A Guide to Paleontological Terms 

My little boy loves dinosaurs. He’s 4 and loves this channel! I can’t believe the quality of these videos! Great stuff, thank you so much for educating me and my son!

Small correction: "Dorsal" and "Ventral" are not toward the "top" and "bottom" respectively. Rather, at least in vertebrates, they are toward the spine and the sternum, respectively. This isn't super relevant for most vertebrates, but it's important for when you talk about oddballs like humans (for whom ventral is forward) or tree sloths (for whom ventral is up). In fact, "anterior" and "ventral" mean the same thing on a human. Anterior/Posterior and Superior/Inferior are terms relative to the way the animal generally holds itself. Dorsal/Ventral and Cranial/Caudal are absolute terms that reference the animal's anatomy.

Interesting to note of tyrannosaurs, like the skull shown at 9:50, is that they have fused premaxilla and nasals, while most therapods don't. This makes their skulls much stronger, and is one of the tell-tale morphological signs that a skull belongs to a tyrannosaur, along with the smaller premaxillary teeth at the front of the jaw used for scraping meat off bones. ...I may or may not have been watching a lot of Thomas Holtz and David Hone lectures lately...

I think a lot of palaeo enthusiasts forget that there are all these technical terms to learn when someone is just first getting into this subject area. This is a brilliant idea and very helpful!

Thank you that was very well done.

I love the fact that I can separate Paleontology from my school for now,and whenever I want, I'll just take out my notebook to see all the paleontological terms I have written there.

I like my paleontology *BONELESS*

Fossa meaning hole is why I always laughed at the medication Fosamax which was to treat oseteoporosis. Of all the things to name it... Awesome video as usual.

Got to say, this channel is GREATLY underappreciated. I hope it grows well because you guys have good production value and cover interesting topics. This video was a great idea and as usual I love your narration and the choices of images. Keep working hard guys

i had no fucking idea what to do for a living for way too long. i guess my childhood dream is coming back to show me that i had this absolute godsend right under my nose this whole time. i watched a 2 episode video series on youtube, by a professor, to learn "how tf do i become one?" because paleontology is not a major in any university in my country. well, now that i know what to do, time to pick up studying and get back into "listening to what the teacher says" why cant career stuff be more straight forward? you know? just choose a profession, whatever it is, and you can do that. but noooo, i have to go ahead and choose 'geological engineering', learn which classes ill need myself, also make sure the uni im choosing has a paleontologist professor, contact the professor about how im interested in paleontology and get a couple voluntary jobs and stuff, then go on to get a master's degree in paleontology, and THEN i can actually work as a paleontologist. and if i ever want to do academia or do my own research/expeditions, i have a get a PhD which takes ABSOLUTELY FOREVER... but fuck you, you education system thingy! im goddamn committed.

This was SO well done! I usually watch these videos because I think Dinosaurs, and history for that matter, are very cool. I actually learned something from this one. I have a hard time keeping things in order and this video helped a lot by showing the basic foundation of Paleontology. I hope you guys make this onto a series. Thanks for the video.

Thanks you! I thought I had a good handle on some of these details, but there's a to I didn't know and a lot more I wasn't terribly familiar with. I really enjoyed learning from you. (Thats high praise)

This was actually very helpful for my Zoology lectures, as I have to learn about clades as well as reptile skulls.

Excellent narrative. Please expand in new episodes. A great source on Reptilian osteology is Romer's "Osteology of the Reptiles", somewhat dated but still useful. He covers all extant reptiles as well as dinosaurs, pterosaurs, etc.

This is so helpful! You should totally make this into a “Paleontology for beginners” type series. You could talk about papers that would be good for beginners to look through or maybe even go a bit more in depth on the anatomy portion and talk about more unique bodily features, be it soft tissues or skeletal elements, and discuss how they could effect modern paleoart

Definitely one of my favourite videos on this site! Thank you very much for this wonderful resource!

Amazing content which I greatly appreciate! Thank you for this video as it helped me greatly in taking paleontology notes for my courses!

Thanks for the absolutely excellent explanation!

Very interesting and well researched video. Thank you!

Great video chaps, keep up the great work. Please do more videos like this - education of paleontological terms and processes etc! Could do a whole series on the anatomy/physiology etc

I did not need this but love that you have done this.

Amazing and incredibly useful video! Thanks a lot!

I needed this, the awesome shines!

This is so helpful! Thank you for making this.

Really good and informative video. Keep up the good work!

Very helpful, thank you Ben.

amazingly helpful, thanks for making this video

Thank you for making this video and putting up the sites where we can read those papers. I always wanted to know more about Paleontology, but I just didn't know where to look other than Wikipedia or outdated books.

