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88-540: Dapeng or Da Peng may refer to: Peng (mythology) or Da Peng, mythological bird Dapeng (state) (大彭), a state during the late Shang dynasty Dapeng Peninsula (大鹏半岛), in the east of Shenzhen Dapeng Subdistrict (大鹏街道), Longgang District, Shenzhen Dapeng Bay , a longgang in Shenzhen Mirs Bay , Hong Kong, known as Dapeng Bay Dapeng New District Dapeng dialect (大鵬話), Chinese dialect spoken on

176-471: A jigsaw puzzle . Rocks normally form relatively horizontal layers, with each layer younger than the one underneath it. If a fossil is found between two layers whose ages are known, the fossil's age must lie between the two known ages. Because rock sequences are not continuous, but may be broken up by faults or periods of erosion , it is very difficult to match up rock beds that are not directly next to one another. However, fossils of species that survived for

264-552: A collision that formed the Moon about 40 million years later, may have cooled quickly enough to have oceans and an atmosphere about 4,440  million years ago . There is evidence on the Moon of a Late Heavy Bombardment by asteroids from 4,000 to 3,800 million years ago . If, as seems likely, such a bombardment struck Earth at the same time, the first atmosphere and oceans may have been stripped away. Paleontology traces

352-602: A common ancestor. Ideally the "family tree" has only two branches leading from each node ("junction"), but sometimes there is too little information to achieve this, and paleontologists have to make do with junctions that have several branches. The cladistic technique is sometimes fallible, as some features, such as wings or camera eyes , evolved more than once, convergently  – this must be taken into account in analyses. Evolutionary developmental biology , commonly abbreviated to "Evo Devo", also helps paleontologists to produce "family trees", and understand fossils. For example,

440-456: A constant rate. These " molecular clocks ", however, are fallible, and provide only a very approximate timing: for example, they are not sufficiently precise and reliable for estimating when the groups that feature in the Cambrian explosion first evolved, and estimates produced by different techniques may vary by a factor of two. Earth formed about 4,570  million years ago and, after

528-403: A data source that is not limited to animals with easily fossilised hard parts, and they reflect organisms' behaviours. Also many traces date from significantly earlier than the body fossils of animals that are thought to have been capable of making them. Whilst exact assignment of trace fossils to their makers is generally impossible, traces may for example provide the earliest physical evidence of

616-573: A fortunate accident during other research. For example, the 1980 discovery by Luis and Walter Alvarez of iridium , a mainly extraterrestrial metal, in the Cretaceous – Paleogene boundary layer made asteroid impact the most favored explanation for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event – although debate continues about the contribution of volcanism. A complementary approach to developing scientific knowledge, experimental science ,

704-821: A minor group until the first jawed fish appeared in the Late Ordovician . The spread of animals and plants from water to land required organisms to solve several problems, including protection against drying out and supporting themselves against gravity . The earliest evidence of land plants and land invertebrates date back to about 476  million years ago and 490  million years ago respectively. Those invertebrates, as indicated by their trace and body fossils, were shown to be arthropods known as euthycarcinoids . The lineage that produced land vertebrates evolved later but very rapidly between 370  million years ago and 360  million years ago ; recent discoveries have overturned earlier ideas about

792-555: A rapid increase in knowledge about the history of life on Earth and to progress in the definition of the geologic time scale , largely based on fossil evidence. Although she was rarely recognised by the scientific community, Mary Anning was a significant contributor to the field of palaeontology during this period; she uncovered multiple novel Mesozoic reptile fossils and deducted that what were then known as bezoar stones are in fact fossilised faeces . In 1822 Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville , editor of Journal de Physique , coined

880-543: A relatively short time can be used to link up isolated rocks: this technique is called biostratigraphy . For instance, the conodont Eoplacognathus pseudoplanus has a short range in the Middle Ordovician period. If rocks of unknown age are found to have traces of E. pseudoplanus , they must have a mid-Ordovician age. Such index fossils must be distinctive, be globally distributed and have a short time range to be useful. However, misleading results are produced if

