Paleontology

Contents:

• Definitions
  • Paleontology
  • Fossil
  • Index Fossils
  • All subdivisions of Paleontology science
• History of Paleontology
  • Early Discoveries and Interpretations
  • The Middle Ages
  • Renaissance
  • The 18^th century
  • The 19^th century
  • The 20^th century
  • The 21^th century
• References

Paleontology, sometimes spelled Palaeontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present).
It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology). The term itself originates from Greek palaios, "old, ancient", on "being, creature" and logos "speech, thought, study".
In other worlds, Paleontology or Palaeontology, is a science about extinct animals based on fossil record.

The main goal of Paleontology is reconstruction of life's evolution on Earth, and to understand its origin and development.

Fossil can be of different types: bones, eggs, tooths, tissue or even entire bodies preserved in permafrost or in amber of extinct animals, shells, petrified wood or fossilized remains of plants, animal's footprints or traces preserved in stones etc.



Some fossils, such as Ammonites and Trilobites are known as index fossils.
An Index fossil is any animal or plant preserved in the rock record of the Earth that is characteristic of a particular span of geologic time or environment. A useful index fossil must be distinctive or easily recognizable, abundant, and have a wide geographic distribution and a short range through time.
Index fossils are the basis for defining boundaries in the geologic time scale and for the correlation of strata.

Scientists who study this fossils called Paleontologists or Palaeontologists.
Paleontologists dig for fossils in the field, bringing them to universities, labs or museums where they dissect, study and assemble it.



Nowadays fossils are found on all continents, even in Antarctic. Some fossils are occasionally found at construction excavation or by geologists who are looking for oils or minerals, others are discovered during dedicated expeditions organized by Natural History Museums or universities, as for example the Polish-Mongolian Paleonthological Expeditions in the Goby Desert between 1963 - 1971, shown on stamps of Poland from 1980. Many dinosaur's eggs and bones were unearthed there. Some of the finding can be seen on Polish and Mongolian stamps.

Main subdivisions of Paleontology science are:

• Vertebrate paleontology - to study fossils of animals which have a backbone: fish, dinosaurs, mammals etc.
• Invertebrate paleontology - to study fossils of animals which do not have the backbone: molluscs and anthropods for example.
• Micropaleontology - to study fossils of microscopic animals of all kind.
• Paleoichnology - this study traces and footprints of prehistoric animals.
• Paleobotany - to study fossils of prehistoric plants of all kind, include algae and fungi.
• Palynology - the study of pollen and spores of prehistoric plants.
• Palaeogeography - the study of historical geography, generally physical landscapes, such as continental drift for example.
• Paleoecology - to study the interaction between different prehistoric animals and plants. Food chain of prehistoric animals for example.
• Paleoclimatology - to study the history of Earth climate.

Combined knowledge of all the subdivisions above, allows us tomake some reconstruction of prehistoric animals and plants in their environments, as represented on many stamps from around the world.

Paleontology, which bridges biology and geology, has evolved over centuries from mythological interpretations of fossils to a sophisticated science that reconstructs ancient ecosystems and species.


Reconstruction of Mesozoic life (252 to 66 million years ago) - the 2Age of Dinosaurs" on postage stamps of USA 1997.


Reconstruction of Cenozoic life (started 66 million years ago) - the "Age of Mammals" on postage stamps of Marshall Islands 2009.

History of Paleontology

The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record left behind by living organisms. Since it is concerned with understanding living organisms of the past, paleontology can be considered to be a field of biology, but its historical development has been closely tied to geology and the effort to understand the history of Earth itself.

Humans have collected fossils since prehistorical times. In December 2024 a group of Spanish scientists published a paper where they claimed Neanderthals collected small marine fossils. They might have been collected simply for aesthetic reasons because they found their shapes attractive for exchange, decorations or as toys. It is also not clear yet if they were collected by adults or children.

Early Discoveries and Interpretations

Xenophanes on stamp of Greece 2019 MiNr.: 3042, Scott: 2879	Pythagoras on stamp of San Marino 1983 MiNr.: 1275, Scott: 1045	Herodotus on stamp of Greece 2009 MiNr.: 3044, Scott: 2881

The earliest encounters with fossils date back to ancient civilizations.
In ancient Greece, philosophers such as Xenophanes (c. 570–475 BCE) and Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BCE) speculated that marine fossils found in mountains were evidence of flooding by past seas.

