Prehistoric mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One hundred million years of evolution.

Abstract

IF this book had been written fifty years ago, it would have been rather short. In 1953, the fossil record of Australasian mammals consisted almost entirely of large-bodied taxa from a handful of Plio- Pleistocene localities (up to 5 million years old). Since then, our knowledge of Australasia's fossil mammals has increased exponentially, not only in the number of described taxa, but also in the spatial and temporal spread of known fossil deposits. The fossil record is now estimated to be over 100 million years in extent (hence the subtitle of the book) with over 120 extinct genera so far described and many more known to exist but awaiting formal taxonomic circumscription. These taxa are known from many deposits spread across the Australian continent and also in New Guinea. The authors of this book have all had significant roles in this renaissance in Australasian vertebrate palaeontology.