968-608: A steady increase in brain size after about 3  million years ago . There is a long-running debate about whether modern humans are descendants of a single small population in Africa , which then migrated all over the world less than 200,000 years ago and replaced previous hominine species, or arose worldwide at the same time as a result of interbreeding . Life on earth has suffered occasional mass extinctions at least since 542  million years ago . Despite their disastrous effects, mass extinctions have sometimes accelerated

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1056-524: Is a difference. But in adapting to their nature, they are the same. Some Chinese scholars gave alternate interpretations. The Buddhist monk Zhi Dun (314-366 CE) associated the Peng's flight with the highest satisfaction achieved by the zhiren (至人 "perfect person; sage; saint", cf. zhenren ). Now, that which wanders free and easy is clearly the mind of the Perfected Man. Master Chuang spoke of

1144-677: Is also a place name for a few places in greater China , most notably in Shenzhen and Taiwan . After recent fossil discoveries in northeast China, Chinese paleontologists used Peng to name the enantiornithine bird Pengornis and the wukongopterid pterosaur Kunpengopterus . In Chinese literature , the Daoist classic Zhuangzi has the oldest record of the Kun Peng myth. The first chapter ("Free and Easy Wandering" 逍遙遊 pinyin xiāoyáoyóu ) begins with three versions of this parable;

1232-595: Is composed only of eukaryotic cells, and the earliest evidence for it is the Francevillian Group Fossils from 2,100  million years ago , although specialisation of cells for different functions first appears between 1,430  million years ago (a possible fungus) and 1,200  million years ago (a probable red alga ). Sexual reproduction may be a prerequisite for specialisation of cells, as an asexual multicellular organism might be at risk of being taken over by rogue cells that retain

1320-482: Is hard to decide at what level to place a new higher-level grouping, e.g. genus or family or order ; this is important since the Linnaean rules for naming groups are tied to their levels, and hence if a group is moved to a different level it must be renamed. Paleontologists generally use approaches based on cladistics , a technique for working out the evolutionary "family tree" of a set of organisms. It works by

1408-484: Is not only the beginning myth in Zhuangzi , but Robert Allinson claims, "the central myth". In the northern darkness there is a fish and his name is K'un. The K'un is so huge I don't know how many thousand li he measures. He changes and becomes a bird whose name is P'eng. The back of the P'eng measures I don't know how many thousand li across and, when he rises up and flies off, his wings are like clouds all over

1496-443: Is often said to work by conducting experiments to disprove hypotheses about the workings and causes of natural phenomena. This approach cannot prove a hypothesis, since some later experiment may disprove it, but the accumulation of failures to disprove is often compelling evidence in favor. However, when confronted with totally unexpected phenomena, such as the first evidence for invisible radiation , experimental scientists often use

1584-594: Is one that contained an extinct "crocodile-like" marine reptile, which eventually came to be known as the mosasaurid Mosasaurus of the Cretaceous period. The first half of the 19th century saw geological and paleontological activity become increasingly well organised with the growth of geologic societies and museums and an increasing number of professional geologists and fossil specialists. Interest increased for reasons that were not purely scientific, as geology and paleontology helped industrialists to find and exploit natural resources such as coal. This contributed to

1672-401: Is our only means of giving rocks greater than about 50 million years old an absolute age, and can be accurate to within 0.5% or better. Although radiometric dating requires very careful laboratory work, its basic principle is simple: the rates at which various radioactive elements decay are known, and so the ratio of the radioactive element to the element into which it decays shows how long ago

1760-617: Is pronounced hō in Japanese , as seen in the sumo ring names Taihō Kōki (大鵬幸喜), Hakuhō Shō (白鵬翔), Enhō Akira (炎鵬晃), Daishōhō Kiyohiro (大翔鵬 清洋), Tokushinhō Motohisa (德真鵬 元久), Wakanohō Toshinori (若ノ鵬 寿則), Kyokutenhō Masaru (旭天鵬 勝) and so on. It is also used in company names, such as Taiho Pharmaceutical (大鵬薬品工業). Paleontology Paleontology ( / ˌ p eɪ l i ɒ n ˈ t ɒ l ə dʒ i , ˌ p æ l i -, - ən -/ PAY -lee-on- TOL -ə-jee, PAL -ee-, -⁠ən- ), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology ,

