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J. Alan Holman. 2000. Fossil Snakes of North America: Origin, Evolution, Distribution, Paleoecology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 357 p.
Snakes are usually considered, if at all, an afterthought in traditional graduate survey courses and textbooks on vertebrate paleontology. However, snakes are among the most recently evolved, and uniquely specialized kinds of vertebrate animals. Unlike other living groups of reptiles, that have either declined from former eminence or entered a time of evolutionary stasis, snakes encounter the modem world in a time of great diversification. In Fossil Snakes of North America, Dr. Holman laments the precarious future of snakes, but their fossil record reveals a remarkable past; one which he documents in authoritative fashion. Dr. Holman is a leading authority on New World fossil snakes, and his book nicely fills a gap that has existed in the paleontological literature for more than half a century.
Inasmuch as snakes are typically small and have lightly built skulls and skeletons, they are rare as fossils and are usually preserved as isolated skeletal elements. A full appreciation of their fossil record therefore awaited the widespread application of screen-washing techniques to improve the recovery of specimens. In the introductory section of his book, Dr. Holman provides the non-specialist with a helpful review of snake skeletal morphology and, in particular, the detailed structure of their vertebrae. Because isolated vertebrae are the most common elements found as fossils, they are necessarily the usual basis for their identification (Chapter 1, 17 pages).
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