1997

1997 saw the rebirth of our Geology Wing, the creation of 29 new exhibits for the Phylogeny Wing, and the addition of many exciting educational materials.

• December 16: DINOSAURS! We are proud to announce a greatly expanded and enriched introduction to some of the most popular animals ever to have lived. The dinosaur exhibit now features new pictures, added coverage of dino-ecology, and a cladogram of major groups.
• December 14: We have a modest new page on the Marginocephalia, a group of dinosaurs with horns and frills.

• November 26: We have a modest new page on the Ornithopoda, a group of herbivorous dinosaurs.
• November 18: The discovery of Eoraptor provided valuable information about early dinosaurs.
• November 16: Another early archosaur, Herrerasaurus, has found a home among our exhibits.
• November 14: At long last, we have revised the page on archosaur systematics, and have drawn a spiffy new cladogram to boot!
• November 12: The Triassic diapsid reptile Euparkeria has its own page on our server. This critter is important in understanding the origin of both dinosaurs and crocodilians.
• November 10: Integrative Paleontology and the Future. This professional meeting sponsored by UCMP will be held from February 27 to March 1, 1998.

• October 26: We've put all our dinosaur links in one basket!
• October 25: Education has a new look! Check it out.
• October 15: A new educational feature on our site is the Tour Through Time. This is is first in a series of thematic tours for use in schools.
• October 4: We have added significant new information to our page on monotremes.

• September 15: Information on the short course Biodiversity — Past and Present is now available. This one day series of lectures and discussion will be held on November 22nd. Follow the link to find out how to sign up.
• September 14: Our first exhibit on dicot flowering plants is now up. Read about the Aristolochiales, a group with bizarre flowers and unusual relationships with insects.
• September 4: Check out our new exhibit on Plate tectonics. You will find a brief history of the people and discoveries that have led to our current understanding of our planet. You will also find many animated reconstructions of our planet's past.
• September 1: Southern California's Nopah Range preserves many fossils of Proterozoic stromatolites.

• July 24: The Protolepidodendrales are the first addition to our exhibit on lycophytes in some time. Enjoy!
• July 21: An exhibit on the Monterey Formation is the first new marine fossil locality on our server since the Cambrian. The exhibit showcases each of the four major areas of our collections.
• July 17: Our Miocene exhibit has been expanded to several pages of new information.
• July 14: We have made a number of significant revisions to the Plants exhibit, including the creation of a preliminary page on ferns.
• July 11: Anne Weil has prepared a draft exhibit on multituberculates, an extinct group of mammals. We took this opportunity to slightly revise the introduction to our Hall of Mammals.
• July 9: Heard of elephants?
• July 6: At long last, we have expanded the Navigational Guide to the UCMP exhibits with a new page explaining how to navigate the Geology Wing.
• July 2: We have been making more revisions to our Subway, including the addition of a Paleontology node to organize those resources. We will be continuing work on this over the next few weeks.

• June 29: The only fish without a backbone are the hagfish, a group which does not seem to have changed much at all in 300 million years.
• June 12: A gallery of fossil images has been added to our Blue Nile exhibit. Take a look at fossil lungfish teeth, crocodile bones, and the first dinosaur bones to be found in Ethiopia.
• June 3: Lampreys are the newest exhibit on our server, adding to our long-neglected fish pages.
• June 1: We've just come back on line after a major glitch knocked us off the Internet for the better part of the past week. We apologize to anyone who couldn't get through during that time.

• May 17: We are proud to announce the opening of a new virtual fossil locality in our section on the Mesozoic, the Blue Nile Gorge in Ethiopia. Our own Mark Goodwin and Bill Clemens have been working to collect vertebrates at this site.
• May 12: The exhibit on the ray-finned fishes has been expanded and overhauled. Learn about the fossil record and evolution of cod, herring, salmon, flounder, and other tasty and nutritious fish.
• May 5: An exciting new exhibit on lichens is now available. Learn about the intimate partnership between two vastly different organisms that makes them possible.

