African Vertebrates Through Times

“Africa always brings new facts” said Jean Temporal (1556) in the first French translation of the Libro della Cosmographia Dell’Africa by Joannes Leo Africanus (1550), a key work considered in Europe’s Renaissance as one of the main windows on Africa. At that time Africa was the land of "absolute otherness" and wonderment. More than three centuries later, when studying the first vertebrate fossils from Africa, the famous British paleontologist R. Owen (1876) used almost the same expression to highlight the uniqueness of African fossils “Africa is always producing some novelty”. Today Africa plays a pivotal role to understand the impact of geodynamic events in macroevolution (extinctions and succeeding recovery phases). It is a key continental theater for the study of endemic evolutionary radiations. We are interested in answering questions like: Why, how and when vertebrate biodiversity dropped and rose again in deep-time? What is the influence of morphological novelties on vertebrate diversity and how did novel organismal groups rise to dominance? How biogeographic history of Africa has molded the evolution of vertebrate faunas and how far the African center of endemism contributed to the evolution of modern faunas?
The main paleontological significance of Africa arises from the wide temporal range of its fossil record and the importance of new findings during the last decade.

This Research Topic welcomes research on all aspects of African vertebrate paleontology. It will provide an opportunity to showcase the current state of knowledge of paleontological studies (e.g., systematics, phylogeny, paleobiogeography, and biodiversity) of African vertebrate biota, from their earliest Paleozoic records to the beginning of the Neogene.

We welcome studies describing new taxa, providing more information on poorly known taxa and critical reviews of key-localities. Paleobiodiversity, evolution, paleoenvironments and paleobiogeography of African vertebrates in their successive paleogeographic contexts (Pangea, Gondwana, insular Arabo-Africa, Tethys closure and Old World emergence) will be the common thread of this Research Topic. Besides an in-depth view of the evolutionary impact of this long and remarkable geodynamic history on local evolution in Africa, this Topic will also address questions relative to vicariance and dispersals out of Africa. Therefore, macroevolutionary and macroecological changes on the African continent have an important impact on biodiversity changes on earth in deep-time.

All aspects dealing with evolution, paleoenvironments and paleobiogeography of African vertebrate fossils are welcomed. Themes to be addressed include:
- Vertebrate comparative anatomy, systematics and phylogeny;
- African origins, endemic evolution and diversifications;
- Paleobiodiversity, macroevolution, faunal crisis and turnover;
- Paleobiogeographical history and events;
- African paleoecosystems and paleoenvironments, incl. climatic changes;
- Faunal assemblages throughout time, faunal correlations and biostratigraphy;
- Global significance of the African record of vertebrate evolution.