Living Fossils

The case history approach has an impressive record of success in a variety of disciplines. Collections of case histories, casebooks, are now widely used in all sorts of specialties other than in their familiar appli­ cation to law and medicine. The case method had its formal beginning at Harvard in 1871 when Christopher Lagdell developed it as a means of teaching. It was so successful in teaching law that it was soon adopted in medical education, and the collection of cases provided the raw material for research on various diseases. Subsequently, the case history approach spread to such varied fields as business, psychology, management, and economics, and there are over 100 books in print that use this approach. The idea for a series of Casehooks in Earth Science grew from my experience in organizing and editing a collection of examples of one variety of sedimentary deposits. The prqject began as an effort to bring some order to a large number of descriptions of these deposits that were so varied in presentation and terminology that even specialists found them difficult to compare and analyze. Thus, from the beginning, it was evident that something more than a simple collection of papers was needed. Accordingly, the nearly fifty contributors worked together with George de Vries Klein and me to establish a standard format for presenting the case histories.

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Living Fossils: Introduction to the Casebook.- 1. Evolutionary Stasis in the Elephant-Shrew, Rhynchocyon.- 2. The Tree Squirrel Sciurus (Sciuridae, Rodentia) as a Living Fossil.- 3. The Tree-Shrew, Tupaia: A "Living Model" of the Ancestral Primate?.- 4. What is a Tarsier?.- 5. Are There Any Anthropoid Primate Living Fossils?.- 6. Evolutionary Pattern and Process in the Sister-Group Alcelaphini-Aepycerotini (Mammalia: Bovidae.- 7. Tapirs as Living Fossils.- 8. Tragulids as Living Fossils.- 9. Conceptual and Methodological Aspects of the Study of Evolutionary Rates, with Some Comments on Bradytely in Birds.- 10. Crocodilians as Living Fossils.- 11. Family Chanidae and Other Teleostean Fishes as Living Fossils.- 12. Denticeps clupeoides Clausen (1959): The Static Clupeomorph.- 13. Polypterus and Erpetoichthys: Anachronistic Osteichthyans.- 14. Sturgeons as Living Fossils.- 15. The Neopterygian Amia as a Living Fossil.- 16. Family Lepisosteidae (Gars) as Living Fossils.- 17. The Coelacanth as a Living Fossil.- 18. "Notidanus".- 19. Cephalocarida: Living Fossil Without a Fossil Record.- 20. Leptostraca as Living Fossils.- 21. Anaspidid Syncarida.- 22. The Xiphosurida: Archetypes of Bradytely?.- 23. Peripatus as a Living Fossil.- 24. Neopilina, Neomphalus and Neritopsis, Living Fossil Molluses.- 25. Pleurotomaria: Pedigreed Perseverance?.- 26. The Giant Creeper, Campanile symbolicum Iredale, an Australian Relict Marine Snail.- 27. Diastoma melanioides (Reeve), a Relict Snail from South Australia.- 28. The Relict Cerithiid Prosobranch, Gourmya gourmyi (Crosse).- 29. Neotrigonia, the Sole Surviving Genus of the Trigoniidae (Bivalvia, Mollusca).- 30. Is Nautilus a Living Fossil?.- 31. The Bryozoan Nellia tenella as a Living Fossil.- 32. The Cretaceous Coral Heliopora (Octocorallia, Coenothecalia)-a Common Indo-Pacific Reef Builder.- 33. Simpson's Inverse: Bradytely and the Phenomenon of Living Fossils.- 34. Does Bradytely Exist?.