DINOSAURS AND THE HISTORY OF LIFE

 GEOLOGY V1001y

 PRACTICE FINAL EXAM - ANSWERS

Answers are in red

I. TRUE - FALSE: CIRCLE TRUE OR FALSE TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

 1. Dinosaurs did not have to regulate their body temperature because they were all very large.

True - False
2. In endothermy the main method of thermoregulation is behavioral.
True - False
3. The diplodocid sauropods include Apatosaurus .
True - False
4. The Carnosauria includes birds.
True - False
5. Dinosaurs have high predator/prey ratios
True - False

II. MULTIPLE CHOICE: Circle the BEST choice.

 1. The air sac system in birds function mostly as:

a) as accessory lungs to remove more oxygen.

 b) protection against the cold.

 c) evaporative cooling devices.

 d) passageways allowing a one-way direction of air

2. The Maniraptora include:
a) Deinonychus, birds, and Velociraptor

 b) Plateosaurus, Oviraptor, and Archaeopteryx

 c) Ornitholestes, Allosaurus, and Struthiomimus

 d) Velociraptor, Coelophysis, and Dilophosaurus

3. The semilunate carpal is:
a) a phase of the moon

 b) a bone in the hand producing a rocking, bird-like motion of the wrist

 c) a bone in the hand which evolved in birds to permit flight

 d) one half of the wishbone

4. Archaeopteryx is of:
a) Late Triassic age

 b) Early Jurassic age

 c) Late Jurassic age

 e) Early Cretaceous age

5. Iridium is:
a) a radioactive element useful in dating Cretaceous rocks

 b) an element indicative of a supernova at the end of the Cretaceous

 c) an element found in a clay layer at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary

 d) an element diagnostic of asteroid impacts


III. SHORT ANSWER: Give a one to three sentence answer.

 1. How can we tell that sauropods did not walk with a sprawling gait and posture?

2. Why do big animals lose heat slower than small animals? 3. What are Haversian canals and what do they do? 4. Archaeopteryx is a tetanurine. Why? 5. Name three western North American, Late Cretaceous herbivorous genera and one carnivorous genus of dinosaur that may have eaten them.

IV. SHORT ESSAY: PREPARE A SHORT ESSAY (2 TO 3 PARAGRAPHS) ON ONE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: WRITE YOUR ANSWERS IN FULL SENTENCES IN THE SPACE PROVIDED BELOW.

1. What is the evidence and what are the arguments that dinosaurs were warm blooded and controlled their body temperature by internal means (i.e. were endothermic homeotherms)? Be as specific as possible.


V. DINOSAURIAN RELATIONSHIPS: Fill out the following cladogram with the characters and taxa listed below, placing the number of each character next to the bar in the cladogram which defines the groups and write the names of the groups on the dashed lines.
 
 

Practice Cladogram


VI. DINOSAURIAN ANATOMY AND IDENTIFICATION: There will be a skeleton for you to label the bones of as in the last exam. However, you will also have to classify it. For example, identify the skeleton as a tyrannosaurid - coelurosaur - theropod (all of them!, based on the characters you observe on the drawing. 
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