Vertebrate Palaeontology / Edition 4

by Michael J. Benton

Overview

Vertebrate palaeontology is a lively field, with new discoveries reported every week... and not only dinosaurs! This new edition reflects the international scope of vertebrate palaeontology, with a special focus on exciting new finds from China.

A key aim is to explain the science. Gone are the days of guesswork. Young researchers use impressive new numerical and imaging methods to explore the tree of life, macroevolution, global change, and functional morphology.

The fourth edition is completely revised. The cladistic framework is strengthened, and new functional and developmental spreads are added. Study aids include: key questions, research to be done, and recommendations of further reading and web sites.

The book is designed for palaeontology courses in biology and geology departments. It is also aimed at enthusiasts who want to experience the flavour of how the research is done. The book is strongly phylogenetic, and this makes it a source of current data on vertebrate evolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118406847
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	10/20/2014
Edition description:	4th ed.
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael J. Benton FRS is Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Bristol. He is particularly interested in early reptiles, Triassic dinosaurs, and macroevolution, and has published over 50 books and 300 scientific articles. He leads one of the most successful palaeontology research groups at the University of Bristol, and has supervised over 60 PhD students.

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Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
1	Vertebrate origins	1
1.1	The oldest chordate and the oldest vertebrate	3
1.2	Sea squirts and the lancelet	4
1.3	Phylum Hemichordata: pterobranchs and acorn worms	6
1.4	Chordate origins: embryology and relationships	6
1.5	Craniates and the head	12
1.6	Further reading	13
2	How to study fossil vertebrates	15
2.1	Digging up bones	16
2.2	Geology and fossil vertebrates	22
2.3	Biology and fossil vertebrates	27
2.4	Further reading	35
3	Early fishes	37
3.1	The extinct jawless fishes	38
3.2	Living agnathans	47
3.3	Origin of jaws and gnathostome relationships	50
3.4	Class Chondrichthyes: the first sharks	53
3.5	Class Placodermi: armour-plated monsters	54
3.6	Class Acanthodii: the 'spiny skins'	58
3.7	Devonian environments	59
3.8	The bony fishes	64
3.9	Early fish evolution and mass extinction	70
3.10	Further reading	73
4	The early tetrapods and amphibians	75
4.1	Problems of life on land	76
4.2	Devonian tetrapods	80
4.3	The Carboniferous world	84
4.4	Diversity of Carboniferous tetrapods	86
4.5	Temnospondyls and reptiliomorphs after the Carboniferous	92
4.6	Evolution of the modern amphibians	97
4.7	Further reading	102
5	The evolution of early amniotes	103
5.1	Hylonomus and Paleothyris--biology of the first amniotes	104
5.2	The cleidoic egg--a private pond	105
5.3	The Carboniferous amniotes	109
5.4	The Permian world	111
5.5	Pelycosaurs--the sail-backed synapsids	112
5.6	The therapsids of the Late Permian	114
5.7	Radiation of anapsids and diapsids in the Permian	121
5.8	Mass extinction	127
5.9	Further reading	132
6	Reptiles of the Triassic	133
6.1	The Triassic scene	134
6.2	Evolution of the archosauromorphs	135
6.3	In Triassic seas	148
6.4	The origin of the dinosaurs	151
6.5	Further reading	156
7	The evolution of fishes after the Devonian	157
7.1	The early sharks and chimaeras	158
7.2	Post-Palaeozoic chondrichthyan evolution	164
7.3	The early bony fishes	168
7.4	Radiation of the teleosts	175
7.5	Post-Devonian evolution of fishes	182
7.6	Further reading	185
8	The age of dinosaurs	187
8.1	Biology of Plateosaurus	188
8.2	The Jurassic and Cretaceous world	190
8.3	The diversity of saurischian dinosaurs	191
8.4	The diversity of ornithischian dinosaurs	201
8.5	Dinosaurian biology--warm-blooded or not?	214
8.6	Order Pterosauria	221
8.7	Order Crocodylia	230
8.8	Order Testudines: the turtles	233
8.9	Superorder Lepidosauria	236
8.10	The great sea dragons	241
8.11	Diversification of Jurassic--Cretaceous reptiles	246
8.12	The great extinction	249
8.13	Further reading	257
9	The birds	259
9.1	Archaeopteryx	260
9.2	The origins of bird flight	265
9.3	Toothed birds of the Cretaceous	268
9.4	Flightless birds: Division Palaeognathae	274
9.5	Division Neognathae	276
9.6	Diversification of the birds	285
9.7	Further reading	286
10	The mammals	287
10.1	The cynodonts and the acquisition of mammalian characters	288
10.2	Morganucodon--the first mammal	297
10.3	The Mesozoic mammals	301
10.4	The marsupials	310
10.5	South American mammals--another world apart	312
10.6	The beginning of the age of placental mammals	321
10.7	Order Lipotyphla: hedgehogs, moles and shrews	328
10.8	Order Carnivora	328
10.9	Superorder Archonta: bats, tree shrews, flying lemurs and primates	331
10.10	Radiation of the rodents	336
10.11	Order Perissodactyla: browsers and grazers	341
10.12	Order Artiodactyla: cattle, deer and pigs	344
10.13	Order Cetacea: evolution of the whales	348
10.14	Grandorder Paenungulata: elephants and their relatives	351
10.15	Orders Tubulidentata and Pholidota: odd ant-eaters	356
10.16	Extinctions in the Ice Ages	356
10.17	Phylogeny of the placentals	357
10.18	The pattern of mammalian evolution	360
10.19	Further reading	361
11	Human evolution	363
11.1	What are the primates?	364
11.2	The early fossil record of primates	365
11.3	Superfamily Hominoidea: the apes	370
11.4	Evolution of human characteristics	374
11.5	The early stages of human evolution	378
11.6	The last two million years of human evolution	382
11.7	Further reading	389
Appendix	Classification of the vertebrates	391
	Glossary	405
	References	409
	Index	437

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Mike Benton's textbook on vertebrate palaeontology has been an aclaimed success since its first edition in 1990...it has now undergone very substantial further revision for its newly published third edition...This new edition reflects the enormous upsurge in research and results for vertebrate palaeontology over just the past ten years, in which Mike himself has played a leading role...a one-stop buy for all those who would like a good background perspective and summary of vertebrate palaeontology...a book which I can strongly recommend."
–Robin Cocks, GA Magazine of the Geologists' Association, March 2005

"This volume... is on the way to becoming a classic. This third edition...is also all one could hope for in a field that is changing so fast... The interest of the book is very much in the diversity of approaches used...This book is certainly the best introduction to the palaeontology of the vertebrates which is currently available, and its potential readership clearly passes beyond the student world alone. It has been translated into many languages, and one can only hope that a French edition will also see the light of day."
–Professor Eric Buffetaut (Paris), Géochronique, June 2005