1848-456: Is the scientific study of life that existed prior to the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossils to classify organisms and study their interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology ). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in

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1936-503: Is thought to have been propelled by coevolution with pollinating insects. Social insects appeared around the same time and, although they account for only small parts of the insect "family tree", now form over 50% of the total mass of all insects. Humans evolved from a lineage of upright-walking apes whose earliest fossils date from over 6  million years ago . Although early members of this lineage had chimp -sized brains, about 25% as big as modern humans', there are signs of

2024-582: The Middle Ages the Persian naturalist Ibn Sina , known as Avicenna in Europe, discussed fossils and proposed a theory of petrifying fluids on which Albert of Saxony elaborated in the 14th century. The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) proposed a theory of climate change based on the presence of petrified bamboo in regions that in his time were too dry for bamboo. In early modern Europe ,

2112-538: The Neogene - Quaternary . In deeper-level deposits in western Europe are early-aged mammals such as the palaeothere perissodactyl Palaeotherium and the anoplotheriid artiodactyl Anoplotherium , both of which were described earliest after the former two genera, which today are known to date to the Paleogene period. Cuvier figured out that even older than the two levels of deposits with extinct large mammals

2200-637: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . Amphibians Extinct Synapsids Mammals Extinct reptiles Lizards and snakes Extinct Archosaurs Crocodilians Extinct Dinosaurs Birds Naming groups of organisms in a way that is clear and widely agreed is important, as some disputes in paleontology have been based just on misunderstandings over names. Linnaean taxonomy is commonly used for classifying living organisms, but runs into difficulties when dealing with newly discovered organisms that are significantly different from known ones. For example: it

2288-516: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . A relatively recent discipline, molecular phylogenetics , compares the DNA and RNA of modern organisms to re-construct the "family trees" of their evolutionary ancestors. It has also been used to estimate the dates of important evolutionary developments, although this approach is controversial because of doubts about the reliability of the " molecular clock ". Techniques from engineering have been used to analyse how

2376-454: The embryological development of some modern brachiopods suggests that brachiopods may be descendants of the halkieriids , which became extinct in the Cambrian period. Paleontology seeks to map out how living things have changed through time. A substantial hurdle to this aim is the difficulty of working out how old fossils are. Beds that preserve fossils typically lack the radioactive elements needed for radiometric dating . This technique

2464-496: The idiom péng chéng wàn lǐ (鵬程萬里, literally, the Peng journeys 10,000 li ) means "have a bright/unlimited future". This character is commonly used in Chinese given names and several important mainland Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese politicians have Peng in their given names. In contrast, the character Kun (鯤/鲲) is seldom used. Mainland China: Hong Kong: Taiwan: Southeast Asia: Japan: The Chinese character peng

2552-514: The lead paragraph , a quote from the Qixie (齊諧 "Universal Harmony", probably invented by Zhuangzi), and a quote from the Tang zhi wen Ji (湯之問棘 "Questions of Tang to Ji", cf. Liezi chapter 5, Tang wen 湯問). The first account contrasts the giant Peng bird with a small tiao (蜩 "cicada") and jiu (鳩 "pigeon; turtledove") and the third with a yan (鴳 or 鷃 "quail"). The Peng fish-bird transformation

2640-526: The " jigsaw puzzles " of biostratigraphy (arrangement of rock layers from youngest to oldest). Classifying ancient organisms is also difficult, as many do not fit well into the Linnaean taxonomy classifying living organisms, and paleontologists more often use cladistics to draw up evolutionary "family trees". The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics , which investigates how closely organisms are related by measuring

