1st Edition
The Evolution and Classification of the Cretaceous Ammonites and their Jurassic Progenitors
This book is a unique text that illustrates and describes all the nominal genera of Cretaceous ammonites and their Jurassic progenitors on the basis of their type species.
There is no judgement as to validity, and the authors leaves it to the reader to subjectively recognize or synonymize those taxa as they see fit, based on the premises and philosophies to which they ascribe. The author argues that the taxonomy offered by the Treatise, the fundamental reference work, is no longer appropriate and genera need to be redefined according to testable hypotheses. The purpose of this book, therefore, is redescribe the type species of every nominal genus and to use these to construct a new phylogenetic classification not hampered by preconceived opinion. It emphasizes the importance of "trifling characters" for classification, and that taxonomic rank is not optional but is predetermined by evolutionary position. A new higher classification is introduced for the group using the higher taxa proposed for the phylogenetic classification of the Bivalvia. Hypothesized relationships are depicted by the use of cladograms, recognizing these portray only affiliations among the sample and not necessarily close taxonomic bond.
This book will be of great interest to palaeontologists, geologists, stratigraphers, biogeographers and interested students of geology, and paleology. It will also make a good addition to universities, museums, and public libraries.
Biography
Michael Robert Cooper attended the University of Natal where he graduated B.Sc. in 1969 and B.Sc. Hons in 1970. He joined the South African Museum, Cape Town, in 1971 as the invertebrate palaeontologist, his research focusing chiefly on ammonites, but also working on trilobites and trigoniid bivalves.; during this time, he was awarded his M.Sc. He completed his doctoral studies at Oxford University in 1977, and spent a year as a sectional geologist on Shackleton Mine, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, after which he returned to Oxford in 1978 on a post-doctoral studentship. He went on to become a palaeontologist at the Queen Victoria Museum in Salisbury, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, where his research focused mainly on dinosaurs, birds and tortoises, and later joined the University of Durban-Westville in South Africa as a temporary junior lecturer in palaeontology and stratigraphy, where his research focused mainly on stratigraphy, ammonites, bivalves (trigoniids, oysters) and brachiopods. He took early retirement in 2002 as an Emeritus Professor but has continued his work on ammonites and trigoniid bivalves. Since then, he has published three books, and authored 140 scientific publications on such varied topics as Cretaceous and Cainozoic stratigraphy, eustasy and tectonic cycles, ammonites, bivalves, trilobites, brachiopods, dinosaurs, birds, living moths and living cycads.
