Fossil Horses Systematics, Paleobiology and Evolution of the Family Equidae

About this book

A synthesis of much data and research linked to fossil horses from several disciplines including biology, geology and palaeontology, using horses as the central theme. The author weaves together topics such as modern geochronology, palaeo-biogeography, climate change, evolution and extinction, functional morphology and population biology during the Cenozoic period.

Contents

Preface; 1. Introduction: why study fossil horses?; 2. A renaissance in paleontology; 3. Orthogenesis and scientific thought: old notions die hard; 4. Collections, museums, and exceptional discoveries; 5. Systematics and phylogeny: Ungulata, Perissodactyla, and Equidae; 6. Isotopes, magnetic reversals, fossils, and geological time; 7. Ancient geography, changing climates, dispersal, and vicariance; 8. Evolutionary processes: Variation, speciation, and extinction; 9. Rates of morphological and taxonomic evolution; 10. Trends, laws, direction, and progress in evolution; 11. What's the use? functional morphology of feeding and locomotion; 12. Population dynamics, behavioral ecology, and 'paleoethology'; 13. Fifty-eight million years of community evolution; 14. Epilogue: summary and perspective; Appendix; References; Subject index; Taxonomic index.

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