The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BCE) observed fossilized seashells and marine remains in the mountains of Egypt and Libya. He suggested that these regions were once covered by seawater, supporting the idea that the landscape had changed over time.

This Greek philosopher Empedocles (c. 495–435 BCE) proposed that land and sea had changed places multiple times in Earth's history. While his ideas were more mythical than scientific, they implied an understanding that fossils in mountains could be evidence of past marine environments.

Chinese Dragon on stamp Azerbaijan 2024, MiNr.: Bl327, Scott: 1404.
Griffin on stamp of Belgium 2012, MiNr.: 4253, Scott: 2546.	Protoceratops on stamp of Mongolia 1967, MiNr.: 462, Scott: 449.

Chinese Dragons probably originated from discoveries of dinosaur and pterosaur fossils.

Ancient Chinese referred to unearthed fossil bones as "dragon bones" and documented them as such. For example, Chang Qu in 300 BC documents the discovery of "dragon bones" in Sichuan.
This province is known today for abundant fossil discoveries of dinosaurs: sauropods, therapods and early ornithopod and even one of the earliest known stegosaurs, as well as many dinosaur's footprints, trackways and eggs.
In the past, and in the same villages today, they were often ground into medicinal powders.

The numerous bones of ceratopsian beaked dinosaurs, such as Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus, observed on the way to go in the Gobi Desert might have inspired Scythian legends of Griffins.
Griffins were mythical creatures with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. Fossils of these beaked dinosaurs were probably seen by merchants who travel along the Silk-Road, which pass the Gobi Desert, one of the most famous dinosaur fossils location in the world.
The narrow, elongated scapula of beaked dinosaurs resembles that of birds and this avian feature may have suggested to ancient observers that the creature had wings.

The Middle Age (500 CE to 1500 CE.)

During the Middle Ages, fossil interpretations were often influenced by mythology and religion. Many cultures viewed large fossilized bones as remains of dragons or giants. However, there are were some scholars who correctly identified the fossils.


Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973-1048) commonly known as al-Biruni, expressed an opinion about the possibility of the Earth moving around the Sun and determined the circumference of the Earth.
Al-Biruni may have been the first person to suggest a standard ordering of geologic time with different eras that followed one another. In this way, he identified the concept of stratigraphy. While working in India, he suggested, based on fossil evidence, that the region had been under sea. It was quite innovative thinking.

Al-Biruni on stamp of Iran 1973 MiNr.: 1649, Scott: 1728.	Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna on stamp of Iran 1954 MiNr.: 904, Scott: 832.	Shen Kuo on stamp of China 1962 MiNr.: 671, Scott: 643.

Another eastern scholar, Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (980-1037), who was a Persian polymath, stated in his "Book of Healing" (in 1027), that fossils are formed when remains of dead animals and plants are turned to stone by a petrifying virtue which seeps from the earth, perhaps during earthquakes or other slower upheavals.
If what is said concerning the petrifaction of animals and plants is true, the cause of this (phenomenon) is a powerful mineralizing and petrifying virtue which arises in certain stony spots, or emanates suddenly from the earth during earthquakes and subsidences, and petrifies whatever comes into contact with it. As a matter of fact, the petrifaction of the bodies of plants and animals is not more extraordinary than the transformation of waters.

The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) devised a geological hypothesis for land formation (geomorphology), based upon findings of inland marine fossils, knowledge of soil erosion, and the deposition of silt.
He also proposed a hypothesis of gradual climate change, after observing ancient petrified bamboo that were preserved underground in a dry northern habitat that would not support bamboo growth during his time.

In the same time, in Europe, scholars and later scientists believed in an unchanging Earth and recognized fossils as a "Game of Nature", rather than remains of prehistoric animals until the 19^th century.

Discoveries of skulls of dwarf elephants on Cyprus, Malta and Sicily inspired the myths about cyclops. In the middle ages, in Europe, fossils were assigned to remains of Biblical giants or dragons.

Fossilized skeleton of dwarf elephant on definitive stamp of Malta 2009, MiNr.: 1612, Scott: 1383.	Elephant skull on stamp of Malaysia 2014, MiNr.: 2110, Scott: 1495a.	Elephant skull.	Tepegoez, a kind of cyclops in Turkic mythology, on stamp of Azerbaijan 2022, MiNr.: 1651D, Scott: .

