Editorial Preface
The present volume marks a change in editorship. After a
long and distinguished career, Dr. Peter W ellnhofer has
recently retired from his post at the Bayerische Staatssammlung
für Paläontologie und historische Geologie
(München), and asked me to assume the editorship of the
series. I would like to thank him for his hard work on the
parts published during his tenure, and will work to uphold
the high editorial standards set by him. During Dr. W ellnhofer’s
term, Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil assumed the responsibility
for the publication of the Handbuch der Paläo-
herpetologie. This change in publishing house has had a
beneficial effect on production quality and commercial
promotion of the volumes. I am grateful to Dr. Friedrich
Pfeil for his continuing interest in and enthusiastic support
of the project.
I would like to announce two editorial changes. First,
starting with the present volume, all remaining parts of
this series (as well as planned revisions of already published
volumes) will review taxa in an explicitly cladistic
framework. Contributors will be asked to provide the character
taxon matrices that they have compiled and used to
develop phylogenetic hypotheses of the interrelationships
of the taxa under discussion. Second, the English version
of the original German series title Handbuch der Paldoherpe-
tologie has been changed to the more correct Handbook of
Paleoherpetology, matching that of the corresponding series,
the Handbook o f Paleoichthyology.
H.-D. Sues
Preface
Taxa are treated in the systematic section according to the
classification summarized in Table 5. A listing ofthese taxa
is given on pages 150-159. For convenience these are first
listed alphabetically, and then categorized according to
status, starting with valid genera and species. Most of the
sections were written by a single author (indicated by
initials in parentheses): Introduction (CM); Anatomy of a
typical ichthyosaur (CM); Anatomical diversification (RM);
Stratigraphy - Triassic (RM), Jurassic-Cretaceous (CM);
Systematfe: paleontology - Triassic taxa (RM), Jurassic-
Cretaceous taxa (CM); PhylOgeny (RM); Functional morphology
and biomechanics (RM).
Acknowledgments
We have a large debt of gratitude to all those who have given us
access to the ichthyosaurs in their care - from private collectors
and custodians of local museums to curators of national repositories.
We have also had generous assistance in other ways. While we
cannot mention everyone by name, we wish to acknowledge the
following:
Natalie Bardet (Paris), Mike Basset (National Museum of
Wales), Don Brinkman (RTMP), Sandra Chapman (BMNH), Alan
Dawn (Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery), Dong, Zhiming
(IVPP), Marta FernAndez (Museo de La Plata), Pascal Godefroit
(Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Bruxelles), Pat
Holroyd (UCMP), Stephen Howe (National Museum of Wales),
Axel HungerbOhler (formerly ROM), Rodney Long (SMC), Lu
Junchang (IVPP), Makoto Manabe (NSM), Philip Manning (YM),
John Martin (Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records
Service), Angela Milner (BMNH), Nachio Minoura (UHR), Betsy
Nicholls (RTMP), David Norman (SMC), Kevin Padian (UCMP),
Dennis Parsons (Somerset County Museum), Phillip Powell
(OUMNH), Olivier Rieppel (Chicago), Bruce Rothschild (Youngstown,
OH), Peter Thornton (WM), You Hailu (IVPP), Yukimitsu
Tomida (NSM), and Rupert Wild (SMNS).
Joan Burke (ROM) proofread and copy-edited the entire manuscript.
We thank her for the considerable improvement in the
manuscript resulting from her meticulous, care. Our thanks to
Julian Mulock, who drew most of the figures - spending time at
the Natural History Museum, London, to pen the superb anatomical
illustrations. We also thank Peter Fenton (ROM) for annotating
and scanninglhese images. At the Royal Ontario Museum,
thanks to Ian Morrison and Catherine Skrabec for fossil preparation,
and to Brian Iwama and Kevin Seymour for their logistic
support. Special thanks to Sandra Chapman (BMNH), both for
facilitating the illustration effort, and for her unstinting help during
our numerous visits to her institution.
We are grateful to the past and present editors of the Handbuch
der Paldoherpetologie. Peter Wellnhofer, the previous editor, invited
us to write this volume. Hans-Dieter Sues, the present editor,
took on the task of actually editing the manuscript.
Our thanks to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada for research funding (to CM). This research
was also made possible with generous support from the Research
Endowment Fund of the ROM Foundation and the Acquisitions &
Research Fund of the ROM Department of Museum Volunteers.
Institutional Abbreviations
BGS
BMNH
BRSMG
BSP
GMR
GPU
IGPS
IVPP
MACN
MCSNM
MLP
MNHN
MNHS
MOZ
N.V1C
NSM
OUMNH
PB
PIMUZ
PMU
QM
ROM
RTMP
SMC
SMF
SMNS
SUU
TF
UCMP
UNT.V
UPM
UHR
UWCVV ..
WESTM
WM
YM
YPM
British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, U.K.
Natural History Museum (formerly British Museum [Natural History]), London, U.K.
City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, U.K.
Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie, München, Germany
Weiwei Paleontological Research and Development Center, Guiyang, People’s Republic of China
Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut und Museum, Universität Tübingen, Germany
Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Academia Sinica, Beijing, People’s Republic
of China
Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano, Italy
Museo de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina
Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm
Museo Professor J. Olsacher, Direction Provincial de Mineria, Zapala, Neuquen, Argentina
Canadian Museum of Nature (formerly National Museum), Ottawa, Canada
National Science Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, U.K.
Petrefaktensammlung Banz, Germany
Paläontologisches Institut und Museum, Universität Zürich, Switzerland
Paleontologiska Museet, Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala, Sweden
Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Australia
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada
Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, U.K.
Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Germany
Department of Historical Geology and Paleontology, Saratov State University, Saratov, Russia
Department of Mineral Resources, Bangkok, Thailand
University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, U.S.A.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, U.S.A.
Undory Paleontological Museum, Russia
Hokkaido University Museum, Sapporo, Japan
University of Wyoming Geological Museum, Laramie, U.S.A.
Woodspring Museum, Weston-super-Mare, Dorset, U.K.
Whitby Museum, Yorkshire, U.K.
York Museum, Yorkshire, U.K.
Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, U.S.A.