Early Vertebrates (Oxford Monographs on Geology and Geophysics) [Hardcover]

Philippe Janvier (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198540477 | ISBN-13: 978-0198540472 | Publication Date: October 31, 1996 | Edition: 1

This book presents current knowledge of the early vertebrates--mainly fish, but including some terrestrial creatures--which lived about 250 to 470 million years ago. The work focuses on anatomical and phylogenetic questions, but includes information on fossil discovery and preparation, as well as the analysis of the characteristics from which their relationships may be reconstructed. The author addresses both new and old problems in the evolution of certain anatomical details and deals briefly with the animals' way of life, extinction, and former distribution. The book is the first in its field to use a cladistic approach. For each major vertebrate group, the reader will find a diagram of relationships, or cladogram, with a selection of characters at each node, and a succinct phylogenetic classification.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Philipe Janvier has excelled himself with this landmark publication...No other textbook has dealt so clearly with the origins and early evolution of vertebrates...Competing evolutionary relationships are cleverly depicted on opposite sides of certain illustrations, driving home the message that many current issues are unresolved. This is an essential source book for teachers and students of vertebrate anatomy and evolution."

About the Author

Phillippe Janvier is at the National Museum of Natural History, Paris. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 408 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (October 31, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198540477
• ISBN-13: 978-0198540472
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,353,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first vertebrates, November 26, 2000

By 

Howard Schneider (Thornhill, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Early Vertebrates (Oxford Monographs on Geology and Geophysics) (Hardcover)

Although this reference is a very detailed treatise on early vertebrate fossils, it may prove useful to the general reader trying to make sense of early vertebrate evolution because it does not reproduce photographs of the early fossils, but instead takes artistic license to illustrate them in reconstructed forms. The earliest known fossil vertebrate is Sacabambaspis/Arandaspis found in Bolivia/Australia and 470 million years old - head armor, jawless, mouth containing bony parts for scraping the seabottom, lateral eyes, two pineal eyes, gill openings, and only a median and caudal fins. At the end of Ordovician there was a period of glaciation, and then afterwards in the early Silurian there is a large appearance of both jawless and jawed fossil vertebrates - heterostracans (cephalaspids), galeaspids, thelodonts, acanthodians, shark relatives (chondrichthyans), placoderms (jawed & armored), and possibly bony fishes (osteichthyans). In the mid-Silurian tectonic plate movement created mountain ranges that subsequently eroded what became a red sandstone in many areas that were favorable to vertebrate life. In the Devonian fossils are found showing fish evolving into groups that would survive to the present, as well as tetrapods. In the Carboniferous it is found that the cartilaginous fishes and the ray-finned fishes greatly diversify, as well ferns and club-mosses are found around bays and lakes. After the Permian ended, the 'modern' vertebrate world appears in the Triassic and Jurassic - sharks, teleosts, modern amphibians, modern reptiles, birds and mammals. Lampreys, hagfishes, chimaeras, some ray-finned fish, coelacanths and lungfishes survive relatively unchanged from the emergence of the vertebrates in the Late Palaeozoic. The early vertebrate fossils, along with comparisons of extant vertebrates, are considered in detail. Origins of the vertebrate head and the tetrapod limb are then considered, followed by broader topics in evolution.