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An extinct order of relatively large placental mammals represented by Paleocene-Eocene fossils from western Europe, North America, and eastern Asia. Pantodonts were an early evolutionary experiment in large-bodied herbivory by primitive placental…

A medium-sized class of extinct blastozoan echinoderms containing about 17–19 genera, ranging from the late Early Ordovician to the Early Silurian throughout North America and in northern Europe. Their maximum standing diversity (13 genera) occurred…

An alleged fossil human based on craniodental fragments that were eventually discovered to constitute a skillful hoax. The Piltdown man hoax was the scientifically most successful fraud in the history of anthropology. Between 1908 and 1914, Charles…

One of the major divisions of the seed plants. The most familiar and common representatives of the division Pinophyta are the evergreen, cone-bearing trees of the order Pinales (within the class Pinopsida). Members are known colloquially as…

The single class of the division Pinophyta (Gymnospermae). The class Pinopsida contains both living and fossil taxa. The living representatives of the Pinopsida are woody plants; most are trees with a central axis and excurrent branches. Leaves are…

A term that embraces all fishes and fishlike vertebrates. In early zoological classifications, fishes (as well as mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians) were ranked as a class of the vertebrates. As the knowledge of fishes increased, it became…

A class of fishes (Pisces) known from the Devonian Period, and a few that survived into the base of the Carboniferous. They were true fishes or gnathostomes, and can be distinguished from other fishes by the following characters: the gill chamber…

A small group of marine reptiles forming part of the Sauropterygia, known only from deposits of Triassic age in Europe, the Near East (Israel), North Africa (Tunisia), and China. The earliest occurrence of placodonts is in the uppermost Lower…

The worldwide array of plant life, including plants that have roots in the soil, plants that live on or within other plants and animals, plants that float on or swim in water, and plants that are carried in the air. Fungi used to be included in the…

A Paleozoic (Ordovician and Devonian) order of sea stars of the class Asteroidea; only two genera have been recognized. Platyasteridans have relatively elongate flat arms; broad, transversely aligned ventral arm plates; and paxilliform aboral plates…