The letter sent to Professor Unger in Graz from Nuremberg, Bavaria in circa 1845.

Around the year 1335 a skull of a mysterious animal was discovered near the small Austrian town Klagenfurt. It looked different from anything known to inhabitants of the town.
Because it looked different from anything known to inhabitants of the town, they interpreted it as belonging to a dragon. They called this dragon the “Lindwurm” in German. Stories about the Lindwurm state that it lived at the lake before the town was founded and ate virgins. In 1590, Ulrich Vogelsang erected a fountain shaped in the form of this monster.
In 1840, paleontologist Franz UNGER determined the skull belonged to a woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis), rather than a mystical dragon, who inhabited the area during the Ice Age.
The sculpture is historically significant, because it is an early attempt at reconstructing the appearance of an extinct animal. The skull has survived till today and can be seen in the local Lore museum.

Fountain of Klagenfurt on stamp of Austria 1968 MiNr.: 1256, Scott: 696.	A dragon on "Legends of Germany" stamp of Germany 2021, MiNr.: 3632, Scott: 3236.	Woolly Rhino on stamp of Switzerland 2024 MiNr.: 2968, Scott: .

In 1577, the earliest documented mammoth bones were discovered in Switzerland, near the monastery of Reiden, known later in the literature as the "Giant of Reiden", "Giant of Lucerne" or "Swiss Giant", because the bones were interpreted as bones of a giant who lived in the region in the past. The inhabitants of Reiden and Lucerne were so proud of their giant that he was immortalised on one of the panels of the Chapel Bridge at the beginning of the 17th century. The giant adorns the first bridge painting at the entrance to the Chapel Bridge on the left bank of the Reuss. The painting shows the giant in a threatening posture. In his right hand he holds up a torn-out oak tree.

The Giant of Lucerne on one of the panels of the Chapel Bridge in Luzern. Image credit: kapellbruecke".	The Lucerne Chapel Bridge on stamp of Switzerland 1993, MiNr: 1511, Scott: B590.	The Mammoth from Lucern on postmark of Switzerland 2010.

In 1799, the bones were recognized by he famous naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) from Goettingen (today Germany) as bones of a woolly mammoth.

Renaissance (14^th–17^th centuries)

The Renaissance (14^th–17^th centuries) ushered in a renewed curiosity about the natural world.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was among the first to propose that fossils were the remains of ancient organisms, supporting the idea that Earth had undergone significant changes over time.

Leonardo da Vinci, self portrait, on stamp of Italy 1938 MiNr.: 608, Scott: 404.	Nicolas Steno and the shark teeth on stamps of Denmark 1969 and 1998 respectively. MiNr.: 485, 1196; Scott: 462, 1107.

In 1669, Danish scientist and Catholic bishop Nicolas Steno (1638-1686) (Danish name: Niels Stensen) formulated the principles of stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, which became fundamental in dating fossils and understanding Earth's geological history. His work laid the foundation for the study of fossil succession, which would later become a cornerstone of paleontology.
Steno also noted that shark teeth bore a striking resemblance to certain stony objects, found embedded within rock formations, that his learned contemporaries were calling glossopetrae or “tongue stones”, which Steno recognized as real teeth of extinct animals.

In October 1666 two fishermen caught a huge female shark near the town of Livorno, and Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, ordered its head to be sent to Steno. Steno dissected the head and published his findings in 1667. He noted that the shark's teeth bore a striking resemblance to certain stony objects, found embedded within rock formations, that his learned contemporaries were calling glossopetrae or "tongue stones".
Steno's work on shark teeth led him to the question of how any solid object could come to be found inside another solid object, such as a rock or a layer of rock.

Steno was not the first to identify fossils as being from living organisms; his contemporaries Robert Hooke and John Ray also argued that fossils were the remains of once-living organisms.

Cetiosaurus on stamp of Great Britain 2013 MiNr.: 3533, Scott: 3235.

In the same year (1669) - Edward Lhuyd described and illustrated fossil of a spoon-shaped tooth in his work "Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia". He interpreted it as a fish tooth, naming it "Rutellum impicatum", which translates from Latin to "little shovel covered in pitch," referencing its shape and dark coloration. By doing so, he names the first prehistoric creature that is recognizable as a dinosaur today. Today, paleontologists recognize this specimen as the tooth of a sauropod dinosaur, likely from the genus Cetiosaurus, based on the tooth's morphology.

