New Book On Mexican Mesozoic Reptiles To Be Out In 2014

[DD1991]

A book on Mesozoic reptiles of Mexico will be out in 2014......

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?cPath=1037_3130_3175&products_id=807153

While Mexico's biggest claim to fame in Mesozoic history is that it boasts the asteroid impact site at Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula, what very few people know is that Mexico during the Mesozoic was once inhabited by marine reptiles and boasted the southernmost occurrences of North American ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, tyrannosaurs, hadrosaurs, and dromaeosaurs. While "Plesiosaurus"mexicanus and Amphekepubis were the first Mesozoic reptiles described from Mexico, the significance of Mexico in reconstructing the paleogeography of plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and marine turtles was only recognized several years ago with the discovery of Cricosaurus vignaudi and C. saltillensis as well as unnamed geosaurines and pliosaurs. As for Mexico's dinosaur fauna, the discovery of Labocania, Magnapaulia, Coahuilaceratops, Velafrons, Huehuecanauhtlus, and Latirhinus has provided considerable insights into the southernmost limits of the North American distribution of the major dinosaur clades that roamed western North America in the Late Cretaceous.

Mexico may be famous for its ancient Mayan and Aztec ruins, but it holds the secrets as to how Jurassic ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs ended up in the Rocky Mountain Formation and it provides us with an idea of how far south the dinosaurs inhabited North America in the Late Cretaceous. "Dinosaurs and Other Reptiles from the Mesozoic of Mexico" will be s must-read for anyone curious to see what life was like in Mexico in Mesozoic times.