Fossils B/C

[axolotl]

On the same note, anyone have good sources for graptoloidea/dendroidea? They've been showing up more frequently as the season progresses but we only have the most basic info for them and can't really find much else online.

What's the correct time range for favosites? Some tests say Upper Ordo-Mid Devonian but Wikipedia says Upper Ordo-Late Permian, which are two very different time ranges lol.

Any info on Worthenia's diet would also be helpful. Thanks in advance!

[twig]

On the same note, anyone have good sources for graptoloidea/dendroidea? They've been showing up more frequently as the season progresses but we only have the most basic info for them and can't really find much else online.

What's the correct time range for favosites? Some tests say Upper Ordo-Mid Devonian but Wikipedia says Upper Ordo-Late Permian, which are two very different time ranges lol.

Any info on Worthenia's diet would also be helpful. Thanks in advance!

I believe I used like one main website for all this information for Dendroidea/Graptoloidea
Here's the link : https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeolog ... olite.html, Wikipedia, I think I visited this once on my other computer cause my regular chromebook was lagging so hard https://www.earthsciences.hku.hk/shmuse ... 5_01_8.php
I was just hopping around website until I found one with good info

For Favosites, I believe that it's Ordo-Late Permian, cause that's what it says in our binder. If most websites say Ordo-Devonian, then write that down in your time period, and then write the time range that was found on Wikipedia. Devonian doesn't sound too right either.

Little to no info about Worthenia's diet, but I assumed (while my partner and I were building our binder over winter break), that since it was a snail, it would eat the stuff that snail's would eat, so that's what I put. I doubt that the diet of Worthenia would really matter on tests, but always be prepared. You never know. Last year, at regionals, the test was so bad that it asked us to draw the anatomy of a hydnoceras smh. When I forgot my pencil case at station 12, I looked to my left to see that the team that was at that station had absolutely NOTHING written on their paper and ran back to our station. The only section that I was confident in was the plant section because our coach prepared us really well for that. I was going to start crying after because I thought we did so bad. Apparently, we medaled 4th in fossils, and I was literally going to cry this time, tears of happiness lol

Hope this helps!
Trust me. It WILL WORK OUR STRATEGY HAS BEEN WORKING. YES I HAVE BEEN MEDALING THIS YEAR IN FOSSILS (TWICE AND BEAT THE TOP TEAMS, we could've beaten them at JT, yes, I'm still salty) AND I'M VERY GOOD AT FOSSILS, THIS IS MY SECOND YEAR TAKING IT

The only thing that I struggle at for fossils is absolute dating, but now I know how to do it, and cladograms, dendrograms, etc. all that evolutionary practices are annoying, and it's going to be in our binder soon. I also suck at IDing Maiasaura, idk why though, it's really easy to ID...
I think it's because I was brain deaddddddd otherwise we would've placed relatively higher ;-;

[twig]

Also, I'm making a fossils test for my fossils partner bc he sucks at it, then I'm going to post it on here
It's going to be REALLY HARD
you're welcome

- The DMS fossils team

[twig]

Does anyone have any tips on how to better teeth ID? We always seem to struggle with them on tests and I wanted to know if anyone has any tips on how I could identify them with more accuracy

Thanks!

I also suck at teeth ID as well, but i'm actually not too bad at it. I mean, I accidentally confused Human teeth with horse teeth because i don't think I was thinking straight at comp and partner did not correct me, but now that I look at the test a second time, it looks more like the stuff that I know, human teeth

