Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on May 2, 2007
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2007 47(1):165-166; doi:10.1093/icb/icm001
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Book Review |
Amniote Paleobiology: Perspectives on the Evolution of Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles. Matthew T. Carrano, Timothy J. Gaudin, Richard W. Blob, and John R. Wible, editors.
Department of Biology and Redpath Museum
McGill University
Correspondence: E-mail: robert.carroll{at}mcgill.ca
Amniote Paleobiology: Perspectives on the Evolution of Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles. Matthew T. Carrano, Timothy J. Gaudin, Richard W. Blob, and John R. Wible, editors.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 547 pp. 127 illustrations. (cloth) $95.00, (paper) $40.00.
Vertebrate Paleontology, the study of the fossil record of vertebrates, is the most informative means of establishing the patterns and processes of evolution over time spans encompassing more than 500 million years. Because of their readily preserved skeletons, whose general homology can be traced throughout their history from jawless fish to humans, it is possible to reconstruct not only the general body form, but also many aspects of their ways of life, modes of reproduction and aspects of their physiology. Amniote Paleobiology illustrates a wide range of approaches to the study of vertebrate fossils, concentrating on amniotes—the large assemblage including modern reptiles, birds, and mammals, as well as dinosaurs and the antecedents of mammals.
The articles included in this book were assembled to honor James Hopson on his retirement, after 35 years of highly productive teaching and research in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. This volume, including contributions from 23 authors—consisting of former students and colleagues—was edited by three of Jim's graduate students and a post-doctoral fellow who now hold senior teaching and research positions in major universities and museums.
The editors have provided a very informative introduction that outlines major aspects of paleontological research that are grouped as four sections of the text. ‘New Fossils and Phylogenies’ emphasizes the underlying sources of data for paleontological research—the discovery, preparation, and description of fossils (based on a doubling of known species over the past 20 years), as well as analyses of how they are related to one another. The coverage is very broad, including descriptions of the jaw of an enigmatic early amphibian, partial skeletons of dinosaurs, the skull of an ancestral mammal-like reptile, the postcranial skeleton of a tritylodontid cynodont, and the phylogeny of armadillos. ‘Large-Scale Evolutionary Patterns,’ for which vertebrates provide the most dramatic records, are exemplified by the general phenomenon of size increase achieved by most dinosaur lineages, the elongation of the neck in sauropods, and changes in the basicranium and ear region of early mammals. ‘Functional Morphology’ consists of studies of the shoulder girdle and forelimb in multituberculates and tooth orientation and condylar translation in primates and ungulate mammals. The chapters in ‘Ontogeny and Evolution’ deal with neotenic aspects of the basicranium of plesiosaurs, the possibility of correlating the ontogeny of limb ossification of cynodonts with the evolution of mammalian endothermy, and differentiating ontogenetic changes from phylogenetically significant characters in Lystrosaurus.
Of particular interest are those chapters most closely related to Jim's own research on individual episodes in the transition between primitive synapsids and the appearance of therian mammals. These include description of a new biarmosuchian from South Africa, analysis of the taxonomic position of Kayentatherium based on its postcranial skeleton, evolution of parasaggittal posture among Mesozoic mammals, and changes in the braincase and hearing of early mammals.
Part five consists of a short biography of Dr Hopson that documents his long and continually expanding research career in diverse areas of vertebrate paleontology, concentrating on various aspects of the relationships and functional anatomy of mammal-like reptiles (nonmammalian synapsids), the ancestry of mammals, and Mesozoic mammals. Also cited are numerous studies of dinosaurs, several focusing on the question of their mode of thermoregulation, but also one each on pseudo-toothed birds and an ostracoderm.
Overall, the contributions to this book underline the great significance of Dr Hopson's professional career, not only in terms of his own research, but especially the great number of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows he has trained, and the significance of their continuing research and training of future generations of paleontologists and evolutionary biologists.
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