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| Dr. Bretton Kent |
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3 Credits |
Extinct organisms present a number of problems for
biologists, because they represent historical events that were not
witnessed by investigators. Using a suite of techniques more akin
to forensics than to those typically used by biologists,
paleobiologists reconstruct life styles for extinct, and frequently
bizarre, organisms. This course surveys the methodologies used by
paleobiologists to investigate fossils and applies these methods to
assess the plausibility of current, and in many cases, highly
controversial reconstructions for extinct animals.
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