The Origin and Evolution of Mammals - Moodle

Preface
This book arose from twin aims: to update my 1982 book on the origin of mammals in
relation to the steady stream of new fossils that have been found or re-described in the
last two decades; and to elaborate at a similar level the story of what happened next – the
radiation of mammals after the end of the Cretaceous. In the latter case even more than in
the former, constraints of space and time have meant severely limiting this enormous field
and even then I have been able to do little more than point to the most important fossils,
outline the ideas, and give guidance to appropriate recent literature for the details. The
whole corresponds to a twelve lecture option I give to Oxford Honour students, and I am
very grateful to all those who have, over the years, attended in encouraging numbers and
stimulated me with their interest, despite the alternative, fashionable attractions on offer
in the biological sciences. I hope they will find this volume helpful.
I am particularly grateful to Professor Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska who read and very helpfully
commented on Chapter 5, and was generous enough to allow me access to the manuscript
of her joint new book Mammals from the age of dinosaurs: origins, evolution, and structure,
a magnificent, comprehensive work which will be the standard account of Mesozoic mammals
for the foreseeable future. I should also like to take the opportunity of thanking
Fernando Abdala for reading Chapter 3, and to Sam Turvey for reading Chapters 6 and 7;
both made extremely helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript. I am grateful to
Kuba Kopycinski for his helpful advice on electronic preparation of figures.
Acknowledgements are due to the following publishers and journals for kindly giving
permission to reproduce illustrations.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica; American Journal of Science; Bernard Price Institute for
Paleontological Research; C.N.R.S., Paris; California University Press; Cambridge
University Press; Carnegie Museum of Natural History; Columbia University Press;
Elsevier Ltd; Evolution; Geological Society of America; Indiana University Press; John
Wiley and Sons; Journal of Morphology; Kluwer Academic Press; Monash University,
Melbourne; Musée Nationale d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris; Museum of Comparative
Zoology, Harvard; Museum of Northern Arizona Press; National Academy of Sciences,
U.S.A.; National Geographic Society; National Museum of Bloemfontein; National
Research Council of Canada; Natural History Museum, London; Nature; Oxford
University Press; Paleobiology; Paleontologicheskii Zhurnal; Prentice Hall; Royal Society of
Edinburgh; Royal Society of London; Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales;
Science; Selbstverlag Fachbereich Geowissenschaften; Serviços Geológicos de Portugal;
Smithsonian Institution Press; Society for the Study of Mammalian Evolution; Society of
Vertebrate Paleontology; South African Museum; Springer-Verlag; University of
Michigan; University of Wyoming Department of Geology and Geophysics; W. H.
Freeman; Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
University Museum and St John’s College
Oxford