This chapter will introduce you to the structure and diversity of various vertebrates.

This chapter will introduce you to various early vertebrates and fish. In particular, it covers some jawless forms, acanthodians, placoderms, sharks and rays, and several ray-finned fish. It is not essential that you look at the specimens in any particular order.

This chapter examines the lobe-finned fish and some early tetrapods.

This chapter allows you to take a second look at some of the early tetrapods (temnospondyls, baphetids, nectrideans etc.), and introduces you to the modern amphibians and some amniotes. The chapter includes some extant material, especially frogs, salamanders and turtles.

This chapter will look at lepidosaurs and Chelonians. When you look at the various specimens, focus on the femestration of the skulls, and their kinetic joints [if present].

This chapter will look at archosaurs. As you look at the various specimens, focus on the fenestration of the skull.

This chapter will look at the anatomy of birds, especially with regard to the structure of their skulls and locomotor systems. Some non-birds are also included for revision and comparison.

This resource is designed to familiarise you with the structure, diversity and evolutionary history of vertebrates through analysing images of specimens held at UCL’s Grant Museum of Zoology. It contains seven chapters: an introduction to vertebrate diversity, Fishes, the fish-tetrapod transition, Amphibians and Amniotes, Lepidosaurs and Chelonians, Archosaurs, and Birds and flight. All images have accompanying text, including information about the specimen plus hints about what to look for and the questions to consider when analysing the images. Please note that this resource does not look at mammals in detail – instead, this fascinating group are given a more thorough treatment in another Object Based Learning for Higher Education (OBL4HE) resource entitled ‘Vertebrate Diversity’ and the Virtual Educational Resource for the Biosciences (VERB) resource ‘Eutherians’. • Verb Diversity: https://open-education-repository.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/204. • Eutherians (VERB): https://open-education-repository.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/210. Scalebars are provided throughout (except for models). Please note that there are two different scale bars used, one with 1cm divisions and one with 0.5cm divisions. Multiple images of specimens are provided to try to illustrate the various anatomical features. However, please note that the limitations of photography (especially for specimens in cases or bottles) means that some distortion may occur or parts may be concealed or generally hard to determine. To download this resource in its entirety, see the resource's collection page: https://open-education-repository.ucl.ac.uk/195/. Disclaimer: 'Vertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution' was originally designed by UCL staff as an internal teaching resource. The subsequent release of 'Vertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution' as an OER means that any changes to the product received relative to the original content may not reflect the desires of UCL teaching staff, or the original quality of the resource. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International Licence: 'Vertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution' has been released as an open educational resource (OER) on a Creative Commons 'Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike' license. This means that once downloaded, content can be modified and improved to complement a particular course. This requires, however, that improvements are recycled back into the OER community, and full attribution is made to UCL. All content present at the time of download must be accordingly credited and, in turn, novel content must be appropriately licensed. For more information, please refer to the license deed by visiting: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.