2728-562: The "bird radical" ( 鳥 ) with a peng ( 朋 "friend") phonetic, and kun combines the "fish radical" ( 魚 ) with a kun ( 昆 "progeny; insect") phonetic. Both the mythic Chinese Peng and Kun names involve word play . Peng ( 鵬 ) was anciently a variant Chinese character for feng ( 鳳 ) in fenghuang (鳳凰 "Chinese phoenix" ca. 100 CE Shuowen Jiezi ); Kun 鯤 originally meant "fish roe ; fry ; spawn " (ca. 200 BCE Erya ). Synonyms of Peng include Dapeng (大鵬 "Big Peng", "Great Peng") and Dapengniao (大鵬鳥 "Great Peng Bird"). Dapeng

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2816-463: The 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier 's work on comparative anatomy , and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term has been used since 1822 formed from Greek παλαιός ( 'palaios' , "old, ancient"), ὄν ( 'on' , ( gen. 'ontos' ), "being, creature"), and λόγος ( 'logos' , "speech, thought, study"). Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology , but it differs from archaeology in that it excludes

2904-680: The Dapeng Peninsula Dapeng Fortress (大鹏城), in Dapeng Subdistrict Dapeng International Plaza , skyscraper of Guangzhou Dapeng, Xuzhou (大鹏所城), town in Tongshan District , guangdong shenzhen Dapeng LNG terminal Dong Chengpeng or Da Peng (born 1982), Chinese entertainer and filmmaker Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

2992-555: The Early Cambrian , along with several "weird wonders" that bear little obvious resemblance to any modern animals. There is a long-running debate about whether this Cambrian explosion was truly a very rapid period of evolutionary experimentation; alternative views are that modern-looking animals began evolving earlier but fossils of their precursors have not yet been found, or that the "weird wonders" are evolutionary "aunts" and "cousins" of modern groups. Vertebrates remained

3080-463: The Earth's organic and inorganic past". William Whewell (1794–1866) classified paleontology as one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology , geology, astronomy , cosmology , philology and history itself: paleontology aims to describe phenomena of the past and to reconstruct their causes. Hence it has three main elements: description of past phenomena; developing a general theory about

3168-495: The Peng is the image of the Daoist sage, and suggests the bird's flight does not result from the piling up of wind but from the deep piling up of de "virtue; power". In modern scholarship, some scholars reject Guo's "equality theory" construal. Lian differentiates contemporary interpretations between whether Zhuangzi was a radical skeptic and/or a relativist . The Peng bird can either be construed as an image of freedom, even

3256-412: The ability to reproduce. The earliest known animals are cnidarians from about 580  million years ago , but these are so modern-looking that they must be descendants of earlier animals. Early fossils of animals are rare because they had not developed mineralised , easily fossilized hard parts until about 548  million years ago . The earliest modern-looking bilaterian animals appear in

3344-515: The appearance of moderately complex animals (comparable to earthworms ). Geochemical observations may help to deduce the global level of biological activity at a certain period, or the affinity of certain fossils. For example, geochemical features of rocks may reveal when life first arose on Earth, and may provide evidence of the presence of eukaryotic cells, the type from which all multicellular organisms are built. Analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to explain major transitions such as

3432-625: The atmosphere increased their effectiveness as nurseries of evolution. While eukaryotes , cells with complex internal structures, may have been present earlier, their evolution speeded up when they acquired the ability to transform oxygen from a poison to a powerful source of metabolic energy. This innovation may have come from primitive eukaryotes capturing oxygen-powered bacteria as endosymbionts and transforming them into organelles called mitochondria . The earliest evidence of complex eukaryotes with organelles (such as mitochondria) dates from 1,850  million years ago . Multicellular life

3520-467: The boat too large. If wind is not piled up deep enough, it won't have the strength to bear up great wings. Therefore when the P'eng rises ninety thousand li , he must have the wind under him like that. Only then can he mount on the back of the wind, shoulder the blue sky, and nothing can hinder or block him. Only then can he set his eyes to the south. The cicada and the little dove laugh at this saying, "When we make an effort and fly up, we can get as far as

3608-415: The bodies of ancient organisms might have worked, for example the running speed and bite strength of Tyrannosaurus , or the flight mechanics of Microraptor . It is relatively commonplace to study the internal details of fossils using X-ray microtomography . Paleontology, biology, archaeology, and paleoneurobiology combine to study endocranial casts (endocasts) of species related to humans to clarify

