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Cretaceous fossil vertebrates
Cretaceous Research (1999) 20, 659–661
Book reviews
Article No. cres.1999.0174, available online at http:// www.idealibrary.com on Cretaceous fossil vertebrates David Unwin (editor), 1999, Special Papers in Palaeontology 60, 219 pp., Palaeontological Association, £50.00, ISBN 0-9011702-67-6, ISSN 0038-6804. This volume comprises nine papers submitted to the journal Palaeontology, but published as a separate volume. They are not the product of a thematic symposium, the only common denominator being that all are about Cretaceous vertebrates. All are the type of paper that one would expect to see within the pages of Palaeontology, well-illustrated descriptive studies, mostly of new fish and reptile material with some revisions. There is global coverage, with material from England, Germany, Spain, Morocco, Madagascar, Japan and the USA being included within the nine papers. The contents can be summarized as follows. Mesozoic continental microvertebrates, collected either by sieving and picking or from Lagersta¨tten deposits, are one of the expanding areas of study of the last decade. Susan Evans has been one of the driving forces in this work and she is co-author of two papers. Evans & Barbadillo describe a complete short-limbed lizard skeleton from the Barremian Lagersta¨tte of Las Hoyas, Spain as the new genus Hoyalacerta. It appears to be a stem-lizard, and along with the other two Las Hoyas lizards will act as a ‘Rosetta stone’ for all the isolated lizard bones turning up in midMesozoic microvertebrate assemblages. In a second paper, Evans & Manabe describe a choristodere reptile from the Lower Cretaceous Tetori Group of Japan. For years, choristoderes were known only from the large champsosaurs of the Upper Cretaceous and lower Cenozoic of North America and Europe, but are now known from a range of smaller forms from the Upper Triassic to the Oligocene throughout Eurasia. The small Japanese specimen not only extends the known geographical range to the eastern extremity of Asia, but represents a long-necked form, an entirely new morphological type of choristodere. A third microvertebrate paper is by Gardner & Cifelli and reports small Albian–Cenomanian anilioid snake vertebrae from Utah. They demonstrate that these small primitive burrowing snakes 0195–6671/99/050659+03 $30.00/0
were widespread by the late Early Cretaceous (all previous records were from Europe or Africa) and may be presumed to have originated even earlier. These early basal snakes continue to support the ‘burrowing’ hypothesis of snake origins rather than the ‘marine’ hypothesis advocated by Lee and others. Crocodiles, the neglected cousins of dinosaurs, are covered in two papers. Buckley & Brochu describe a new genus, Mahajangasuchus from the recent collections made in the Upper Cretaceous of Madagascar. The beautifully preserved material from the Mahajanga Formation represents a critical period in the isolation of Madagascar and the crocodile material supports, albeit weakly, the South America-AntarcticIndo-Madagascan grouping contra Africa. The paper by Steve Salisbury and colleagues revises neglected material of the crocodile Goniopholis from the Berriasian of Germany and uses this as the first stage in a reassessment of the genus throughout Europe. The Aptian–Cenomanian marine deposits of the British Isles are a highly productive but neglected resource and two papers focus on this. Underwood & Mitchell describe shark teeth from the Albian-Cenomanian of eastern England. Because of the problems of mastering shark systematics and dental variation, shark teeth are a neglected source of stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental information with a handful of workers, notably Cappetta, Duffin, Siverson and Ward, slowly building a picture of shark distributions in space, time and environment. Underwood is a new recruit to this field, but this paper is the first of a series, beautifully illustrated, and promises well for the continuation of palaeoselachian studies. Ankylosaur material from the famous remanie´ deposit of the Cambridge Greensand is the subject of a revision by Pereda Suberbiola & Barrett. This unpromising (dare I say—rubble-like?) material was described a century ago but little could be made of it until sufficient complete ankylosaur skeletons could be analysed and the significance of the characteristics of individual bones determined. The revival of dinosaur studies of the last two decades, coupled with cladistic analyses, means that this material can either be associated or declared indeterminate on a closely argued basis, leaving us with a primitive nodosaurid Anoplosaurus 1999 Academic Press
660
Book reviews
