2000

We added many new exhibits to our site in 2000, especially on fossil organisms and the localities where those fossils have been found. The biggest change, however, was the redesign of our front pages with style!

• December 18: New! Improved! Don't miss Introduction to the Ophiuroidea, a group of echinoderms that includes the brittle stars and basket stars.
• December 5: Some might say that our newest Mystery Fossil looks like a fuzzy lollipop. What do you think?

• November 23: The first pages in a new full exhibit on the world's first seed plants have sprouted. Learn about the ecology and evolution of the plants that would come to dominate the land.
• November 17: Former UCMP postdoc Ryosuke Motani has updated his pages on ichthyosaurs. These pages are a great source for all sorts of information on the paleobiology of these amazing aquatic reptiles.

• October 16: Browse the October, 2000 edition of the UCMP News to read about summer field research and other UCMP happenings.
• October 6: Dive into the bizarre world of dangerous box jellies and iridescent comb jellies, whose pages have undergone renovation.
• October 6: Thanks to the good folks at Google for a wonderful new site search feature. Go to the home page and try it!
• October 3: Match wits with Mystery Fossil #3 to discover an amazing little group of organisms.

• September 4: Some of the strangest mammals alives today are the xenarthrans.

• August 26: Mayflies don't live very long, but their new page on our server will allow you to enjoy them even after they're gone.
• August 16: Rats! We've added more information about the rodents, the largest single group of mammals alive today.
• August 15: The Radiolaria may be tiny, but their exhibit here isn't so little anymore. We've added four additional pages of information and lots of pictures.
• August 14: The Bodjong Formation of Indonesia is our first exhibit on a Pliocene-age locality, and is our first page about a mollusc fossil site. Read about marine life that coexisted with Java Man.
• August 1: Our first page on molluscs is now up. Somehow the scaphopods burrowed their way onto our server.

• July 25: Some of the largest and most fearsome animals of the Devonian were the placoderms, a group of armored fish who were the original "jaws"!
• July 24: The rich fossil flora from the Creede Formation includes finely preserved pine, fir, gooseberry, and a variety of other plants.
• July 23: Our biography of Sir Richard Owen is now revised and ready to read. Find out about the dead elephant he kept in the basement.
• July 22: Utah's House Range has yielded numerous Cambrian fossils.
• July 21: The 17th century natural scientist Nicholas Steno developed the basic principles of stratigraphy on which the modern sciences of geology and paleontology depend.
• July 20: We've overhauled our home page and many of our top-level pages.
• July 16: We've revised our phylogeny of the Uniramia, and have added a small page on the Thysanura.
• July 15: Cambrian shales in the Marble Mountains contain numerous trilobites and fossils on hyoliths and oncolites.
• July 14: Dinosaur trackways have been found at Clayton Lake in northeastern New Mexico.
• July 12: Our bioraphy of Linnaeus has been revised a bit.
• July 7: The Oligocene exhibit has been expanded to a new larger format, and soon will include fossils locality pages.
• July 6: We've added a page on fossil Anthozoa: you can now read the story of ancient corals.

• June 10: The leadworts are a small group of caryophyllids common in saline soils that have been around since at least the Miocene.
• June 9: The caryophyllid exhibit now has a page on caryophyllid systematics.
• June 8: We've begun a new exhibit on the Caryophyllids with an introduction and page about their fossil record. The caryophyllids are an important group of flowering plants that includes the cacti and most carnivorous plants.
• June 7: The aetosaurs don't usually get as much attention as dinosaurs, but they were a group of plant-eating reptiles that lived alongside the earliest dinos.
• June 6: Some space on our server has been made for Placozoa, a group of extraordinary animals.
• June 4: We've added a picture of Kinwowia to our page on the Winnipeg algal flora.
• June 3: Our Geology wing now has a page on Pliocene tectonics.
• June 2: Our Miocene exhibit now has a page on Miocene tectonics.
• June 1: We're starting big this month with the beginnings of our long-anticipated exhibit on the Burgess Shale, perhaps the most famous fossil locality in the world. Watch for additions to come soon.

• May 31: The UCMP Topical Index is now fully functional, has a new look, and includes additional sublistings.
• May 30: We've added a small page on the Sarcopterygii, the lobe-finned fish.
• May 29: The lungfish are a very important group for understanding the origin of terrestrial vertebrates.
• May 28: We've added information about Triassic tectonics.
• May 27: We've added a little page on some little plants, the lantern mosses.
• May 26: Learn about Cambrian Tectonics, and the breakup of the supercontinent that existed 250 million years before Pangea.
• May 25: We've updated our cladogram of animal relationships.
• May 24: Another invertebrate phylogeny modification: Lophotrochozoa, a recently recognized grouping that includes molluscs, brachiopods, and annelids.
• May 23: We're reorganizing our Evolution Wing, and have separated out new pages to contain information on evolutionary theory and evolutionary thought.
• May 22: More worm updates, this time in small improvements to our pages on the Pogonophora and Echiura.
• May 21: We've added new text and pretty pictures of marine flatworms to our exhibit on the Platyhelminthes.
• May 20: If you've never heard of the Ecdysozoa, don't feel too bad. It's a newly recognized group that you can now read about on our server.
• May 19: Some of the most bizarre animals are the ones that are microscopic. That includes the rotifers, an exhibit that just screams "Happy Birthday, Dirk!"
• May 18: Another synapsid group, the Gorgonopsia, have also been added to our server.
• May 17: With all those nasty, sharp, pointy teeth the pelycosaurs were the ancestors of bunnies and other synapsids. To accomodate their new exhibit, we have also made some changes to our page on synapsid systematics.
• May 16: Upcoming Events at UCMP will no longer be listed on this page. Our new listings will include events from local talks to national meetings.
• May 15: Cretaceous Tectonics have been added to our pages on that period.
• May 14: Learn about the Florissant Formation, an Eocene locality with fossil bugs and fossil forests.
• May 13: Chances are you've never heard of the Cephalorhyncha, but there are fossils of this group from as early as the Cambrian.
• May 12: We've added a small page on tectonics and paleoclimate to our Devonian exhibit.
• May 11: That vigorous thrashing may be thousands of tiny nematodes rejoicing in the fact that they now have a whole page of their own.
• May 10: Give it up for the deuterostomes, the first of a series of new exhibits we'll be unveiling over the next few weeks.

• April 20: The e-volution forum for teachers grew (or should we say "evolved"?) from a March short course titled "Tracking the Course of Evolution." If you teach evolution in the classroom, come take a look!

• March 8: The Campanulaceae include nearly 2000 species of bellflowers and lobelias today. When did the group first evolve? Visit our new exhibit to find out.
• March 5: We've updated our list of phylogenetics related meetings. If you're interested in resconstructing evolutionary relationships, you'll want to check these out!
• March 1: Our fern exhibit has received some additional images, including a stratigraphic chart showing the ranges of known fossil ferns.

• February 28: We've added a page about Life in the Ordovician to our exhibit on that time period. This was an exciting time in the history of life, with some of the first fossils of vertebrates and land plants.
• February 14: Our little exhibit on the fossils of Mazon Creek, Illinois, is not so little anymore. Watch for additional fossil photos to come in the next few weeks.

• January 28: Each of our pages on hexactinellid sponges got some improving after we learned that some recent hexactinellid sponges form deep water reefs.
• January 20: Our exihibit on those amazing Peanut Worms of the phylum Sipuncula has been refreshed and updated.

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