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3696-401: The causes of various types of change; and applying those theories to specific facts. When trying to explain the past, paleontologists and other historical scientists often construct a set of one or more hypotheses about the causes and then look for a " smoking gun ", a piece of evidence that strongly accords with one hypothesis over any others. Sometimes researchers discover a "smoking gun" by

3784-763: The characteristics and evolution of humans as a species. When dealing with evidence about humans, archaeologists and paleontologists may work together – for example paleontologists might identify animal or plant fossils around an archaeological site , to discover the people who lived there, and what they ate; or they might analyze the climate at the time of habitation. In addition, paleontology often borrows techniques from other sciences, including biology, osteology , ecology, chemistry , physics and mathematics. For example, geochemical signatures from rocks may help to discover when life first arose on Earth, and analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to identify climate changes and even to explain major transitions such as

3872-520: The chronological order in which rocks were formed, is useful to both paleontologists and geologists. Biogeography studies the spatial distribution of organisms, and is also linked to geology, which explains how Earth's geography has changed over time. Although paleontology became established around 1800, earlier thinkers had noticed aspects of the fossil record. The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes (570–480 BCE) concluded from fossil sea shells that some areas of land were once under water. During

3960-439: The confines of their mundane experience." Scott Cook writes, "We are, at first, led by Zhuangzi almost imperceptibly into an unreflective infatuation with the bird." Lian concludes the Peng is "An inspiring example of soaring up and going beyond, the image is used to broaden the outlook of the small mind; its function is thus more therapeutic than instructional." Bryan W. Van Norden suggests, "The likely effect of this passage on

4048-445: The date when lineages first appeared. For instance, if fossils of B or C date to X million years ago and the calculated "family tree" says A was an ancestor of B and C, then A must have evolved more than X million years ago. It is also possible to estimate how long ago two living clades diverged – i.e. approximately how long ago their last common ancestor must have lived – by assuming that DNA mutations accumulate at

4136-594: The development of mammalian traits such as endothermy and hair. After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66  million years ago killed off all the dinosaurs except the birds, mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity, and some took to the air and the sea. Fossil evidence indicates that flowering plants appeared and rapidly diversified in the Early Cretaceous between 130  million years ago and 90  million years ago . Their rapid rise to dominance of terrestrial ecosystems

4224-561: The development of the body plans of most animal phyla . The discovery of fossils of the Ediacaran biota and developments in paleobiology extended knowledge about the history of life back far before the Cambrian. Increasing awareness of Gregor Mendel 's pioneering work in genetics led first to the development of population genetics and then in the mid-20th century to the modern evolutionary synthesis , which explains evolution as

4312-482: The different levels of deposits represented different time periods in the early 19th century. The surface-level deposits in the Americas contained later mammals like the megatheriid ground sloth Megatherium and the mammutid proboscidean Mammut (later known informally as a "mastodon"), which were some of the earliest-named fossil mammal genera with official taxonomic authorities. They today are known to date to

4400-575: The elm or the sapanwood tree, but sometimes we don't make it and just fall down on the ground. Now how is anyone going to go ninety thousand li to the south!" If you go off to the green woods nearby, you can take along food for three meals and come back with your stomach as full as ever. If you are going a hundred li , you must grind your grain the night before; and if you are going a thousand li you must start getting together provisions three months in advance. What do these two creatures understand? Little understanding cannot come up to great understanding;

4488-409: The end of the 20th century have been particularly important as they have provided new information about the earliest evolution of animals, early fish, dinosaurs and the evolution of birds. The last few decades of the 20th century saw a renewed interest in mass extinctions and their role in the evolution of life on Earth. There was also a renewed interest in the Cambrian explosion that apparently saw

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4576-413: The enormous bird." Angus Charles Graham sees the Peng as "soaring above the restricted viewpoints of the worldly." Allinson finds it "very clear and very explicit that the standpoint of the big bird and the standpoint of the cicada and the dove are not seen as possessing equal value." Karen Carr and Philip J. Ivanhoe find "positive ideals" in the Peng symbolizing the "mythical creature that rises above

