Heads Jaws And Muscles

The vertebrate head is the most complex part of the animal body and its diversity in nature reflects a variety of life styles, feeding modes, and ecological adaptations. This book will take you on a journey to discover the origin and diversification of the head, which evolved from a seemingly headless chordate ancestor. Despite their structural diversity, heads develop in a highly conserved fashion in embryos. Major sensory organs like the eyes, ears, nose, and brain develop in close association with surrounding tissues such as bones, cartilages, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels. Ultimately, this integrated unit of tissues gives rise to the complex functionality of the musculoskeletal system as a result of sensory and neural feedback, most notably in the use of the vertebrate jaws, a major vertebrate innovation only lacking in hagfishes and lampreys. The cranium subsequently further diversified during the major transition from fishes living in an aquatic environment to tetrapods living mostly on land. In this book, experts will join forces to integrate, for the first time, state-of-the-art knowledge on the anatomy, development, function, diversity, and evolution of the head and jaws and their muscles within all major groups of extant vertebrates. Considerations about and comparisons with fossil taxa, including emblematic groups such as the dinosaurs, are also provided in this landmark book, which will be a leading reference for many years to come.

The Vertebrata is one of the most speciose groups of animals, comprising more than 58,000 living species. This book provides a detailed account on the comparative anatomy, development, homologies and evolution of the head, neck, pectoral and forelimb muscles of vertebrates. It includes hundreds of illustrations, as well as numerous tables showing the homologies between the muscles of all the major extant vertebrate taxa, including lampreys, elasmobranchs, hagfish, coelacanths, dipnoans, actinistians, teleosts, halecomorphs, ginglymodians, chondrosteans, caecilians, anurans, urodeles, turtles, lepidosaurs, crocodylians, birds, and mammals such as monotremes, rodents, tree-shrews, flying lemurs and primates, including modern humans. It also provides a list of more than a thousand synonyms that have been used by other authors to designate these muscles in the literature. Importantly, it also reviews data obtained in the fields of evolutionary developmental biology, molecular biology and embryology, and explains how this data helps to understand the evolution and homologies of vertebrate muscles. The book will useful to students, teachers, and researchers working in fields such as functional morphology, ecomorphology, evolutionary developmental biology, zoology, molecular biology, evolution, and phylogeny. As the book includes crucial information about the anatomy, development, homologies, evolution and muscular abnormalities of our own species, Homo sapiens, it will also be helpful to physicians and medical students.

World-class palaeontologists and biologists summarise the state-of-the-art on fish evolution and development.

The Second Edition of this Volume is updated in accordance with the syllabus of Anatomy recommended by the Medical Council of India. It covers in detail the anatomy of head and neck and deals with essential aspects of brain. Following recent trends of anatomy education, the book in addition to basic information provides knowledge on anatomical/embryological/histological basis of clinical conditions through its features — Clinical Correlation and Clinical Case Study. Written in simple and easy-to-understand language, this profusely illustrated book provides knowledge of anatomy without extraneous details – ideal for undergraduate medical and dental students. It is highly recommended for those preparing for various entrance examinations, like PG entrance, USMLE, PLAB, etc. Salient Features Detailed exposition on oral cavity and cranial nerves Chapters on osteology of the head and neck; side of the neck; infratemporal fossa, temporo-mandibular joint and pterygo-palatine fossa; thyroid and parathyroid glands, trachea and esophagus; oral cavity; pharynx and palate; nose and paranasal air sinuses; ear; orbit and eyeball have been revised thoroughly Clinical Correlations integrated in the text, highlighting practical application of anatomical facts, have been modified extensively Addition of new line diagrams and improvement in earlier diagrams Addition of halftone figures to enrich the understanding of clinical correlations Inclusion of new tables and flowcharts and revision in earlier tables Clinical Case Study at the end of each chapter to initiate interest of students in problem based learning (PBL) Additional information of higher academic value presented in a simple way in N.B. to make it more interesting for readers, especially the aspiring postgraduates Important facts useful for candidates appearing in various entrance examinations like PGME, USMLE, PLAB, listed under Golden Facts to Remember Multiple Choice Questions at the end of the book for self-assessment of the topics studied

This “informative account” of canine evolution will “appeal to dog lovers with a curiosity about the origins of their favorite companion.” (Publishers Weekly) Many have made the case that dogs have evolved from wolves but the evolutionary link between wolves and dogs remains a mystery. In How the Dog Became the Dog, Mark Derr posits that the dog’s evolution from wolf was inevitable due to the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship between wolves and hunter-gatherer humans. How the Dog Became the Dog presents the domestication of the dog as a biological and cultural process that began with a reciprocal cooperation between dogwolves and humans that evolved over time, from the first dogs that took refuge with humans against the cold at the end of the last Ice Age, to the 18th century, when humans began to exercise full control of dog reproduction, life, and death, through centuries of natural and artificial selection that led us to the many breeds of dogs we know and love today. “A transporting slice of dog/wolf thinking that will pique the interest of anyone with a dog in their orbit.” —Kirkus Reviews