Indiana University Press is producing an extraordinary variety of texts under their ‘Life of the Past’ series edited by James O. Farlow. They range between rather naïve, poorly edited books on dinosaurs and scholarly tomes written exclusively by acknowledged experts that have the ‘air’ of a more traditional monograph. This falls into the latter category, and is the third to have been produced by Alan Holman (the first having been The Fossil Snakes of North America, the second The Fossil Frogs and Toads of North America).
As with the earlier volumes this is an impressively comprehensive survey of a comparatively obscure group of amphibians. Since these are ecologically extremely vulnerable in modern habitats, being able to survey their anatomy, taxonomy, history and distribution in exquisite detail is a valuable resource. In this respect Indiana University Press is to be congratulated in its altruism – this is not going to be a ‘best seller’ in any sense of that word, since it fits into the category of worthy (but comparatively dull).
Salamanders are biologically wonderful animals (as indeed are their cousins the frogs and toads), living as they do at the water–land interface. They combine fish-like and classical tetrapod adaptations with great facility since they can (and do) prosper in both environments. Early reports dating to the late 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries confounded the naturalists – in much the same way as the duckbilled platypus did. Were they ‘fish’ (aquatic)? or were they actually ‘saurian’ (crawlers on land)? – the combination of gills (some retained externally in the adult) and legs seemed to cut right across conventional wisdom on how to distinguish between the then-understood groups of animals.
Such developmental and anatomical plasticity, and ecological flexibility are part of the wonder of this underestimated group, and this volume that provides an insight into their evolutionary history and diversity is both timely and valuable. This is an excellent addition to the list provided by Indiana University Press. Unfortunately its audience will inevitably be rather limited given the non-prevalence of taxonomically oriented courses taught in biology departments at the present time; this is an indictment of the present state of our educational system.