Cetiosaurus, mean "whale lizard", is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period, living about 168 million years ago in what is now Britain and probably France.
Cetiosaurus was in 1842 the first sauropod from which bones were described and is the most complete sauropod found in England. It was so named because its describer, Sir Richard Owen, supposed it was a marine creature, initially an extremely large crocodile, and did not recognise it for a land-dwelling dinosaur.

The 18^th century

The 18^th century saw the emergence of Paleontology as a distinct scientific discipline.

Georges Cuvier on stamp of France 1969 MiNr.: 1672, Scott: B430.

God create animals on stamp of Germany 2014 MiNr.: 3085, Scott: 2790.

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck on postmark of France 1989.

Mosasaurus on personalized stamp of the Netherlands 2019

Thomas Jefferson on stamp of USA 1856, MiNr: 19x, Scott: 75.

French naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) pioneered the field of comparative anatomy, using fossil evidence to reconstruct extinct species. His studies of mammoths and other extinct creatures led him to propose the concept of catastrophism — the idea that Earth's history was shaped by sudden, dramatic events.
Until the early 1800s all scientists in Europe believed in the Divine creation of the Earth and its life. It was a common belief, that God created the world and all that was in it. All species were created by God for particular a role in Nature. As the roles were fixed by the Creator from the beginning, there is no need for species to change.
As intensive study of nature started in the second half of the 1700s, scientists raised questions about the diversity of life and the relationships between different species. At the beginning of the 1800s, some naturalists started to propose theories on the evolution of life.

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (1744 –1829), often known simply as Lamarck, was a French naturalist, biologist and academic. He outlined his theories regarding evolution first in his Floreal lecture of 1800, and then in three later published works.
Lamarck referred to a tendency for organisms to become more complex, moving "up" a ladder of progress. He believed in the ongoing spontaneous generation of simple living organisms through action on physical matter by a material life force. He believed that all life was organized in a vertical chain, with gradation between the lowest forms and the highest forms of life, thus demonstrating a path to progressive developments in nature. According to Lamarck the environment gives rise to changes in animals. He cited examples of blindness in moles, the presence of teeth in mammals and the absence of teeth in birds as evidence of this principle.
Lamarck was not the first thinker to advocate organic evolution, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, had proposed general concepts of evolution and common descent in his Zoonomia (1794), a poetic fantasy of gradual creation including undeveloped ideas anticipating concepts his grandson expanded. However, Lamarck was the first to develop a truly coherent evolutionary theory, known as "Lamarckism".

Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772 – 1844) a colleague of Lamarck expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theory. Geoffroy believed in the underlying unity of organismal design, and the possibility of the transmutation of species in time, amassing evidence for his claims through research in comparative anatomy, paleontology, and embryology. Geoffroy stated that he believed in a God, but also in a law-like universe, with no supernatural interference in the details of existence. In 1822, Geoffroy published "Anatomical Philosophy", in which he highlighted puzzles in anatomy that lent weight to the evolutionary ideas of Lamarck. A powerful line of argument came from the study of the same structures of different animals. The wing of a bat, the fin of a lung fish and the hand of Man, for instance, occupy homologous parts in the different animals.

Lamarck’s and Geoffroy’s ideas that Nature was autonomous and could almost randomly generate higher forms of existence without God was unthinkable for the majority of the scientific community of Europe, therefore their theories were met with criticism and were rejected.

In the 18^th century fossilized bones and tooth were assigned to either existing animals, crocodiles for example, animals that died during the Biblical (Noachian) flood or to remains of Biblical titans.

