Book excerpt: Excerpt from The South American Herpetofauna: Its Origin, Evolution, and Dispersal This volume is the result of a symposium of the same title held on 11-13 August 1977 in conjunction with the joint annual meetings of the Herpetologists League and the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles at Lawrence, Kansas. I originally conceived the idea for such a symposium in August 1975 while returning from a 15-month sojourn in South America. My interactions with many South American biologists during that trip had convinced me that the time was appropriate for a thorough discussion of ideas and presentation of our existing knowledge of the South American heqetofauna. The initial response from colleagues was heartening, so during the following year the symposium was organized. Unfortunately, owing to various circumstances not all subjects were covered; obvious omissions in this volume are chapters on the South American-North American herpetofaunal relationships and the herpetofaunas of the Brasilian Highlands, the Atacama Desert, and the caatinga and campos cerrados of Brasil. This volume is organized in much the same way as was the symposium, except that my introductory chapter provides an overview of the South American herpetofauna. Chapter 2 deals with the fossil record of amphibians and reptiles in South America, and Chapters 3 and 4 are concerned with the relationships of the South American herpetofauna with those of Africa and Australia. The Quaternary biogeography of the continent is the subject of Chapters 5-7. Treatments of regional herpetofaunas are found in Chapters 8-15, and the Participants in the Symposium on the South American Herpetofauna held in Lawrence, Kansas, 11-13 August 1977. Front row (left to right): Alberto Veloso M., Beryl B. Simpson, Jaime E. Pefaur, Ana Maria Baez, Jose M .Cei. Second row: Lars Brundin, Thomas E E. Lovejoy, Donn E. Rosen, Jiirgen Haffer, Thomas H. Fritts, Ramon Formas, Raymond F. Laurent. Back row: William E. Duellman, James R. Dixon, Marinus S. Hoogmoed, John D. Lynch, W. Ronald Heyer, Michael J. Tyler, Jose M. Gallardo. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.