A Scientific Bestiary

The Basics

IMPORTANT: THE VERTEBRATE NOTES IS MOVING. WE'RE HAVING A BIT OF TROUBLE WITH THE NAME SERVERS AT THE MOMENT, FOR REASONS WHICH ARE NOT CLEAR. THE DOMAIN NAME IS TENTATIVELY PALAEOS.COM.

The move is likely to be slow -- on the order of months -- and messy. It involves reorganization of this site, as well as considerable integration with the paleo portions of Alan Kazlev's Kheper site, which will share the same domain. If you're curious, A few of the new pages may be found here.

What is this site? See the FAQ for details. Some years ago, I set out to learn vertebrate paleontology. There is no learning tool like the discipline of writing for others, and this site is the result. Whether others actually do read it, I can't say. I sometimes get feedback from odd parts of the world, so I suppose they do. Other, less quixotic, efforts in this direction may be found at Subphylum Vertebrata (the Kheper site), The Vertebrate Phylogeny Pages, the Dinosauricon (for Dinosaurs), and (for living mammals) The Animal Diversity Web. This site has acquired a largely deserved reputation for being quite "technical." The glossary and essays should help, but it really does require some background.

How is it organized? The site is organized in seven parts: (1) an alphabetical index of clades; (2) the (mandatory) cladograms; (3) descriptions of, and other information about, each group, organized in highly arbitrary phylogenetic "units;" and (4) occasional essays loosely related to some of the groups. I'm gradually covering (5) the cranial bones; but this is experimental, and the Bones section is full of guesses and probably numerous mistakes. Finally, (6) I include an extensive, but largely home-made, glossary and (7) a list of literature references. Each of these parts is extensively cross-linked to the others. The navigation bar above and at the top of each page can also be used to move between the sections. See the Contents page for a roadmap.

Status: At the present time, the Notes include at least some information on over 600 vertebrate clades.  Coverage of living mammals, many living reptiles and teleosts is still weak to non-existent. Other than those groups, it is starting to look reasonably good. The osteology section is moving very, very slowly. I am doing minor updates on a daily basis (mostly just pruning and adding links) which are not shown below. The following are recent major overhauls or expansions, or corrections which require thanks for outside help and/or confession of some blunder on my part.

Recently: Onychodontiformes revised to incorporate information from Long (2001) (12/26/01). Technical correction to the Pythonomorph Notes with thanks to Dr. Ken Carpenter for pointing out the error (12/26/01). Massive revisions and additions to Varanopseidae completed (12/31/01). Symmoriid Notes deleted as obsolete in view of Coates & Sequeira (2001) (1/1/02). Varanopseid essay completed -- mostly on jaw mechanics (1/1/02). Incus added to Bones (1/5/02). Psammosteid revisions more or less complete (1/14/02). Essay on psammosteid plates and their histology (1/27/02). My sincere thanks to Jack Conrad, Thomas Rich, and Christian Sidor, who have recently bestowed comments, information and/or the meaningless, but comforting, title of Honorary Gondwanan (2/15/02). Ouranosaurus and basal hadrosauroids revised, with essay on humps vs. sails and other weighty matters (2/16/02).

Current Project (any input welcome): Yet more Permo-Triassic synapsids. There are an awful lot of these things, and its time we got a handle on them. Probably with an essay recanting prior positions on long-term evolutionary trends.

Your site: From time to time, someone writes to tell me about their site, which is unaccountably absent from my links. I welcome these suggestions and usually follow them.

Copyright: None. Except for attributed images, the entire site is public domain and may be used by any person, for any purpose, with or without attribution or permission.

Disclaimer: This is an amateur site. It is reviewed by no one. It is authority for nothing. I hope it is useful, interesting, and occasionally amusing. But it is also full of speculation, overstatement and an unknown number of errors. So if I messed up, its your neck, Bucko ...

Contact me: See a mistake? Have a question? Comments? Bad links? Email Toby White: mwhite@houston.rr.com. If you have time, I'd like to know if you found what you were looking for.