Customer Reviews

Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs: Origins, Evolution, and Structure

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I'm not qualified to say how good Mammals From the Age of Dinosaurs is as a reference work, but Dr. Kielan-Jaworowska and Dr. Luo I already know to be two of the world's leading authorities on Mesozoic mammals. (I know little about Dr. Cifelli.) Right now has to be the most exciting time in history for that specialty, with the astonishing discoveries of recent years.

Sadly, this book was published before some of them, such as the discovery of Volaticotherium. Still, it offers up proof positive that even in the Mesozoic, mammals were a diverse and successful bunch.

Most of the book's chapters are divided up by taxonomy, with a clade (or traditional pseudo-clade, in some cases), covered in each chapter, and an entry for each genus. So far as I know, every species of Mesozoic mammal that was known at the time of publication is listed there. Each chapter also discusses the history of how the group has been defined and classified, what its distinguishing characteristics are, some discussion of its members' probable ecology, and the authors' ideas of how they are related to each other and to other mammals. There are a number of high-quality figures of skulls, teeth and sometimes skeletons, as well as a few life restorations, but nothing in color.

Finally, there's a chapter on taxonomy and cladistics, with two different cladograms showing how all these groups might be related to each other. One fascinating note: in one cladogram, it looks like the haramyids and the multituberculates do not belong anywhere near each other. If they are separated, the multis are more closely related to therian mammals than we thought, while the haramyids may not be mammals at all! Again, there have been some amazing papers since then that offer very different cladograms. Still, as the authors themselves admit, this book was intended as a sort of baseline reference work on which later research could improve.

To sum it up: this book is not for those who prefer writing aimed at non-scientists, or who require lots of pretty color paintings. But it's an exhaustive reference work for professional scientists, and for those who want to know all the gritty details of the evolution of mammals during the Mesozoic era.