1764 and in 1780 — The fossilized bones of a huge animal are found in a quarry near Maastricht in the Netherlands. The first Mosasaurus fossil known to science was discovered in 1764 in a chalk quarry near Maastricht in the Netherlands in the form of a skull, which was initially identified as a whale. It is now on display at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem in the Netherlands.
The second skull, discovered in 1780 caught the attention of the physician Johann Leonard Hoffmann, who thought it was a crocodile. He contacted the prominent biologist Petrus Camper, and the skull gained international attention after Camper published a study identifying it as a whale.
When Napoleon's army occupied Maastricht in 1794, they skull was moved to Paris, where in 1808 Georges Cuvier identified it as an extinct marine reptile, relative of monitor lizards, and in 1822 William Conybeare (Great Britain) named it Mosasaurus meaning "lizard of the Meuse River".
Today, Mosasaurus are known as massive marine reptiles with body length up to 14 meters, who were the biggest marine reptiles of its time (82-66 million years ago).
Mosasaurus was at the top of the food chain, hunting fish, ammonites, marine reptiles (like plesiosaurs), and even other mosasaurs. The double-hinged jaw (like a snake’s) allowed it to swallow large prey whole, however its strong bite force could crush bones and shells.
These features made Mosasaurus one of the most successful marine predators before the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.

In March 1797 President of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson who is most known as the third American President (1801-1809) and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, presented an article "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia".

In this article Jefferson describe some fossil bones sent to him by Colonel John Stuart in the previous year and theorized that the bones represented the remains of a lion. He compared them to the bones of a modern African lion. Jefferson named this animal Megalonyx or a "giant claw". This presentation is often credited as the beginning of vertebrate paleontology in North America.

Two years later these remains were correctly identified as those of a giant ground sloth and in 1822, the species was named Megalonyx jeffersonii in honor of Thomas Jefferson.

The 19^th century

The early 19^th century witnessed an explosion of fossil discoveries.

In 1814, Sir Everard Home described the fossil of a previously unknown animal. The skull and torso were discovered by Mary Anning (1799–1847) and her elder brother Joseph under the cliff at Lyme Regis, in southwest England, between 1811 and 1812. The fossil was so unusual, that Home didn’t know how to even name it. The title of his article was “Some Account of the fossil remains of an animal more nearly allied to fishes than any of the other classes of animals”. Today this aquatic marine reptile is called ichthyosaurus.
Within a few years, Many Anning became one of the most important fossil hunters in Great Britain. Many fossils she discovered found homes in the Natural History Museums in the country and abroad.


Mary Anning and her major fossils, including Ichthyosaurus on stamp of UK 2024

Around the same time, very strange bones and teeth were studied by William Buckland (1784-1856) who was Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church and a country doctor Gideon Mantell (1790-1852).
In 1824, Buckland described the jaw and several bones collected around Oxfordshire. He did not know to what animal these bones belonged, he thought it was likely amphibious, living partially in land and water and he called it Megalosaurus, or great lizard.

When Buckland realized from the shape of its teeth, that Megalosaurus was carnivorous he found himself in trouble. According to the Christian faith carnivorous animals were associated with violence, and evil had only begun on Earth with human decadence — with original sin. In the Garden of Eden, everything was peaceful and beautiful, and this carnivorous beast did not fit, it could not have been created by God. So, Buckland justified it by saying that it is a perfect killing machine, capable of causing death without pain, so God created it to eliminate suffering in an effective way.

In the following year (1825), Gideon Mantel described some bones and teeth he discovered in Sussex, southeast England, and called it Iguanodon or iguana-like. Mantel estimated the length of the animal, by scaling its teeth with teeth of iguana, to be up to 18 meters – this size was beyond his imagination. Today, paleontologists estimate the length of Iguanodon to be up to 10 meters. In 1833 Mantell described another prehistoric animal and named it Hylaeosaurus or "belonging to the forest lizard", now known as a member of the ankylosaurs, heavily armoured dinosaurs.

William Buckland on postmark of South Korea 2001,	Gideon Mantell on postmark of South Korea 1995.

Titanosaurus on stamp of New Zealand 2010, MiNr: 2672, Scott: 2295.	Therapod dinosaur's footprint on postage stamp of UK 2013

In 1828 the first dinosaur was discovered in India near Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, by Captain William Henry Sleeman, who was serving in the East India Company. These fossils consisted of large vertebrae, which were later sent to London and the Indian Museum in Kolkata. In 1877, English naturalist Richard Lydekker named the dinosaur genus Titanosaurus indicus, classifying it as a large herbivorous sauropod from the Late Cretaceous Period (approximately 145–65 million years ago). This discovery marked the first recorded dinosaur find in India and one of the earliest in Asia.

In 1836 Edward Hitchcock described fossilized footprints, which he assigned to a prehistoric bird. Today, these bones recognized as footprints of dinosaurs.