curtonotus and a selection of nomina dubia from the Gault and Lower Chalk. Palaeobiology is represented by two papers. Cavin describes a well-preserved specimen of the fish Goulmimichthys from the Turonian of Goulmima, Morocco, with an intact juvenile of the fish Enchodus in its stomach. Juvenile Enchodus is common at this locality which may have been a nursery site for the genus. Preservation resembles that in parts of the Santana Formation of Brazil, so this site has considerable palaeobiological potential. Joanna Wright reconsiders the Purbeck dinosaur trackways collected by The Natural History Museum (London) in the 1960s and displayed subsequently as ‘megalosaur’ trackways. She concludes that they are iguanodont (although the long-armed theropod Baryonyx is dismissed rather unconvincingly) and from the traces of manus prints is able to suggest a slow-walking posture for iguanodonts. In all, there is a lot in this volume for Cretaceous specialists and vertebrate palaeontologists. Apart from the new contents of the papers themselves, the introductions and discussions give valuable leads into the literature of new significant assemblages such as those from Spain, Madagascar and Japan. However, I am left wondering why these papers, submitted to Palaeontology, appeared as a Special Paper rather than in Palaeontology. They were not the product of a conference, they have not been published any more quickly than they would have been in Palaeontology, and they are now in a low circulation journal rather than a high circulation one. It is difficult to see how the authors have benefited, and, at the time of writing, Palaeontology itself appears to be passing through a famine of vertebrate palaeontology papers. Perhaps in future, this type of compilation of submissions could become a thematic segment of a Palaeontology part. Andrew R. Milner Department of Biology Birkbeck College Malet Street London WC1E 7HX Article No. cres.1999.0173, available online at http:// www.idealibrary.com on Paleoclimatology. Reconstructing climates of the Quaternary (Second Edition) by Raymond S. Bradley, 1999, International Geophysics Series Volume 68, 613 pp., Harcourt Academic Press, San Diego, US$ 69.95, ISBN 0-12-124010-X.
This 613-page, second-edition book comprises 12 chapters with an average length of 45 pages; there is only one long chapter. There are over 1600 references. The text is very accurate with no obvious spelling mistakes and excellent cross-indexing to both other chapters and the reference list, reflecting the author’s attention to detail. The chapters concentrate on one of three subject areas: general discussions; features to be analysed; and techniques. The general discussions include Chapters 1, Paleoclimatic reconstruction; 2, Climate and climatic variations; 11, Documentary data (human records); and 12, Paleoclimate models. Specific features to be analysed include Chapters 5, Ice cores; 6, Marine sediments and corals; 7, Non-marine geological evidence; and 8, Non-marine biological evidence. Techniques chapters comprise 3 and 4, Dating methods; 9, Pollen analysis, and 10, Dendroclimatology. On first reading, this spread of chapter styles appears confusing but actually balances quite nicely with discussions on techniques at the beginning and end with most of the ‘case studies’ in the core of the book. The variety of discussion, case studies and techniques breaks up the book into interesting individual chapters but at the expense of continuity. However, I doubt that anyone is going to sit and read the book from cover to cover, looking for an integrated story. The mixture of chapter styles reflects the choices the author had in writing this book: he could condense or be comprehensive; he could write about techniques or provide reviews. The book is essentially a comprehensive review. Thus, for those wishing to know about the state of the art in, for instance, ice-core analysis, then this is a super volume. Conversely, for those wanting to discover, again for example, how to complete and interpret a C-isotope or clay mineralogical analysis, then using this book will require a great deal of crossreferencing both within the text and beyond. For a complete view on C-isotopes it is necessary to check four chapters. I found the chapters or parts of chapters on insects, pollen, speleothems, loess and historical records to be well-written. The chapters on dating methods, a difficult topic to communicate, were harder to follow. This comprehensive text will be popular among college research and teaching staff and their postgraduates. I imagine that undergraduate students will use individual chapters for coursework but are unlikely to purchase it unless a specific course structure coincides with that of the book. It will make a valuable reference text for other scientists as well. Geologists working on older, for example Cretaceous 1999 Academic Press