4664-405: The epitome of the highest Daoist ideal, which supports the argument that Zhuangzi does privilege a perspective and hence is not a relativist in the rigid sense of the term; or it is taken for a creature that is no better or worse than the cicada and the little birds, which serves to illustrate the relativist view that all perspectives are equal." Julian Pas concurs that "the true sage is compared to

4752-410: The evolution of the human brain. Paleontology even contributes to astrobiology , the investigation of possible life on other planets , by developing models of how life may have arisen and by providing techniques for detecting evidence of life. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions. Vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils from the earliest fish to

4840-466: The evolutionary history of life back to over 3,000  million years ago , possibly as far as 3,800  million years ago . The oldest clear evidence of life on Earth dates to 3,000  million years ago , although there have been reports, often disputed, of fossil bacteria from 3,400  million years ago and of geochemical evidence for the presence of life 3,800  million years ago . Some scientists have proposed that life on Earth

4928-555: The exceptional events that cause quick burial make it difficult to study the normal environments of the animals. The sparseness of the fossil record means that organisms are expected to exist long before and after they are found in the fossil record – this is known as the Signor–Lipps effect . Trace fossils consist mainly of tracks and burrows, but also include coprolites (fossil feces ) and marks left by feeding. Trace fossils are particularly significant because they represent

5016-515: The focus of paleontology shifted to understanding evolutionary paths, including human evolution , and evolutionary theory. The last half of the 19th century saw a tremendous expansion in paleontological activity, especially in North America. The trend continued in the 20th century with additional regions of the Earth being opened to systematic fossil collection. Fossils found in China near

5104-449: The following: At the end of the 18th century Georges Cuvier 's work established comparative anatomy as a scientific discipline and, by proving that some fossil animals resembled no living ones, demonstrated that animals could become extinct , leading to the emergence of paleontology. The expanding knowledge of the fossil record also played an increasing role in the development of geology, particularly stratigraphy . Cuvier proved that

5192-580: The fossil record: different environments are more favorable to the preservation of different types of organism or parts of organisms. Further, only the parts of organisms that were already mineralised are usually preserved, such as the shells of molluscs. Since most animal species are soft-bodied, they decay before they can become fossilised. As a result, although there are 30-plus phyla of living animals, two-thirds have never been found as fossils. Occasionally, unusual environments may preserve soft tissues. These lagerstätten allow paleontologists to examine

5280-458: The great Tao and expressed his meaning with the P'eng bird and the quail. Because the P'eng bird's path through life is far reaching, it neglects [spiritual] satisfaction beyond the body. Because the quail is nearby, it laughs at what is distant and is pleased with itself in its heart. The Perfected Man [however] ascends heaven directly and joyfully wanders endlessly in freedom. The Chan Buddhist master Hanshan Deqing (憨山德清, 1546–1623) also declares

5368-687: The history and driving forces behind their evolution. Land plants were so successful that their detritus caused an ecological crisis in the Late Devonian , until the evolution of fungi that could digest dead wood. During the Permian period, synapsids , including the ancestors of mammals , may have dominated land environments, but this ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event 251  million years ago , which came very close to wiping out all complex life. The extinctions were apparently fairly sudden, at least among vertebrates. During

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5456-533: The history of Earth's climate and the mechanisms that have changed it  – which have sometimes included evolutionary developments, for example the rapid expansion of land plants in the Devonian period removed more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the greenhouse effect and thus helping to cause an ice age in the Carboniferous period. Biostratigraphy , the use of fossils to work out

5544-542: The immediate ancestors of modern mammals . Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils such as molluscs , arthropods , annelid worms and echinoderms . Paleobotany studies fossil plants , algae , and fungi. Palynology , the study of pollen and spores produced by land plants and protists , straddles paleontology and botany , as it deals with both living and fossil organisms. Micropaleontology deals with microscopic fossil organisms of all kinds. Instead of focusing on individual organisms, paleoecology examines