Meanwhile, Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830–1833) introduced uniformitarianism, the idea that geological processes occurring today also shaped the past. This concept influenced Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution, published in "On the Origin of Species" (1859), revolutionized paleontology by linking fossil evidence to the gradual evolution of species.


In 1841, the same year the "Penny Red" replaced the "Penny Black", due to the problem with cancellation and reuse, Professor Owen coined the word "Dinosaur". He also convinced Parliament to establish the National Museum of Natural History, as "a cathedral to nature", to display all "God creations". The Natural History Museum in London was constructed under his supervision between 1873 and 1880. Today the museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature - both exemplified by the large Diplodocus cast that dominated the vaulted central hall before it was replaced in 2017 with the skeleton of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling.


FDC "150^th anniversary of Dinosaurs' identification by Sir Richard Owens", Great Britain 1991.
In the same year (1841) the first global geologic timescale is defined by John Phillips based on the type of fossils found in different rock layers. He coins the term "Mesozoic" for what Mantell had called "The Age of Reptiles" in his paper "The Age of Reptiles" published in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 1831.
In this article, Mantell described the dominance of reptiles during the Mesozoic Era, emphasizing how large reptiles (like Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, and marine reptiles) ruled the land and seas before mammals became dominant. His work helped shape the idea of geological eras based on dominant life forms.

1859 — Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species" or, more completely, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" - work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. In this book Darwin included evidence, after study the evidence for over 30 years, that he had collected on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.
By the publication date the fossil of transition form of animals were missing, which was discovered in Germany only two years later.


Charles Darwin on stamp of Vanuatu 2009

1861 — The first Archaeopteryx, skeleton was found in Bavaria, Germany, and recognized as a transitional form between reptiles and birds.

Photo postcard show landscape in the quarry of Solnhofen.

Archaeopteryx (Berlin specimen) on postage stamp of Germany 2011, MiNr.: 2887, Scott: 2635.

The prehistoric bird Archaeopteryx is one of the most famous fossils in the World. When more complete specimens had been found, this fossil became important evidence for the Theory of Evolution. As an intermediate species from dinosaurs to birds, Archaeopteryx has both bird-like and reptile-like character traits in its skeleton. The more bird-like features include feathers and limbs set up to act like springs (to get it into the air). The more reptile-like features include teeth, claws on the fingers (and the fingers are more reptile-like), a long tail made up of caudal vertebrae.
The ancestor of Archaeopteryx was a small predatory dinosaur. All fossils of Archaeopteryx found so far come from a quarry near the Solnhofen Plattenkalken at the Fraenkischen Jura regions of the state of Bavaria, Germany. They are approximately 150 million years old. The most exemplary fossil is stored at the Museum fuer Naturkunde in Berlin after it was purchased in 1876 with financial support of the most famous German enterpreater, Werner von Siemens, the founder of one of the biggest company in the world.

Between 1860s and 1890s many dinosaur fossils were discovered and named by two American paleontologists: Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. Together they named over 100 new dinosaur species.

The letter sent by Erasmus Crawford to Professor of Yale College Othniel Marsh in 1870.

The conflict began in 1868 when Marsh secretly bribed workers at a New Jersey fossil site to send newly discovered bones to him instead of Cope. Their rivalry escalated as they raced to find and name more dinosaurs, often rushing to publish first and publicly mocking each other's mistakes.
Both scientists used aggressive tactics, including destroying fossils to keep them from each other, stealing workers, and falsely accusing one another of fraud. Despite their feud, their discoveries—such as Triceratops, Allosaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus revolutionized the study of dinosaurs.
By the 1890s, both men had exhausted their finances and reputations, ending the Bone Wars. Though their methods were controversial, their contributions laid the foundation for modern paleontology, making their rivalry one of the most legendary in scientific history.

Othniel Charles Marsh on postmark of China 2005.	Edward Drinker Cope on postmark of China 2005.

The 20^th century

The 20^th century saw the development of radiometric dating, allowing scientists to determine the ages of fossils with precision. The discovery of the Burgess Shale in Canada and other fossil-rich sites provided insight into the Cambrian Explosion, a period of rapid evolutionary diversification.

One of the invertebrate animals discovered in Burgess Shale - Opabinia regalis on stamp of Canada 1990, MiNr: 1188, Scott: 1282.

