Paleontology Glossary

essential terms and definitions for paleontology and dinosaur science.

Modern Paleontology

15 terms

Terms related to cutting-edge techniques and concepts in contemporary paleontological research.

Creating precise three-dimensional digital models of fossils from photographs taken at multiple angles. Photogrammetry enables …

Genetic material recovered from fossil or sub-fossil specimens. Ancient DNA degrades rapidly at ambient temperatures; …

A statistical approach to phylogenetic inference that incorporates prior probabilities and produces probability distributions over …

A method of classification that groups organisms based on shared derived characters. Cladistic analysis of …

The survival of original protein fragments in fossilized bone. Collagen sequences have been recovered from …

The clade comprising the living members of a group, their last common ancestor, and all …

A virtual model of the brain and inner ear made from CT scans of the …

A computational engineering method applied to fossil bones to model how forces were distributed during …

A lineage inferred to have existed from phylogenetic evidence but lacking fossil documentation. Ghost lineages …

A technique using ultraviolet or violet lasers to reveal soft-tissue outlines and feather impressions in …

A taxon that appears in the fossil record, disappears for a significant interval, then reappears. …

Reconstructing evolutionary trees using molecular sequence data rather than or in addition to morphology. Applied …

The principle of preferring the evolutionary tree that requires the fewest evolutionary changes to explain …

All fossil relatives of a living group that fall outside the crown group. Non-avian dinosaurs …

High-energy X-ray imaging at particle accelerator facilities that reveals microscopic structures inside fossils non-destructively. Synchrotron …