Evolution of Herbivory in Terrestrial Vertebrates: Perspectives from the Fossil Record

Abstract

Evolution of Herbivory in Terrestrial Vertebrates: Perspectives from the Fossil Record, H.-D. Sues (Editor), 2000, Cambridge University Press, New York, 256 p. ($80) ISBN: 0521-59449-9. Terrestrial habits are immanent to Amniota. The history of amniotes utilizing terrestrial primary production (e.g., plants) is ultimately the central story of amniote evolution, despite a veneer of glamour associated with carnivores and carnivory. Therefore, the Evolution of Herbivory in Terrestrial Vertebrates ( EHTV ) carries with it the prestige of being the key history for Amniota. It concomitantly carries the burden of having a lot to explain. The book is an outgrowth of a symposium co-convened by the Editor (H.-D. Sues) and presented by the authors at the Sixth North American Paleontological Convention held at the Smithsonian Institution in June of 1996. Like many outgrowths of symposia, this volume provides a patchy perspective on the evolution of herbivory. In the following, I review what each of the chapters offers, returning at the end of this review to consider larger issues in evolution and amniote herbivory and the contributions that this volume makes to those. The Introduction, by Sues, is a conventional summary of some the issues associated with herbivory in terrestrial amniotes. After beginning at the beginning of functional morphology (with Cuvier), Sues lightly touches on the nutritive value (or comparative lack thereof) of plants, the basic modifications (oral and gastro-intestinal) needed for the digestion of plants, and the difficulty of demonstrating trophic relationships between plants and amniotes in the fossil record. From these subjects, he moves to brief summaries of the articles contained in his volume. I have in essence condemned Sues' introduction by the word “conventional,” because this would be a choice time to frame key questions about the evolution of vertebrate (or in this case, amniote) herbivory. Here, however, no such questions are …