This authoritative volume brings together decades of insights from one of the longest terrestrial fossil records on the planet. The fabled Himalayas have isolated and sheltered the Indian subcontinent for millions of years. The Siwalik sequence of sediments at their feet has been a treasure trove of visions into the past for generations of paleontologists, preserving an immense 20 million years of terrestrial ecosystems' fossil record. The Siwalik sequence reveals a unique forest wonderland of diverse animal species: from huge elephant relatives, great rhinos, and sabertooth cats, to mongooses, swamp rats, crocodiles, and catfish. Regional climate change eventually caused this forest ecosystem to unravel, as grasslands replaced the forests and established the habitats and animals of the modern ecosystems of the Indus and Ganges rivers. In At the Foot of the Himalayas, celebrated paleontologists Catherine Badgley, Michele Morgan, and David Pilbeam bring together a collection of world-renowned scholars to present an interdisciplinary approach to documenting and interpreting this fossil record. By investigating changes in landscape, climate, and vertebrate species diversity, their analysis reveals insights into a central question about biodiversity: which evolutionary developments were influenced by changes in climate, and which were caused by interactions among the species themselves? This groundbreaking book illuminates for the first time a mysterious and vibrant paleontological past, bringing together more than 40 years of exciting international collaborative studies that forge invaluable knowledge pathways for the ecologists, evolutionary scientists, and paleontologists of the future, and pose important questions about our fragile ecosystems in the present day.
Catherine Badgley is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Residential College at the University of Michigan. Michele Morgan is the Curator of Osteology and Paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. David Pilbeam is a professor emeritus in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and longtime curator of paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum.
Preface Part I: Preamble to Framing Chapters 1. A Long Story 2. Rocks, Rivers, and Time 3. Documenting the Siwalik Fossil Record 4. Siwalik Taphonomy: Fossil Assemblage Preservation 5. Stable Isotopes as a Record of Ecological Change in the Siwalik Group of Pakistan Part II: Preamble to Biota Chapters 6. Freshwater Molluscan Fossils of the Siwalik Record of the Potwar Plateau 7. Fishes in the Siwalik Record 8. Siwalik Reptilia, Exclusive of Aves 9. Siwalik Birds 10. Siwalik Small Mammals: Hedgehogs, Shrews, Bats, and Treeshrews 11. Siwalik Glires 12. Primates 13. Siwalik Creodonta and Carnivora 14. Tubulidentata and Pholidota 15. Siwalik Proboscidea 16. Equidae from the Potwar Plateau, Pakistan 17. Siwalik Chalicotheriidae 18. Rhinocerotids from the Siwalik faunal sequence 19. Siwalik Suidae and Palaeochoeridae 20. Siwalik Hippopotamoidea 21. Siwalik Tragulidae 22. The Siwalik Giraffoidea 23. Siwalik Bovidae Part III: Preamble to Synthetic Chapters 24. Reconstructing Miocene Paleoecology from Rocks and Faunas 25. Mammalian Community Structure and Patterns of Faunal Change 26. Taxonomic and Ecological Dynamics of Siwalik Mammalian Faunas 27. Highlights of the Siwalik Record and Future Research Opportunities Notes Subject Index Taxonomic Index
This authoritative volume brings together decades of insights from one of the longest terrestrial fossil records on the planet.
