Publisher description

This book celebrates the contributions of Dr. Frederick S. Szalay to the field of Mammalian Evolutionary Morphology. Professor Szalay is a strong advocate for biologically and evolutionarily meaningful character analysis. He has published about 200 articles, six monographs, and six books on this subject. This book features subjects such as the evolution and adaptation of mammals and provides up-to-date articles on the evolutionary morphology of a wide range of mammalian groups.

"Hulbert's book provides the first comprehensive review of the fossil vertebrates of Florida, which has one of the richest Cenozoic fossil records of any state in the country. It will be an essential addition to the library of all professional paleontologists, students, and amateurs interested in the history of fossil vertebrates in Florida and the southeastern United States."-- Gary S. Morgan, assistant curator of paleontology, New Mexico Museum of Natural History "A wonderful mix of technical, state-of-the-art information . . . with commentary on everyday fossils that all may have experienced at one time or another. The book is both for the serious student of vertebrate paleontology and for anyone who has an interest in the fossils that may be encountered in Florida."-- David P. Whistler, curator of vertebrate paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Illustrated with hundreds of photographs and drawings, this authoritative yet readable book describes the fossil vertebrates found in Florida--many unique to the state--and summarizes more than 100 years of paleontological discoveries and research. It bridges the sometimes disconnected worlds of the professional paleontologist and the avocational collector and hobbyist. Florida has the richest vertebrate fossil record of any state east of the Mississippi, extending back 45 million years. Beginning with an introduction to vertebrate anatomy, Richard Hulbert describes the geological history of the state and the history of vertebrate life in it. He then addresses such questions as what animals lived in Florida, how they are related to one another and to living animals, when they first appeared and when many of them became extinct, what they ate, and what they tell us about past environments. All types of vertebrates are covered, including sharks and other fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. In addition to exceptionally detailed illustrations (many published for the first time), the book includes a comprehensive list of every verified fossil species ever collected in Florida. Based on the popular Plaster Jacket series of pamphlets written by renowned natural scientists and published by the Florida Paleontological Society, The Fossil Vertebrates of Florida brings information from the last 30 years into an up-to-date, greatly expanded, cohesive book form. Contributors Norman Tessman (sharks, carnivores) Elizabeth S. Wing (skates and rays and, with Camm Swift, bony fish) Walter Auffenberg (snakes, turtles, crocodilians) S. David Webb (proboscideans, peccaries, edentates, camels, ruminants) Robert A. Martin (aquatic rodents) John Waldrop (horses) Jesse S. Robertson (bison) Roy H. Reinhart (sea cows) Steve P. Christman (rattlesnakes) Clayton E. Ray (seals and walruses) Gary S. Morgan (whales and, with Ann E. Pratt, marine mammals) Bruce J. MacFadden (rhinoceroses) Jon A. Baskin (saber-tooth carnivores) Annalisa Berta (dogs) Jonathan J. Becker (birds) Peter A. Meylan (amphibians and reptiles) Richard C. Hulbert, Jr., collection manager for the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, is the author or coauthor of 30 essays and monographs published in scholarly journals, including Nature, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and Journal of Paleontology.

Presents a guide to a variety of mammals which reside in the state of Florida.

This book places into modern context the information by which North American mammalian paleontologists recognize, divide, calibrate, and discuss intervals of mammalian evolution known as North American Land Mammal Ages. It incorporates new information on the systematic biology of the fossil record and utilizes the many recent advances in geochronologic methods and their results. The book describes the increasingly highly resolved stratigraphy into which all available temporally significant data and applications are integrated. Extensive temporal coverage includes the Lancian part of the Late Cretaceous, and geographical coverage includes information from Mexico, an integral part of the North American fauna, past and present.

Susan Cerulean’s memoir trains a naturalist’s eye and a daughter’s heart on the lingering death of a beloved parent from dementia. At the same time, the book explores an activist’s lifelong search to be of service to the embattled natural world. During the years she cared for her father, Cerulean also volunteered as a steward of wild shorebirds along the Florida coast. Her territory was a tiny island just south of the Apalachicola bridge where she located and protected nesting shorebirds, including least terns and American oystercatchers. I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird weaves together intimate facets of adult caregiving and the consolation of nature, detailing Cerulean’s experiences of tending to both. The natural world is the “sustaining body” into which we are born. In similar ways, we face not only a crisis in numbers of people diagnosed with dementia but also the crisis of the human-caused degradation of the planet itself, a type of cultural dementia. With I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird, Cerulean reminds us of the loving, necessary toil of tending to one place, one bird, one being at a time.