Which teeth are you referring to?
If it's Otodus and Carcharocles, then look for medium-small "ears", carcharocles don't have these at all, but if they do, they'll probably really small poking out of the root of the tooth
If it's a Basilosaurus, it has multiple "ears"
If it's a fish-tetrapod creature (acanthostega), it has relatively small teeth, but there are many, and the bigger teeth tend to be at the front of the mouth
If it's a Eryops, then the tooth will be really interesting, they are medium sized, and are sometimes curved a little, just search it up
Crocodile teeth can be as long as Eryops, but many are short and stubby, and the teeth are smoother
Ichthyosaur teeth are hard to describe, but I can tell the difference between these teeth and other animals teeth
Mosasaur, you probably know this, but they are usually brown and have a large width, having like a white-ish root
Pliosaurs, teeth are more defined in their ridges than ichthyosaurs, white-ish root thing (I usually see these a lot on tests)
Plesiosaurs, teeth are less defined than pliosaurs, pretty smooth, reminds me of skinny mosasaur teeth
Pterosaurs/Pterodactyl: yikes, it's so similar to pliosaur/plesiosaur teeth and has less ridges, often being black or brown, the weird thing is that some of the pterosaur teeth that I've seen have a heart shaped top of the tooth (you'll see when you search it up), it's relatively smooth on the tip of the tooth and has ridges closer to the base of the tooth
Allosaurus: black teeth, has a couple of ridges, white crevasses, not too curved inward, kinda remind me of their claws
Coelophysis: white/brown, small teeth, but could grow up to half inch, REALLY smooth, back of tooth has like "striations",some of the remind me of fingernails
Dilophosaurus: black, can be found in a group, skinnier than allosaurus teeth and elongated
Spinosaurus: Never seen one on a test, but they are golden-brown, I would even say this, that it's a combination of a pliosaur tooth and allosaurus teeth
Tyrannosaurus: Well... for a giant carnivore, what can you expect from Tyrannosaurus, apparently they might have had serrated teeth? It's kinda hard to describe this one. But, its Tyrannosaurus, what can you say? Kinda similar to Carcharodontosaurus though
Velociraptor: serrated teeth, small, brown, idk if they'll test this, but they test the claws
Brachiosaurus: well, it at ginkgos, so it did not have serrated edges, instead having chisel-shaped, i looked at pictures, and most of them are black and to me, they resemble black ovals
Diplodocus: ouch this is conflicting, I doubt it had long teeth, so I would say that it is pretty similar to brachiosaurus, and are longer I would say, and less circular
Patagotitan: similar to brachiosaurus, except they are kinda long and brown, you can see the teeth if you have a picture of patagotitan in your binder


Dimetrodon: kinda tear-drop shaped, serrated

Humans : you should know already, you probably look at your teeth everyday
Equus: look at the top of the tooth, where it has like four square things and odd designs
Mesohippus: also look at the top of the teeth, consistent designs
Smilodon: two big teeth that were maybe used for slicing
Mammut vs Mammuthus, easy, you probably know this already, but here's the difference
Mammuthus: a solid tooth, with crevices/striations along the side
Mammut: many little teeth grouped together as a whole
Brontothere/Megacerops/Rhinoceros like thing : a really smooth top, the teeth are like v-shaped from the side view, top is black, the root? is white, and there is some white stuff on their teeth that I have no clue what it is, I think it's the enamel?


Sorry! I was rushing! It's hard to describe teeth. I am not a professional dentist
If you want to make more accuracy, just add an index for teeth in your binder... It's really hard to get them down
also try to predict what you think your proctor will think so then you know what to study, hahaaaa I did that two weeks before comp, and what I predicted was correct for Meteo (predicted a Skew-T, and my goodness it was on there, and I was so angry) and Fossils (predicted anatomy (it kinda turned out that the proctor kinda liked putting questions about Anatomy), cladistics)
Fossils predictions: always think anatomy, ancient climates, extinctions, also try thinking about bio, cause I believe that's more common on Div C than Div B
ALso, my friend who is in ornithology took an ornithology test yesterday, then asked me today "what is a lagerstatten?" she said that both she and her partner were super confused lol She then showed me the test question "Identify the two subspecies of this bird and what lagerstatten would this bird be found at" and i said "La Brea Tar pits, a lagerstatten is a place with extreme preservation and variety" Do you ever think that they'll ask any questions like that for Ornithology Division B? It's really strange how test creators like to mash up events into each other. I saw an anatomy question on a crime busters test and my old DP partner said that there was an oceanography diagram on one of the WQ tests...

