Palaeoecology and Palaeoenvironments of Late Cenozoic Mammals: Tributes to the Career of C.S. (Rufus) Churcher (Heritage)

Description

This unique volume of thirty essays, by fifty-three internationally known scholars, honours C.S. (Rufus) Churcher, the distinguished Canadian palaeontologist. The papers focus on late Cenozoic mammals in North America and Africa and provide both site-specific descriptions of faunas and their associated geological contexts, and more general syntheses of regional palaeoenvironments and biogeography. The volume provides a much-needed overview of current research. The stature of the researchers who have contributed to the volume, and the breadth of the material presented, is a reflection of Churcher’s diverse research interests. The first section contains eleven papers on the palaeoenvironment and palaeoecology of Quaternary mammals in North America; the second section has 9 contributions describing faunas and morphological analyses of North American Quaternary mammals; and the final section contains nine papers on the palaeoecology and palaeoenvironments of late Cenozoic mammals of Africa. In this final section, Alan Gentry pays tribute to Churcher by naming a species after him: Budorcas churcheri. The volume contains individual discussions of North American fossil prairie dogs, mastodons, zebras, short-faced bears, sabre cats, lions, giant armadillos, elk-moose, caribou and muskrats, as well as African hyaenas, zebras, hipparion horses, antelopes, rodents, and giraffes. Contents Contributors Preface C.S. 'Rufus' Churcher - The Man From Aldershot Diversity Bottlenecks, Oddball Survivors, Comparison Of Mammalian Response To Glacial- Review Of Pleistocene Zoogeography Of Prairie Dogs Pleistocene And Holocene Vertebrates As Models For Selective Mortality Of Mastodons Middle Pleistocene (early Rancholabrean) Population Structure Of The Late Pliocene (Blancan) Current Status Of North American Sangamonian Local Distribution And Size Variation In North American Origin Of The Vertebrate Fossil Sites Near A Preliminary Report On The Carnivore Of Force Generation By The Jaw Adductor Musculature At A Review Of Pleistocene Giant Armadillos A Spectacular Specimen Of The Elk-moose Tracking Ice Age Felids: Identification Of Tracks Of Pleistocene Mammals Of Dublin Gulch And The The Masticatory Apparatus Of The American Mastodon Pleistocene Caribou Dental Evolution And Size Change In The North Early Rancholabrean Mammals From Late And Middle Pleistocene Vertebrate Fossils Antlers In America: Ossicones In Africa Sexual Dimorphism In A Review Of Dietrich's Hipparions From South A Fossil Basicranial Anatomy Of The Giant Viverrid From The Identification Of Temporal Variability In Horn-core Dimensions Of The Fossil And Living Hyaenidae Of Africa: Is The Rodent