Will have to watch this a few more times I think, nice work.

Thank you sir this was exceptionally useful

Great video, really helpful. Thanks a lot!

Heck yes!!! Great video idea and execution.

As usual this video is very interesting and I will probably watch it a couple of times to learn more so I can remember even more. Thanks. !:-)

This was really handy and helpful!!!

Thank you. Very helpful.

Very helpful, thanks a lot!

Very useful video.... thanks for helping me. Awesome vid keep up the good work.

This is very helpful. I knew most of this already but I sometimes foreget some of the terms. I actually might make something like a dictionary so I could check and remember them

Thank you. Awesome video.

Wonderful video. Thank you

This was a pretty informative and well done video and that book you talked about seems pretty interesting to read😊 and I do like most art.

Thank you I learned something today.

Excellent video.

Thank you!

Thank you, well done!

Fascinating. Thanks.

Muchas gracias ¡esta genial! Tyvm it's so cool!!

Can you make a video detailing the conditions needed for fossilization?

This is very useful. I know how boring it can be, but it is very clear why first year courses focus heavily upon the terminology of the field you are beginning to study.

Thank you ! This is very helpful. Never knew there were so many "ologys" cool thanks

I love dinosaurs, nature and all science alike. This video helped improve my knowledge of paleontology and made me better understand dinosaur anatomy. Also thanks for the link in the desc ❤️

Needed this

Wow, I would have needed this a few years ago, this is really helpful! I'm gonna force my friends to watch it >:)

This is really a great channel. Great info. I

This is great!

Very thought invoking video on terms related to palaeontology.

Great video, will definitely be useful in the future. Will you do a part 2 to your Azhdarchids video, please?

I love your Channel, it has always been my dream to be a palaeontologist and this video really helped me I’m still young and wont to learn everything about palaeontology keep up the great work and keep making videos

Your channel is lovely

Thanks very informative

1:07 AREAS OF STUDY 1:26 Morphology - Study of the physical shape and structure of an organism 1:40 Osteology - Study of how the skeleton works and it’s structure. Only looks at the bones 1:53 Phylogenetics - Evolution of groups of organisms. Relationship of organisms and their ancestors 2:16 Ontogeny - Study of how organisms change as they get older. 2:52 Taphonomy - Study of the processes of an organism between their death to their fossilization 3:27 Ichnology - Study of traces fossils i.e. Burrows or footprints 3:42 Biostratigraphy - The relative dating of rock formations using fossils. 4:23 BASICS OF ANATOMY 4:36 Anterior vs Posterior - Towards the front/head vs Towards the back/tail 4:43 Dorsal vs Ventral - Upper region vs Lower Region 4:51 Medial - Towards the midline 4:53 Lateral - Away from the midline, towards the side 4:59 Proximal vs Distal - Closer to the main body mass vs Away from the main body mass 5:46 SKELETONS 6:09 Osteology Primer - Screenshot for later use 6:14 Skull and Mandible 6:21 Vertebral Column and The Cervical Vertebrae - Neckbones 6:30 Atlas and Axis - Make yo the cervical vertebrates 6:37 Dorsal and Sacral Vertebrae 6:42 Ilium - Hip 6:54 Caudal Vertebrae 7:00 Chevrons - Wouod have contained blood vessels in life 7:10 Ribs and Gastralia(Belly Ribs) 7:22 Limbs 7:26 Scapula and Coracoid - Shoulder girdle 7:32 Humerus, Radius and Ulna - Hands 7:38 Wishbone (idk how to spell that), Present in all theropods and modern birds 7:44 Carpals, metacarpals, Phalanges (Sometimes Unguals/Modified phalange claws) 7:55 Hind limbs and pelvic girdle 7:58 Ischium 8:05 Pubis 8:10 Differences Between Sauriscian and Ornithiscian hips - Screenshot 8:32 Femur, Tibia and Fibula 8:45 Pes - Similar to the hand 8:52 Tarsals and Metatarsal - the carpals and metacarpals of the hand 9:13 SKULL ANATOMY 9:26 Skull Picture- Screenshot 9:30 Mandible and Dentary, Angular and Surangular 9:36 Jaw, Quadrate - Quadratojugal is attached to the Quadrate 9:55 Evolution of T. Rex skull 10:26 SPACES BETWEEN THE BONES (Fenestrae) 10:47 Mandibular and Surangular fenestra 10:53 Nares, Orbit and more fenestrae 11:09 Anapsids skull example - No fenestra 11:20 synapsid skull example - one fenestra behind the temporal orbit 11:30 diapsid skull example - two fenestra behind the eye socket (makes the skull lighter) 11:50 - Euryapsids skull example - Single fenestra behind eye places high on the skull, unnatural, classed as diapsids 12:33 EVOLUTIONARY TERMS 12:57 Cladograms - Shows how various organisms are related to each other 13:11 Clade - Evolutionary organisms on a cladogram, (classes, orders and families) 13:28 - Node and Sister Taxon example 13:44 Monophyletic Clade, Proper/Natural group - Made up of the common ancestor of a group of organisms and their descendants 13:56 Paraphyletic Clade, unnatural/artificial group - Groups with a common ancestor but with some descendants excluded 14:07 Example - Screenshot 14:27 Crown group - contains the most recent common ancestor 14:39 Stem group - extinct relatives of a crown group, always paraphyletic “There can be no stem group for extinct lineage, stem groups of some Clade can be in crown group for larger Clade”

