Vertebrate Paleobiology

An essential introduction to the palaeobiology of animal body size, locomotion, and feeding.

Palaeobiology is the branch of evolutionary biology involved in the reconstruction of the life histories of extinct organisms. It answers questions such as "How do we use fossils to reconstruct the size of prehistoric animals?", and "How did they move and feed?" Drawing on a rich inventory of South American Miocene fossils, Vertebrate Paleobiology: A Form and Function Approach examines different aspects of functional morphology and how they are tested by palaeontologists, anatomists, and zoologists.

Beginning with a review of various methodologies to interpret fossils, the authors turn to the main concepts important to functional morphology and give examples of each. They conclude by showing how functional morphology enables a dynamic, broadscale reconstruction of the life of prehistoric animals during the South American Miocene.

Originally published in Spanish, Vertebrate Paleobiology: A Form and Function Approach provides a broad sweep of recent developments, including theoretical and practical techniques, applied to the study of extinct vertebrates.

Prologue
1. The Design of Fossil Vertebrates as a Tool for Interpreting Their Biology
2. Methodological Tools
3. Biomaterials
4. Body Size
5. Substrate Preference and Use: Locomotion in Fluids
6. Preference and Use of Substrate: Terrestrial Locomotion
7. Feeding: Food Diversity and Buccal Apparatuses in Vertebrates
8. Feeding: Analysis of the Cephalic Feeding System
9. Paleoecology
Epilogue

Appendix: Notions of Anatomy
References