Archosauria include two extant clades, crocodylians and avians. However, the diversification of the avian and crocodylian crown groups are relatively recent events that began during the Late Cretaceous (Brochu 2001, 2003; Clarke et al. 2005), less than 100 Ma ago. These crown diversifications are shallow in time compared to the much deeper divergence of the crocodylian and avian stem lineages in the Triassic, approximately 250 Ma ago (Butler et al. 2011; Nesbitt 2011; Nesbitt et al. 2011). The early archosaurian diversification began in the wake of the devastating end-Permian mass extinction, and the divergence of both lineages and disparate body forms was rapid, occurring less than 10 Ma after the first archosaur (Nesbitt et al. 2010). This initial diversification was severely affected by the end-Triassic mass extinction approximately 50 Ma later, and only three major archosaur clades – pterosaurs, dinosaurs and crocodylomorphs – survived to diversify during the rest of the Mesozoic <...>

The history of life is documented by fossils through the past 3.5 billion years. Paleobiology provides a unique long‐term perspective, which is important for three reasons: ancient life and environments can inform us about global change and the origins of modern biodiversity, and so provide information about how the world might change in the future; extinct plants and animals make up 99% of all species that ever lived, and so we need to know about them to understand the true scope of the tree of life; and extinct organisms did amazing things that no living plant or animal can do, and we need to explore their capabilities to assess the limits of form and function <...>

Ammonoids are the quintessential fossils, seemingly covering all the major themes of paleontology. Method and theory of stratigraphic correlation using fossils? Albert Oppel, whose concepts of zonation were explicated and applied by W. J. Arkell exhaustively in his monumental works on the Jurassic System, immediately spring to mind-works based virtually exclusively on the stratigraphic distributions of ammonoid species. Evolution? W. Waagen leaps to mind, applying the term “mutation” to his ammonoid lineages, and thus introducing the word to the scientific literature well before geneticists co-opted “mutation” for their own, starkly different, use. <...>

Рассмотрены бопрооы структурно-системного подхода в палеобиологических исследованиях и палеобиоценологии, а такие дан обзор основных этапов .филогенетического развития некоторых групп мезо-каНеозойских организмов Грузии.

Сборник включает статьи по вопросам тафономии,   па— леоихнологии, а также некоторым другим проблемам палеобиологии. В статьях освешаются особенности былого существования разных морских и континентальных организмов и выясняются пути захоронения и накопления в осадочных толщах их остатков.    На основе анализа оригинальных материалов и обобщения имеющихся в науке данных авторы обсуждают некоторые общетеоретические и методологические вопросы палеонтологии и оценивают возможности практического применения положений, установленных на основе специального изучения палеобиологических и тафоно— мических закономерностей.
Сборник рассчитан на широкий  круг геологов и биологов, интересующихся теоретическими и практическими вопросами палеонтологии

Tyrannosaurus rex is assuredly the dinosaur with the greatest public visibility, and it has been cast as a heavy in countless fi lms dating back to Harry Hoyt’s (1925) adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1912) Lost World. However, as of 1980, only seven specimens of the dinosaur were known (Larson 2008). In the last three decades, this number has swelled at least sevenfold (Larson 2008), and our knowledge of the relationships, anatomy, and biology of T. rex and its close relatives has expanded dramatically both through new specimens coming to light and through a plethora of analytical studies. This volume had its genesis in a conference held in Rockford, Illinois, on September 16–18, 2005, titled “The Origin, Systematics, and Paleobiology of Tyrannosauridae,” and jointly sponsored by the Burpee Museum of Natural History and Northern Illinois University. The symposium was held in conjunction with the development of the Burpee’s new dinosaur hall, the centerpiece of which was a skeletal reconstruction of “Jane” (BMR P2002.4.1), a relatively complete and very well preserved specimen of a juvenile tyrannosaur recovered by the Burpee Museum in 2002 from Carter County, Montana, and now mounted on display at the museum <...>

Dinosaurs are everywhere these days. They are the most popular exhibits in many museums, the stars of movies and the focus of television documentaries, the pitchmen in advertising campaigns and the subject of gushing articles in magazines and newspapers. Looking at how dinosaurs are portrayed in the popular press, it is easy to lump them together with leprechauns, unicorns, and dragons – creatures of myth and iconic lore that only exist in the imaginations of children and the whimsy of pop culture. But dinosaurs are not creatures of fantasy – they were real animals, of many fantastic shapes and sizes, that dominated terrestrial ecosystems for an astounding span of over 160 million years. They were living, breathing, feeding, moving, reproducing, evolving organisms that originated in the

aftermath of the worst mass extinction in earth history, rose to dominance as a supercontinent was splitting and climates were fluctuating, evolved into some of the largest and most fearsome animals the planet has ever seen, and then suddenly went extinct right at the same time that a giant comet or asteroid slammed into the earth and supervolcanoes were belching rivers of lava. And perhaps most astonishing of all, these ancient creatures, so often symbols of lethargy and failure, were the ancestors of one of the most successful groups of living animals: the birds. <...>

В работе дан палеобиологический анализ моллюсковой фаулы мэотиса Западной Грузии, палеоэкологически изучены фаунистические комплексы и их эволюция в связи с изменениями гидрогеологических условий; в ней рассматриваются вопросы происхождения, развития этой фауны и палеогеографии морского бассейна, существовавшего в мэоти-ческое время на территории Юга СССР.

В работе освещены также такие вопросы как объем мэотического яруса и положение этого яруса в геохронологической шкале неогена.

В сборнике освещаются отдельные вопросы палеобиологии некоторых представителей фауны моллюсков, млекопитающих и растений мезозоя и кайнозоя Грузии. Рассматриваются вопросы систематики, филогении и экологии ископаемых организмов, а также некоторые спорные вопросы стратиграфии.

Рассматриваемые в статьях сборника вопросы имеют ключевое значение как для самой геологической науки, так и для дальнейшей разработки философских проблем естествознания. Определив методологический статус принципов развития и историзма, авторы значительное внимание уделяют проблемам образования и развития жизни на Земле, показывают противоречия познания этого процесса.Книга адресована философам, геологам, всем интересующимся философскими проблемами естествознания.