If you are reading this page, you have an opportunity to select an animal covered in Chapters 8-11 for a brief (about 5-10 minutes) in-class presentation, starting Oct. 22, on the scheduled day we will be covering the chapter where these animals are featured. Please email me your first, second, and third choices, and I will try to accommodate your highest choice available. Otherwise, I will assign them in class. We will have more days for presentations so you will go later if you don't sign up now. Here are the choices:
Tuesday Oct. 21:
Chapter 8 Animals
1. Acanthostega and Ichthyostega (p. 109)
Too late for this one:
Chapter 9 Animals
2. Eryops, Cacops, and other temnospondys (p. 114)
3. Diplocaulus (p. 116)
Thursday Oct. 23:
Chapter 10 Animals (Anne-Marie, Morgan, and Kasem)
4. Dimetrodon, a Permian carnivorous synapsid (p. 125)
5. Edaphosaurus, a Permian vegetarian synapsid (p. 126)
6. Keratocephalus or another Permian therapsid synapsid of your choice (p. 131)
Chapter 11 Animals (Alyssa, Jonathan; Archosaurus, and Euparkeria still available as of 10/16/14, but if you have not yet signed up, you can also present after Midterm 2)
7. Hovasaurus and/or Mesosaurus (pp. 136)
8. Sphenodon, the living tuatara from New Zealand (p. 36)
9. Archosaurus and/or Euparkeria (p. 140)
Here are some additional details:
a) You are encouraged to bring a brief (5 to 10 minute) PowerPoint presentation or one or two pages of images or notes to distribute if you prefer. This is like our last Burgess Shale presentations so, if you want to show a PowerPoint presentation, please be prepared to hand me a memory stick with it at the beginning of class. Remember, please keep it within five to 10 minutes.
b) You should try to find other sources besides the text. Please cite URL or publication sources for where you got any images or other information that you heavily rely on. Besides http://www.google.com, try http://images.google.com. I am especially interested to hear what is cool about the natural history of these animals (e.g., how they live, feed, move, etc.), but please also try to place it on one of the trees that are presented in the HOL text. I will have those tree figures available so I can project them for you if you want me to, but this might cut into your three minutes.
c) Be prepared to take notes when your fellow classmates present because you will be expected to have some familiarity with why these above animals are significant in the course of vertebrate evolution. Also, try to fit the nine above animals into a framework of vertebrate phylogeny as much as you can.
To have the best opportunity to get a choice that you want, please mail me with your choices, first-come-first-served: deernisse "at" fullerton.edu