I love you for this video

Awesome video

i loved this

10/10 cheers!

Some bloody nice fossils in this video! :)

Dude i love you

greath job!

Oh my god, more phylogeny PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!

I was familiar with some of the terms when I started becoming more serious when it comes to paleontological things

Thumbs up way up

Can you please do a video like this but about the different eras? (Jurassic, Precambrian, ect...) Idk why, I just have a hard time trying to remember the order of all these terms in our timeline.

1:25 - as far as I understand it, the physical shape and structure of an organism are studied by Anatomy; Morphology studies the possible variations thereof. E.g., Anatomy studies the "normal", generalized plan of the skeleton typical for a particular species of animals; Morphology studies the possible variation in anatomy, in this case - between individual skeletons of particular organisms that belong to this species. Anatomy tells us that femur and tibia bones are connected by the tibiofemoral joint; Morphology tells us how long tibia bone may be compared to femur in non-pathological members of species A (and pathological cases are studied by Morphologic Pathology). Etc. Excellent job, nonetheless - I'm just nitpicking, really. It normally takes a lot of reading to familiarize oneself with these concepts which you've managed to compress into one short video.

i’d say the dorsal/ventral is a bit off. dorsal is towards the side where the backbone/spine is. ventral is more towards the side where the breastbone is.

I hope this video will be used in education.

Tnx m8 👍-up.

14:06 soo... a paraphyletic group is one that includes all members that retain the group's characterists? is that why birds are excluded? because they lost some of those characteristics like being cold blooded and such? even thoug monophyletic speeching they are reptiles?

I think it is so easy. All this terms you can study by every serious biology book.

When someone uses the term "published a paper" on a new findings, what exactly does that mean and how could a person find it

OMFG this video would have been so helpful last year when I was working on my pachyrhinosaurus 3D model. I was like, "What the hell is a squamosal? Fossa?? What are these nonsense terms I'm hearing for the first time in my life?"

Are there any books that you recommend for people who want get into Paleontology?

I wonder if RU-vid (and/or similar pages) will one day make it possible for everyone to become autodidacts in whatever field they chose. That would be kind of nice, huh?

9:20 looks like a ghost dragon getting ready to shoot fire

Fantastic video Ben. Unrelated but I run a small new subreddit surrounding the Theropoda suborder, I'm not sure how often you interact with the palaeontological community on there or if you do at all, but I'd be very willing to give you moderator privileges should you decide to want to participate.

I’d love a fossil reading video

Is it correct to say that monophyletic clades are an objective assesment about reality (what really happened), and paraphyletic clades etc are some sort of linguistic constructs that we arbitrary defined?

I dig it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA. Get it? Cause it's about digging up stuff. Bones and stuff thats been buried.

That Tyrannosaurus Thumbnail is Lit it’s my favorite

there areliving graptolites (Rhabdopleura ), they live in the english channel and the north sea.

Is science daily a good place to read stuff about paleontology?(just curious)

You didn't go over polyphyletic groups ;-; I always get the three confused lol

How much math, and how skilled should you be at math for a career in paleontology?

More education gained here than from school.

A very handy cheat sheet. Feel smarter already.

🌤Hi Sunshine, I find this channel very interesting, but could have said not an "Exact Science" but we give it our best shot. Enjoy peace an happiness while manifesting the light an love of life...

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One of my biggest fears in science is these terms being used as scapegoats for bad studies.

The closest I got to to this subject was a Biological Antropology class.

i remember when i was 3 and decided i wanted to be a paleontologist, except i was calling it archaeology

i’m watching this to bore myself out of dropping out of my masters degree to study palaeontology instead and i must say this far it’s not working very well