Embryos in Deep Time: The Rock Record of Biological Development

Notes

197 ChaPter 1: fossils, ontogeny, and Phylogeny 1. Metaphors analogous to the monkey typewriting concept have been used for a long time by antievolutionists. Georges Mivart, in his 1871 anti-Darwin book, On the Genesis of Species, stated: “There are improbabilities so great that the common sense of mankind treats them as impossibilities. It is not, for instance, in the strictest sense of the word, impossible that a poem and a mathematical proposition should be obtained by the process of shaking letters out of a box; but it is improbable to a degree that cannot be distinguished from impossibility” (65). 2. Sober’s Evidence and Evolution (2008) presents a discussion of evolutionary probability and the hurricane-in-a-junkyard analogy. 3. The pre-Darwinian discovery of “deep time” was discussed by Gould in Time’s Arrow Time’s Cycle (1988). 4. A discussion of the oldest fossils of life is presented in Brasier et al. 2002; and of the oldest multicellular life, in Lin et al. 2006 and Maloof et al. 2010. 5. An explanation of the calculation for the estimated percentage of extinct species and other relevant figures concerning the magnitude of biodiversity can be found in Benton 2009a. notes 198 / Notes to Chapter 1 6. The preservation of colorful feathers is reported for some dinosaur species, including Anchiornis huxleyi (Li et al. 2010) and Sinosauropteryx prima (Zhang et al. 2010). 7. Cuvier was born in Montbéliard, France, close to the Swiss border , which shortly before his birth belonged to Württemberg. For a comprehensive biography, see Taquet 2006. 8. The actual quote from Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), from 1866, is “Die Ontogenese ist eine kurze und schnelle Rekapitulation der Phylogenese , bedingt durch die physiologischen Funktionen der Vererbung (Fortpflanzung) und Anpassung (Ernährung) [The ontogeny is a short and rapid recapitulation of the phylogeny, determined by the physiological function of heritability (reproduction) and adaptation (feeding)].” The term Phylogenese was introduced by Haeckel, as was the German equivalent of “ecology” and other terms. Another very influential German biologist, Willi Hennig (1913–76), is known for a large body of influential terminology in systematics, the field of biology devoted to the reconstruction of evolutionary trees and classification . It is no coincidence that these and other Germans are responsible for so many of the fundamental terms used in biology today. New ideas require new terms. 9. Richards discussed the German terms Evolution and Entwicklung in The Meaning of Evolution (1992), which provided much historical information and interpretation on the morphological tradition in Europe as it relates to evolution and development. 10. A.W. Crompton worked in the mid-twentieth century on early mammals from the Karoo Basin in South Africa, a region known for the richest records of early mammalian origins in the world. Crompton was born in Durban in 1927 and did his studies in Stellenbosch and then Cambridge. After serving as director of the South African Museum in Cape Town for many years, he moved to the United States, where he was a professor at Yale and then Harvard. I had the chance to meet Professor Crompton in summer 1995 at a party hosted by one of my Ph.D. advisors at Duke University, Kathleen Smith, who in turn was advised by Crompton at Harvard. My other advisor at Duke, Rich Kay, has told me several times how influential Crompton’s work had been for his Ph.D. work. So on both sides Crompton is my academic grandfather. Notes to Chapter 1 / 199 11. Comparisons between embryos and adults are tricky, and the careful study of anatomical detail very often reveals significant differences (Meng, Wang, and Li 2011). The double jaw articulation of Diarthrognathus is expressed in its name, but how exactly such a double articulation functioned is not totally clear, although well-founded speculation has been presented (Crompton and Hylander 1986). Luo et al. (2007) discussed how an ossified Meckel’s cartilage and a relatively large middle ear could have worked in Mesozoic early mammals called eutriconodonts, in particular in Yanoconodon from China. A review of this and related subjects is presented by Luo (2011). A functional undertstanding of the jaw biomechanics in a marsupial pouch young has never been attempted. 12. I use the term amphibians to refer to any nonamniotic limbed vertebrate. I have opted to use a non-monophyletic term in this case because of the lack of a better term. For alternative...