The Burgess Shale deposit in British Columbia, deposited during the Cambrian Period 530 million years ago, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, important for the many fossils of soft-bodies life forms it contains. An example of an extinct species of invertebrate is Opabinia regallis, an animal with five eyes, an extensible trunk with claws and an airplane-like tail. Opabinia regallis an extinct order of invertebrates with no living relatives.

The Cambrian explosion is an interval of time beginning approximately 538.8 million years ago in the Cambrian period of the early Paleozoic, when a sudden radiation of complex life occurred and practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record. It lasted for about 13 to 25 million years and resulted in the divergence of most modern metazoan phyla. The event was accompanied by major diversification in other groups of organisms as well.

Modern paleontology has expanded with technological advancements, including CT scanning, isotopic analysis, and computer modelling, which allow for detailed reconstructions of ancient organisms. The discovery of feathered dinosaur fossils in China has provided compelling evidence for the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.

1901 — Petroleum geologist W.W. Orcutt discovered first fossils from the La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California, a rich source of ice age mammal remains.
La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Over many centuries, the bones of trapped animals have been preserved.
Dramatic fossils of large mammals have been extricated, and the asphalt also preserves microfossils: wood and plant remnants, rodent bones, insects, molluscs, dust, seeds, leaves, and pollen grains.


The postal stationery from collection of Dr. Jon Noad from Calgary Canada


1905 — Tyrannosaurus rex, "tyrant lizard king" in Greek, later the world's most famous dinosaur species, was discovered by Barnum Brown in eastern Montana, and it was given its famous name in 1905 by Henry Fairfield Osborn (President of the American Museum of Natural History between 1908 and 1933).
The fossil record of Tyrannosaurus rex remained fragmentary for decades, with new discoveries trickling in over time. It wasn’t until the mid-20^th century that additional, more complete specimens were found, allowing paleontologists to build a clearer picture of the animal’s appearance and behaviour.

Tyrannosaurus rex on stamps of USA 2019, MiNr: Mn: 5647-5650 ; Sn: 5410-5413
1912 — Continental Drift is proposed by Alfred Wegener, leading to plate tectonics, which explained many patterns of ancient biogeography revealed by the fossil record.

1923 - A team from the American Museum of Natural History, led by Roy Chapman Andrews, discovered fossilized dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia. The eggs were originally thought to belong to Protoceratops, but later studies linked them to Oviraptor.


Dinosaurs on stamps of Mongolia 2022, MiNr: Mn: 5647-5650 ; Sn: 5410-5413
1946 - Reginald Sprigg discovered fossils of the Ediacaran biota in Australia, dating back to the late Precambrian (about 635–541 million years ago). These soft-bodied organisms, among the earliest complex multicellular life forms, pushed the known history of life back before the Cambrian period, offering insights into the origins of animal life.


Reconstruction of early life - Ediacaran biota (c. 635–538.8 million years ago) - on postage stamps of Australia 2008.

In the 1970s, Robert T. Bakker, a student of Ostrom, strongly argued that dinosaurs were warm-blooded (endothermic) or had a metabolism that was at least partially high-energy. He pointed out that bone structures of dinosaurs resembled those of modern warm-blooded animals, with rapid growth rates. He also noted that large dinosaurs would have had trouble regulating their body temperature if they were purely cold-blooded.

1996 first fossils of feathered dinosaurs reported from China - Sinosauropteryx, proving the link between dinosaurs and birds. This supported the theory that birds evolved from small theropod dinosaurs.

Sinosauropteryx on postal stationery of China 2008

The 21^st century

Paleontology in the 21st century has seen ground-breaking discoveries and advancements in technology that have reshaped our understanding of prehistoric life. These achievements span from new fossil discoveries to revolutionary techniques in studying ancient organisms.

Advances in chemical analysis allowed paleontologists to reconstruct the colours of dinosaurs and other fossils, starting with Sinosauropteryx in 2010. Discoveries like Borealopelta (2017), an armoured dinosaur with reddish-brown skin, and soft tissue preservation in fossils (e.g., plesiosaurs, 2025) have provided unprecedented insights into appearance, behaviour, and physiology.

References

• Paleontology: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• Index Fossil: Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• History of Paleontology: Wikipedia: Timeline of Paleontology, History of Paleontology, List of Year in Paleontology,
  Palaeos, Strange Science.