BIOL 3215

Students will investigate animal diversity with an emphasis on the evolutionary relationships and unifying characteristics within and among extant animal taxa. Students will survey major invertebrate and vertebrate taxa in the context of ecological niche diversity, functional morphology, and comparative anatomy, by classroom lectures, observation of live specimens, and dissection. Students will further explore animal diversity and unifying characters among animal taxa by learning about fossil evidence from the Cambrian explosion, Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction and other major events in animal evolution.