• April 18: Glossopterids are a group of seed-bearing trees and shrubs that dominated the flora of the southern continents throughout the Permian and into the Triassic.
• April 12: Though at first appearance the pandanes and cyclanths might look like palms, they are actually a separate group of monocots.
• April 9: We have finally produced a fuller exhibit on the seed plants, with pages on the fossil record, morphology, and a cladogram.

• March 27: Sirenians are a small group of aquatic mammals with a long history.
• March 17: New information, links, and images may be found on the refurbished Hymenoptera page. Learn about bees, ants, and wasps.
• March 16: UCMP is more than fossils! We have added some general information about UCMP's archival and library collections, including a sampling of images from the archives.
• March 14: New stratigraphy charts have been added to our pages on the Cenozoic Epochs.
• March 10: More restructuring, this time on our Proterozoic exhibit, which we have broken into pages to match the format of the other exhibits on geologic eras. Also look for the spiffy new graphics and links to other sites.
• March 9: The addition of a new Archaean exhibit, completes our coverage of the eras of geologic time.
• March 8: More revisions have been made to the overall format of our Geology Wing. Old stratigraphic images have been redone, and some new icons have been added to aid in navigation. The changes will be most noticeable in the pages on the various Eras.
• March 7: Our Cenozoic exhibit has been extensively revised and restructured to make it easier to handle.
• March 5: More pictures and information on those red algae, with enhancements to speed delivery to your screen!
• March 3: A modest page on our Molecular Phylogenetics Lab has been added to our on-line list of research facilities.

• February 26: Our first new mammal exhibit in almost a year is now open for public viewing. Read about the enigmatic Desmostylia, a group of extinct marine mammals related to the elephants.
• February 20: Searches of our vertebrate catalogs from the mammal pages have been fixed.
• February 16: Additions and revisions have been made to our various monocot pages. Take a look at the new Asparagales collage.
• February 14: The slime molds have additional links, information, and pictures.
• February 12: Our unique pages on the Vendian have been cleaned up and expanded a bit.

• January 25: Since the popular Age of Dinosaurs course is offered in the Integrative Biology Department this semester, it seemed reasonable to begin updating and overhauling our pages on dinosaurs. There is also a new page, Dinosaurs in Cyberspace: Dinolinks, with a comprehensive list of links to dinosaur sites on the WWW.
• January 20: Over the weekend of March 22, UCMP will host the 1997 California Paleontology Conference. More information, as well as on-line submission of abstracts, is now available.
• January 19: Our UCMP Special Exhibits listing has been refurbished. Peruse some of the best our server has to offer!
• January 18: Join UCMP scientists on a journey to the winter coast of Russia in our newly revised exhibit.
• January 17: We have now redesigned the navigation buttons in our Geology Wing.
• January 16: Sea pens are soft corals with a feather-like appearance.
• January 13: We have redesigned the navigation buttons in our Phylogeny Wing.
• January 12: Close to the ancestry of the vertebrates, and including some of the most common Paleozoic fossils, the hemichordates now grace our server with their presence.
• January 11: A new and expanded exhibit on bony fish makes its appearance on our server.
• January 10: We are adding a new Topical Index. It's not completed, but it is working; Try it out!
• January 9: A new overview of UCMP's growing number of educational resources for all levels is now available as an option from the home page.
• January 8: We continue to fulfill our New Year's Resolutions to fix old problems and do some general housekeeping. The UCMP Guestbook is now up and running again. You are invited to sign the guestbook and add any comments you may have about our site.
• January 7: UCMP announces a short course open to the public, "Our Pleistocene Heritage", scheduled for February 22 and 23, 1997. Join our scientists and guest lecturers for an intriguing look at life in California between 1.8 million and 11,000 years ago.
• January 6: We have been tweaking images and format on our main server pages.
• January 5: For the curious, we have corrected many of the links on our old "What's New" pages to account for the move to a new server.
• January 4: Our Local Conditions page has been reconstituted, with many new links.
• January 3: The ribbon worms have crawled onto our server. Read about these slender and often colorful marine animals.
• January 2: What's New is what's new.

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