Re: Where to find Paleontological journals/scientific writings

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Romer's 'Osteology of the reptiles', 'Vertebrate palaeontology' and the
> 'Vertebrate body'(Parsons co-authors in later editions), are older books ,
> but good illustrations and good starting point for getting a broad
> understanding of anatomy of various groups (phylogenetic info has aged).

The phylogenetic info is of historical interest...

> Other textbooks:
> Carroll's 'Patterns and process of vertebrate evolution' and 'vertebrate
> paleontology and evolution' are worth looking at.

Updates of Romer's books, but not recent ones. Again more of historical 
interest.

There is a book by Kenneth Kardong on vertebrate anatomy. It is more 
neontologically oriented, but at least it's recent.

> Benton's 'vertebrate palaeontology'

Comes in three editions. I've seen the 2nd (1997) and the 3rd (2004). Benton 
being "the man who writes faster than his shadow" (he publishes almost once 
a month), the update from the 2nd to the 3rd was in places done very 
sloppily; for example, Benton uncritically accepted the only analysis that 
ever found the oviraptorosaurs to be birds -- and yet treats *Caudipteryx* 
in the "Mesozoic sauropsids" chapter rather than the "birds" chapter. Still, 
all three versions are great introductions into what wondrous kinds of 
vertebrates there have been. They are especially noteworthy for treating 
post-Devonian chondrichthyans and actinopterygians in quite some detail; 
usually, books of this kind have a rather linear arrangement from amphioxus 
to man and mostly ignore the "side branches" -- Benton's much less so.

> colour coding of skull elements through evolution
> from fish to mammals.

Wow! I must get a look at this book!

> Glut's huge multi-volume series 'Dinosauria, the encyclopaedia'
> includes key references for its entries

Read the original and all four supplements cover-to-cover. (And if you 
search for it, spell it "encyclopedia".)

> Weishampel et al's 'The dinosauria'

A few illustrations are only present in the 1st edition or are larger in the 
1st edition. Apart from this, ignore the first edition (1990 -- of 
historical interest for containing the last cladistic analysis that finds 
the tyrannosaurs as carnosaurs) and read the second one (2004) 
cover-to-cover.

> For finding scientific literature:
> Online databases (usually abavailable through uni libraries and othe
> institutions) like 'Web of Science', 'Biological Abstract/Biosis', and
> 'Zoological Record', and similar geological databases cover a good deal of
> the literature...

Bah. Take the DML posts with "new paper" in the title and then look what you 
can get. On campus at least, you probably have full online access to Nature, 
Science, PNAS, www.blackwellpublishing.com, and www.sciencedirect.com.