Book reviews
Article No. cres.1999.0174, available online at http:// www.idealibrary.com on Cretaceous fossil vertebrates David Unwin (editor), 1999, Special Papers in Palaeontology 60, 219 pp., Palaeontological Association, £50.00, ISBN 0-9011702-67-6, ISSN 0038-6804. This volume comprises nine papers submitted to the journal Palaeontology, but published as a separate volume. They are not the product of a thematic symposium, the only common denominator being that all are about Cretaceous vertebrates. All are the type of paper that one would expect to see within the pages of Palaeontology, well-illustrated descriptive studies, mostly of new fish and reptile material with some revisions. There is global coverage, with material from England, Germany, Spain, Morocco, Madagascar, Japan and the USA being included within the nine papers. The contents can be summarized as follows. Mesozoic continental microvertebrates, collected either by sieving and picking or from Lagersta¨tten deposits, are one of the expanding areas of study of the last decade. Susan Evans has been one of the driving forces in this work and she is co-author of two papers. Evans & Barbadillo describe a complete short-limbed lizard skeleton from the Barremian Lagersta¨tte of Las Hoyas, Spain as the new genus Hoyalacerta. It appears to be a stem-lizard, and along with the other two Las Hoyas lizards will act as a ‘Rosetta stone’ for all the isolated lizard bones turning up in midMesozoic microvertebrate assemblages. In a second paper, Evans & Manabe describe a choristodere reptile from the Lower Cretaceous Tetori Group of Japan. For years, choristoderes were known only from the large champsosaurs of the Upper Cretaceous and lower Cenozoic of North America and Europe, but are now known from a range of smaller forms from the Upper Triassic to the Oligocene throughout Eurasia. The small Japanese specimen not only extends the known geographical range to the eastern extremity of Asia, but represents a long-necked form, an entirely new morphological type of choristodere. A third microvertebrate paper is by Gardner & Cifelli and reports small Albian–Cenomanian anilioid snake vertebrae from Utah. They demonstrate that these small primitive burrowing snakes 0195–6671/99/050659+03 $30.00/0
were widespread by the late Early Cretaceous (all previous records were from Europe or Africa) and may be presumed to have originated even earlier. These early basal snakes continue to support the ‘burrowing’ hypothesis of snake origins rather than the ‘marine’ hypothesis advocated by Lee and others. Crocodiles, the neglected cousins of dinosaurs, are covered in two papers. Buckley & Brochu describe a new genus, Mahajangasuchus from the recent collections made in the Upper Cretaceous of Madagascar. The beautifully preserved material from the Mahajanga Formation represents a critical period in the isolation of Madagascar and the crocodile material supports, albeit weakly, the South America-AntarcticIndo-Madagascan grouping contra Africa. The paper by Steve Salisbury and colleagues revises neglected material of the crocodile Goniopholis from the Berriasian of Germany and uses this as the first stage in a reassessment of the genus throughout Europe. The Aptian–Cenomanian marine deposits of the British Isles are a highly productive but neglected resource and two papers focus on this. Underwood & Mitchell describe shark teeth from the Albian-Cenomanian of eastern England. Because of the problems of mastering shark systematics and dental variation, shark teeth are a neglected source of stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental information with a handful of workers, notably Cappetta, Duffin, Siverson and Ward, slowly building a picture of shark distributions in space, time and environment. Underwood is a new recruit to this field, but this paper is the first of a series, beautifully illustrated, and promises well for the continuation of palaeoselachian studies. Ankylosaur material from the famous remanie´ deposit of the Cambridge Greensand is the subject of a revision by Pereda Suberbiola & Barrett. This unpromising (dare I say—rubble-like?) material was described a century ago but little could be made of it until sufficient complete ankylosaur skeletons could be analysed and the significance of the characteristics of individual bones determined. The revival of dinosaur studies of the last two decades, coupled with cladistic analyses, means that this material can either be associated or declared indeterminate on a closely argued basis, leaving us with a primitive nodosaurid Anoplosaurus 1999 Academic Press
660
Book reviews