5632-434: The index fossils turn out to have longer fossil ranges than first thought. Stratigraphy and biostratigraphy can in general provide only relative dating ( A was before B ), which is often sufficient for studying evolution. However, this is difficult for some time periods, because of the problems involved in matching up rocks of the same age across different continents . Family-tree relationships may also help to narrow down

5720-538: The interactions between different ancient organisms, such as their food chains , and the two-way interactions with their environments.   For example, the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere and hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems . Together, these led to the evolution of complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built. Paleoclimatology , although sometimes treated as part of paleoecology, focuses more on

5808-463: The internal anatomy of animals that in other sediments are represented only by shells, spines, claws, etc. – if they are preserved at all. However, even lagerstätten present an incomplete picture of life at the time. The majority of organisms living at the time are probably not represented because lagerstätten are restricted to a narrow range of environments, e.g. where soft-bodied organisms can be preserved very quickly by events such as mudslides; and

5896-456: The investigation of evolutionary "family trees" by techniques derived from biochemistry , began to make an impact, particularly when it was proposed that the human lineage had diverged from apes much more recently than was generally thought at the time. Although this early study compared proteins from apes and humans, most molecular phylogenetics research is now based on comparisons of RNA and DNA . Fossils of organisms' bodies are usually

5984-409: The logic that, if groups B and C have more similarities to each other than either has to group A, then B and C are more closely related to each other than either is to A. Characters that are compared may be anatomical , such as the presence of a notochord , or molecular , by comparing sequences of DNA or proteins . The result of a successful analysis is a hierarchy of clades – groups that share

6072-474: The more mundane concerns of the word. Brian Lundberg says Zhuangzi uses the image to urge us to "go beyond restricted small points of views." Eric Schwitzgebel interprets, "Being small creatures, we cannot understand great things like the Peng (and the rest of the Zhuangzi ?)." Steve Coutinho describes the Peng as a "recluse who wanders beyond the realm of the recognizable", in contrast the tiny birds that "cannot begin to understand what lies so utterly beyond

6160-409: The most informative type of evidence. The most common types are wood, bones, and shells. Fossilisation is a rare event, and most fossils are destroyed by erosion or metamorphism before they can be observed. Hence the fossil record is very incomplete, increasingly so further back in time. Despite this, it is often adequate to illustrate the broader patterns of life's history. There are also biases in

6248-414: The outcome of events such as mutations and horizontal gene transfer , which provide genetic variation , with genetic drift and natural selection driving changes in this variation over time. Within the next few years the role and operation of DNA in genetic inheritance were discovered, leading to what is now known as the "Central Dogma" of molecular biology . In the 1960s molecular phylogenetics ,

6336-452: The principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave body fossils. Estimating the dates of these remains is essential but difficult: sometimes adjacent rock layers allow radiometric dating , which provides absolute dates that are accurate to within 0.5%, but more often paleontologists have to rely on relative dating by solving

6424-432: The radioactive element was incorporated into the rock. Radioactive elements are common only in rocks with a volcanic origin, and so the only fossil-bearing rocks that can be dated radiometrically are a few volcanic ash layers. Consequently, paleontologists must usually rely on stratigraphy to date fossils. Stratigraphy is the science of deciphering the "layer-cake" that is the sedimentary record, and has been compared to

6512-779: The reader is a combination of awe and disorientation." Zhuangzi's Peng bird became a famous literary metaphor . Two early examples were the Shen yi jing (神異經 "Classic of Divine Marvels") by Dongfang Shuo (154 BCE – 93 CE) and the Commentary on the Water Classic (水經注). In comparative mythology of giant creatures, Peng is similar to the Roc or Garuda and Kun to the Leviathan . Peng linguistically symbolizes "greatness; great promise; great accomplishments"; for instance,

6600-701: The same approach as historical scientists: construct a set of hypotheses about the causes and then look for a "smoking gun". Paleontology lies between biology and geology since it focuses on the record of past life, but its main source of evidence is fossils in rocks. For historical reasons, paleontology is part of the geology department at many universities: in the 19th and early 20th centuries, geology departments found fossil evidence important for dating rocks, while biology departments showed little interest. Paleontology also has some overlap with archaeology , which primarily works with objects made by humans and with human remains, while paleontologists are interested in

