Ancient Marine Reptiles

Download or read book Ancient Marine Reptiles written by Jack M. Callaway and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 1997-03-12 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 reptiles - Documents the most current research on extinct marine reptiles - Prepared by the world's most prominent experts in the field - Well illustrated