31.   It is difficult to compare modern-day extinctions with those viewed through the lens of the fossil record.

32.   Likewise, further clues from the fossil record indicate that while other beasts were dying off at a prodigious rate during that time, the dinosaurs were flourishing.

33.   Monocots evolved from dicots so early in the development of flowering plants that there are large gaps in the fossil record.

34.   None of these forms have been found in the Cretaceous fossil record, Feduccia says, because none of them existed in the Cretaceous.

35.   Not long after, terror birds stop showing up in the South American fossil record.

36.   Other palentologists familiar with the work said the jaw was just what they had long sought to begin filling in the fossil record for early Homo.

37.   Other paleontologists in the last two years have begun filling in another crucial gap in the hominid fossil record.

38.   Others challenge that view, saying that the apparent gradual decline in species is simply a reflection of the incompleteness of the fossil record.

39.   Practitioners argue endlessly over dinosaur metabolism, the origin of birds and countless other questions, partly because the fossil record is flawed by enormous gaps and glaring ambiguities.

40.   Researchers say numerous theories that are considerably more complex have been put forth to explain what might produce the punctuation seen in the fossil record.