Customer Reviews

The Origin and Evolution of Mammals (Oxford Biology)

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Tom Kemp's book provides a superb, well-written overview of the diversity and evolutionary history of synapsids, the group including mammals. The origin of mammals is now one of the best-documented evolutionary transitions in the fossil record. A leading investigator on this subject, Kemp reviews the numerous changes in features of the skull and postcranial skeleton during this major transition and interprets these changes in functional terms. This is a particularly valuable aspect of Kemp's book. His review of mammalian diversity is an excellent synopsis of the many new data gathered in recent years and is presented within the framework of a phylogenetically based classification. It thus supercedes earlier, outdated treatments of this subject. I definitely recommend Kemp's book for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. The book also includes an excellent, comprehensive bibliography, which will allow the reader to pursue topics of interest in greater depth. My only criticism is the quality of a number of illustrations; on quite a few figures, lines have faded or vanished during reproduction, and, in a few instances, illustration scans have been greatly distorted during printing. However, these are minor quibbles that do not distract from the overall quality of this book.

Make no mistake, this is a book by an expert for experts. Without a solid background in skeletal and dental anatomy, most of the content of this book will go over the reader's head. That said, for those with the background to understand, this is an excellent reference and introduction to the major themes of mammal evolution.

My favorite thing about this book is that it spends considerable ink on pre-mammalian synapsids and Mesozoic mammals. Most books on mammal evolution seem to pick up the tale at the K-T boundary, ignoring most of the story. The discussion of early mammals and pre-mammals is fantastic, and the author presents thought-provoking hypotheses for the evolution of key mammalian characteristics.

This book probably fits into a fairly narrow niche of readers, but for those readers, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This is a major reference book, presumably essential for a specialist but I found that it assumed too much prior knowledge and was totally wedded to the dogma of cladism making it difficult to work out the status of the groups described. I also found that in the references, giants like Alfred Sherwood Romer or for that matter, authors on mammal evolution like Derek Yalden scarecely get a mention.

It should perhaps be retitled the origin and evolution of amniotes leading to the mammals given that about half the book deals with mammal like reptiles. Some of this treatment would be essential but there was far too much on basal tetrapods. When it came to even these, there was no real fire about really interesting organisms like Dimetrodon, or any particular story to light the mind given that as a scientist Kemp is cautious.

The weak classification provided is my main problem with the book. Given that so many of the taxa are unranked in classical cladistic fashion, you don't really know what you are dealing with - whereas the traditional orders of mammals are described as such, supraordinal and subordinal taxa are difficult to make out in the context of rank or major grouping. You end up with hierarchical lists and have to try and work out a great deal of it yourself. I'd find the classification of Benton from Bristol (another major author in the field) far more useful and user friendly.

There is no great enthusiasm shown for any of the scenarios or organisms/taxa in question (except some early amphibians and amniotes) and the illustrations could have been more informative. Kemp argues that the collision of India with Asia could have happened earlier than the Eocene but offers little justification. The contribution of Indian mammals if any from the Cretaceous period is alleged but the discussion is uncritical in the light of violent vulcanism on the subcontinent during the KT boundary.

Sorry, but I would have preferred Romer (VP and evolution) or Carroll's update of Romer. I'd really like a similar book on slightly more traditional lines and hope it turns up. In the meantime, this remains a reference for citing purposes.