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Review: I thought this was a nice course. Sometimes the questions gave me pause and forced me to think. One complaint I have is that occasionally statements about functional morphology lack nuance. For example, Kronosaurus is claimed to only be able to hunt prey it could swallow whole due to the lack of cutting edges on its teeth: there are plesiosaur remains with bite marks likely made by Kronosaurus (and these plesiosaurs seem to have been too large to be swallowed whole). Likewise, modern orcas and crocodiles, which also lack sharp cutting edges on their teeth, can easily prey on animals that are too big to be swallowed whole, so this inference does not follow. This course also seems to have a few bits of outdated info. For example, it is now known that Atopodentatus did not have a “zipper mouth”; this was based on a specimen that had a badly crushed skull. Overall, with just a bit more nuance on functional morphology and updated information, this course would be even better.

Good class! Covers a lot of material very clearly in four weeks. The use of the media is good with in-video quizzes, interactive geologic time scale and phylogenetic tree of life. Course notes are provided for each lessons (they are very well done). The presenter, Scott Persons, a PhD student at the time if I am not mistaken, is great, though he is very surprisingly not credited on the homepage of the course, which is a shame (especially given that he has also written his scripts among other things...) Unfortunately, too often the course sounded too much like a catalog of facts. More scientific reasoning would have been nice.

Covers comparative evolution and explains how groups adapted to marine environments. Nomenclature-all the subfamilies, etc. was confusing and the evolutionary tree was hard to understand. It would have been good to be able to see all the groups at once on the tree. Liked the updates on research and the maps showing where specimens have been found, Could have gone into the geology a little more.

There is a great deal of content in this course and as always the course materials are excellent. I would prefer at least two presenters to break up the style of the single presenter used. I find his presenting style quite hard. He sounds patronising when he introduces the quizzes and his pronunciation is at times rather odd. Phil Currie could teach him a thing or two.

It's pretty good, though be prepared to be beaten to death with MANY often confusing and nearly unpronounceable taxonomic terms. Can't be helped I guess. Those who took the early vertebrate evolution course will be pleased to note that Mr. (Dr.?) Persons is a bit more subdued in this one with a bit less theatrical style.

Very cheerful and concisely-speaking instructor! Although the course was vast in information to take it all in and could do better with more questions and quizzes. Very educative videos and data about ancient marine reptile palaentology. Beautiful course!

This course is a great gateway into this fascinating part of our earth's history, I look forward to learning more from other courses that are offered and would highly recommend this course to others.

Loved learning about these animals and learned a lot of things I didn't know already but the amount of video content each week was too much the theropod/bird class progressed in a much nicer manner.

Can be extremely complicated with all of the unfamiliar names, and I'd lose focus. As a result, I had a hard time keeping up. I'd recommend pausing and returning another day if you lose focus.

Very informative and well presented. The videos could perhaps have been a little shorter. More videos of c. 15 mins are more readily digestible than fewer at c. 30 mins.

excellent course would love to see more on early crocodilians and turtles, I know turtles have a debated history but would be awesome to look at possible origins.

Thank you for a wonderful course. Ancient Marine Reptiles isn't my main area of interest and I still enjoyed every second!

It was okay, could do better with explaining but still would recommend to anyone interested in paleontology.

I would like more information about taxonomy an evolution. The couse focus mostly in the aquatic problem

Great course! Very well done. The only flaw: subtitles in some lessons are not in syncro with video.

r​eally enjoyed. links didn't work (embedded multiple choice quizzes did work though). thanks!

A very interesting course, but it's a pity one can only do the quizzes after payment.