Vertebrate Palaeontology is a complete, up-to-date history of the evolution of vertebrates. The third edition of this popular text has been extensively revised to incorporate the latest research, including new material from North and South America, Australia, Europe, China, Africa and Russia. Highlights astonishing new discoveries including new dinosaurs and Mesozoic birds from China features a new chapter on how to study fossil vertebrates provides an increased emphasis on the cladistic framework with cladograms set apart from the body of the text and full lists of diagnostic characters includes new molecular evidence on early mammal diversification new features aid study including new functional and developmental feature spreads, key questions and extensive references to useful web sites strong phylogenetic focus making it an up-to-date source of the latest broad-scale systematic data on vertebrate evolution To access the artwork from the book, please visit: www.blackwellpublishing.com/benton. An Instructor manual CD-ROM for this title is available. Please contact our Higher Education team at HigherEducation@wiley.com for more information. "...presents a complete outline of the history of the vertebrates, based on the latest studies by paleontologists around the world and includes a new chapter on how to study fossil vertebrates." Benton does a fine job with the actual subject matter of vertebrate paleontology per se, but his introduction and analysis as to how fossils are formed, and under what conditions,leaves a lot to be desired. He oversells the evolutionary angle with rampant,unsupported speculation and theory, completely ignoring the more recent work of Behe, Dembski et al, as well as credible explanations for the Cambrian findings at the Cheng-jiang and Burgess Shale deposits. In short, this is really not an up-to-date scientific book. To see what I mean, read Clarkson's book on INVERTEBRATE paleontology -- a far better and more scholarly work. Vertebrate Palaeontology is a complete, up-to-date history of the evolution of vertebrates. The third edition of this popular text has been extensively revised to incorporate the latest research, including new material from North and South America, Australia, Europe, China, Africa and Russia. The third edition: * highlights astonishing new discoveries including new dinosaurs and Mesozoic birds from China * features an expanded chapter on how to study fossil vertebrates * provides an increased emphasis on the cladistic framework, with cladograms set apart from the body of the text and full list Vertebrates are all the animals with backbones, the fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
