
    

The Early Vertebrates

Introduction

• Tree of Life Introduction to Chordates
• Berkeley's Introduction to Chordates
• Characteristics of Chordates
• Outline of (Traditional) Chordate Groups and Features
• Jack Conrad's Vertebrate Phylogeny Pages
• Download Chordate Instructional SYSTACK: A Natural Filing System for HyperCard (Macintosh)

Vertebrate Origins

• Tree of Life Introduction to Vertebrates
• Characteristics of Vertebrates
• Unranked Indented Classification of Vertebrates
• Why is a Vertebrate a Vertebrate?
• Images of Representative Living Vertebrates
• The Lambert's Ascidian Home Page (Urochordates)
• The Oldest Known Fossil Chordate (535 My)
• New Discoveries of Fossil Vertebrates (530 My)
• BBC: The discovery of a 400-million-year-old fossil fish
  at a site in what is now southern China Fossil fish in Chinese tale
• Cephalochordates ("It's a long ways from Amphioxus")
• Chordates with a Skull: Craniata (Hagfish + Vertebrates)
• American Museum's Feature on Conodonts: Teeth and a Tail
• Images of Typical Conodont Skeletal Elements
• Soft-bodied Fossil Evidence that Conodont are Vertebrates at the Hunterian Museum
• 3-D Models of Conodonts
• Society for Study of Conodonts: The Pander Society
• Example of Applications of Conodont-based Stratigraphy or Here
• Paleozoic stratigraphies are also sometimes based on similar appearing Scolecodonts (Polychaete Worm Jaws)

Early Vertebrates

• John Maisey's Introduction to What Makes a Vertebrate?
• A Gentle Introduction to Charting Vertebrate Evolution on a Cladogram
• Listing of Important Vertebrate Groups
• Notes on Vertebrate Evolution
• Overview of Living Jawless Fishes and Sharks
• Introduction to Hagfishes
• Introductions to Lampreys
• More Detailed Overview of Lampreys

Heterostracans

• American Museum's Feature on the Earliest Nearly-Complete Fossil Vertebrate Sacabambaspis: Full Body Armor
• Overview of Pteraspidomorphs (including Heterostracans)
• Model of Pteraspis rostrata
• Model of Ptericthyodes milleri from the side or top
• Images of Representative Pteraspidomorphs: Heterostracans, Arandaspids, and Astraspids

Osteostracans

• Images of Galeaspidans and Osteostracans

The Evolution of Jaws

• Introduction to the Jawed Vertebrates: Gnathostomes
• Overview of Gnathostome Groups

Bony Fishes

• BBC's Introduction to Bony Fishes
• Another Introduction to Bony Fishes
• Images of Placoderms and other Devonian Fossils
  
  
• The Largest Predator of the Devonian Seas, the Placoderm Dunkleosteus or click here
• Tulane Museum's Image of a "Living Fossil" Rayfin Fish the Gar