Ancient Marine Reptiles

Vertebrate evolution has led to the convergent appearance of many groups of originally terrestrial animals that now live in the sea. Among these groups are familiar mammals like whales, dolphins, and seals. There are also reptilian lineages (like plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, thalattosaurs, and others) that have become sea creatures. Most of these marine reptiles, often wrongly called "dinosaurs", are extinct. This edited book is devoted to these extinct groups of marine reptiles. These reptilian analogs represent useful models of the myriad adaptations that permit tetrapods to live in the ocean.

First book in more than 80 years devoted exclusively to fossil marine reptilesDocuments the most current research on extinct marine reptilesPrepared by the world's most prominent experts in the fieldWell illustrated

M.A. Taylor, Foreword.
Ichthyosauria:
J.M. Callaway, Introduction.
P.M. Sander, The paleobiogeography of Shastasaurus.
J.M. Callaway, A New Look at Mixosaurus.
C. McGowan, A Transitional Ichthyosaur Fauna.
R. Motani, Temporal and Spatial Distribution of Tooth Implantation in Ichthyosaurs.
Sauropterygia:
O.C. Rieppel, Introduction.
O.C. Rieppel and H. Hagdorn, Paleobiology of Middle Triassic Sauropterygia in Central and Western Europe.
G.W. Storrs, Morphologic and Taxonomic Clarification of the Genus Plesiosaurus.
K. Carpenter, Comparative Cranial Anatomy of Two North American Cretaceous Plesiosaurs.
Testudines:
E.L. Nicholls, Introduction.
R. Hirayama, Distribution and Diversity of Cretaceous Chelonoids.
D.K. Elliott, G.V. Irby, and J.H. Hutchison, Desmatochelys Iowa, a Marine Turtle from the Upper Cretaceous.
R.T.J. Moody, The Paleogeography of Marine and Coastal Turtles of the North Atlantic and Trans-Saharan Regions.
Mosasauridae:
G.L. Bell, Jr., Introduction.
G.L. Bell, Jr., Phylogenetic Revision of North American and Adriatic Mosasauridea.
A. Sheldon, Ecological Implications of Mosasaur Bone Microstructure.
Crocodylia:
S. Hua and E. Buffetaut, Introduction.
R.K. Denton, Jr., J.L. Dobie, and D.C. Parris, The Marine Crocodile, Hyposaurus, in North America.
Faunas, Behavior, and Evolution:
J.A. Massare, Introduction.
S.G. Lucas, Marine Reptiles and Mesozoic Biochronology.
Z. Gasparini and M. Fernandez, Tithonian Marine Reptiles of the Eastern Pacific.
R. Collin and C.M. Janis, Morphological Constraints on Tetropod Feeding Mechanisms: Why Were There No Suspenion-Feeding Marine Reptiles?
R.L. Carroll, Mesozoic Marine Reptiles as Models of Long Term, Large-Scale Evolutionary Phenomena.
Subject Index.