Byron Cotter, Fridays 10 am - 12 noon
September 25, October 2, 9, 16, 23
Registrants will receive an e-mail containing information about joining the course sessions. Please register each person in the household individually.
From the Cambrian explosion of marine invertebrate animals some 541 million years ago, to the Permian-Triassic mass extinction 252 million years ago, the Paleozoic Era encompassed the greatest diversification of life forms in Earth’s long history. Invertebrate life forms diversified explosively in the oceans and vertebrates appeared. Fish evolved from “minnows” into monsters of the ancient oceans. Plants colonized land and evolved into great forests.
Invertebrates and then vertebrates colonized land, too. Eight-foot-long millipedes roamed the coal forests of the Carboniferous period, as giant insects with wingspans over two feet long soared above. Reptiles emerged and evolved into bizarre forms like the sail-backed Dimetrodon of the Permian period. This course covers the Paleozoic evolution of both plants and animals in the context of “evolutionary innovations”, combinations of traits that conferred major survival advantages.
ILR At SaddleBrooke