6688-457: The short-lived cannot come up to the long-lived. ... Among the questions of T'ang to Ch'i we find the same thing. In the bald and barren north, there is a dark sea, the Lake of Heaven. In it is a fish which is several thousand li across, and no one knows how long. His name is K'un. There is also a bird there, named P'eng, with a back like Mount T'ai and wings like clouds filling the sky. He beats

6776-478: The similarity of the DNA in their genomes . Molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition of "paleontology" is "the study of ancient life". The field seeks information about several aspects of past organisms: "their identity and origin, their environment and evolution, and what they can tell us about

6864-412: The sky looks very blue. Is that its real color, or is it because it is so far away and has no end? When the bird looks down, all he sees is blue too. If water is not piled up deep enough, it won't have the strength to bear up a big boat. Pour a cup of water into a hollow in the floor and bits of trash will sail on it like boats. But set the cup there and it will stick fast, for the water is too shallow and

6952-442: The sky. When the sea begins to move, this bird sets off for the southern darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven. The Universal Harmony records various wonders, and it says: "When the P'eng journeys to the southern darkness, the waters are roiled for three thousand li . He beats the whirlwind and rises ninety thousand li , setting off on the sixth month gale." Wavering heat, bits of dust, living things blowing each other about –

7040-470: The slow recovery from this catastrophe a previously obscure group, archosaurs , became the most abundant and diverse terrestrial vertebrates. One archosaur group, the dinosaurs, were the dominant land vertebrates for the rest of the Mesozoic , and birds evolved from one group of dinosaurs. During this time mammals' ancestors survived only as small, mainly nocturnal insectivores , which may have accelerated

7128-492: The standard Peng interpretation was the "equality theory" of Guo Xiang (d. 312 CE), who redacted and annotated the received Zhuangzi text. Guo's commentary said, The flight of the fabulous ( P'eng ) bird may take half a year and will not stop until it gets to the Celestial Lake. The flight of a small bird takes only half of the morning and stops at getting from tree to tree. So far as capacities are concerned, there

7216-631: The study of anatomically modern humans . It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry , mathematics , and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life , almost back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, nearly 4 billion years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates . Body fossils and trace fossils are

7304-629: The systematic study of fossils emerged as an integral part of the changes in natural philosophy that occurred during the Age of Reason . In the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci made various significant contributions to the field as well as depicted numerous fossils. Leonardo's contributions are central to the history of paleontology because he established a line of continuity between the two main branches of paleontology – ichnology and body fossil paleontology. He identified

7392-599: The title Dapeng . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dapeng&oldid=1044122860 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Peng (mythology) The Chinese logograms for peng and kun exemplify common radical-phonetic characters . Peng (鵬) combines

7480-402: The weeds and brambles. And that's the best kind of flying anyway! Where does he think he's going?" Such is the difference between big and little. Many Zhuangzi scholars have debated the Peng story. Lian Xinda calls it "arguably the most controversial image in the text, which has been inviting conflicting interpretations for the past seventeen centuries." In traditional Chinese scholarship,

7568-407: The whirlwind, leaps into the air, and rises up ninety thousand li , cutting through the clouds and mist, shouldering the blue sky, and then he turns his eyes south and prepares to journey to the southern darkness. The little quail laughs at him, saying, "Where does he think he's going? I give a great leap and fly up, but I never get more than ten or twelve yards before I come down fluttering among

7656-406: The word "palaeontology" to refer to the study of ancient living organisms through fossils. As knowledge of life's history continued to improve, it became increasingly obvious that there had been some kind of successive order to the development of life. This encouraged early evolutionary theories on the transmutation of species . After Charles Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, much of

7744-454: Was "seeded" from elsewhere , but most research concentrates on various explanations of how life could have arisen independently on Earth. For about 2,000 million years microbial mats , multi-layered colonies of different bacteria, were the dominant life on Earth. The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis enabled them to play the major role in the oxygenation of the atmosphere from about 2,400  million years ago . This change in

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