4 . Fu nctional morphology of the animal's body . 



The paleontologist has in his hands fossil animals mostly in the form of 

 fossilized skeletal parts; so he has to give the definition of the animal from the 

 anatomical parts alone. This is possible because all organic forms are limited 

 in their parts and in their whole by their relation to a performance in an intra- 

 or extracorporal environment. Each part is a logical allusion to a whole to 

 which it belongs. In this fact the organism differs from all inorganic forms. 

 The knowledge of the functional meaning of an anatomical part and of the whole 

 is thus the key of all paleontological research. Relations of form to function 

 are only to be explained by means of living animals in their natural environment 

 ments. Thus functional morphology is one of the important disciplines of actuo- 

 paleontological research. 



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