Christine M. Janis - Böcker

Vertebrate Life distills the necessary information from vertebrate anatomy, physiology, ecology, and behavioral studies and then helps students see important connections across levels of biological scale. The result is students come to understand how organisms function effectively in their environments and how lineages of organisms change through evolutionary time. Processing complex detailed information about expansive phylogenies and diverse anatomies can be difficult for even the most motivated students, and Vertebrate Life addresses this challenge by combining appropriately-detailed, clearly-written text with outstanding phylogenies and figures, making it a thorough and engaging reference for students and instructors alike. The text's impressive illustration program helps students visualize complex concepts, allowing them to parse difficult anatomical information. The 11th edition will have an upgraded illustration program with several new and revised figures, including layered figures presented in the new enhanced eBook.

This book is a unique compendium and synthesis of the cumulative knowledge of more than 100 years of discovery and study of North American tertiary mammals. The potentially most valuable contribution of this book is the detailed information of the distribution in time and space of each species at fossil localities, recorded in a uniform scheme, so that each chapter provides the same level of information. Thirty six chapters are devoted to a particular family or order, written by leading North American authorities, including discussion of anatomical features, systematics, and paleobiology. Three introductory chapters summarize information on the geological time scale, Tertiary vegetation, and Pleistocene events, and four summary chapters integrate systematic and biogeographic information for higher taxa. This book will serve as a unique data base for continuing studies in faunal diversification and change, and for questions such as how changing biogeography and climates influenced the evolution of mammalian communities. It will be an invaluable addition to the libraries of paleontologists and zoologists.

This second volume completes the unique survey of North American Tertiary mammals, and covers all the remaining taxa not contained in Volume 1. It provides a complete listing of mammalian diversity over time and space, and evaluates the effect of biogeography and climatic change on evolutionary patterns and faunal transitions, with the distribution in time and space of each taxon laid out in a standardized format. It contains six summary chapters that integrate systematic and biogeographic information for higher taxa, and provides a detailed account of the patterns of occurrence for different species at hundreds of different fossil localities, with the inclusion of many more localities than were contained in the first volume. With over thirty chapters, each written by leading authorities, and an addendum that updates the occurrence and systematics of all of the groups covered in Volume 1, this will be a valuable reference for paleontologists and zoologists.

This second volume completes the unique survey of North American Tertiary mammals, and covers all the remaining taxa not contained in Volume 1. It provides a complete listing of mammalian diversity over time and space, and evaluates the effect of biogeography and climatic change on evolutionary patterns and faunal transitions, with the distribution in time and space of each taxon laid out in a standardized format. It contains six summary chapters that integrate systematic and biogeographic information for higher taxa, and provides a detailed account of the patterns of occurrence for different species at hundreds of different fossil localities, with the inclusion of many more localities than were contained in the first volume. With over thirty chapters, each written by leading authorities, and an addendum that updates the occurrence and systematics of all of the groups covered in Volume 1, this will be a valuable reference for paleontologists and zoologists.

This volume presents an array of different case studies which take as primary material data sourced from the NOW (‘New and Old Worlds’) database of fossil mammals.