Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of the Permian Period, some 250 million years ago. The ammonites of this
time possessed relatively simple septa and sutures, hut they did show a pro-
gressive increase in complexity from the earliest to the latest. Saunders, who
was interested in the shapes of these many early ammonites, conducted an
extensive study of many taxa. He amassed a large collection and then pro-
ceeded to cut each of these specimens (some priceless, most not) in half with
a diamond saw. The perfectly bisected fossils could then be easily measured
for theit shell shape. At the same time, Saundets decided to measure the
thickness of their septa, because these wete visible, and because no one had
yet repeated Westermann's experiments in correlating septal thickness with
septal complexity (which had been conducted only on Mesozoic am-
monites). In the Mesozoic specimens he studied, Westermann had found
that the ammonites with the most complex septa were also those with the
thinnest. To his surprise, Saunders found no such relationship in his Paleo-
zoic ammonoids.
It was clear to Saunders that something was amiss. Coincidentally, I
was visiting Saunders in his Bryn Mawr lah soon after he made this discov-
ery, and we talked about the implications. I agreed with him: If more elabo-
rate septa were not thinner than those of lower complexity, what was the use
of going to all the trouble of elaboration—unless this particular form was
serving some other function. But what? Perplexed, we did what most people
do when facing a problem. We sought help.
Help in this case came from Tom Daniel of the Zoology Department at
the University of Washington, whom I knew slightly at the time (we met
him in Chapter 6 on mosasaurs). He had come from the center of functional
morphology at Duke Univetsity, where he had been a Steve Wainright stu-
dent. Tom had started as an engineer and then switched to zoology. He was
thus ideally trained to interpret form and function.
He worked in a cramped lah packed with wires, machines, microscopes,
computers of all makes, and students. Especially students. Students of all
shapes, forms, and levels. Graduate students and post-docs, undergrads and
scientific visitors. Tom was not yet forty, yet he had alteady received the
University's Outstanding Teaching Award, as well as having distinguished
