a group of related sciences concerned with the contemporary biological world. Neontology is the study of recent organisms, their structural, functional, and phylogenetic characteristics, their individual development, and their relationships to the environment and among themselves. In cases where the objects of study are well-preserved remains of organisms from Quarternary deposits, for example, the carcasses of mammoths, it becomes difficult to distinguish the fields of interest of neontology from those of paleontology, the science of extinct animals and plants.