A crucial task for paleontologists and paleobiologists is the reconstruction of the appearance, movements, and behavior of extinct vertebrates from studies of their bones or other, more rarely preserved parts. A related issue is the boundary between the scientific evidence for reconstruction and the need to resort to imagination. In this book, sixteen paleontologists and biologists discuss these questions, review the current status of functional studies of extinct vertebrates in the context of similar work on living animals, and present a broad philosophical view of the subject's development...
A crucial task for paleontologists and paleobiologists is the reconstruction of the appearance, movements, and behavior of extinct vertebrates from st...