curtonotus and a selection of nomina dubia from the Gault and Lower Chalk. Palaeobiology is represented by two papers. Cavin describes a well-preserved specimen of the fish Goulmimichthys from the Turonian of Goulmima, Morocco, with an intact juvenile of the fish Enchodus in its stomach. Juvenile Enchodus is common at this locality which may have been a nursery site for the genus. Preservation resembles that in parts of the Santana Formation of Brazil, so this site has considerable palaeobiological potential. Joanna Wright reconsiders the Purbeck dinosaur trackways collected by The Natural History Museum (London) in the 1960s and displayed subsequently as ‘megalosaur’ trackways. She concludes that they are iguanodont (although the long-armed theropod Baryonyx is dismissed rather unconvincingly) and from the traces of manus prints is able to suggest a slow-walking posture for iguanodonts. In all, there is a lot in this volume for Cretaceous specialists and vertebrate palaeontologists. Apart from the new contents of the papers themselves, the introductions and discussions give valuable leads into the literature of new significant assemblages such as those from Spain, Madagascar and Japan. However, I am left wondering why these papers, submitted to Palaeontology, appeared as a Special Paper rather than in Palaeontology. They were not the product of a conference, they have not been published any more quickly than they would have been in Palaeontology, and they are now in a low circulation journal rather than a high circulation one. It is difficult to see how the authors have benefited, and, at the time of writing, Palaeontology itself appears to be passing through a famine of vertebrate palaeontology papers. Perhaps in future, this type of compilation of submissions could become a thematic segment of a Palaeontology part. Andrew R. Milner Department of Biology Birkbeck College Malet Street London WC1E 7HX Article No. cres.1999.0173, available online at http:// www.idealibrary.com on Paleoclimatology. Reconstructing climates of the Quaternary (Second Edition) by Raymond S. Bradley, 1999, International Geophysics Series Volume 68, 613 pp., Harcourt Academic Press, San Diego, US$ 69.95, ISBN 0-12-124010-X.
This 613-page, second-edition book comprises 12 chapters with an average length of 45 pages; there is only one long chapter. There are over 1600 references. The text is very accurate with no obvious spelling mistakes and excellent cross-indexing to both other chapters and the reference list, reflecting the author’s attention to detail. The chapters concentrate on one of three subject areas: general discussions; features to be analysed; and techniques. The general discussions include Chapters 1, Paleoclimatic reconstruction; 2, Climate and climatic variations; 11, Documentary data (human records); and 12, Paleoclimate models. Specific features to be analysed include Chapters 5, Ice cores; 6, Marine sediments and corals; 7, Non-marine geological evidence; and 8, Non-marine biological evidence. Techniques chapters comprise 3 and 4, Dating methods; 9, Pollen analysis, and 10, Dendroclimatology. On first reading, this spread of chapter styles appears confusing but actually balances quite nicely with discussions on techniques at the beginning and end with most of the ‘case studies’ in the core of the book. The variety of discussion, case studies and techniques breaks up the book into interesting individual chapters but at the expense of continuity. However, I doubt that anyone is going to sit and read the book from cover to cover, looking for an integrated story. The mixture of chapter styles reflects the choices the author had in writing this book: he could condense or be comprehensive; he could write about techniques or provide reviews. The book is essentially a comprehensive review. Thus, for those wishing to know about the state of the art in, for instance, ice-core analysis, then this is a super volume. Conversely, for those wanting to discover, again for example, how to complete and interpret a C-isotope or clay mineralogical analysis, then using this book will require a great deal of crossreferencing both within the text and beyond. For a complete view on C-isotopes it is necessary to check four chapters. I found the chapters or parts of chapters on insects, pollen, speleothems, loess and historical records to be well-written. The chapters on dating methods, a difficult topic to communicate, were harder to follow. This comprehensive text will be popular among college research and teaching staff and their postgraduates. I imagine that undergraduate students will use individual chapters for coursework but are unlikely to purchase it unless a specific course structure coincides with that of the book. It will make a valuable reference text for other scientists as well. Geologists working on older, for example Cretaceous 1999 Academic Press