[ChimpLopez]

ALso, my friend who is in ornithology took an ornithology test yesterday, then asked me today "what is a lagerstatten?" she said that both she and her partner were super confused lol She then showed me the test question "Identify the two subspecies of this bird and what lagerstatten would this bird be found at" and i said "La Brea Tar pits, a lagerstatten is a place with extreme preservation and variety" Do you ever think that they'll ask any questions like that for Ornithology Division B? It's really strange how test creators like to mash up events into each other. I saw an anatomy question on a crime busters test and my old DP partner said that there was an oceanography diagram on one of the WQ tests...

First off, thanks so much for helping with the teeth ID! I'll be sure to look for those features next time I'm studying teeth. Regarding that question, I've definitely seen Fossils-like questions in Ornithology. For example, the Princeton test for Orni had almost an entire station dedicated to connecting archaeopteryx and modern birds.

[AkshayB]

Recently at my regionals I encountered a station with a cladogram in it. What do you have to know regarding cladograms? Do we need pictures of common ones in our binder or do we just need to know how they worked.

Thanks in advance,
Akshay.

[twig]

Based on my experience from cladograms, (and bombing the section)
I would say that you would need to know how to read them and identify the evolutionary relationships on there, and you should also know the "anatomy" of it
For example, the branching point of the cladogram is called _________
You probably need to know what a node is, and where the ancestors share the most common ancestor
You also probably need to know other diagrams as well, I believe that they stuck a spindle diagram on our test

Hope this helps!

[twig]

Just a general question...
What event do you think I should prioritize?
Neither of my partners are helping me on all three of my events, and I'm behind on Fossils, kinda behind on Meteo, and very behind in DP
1 week till regionals... This is scary, AND I have to write tests for Crime Busters and Fossils

[ChimpLopez]

Just a general question...
What event do you think I should prioritize?
Neither of my partners are helping me on all three of my events, and I'm behind on Fossils, kinda behind on Meteo, and very behind in DP
1 week till regionals... This is scary, AND I have to write tests for Crime Busters and Fossils

If I were you, I would def prioritize whatever event that I feel the most behind on. The last thing you want to do is bomb an event at regionals because you didn't prepare enough. But either way, it shouldn't just be you preparing for them. You gotta coordinate with your partners and have them help out as much as possible. Especially this close to regionals

[twig]

For some reason, I know that my Meteorology partner is sick, and I don't have a way of communicating with her...AND she hasn't been updating the cheat sheet
My partner for Fossils and DP just told me to work on the binder... and he told me his schedule this week and next week, and said that he needs to catch up on this first (which I don't think is going to happen) and then prioritize Anatomy.

It's literally been like this for the last couple of competitions, and both of them are prioritizing their other events rather on the ones that they are behind on (which are the ones with me). It's not only me who this is happening to, but it's also happening to another member of our team. I talked to him yesterday and asked him "Are you behind on your studying?" He responded with "What do you want?" then said that his partner only made one edit to their WQ cheat sheet and walked away.

I'm also going to talk to both of them tomorrow when we have practice. That's why I'm kinda confident that I'll do terrible at regionals, well, maybe not in Fossils... we've always beaten our main "rivals" at Fossils, and we are in between for Meteorology and DP, but I know that we can beat them in Meteo, DP, I'm literally not even sure of anymore.

Edit: I talked to my partners and head coach yesterday. My partner for Meteorology is still sick, and I don't know what to do. My Fossils/DP partner talked to me yesterday and said that he needed to prioritize anatomy because they got a lower ranking than we did in DP. (They got 13th in AP (the two people with the same name on the team), we got 12th in DP). I was so ANgRY and I didn't want to say this to him, but I was going to say "Really?! Just because you placed only one rank below us in Anatomy doesn't mean that you need to study for it more than you are studying for DP and Fossils. Your mom is the coach of Anatomy and she can help you any time. But, you can't just abandon me. You're in a worse situation in DP than you are in Anatomy, yet you still choose Anatomy over DP. You don't know how much stress you and [insert Meteo partner's name] have caused me. I literally have tried to study so hard, and get to know that neither of my partners has been studying." Also, my coaches tell me that I'll do fine at regionals, and I'm doubting their words now.
Yeah, I get really angry easily. I got angry at my partner because he said that I put both of our names on the same line at Jeffrey Trail, then said: "does it really matter?" I'm also still angry at myself for forgetting that test writers like to throw so many pictures of sectioned crinoid stems.