Vertebrate paleontology: new approaches and new insights

Abstract

In the past fifteen years, the biological interpretation of vertebrate fossils has been markedly advanced by the application of experimental techniques in functional morphology, biomechanical and allometric modelling, more rigorously-derived empirical correlations between form and function in living species, and studies of modern community structure and of the taphonomic processes by which fossil assemblages are formed. Traditional paleontological methods of phylogenetic analysis are under attack by the advocates of cladistics; the resulting debate is leading to increased rigor in paleontological systematics. Paleobiogeographical studies of vertebrates has become an extremely active area of research due to the need to reanalyze past distribution patterns in the light of plate tectonics.New information has extended the fossil record of vertebrates back to the Late Cambrian, but little more is known about the nature of the earliest vertebrates or of the pre-vertebrate ancestors. Much has been learned of the fishes antecedent to tetrapods but little of the earliest tetrapods. The early reptiles are now well known, but the nature of their amphibian ancestors is uncertain. Restudy ofArchaeopteryxhas suggested a dinosaurian ancestry for birds. The origin and early evolution of mammals is the subject of extensive research as a result of greatly augmented recent collecting. The most active and innovative research is on the biology of dinosaurs, especially on their physiology. Among Cenozoic mammals, the fossil record of primates has been greatly expanded and knowledge of primate history, from the basal prosimians of the Paleocene to early man, is increasing rapidly.