Mesozoic mammals from South America and their forerunners

Abstract

This book summarizes the most relevant published paleontological information, supplementedby our own original work, on the record of Mesozoic mammals? evolution, their close ancestorsand their immediate descendants. Mammals evolved in a systematically diverse world, amidst adynamic geography that is at the root of the 6,500 species living today. Fossils of Mesozoicmammals, while rare and often incomplete, are key to understanding how mammals haveevolved over more than 200 million years. Mesozoic mammals and their close relatives occurin a few dozen localities from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru spanning from the Mid-Triassic to the Late Cretaceous, with some lineages surviving the cataclysmic end of theCretaceous period, into the Cenozoic of Argentina. There are roughly 25 recognized mammalianspecies distributed in several distinctive lineages, including australosphenidans,multituberculates, gondwanatherians, eutriconodonts, amphilestids and dryolestoids, amongothers. With its focus on diversity, systematics, phylogeny, and their impact on the evolution ofmammals, there is no similar book currently available.