Preface

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many individuals have contributed, both directly and indirectly, to the production of this volume; they have my unreserved and most sincere gratitude. First, I thank L. Krishtalka, who, as Program Officer of Long Term Projects in Environmental Biology of the National Science Foundation in 1992–1993, was receptive to my aspirations to search for early mammals in Madagascar and encouraged submission of a proposal to the high-risk, potentially high-reward Small Grants for Exploratory Research program. I also could not be more grateful for the hard work and determination of the field crew members of the Mahajanga Basin Project who collected mammalian specimens in the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. This began with the initial discovery by C. Wall (as a Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University [SBU] in 1993; now at Duke University) and ended with the fateful collection of the plaster jacket serendipitously containing the cranium of Vintana sertichi by J. Sertich in 2010 (then also a Ph.D. student at SBU; now at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science). For his brilliant and persistent contextualization of our discoveries and for leading several forays into the relatively inaccessible Lac Kinkony Study Area, I thank Mahajanga Basin Project geologist R. Rogers of Macalester College. I also thank H. Andriamialison and A. Rasoamiaramanana of the Université d’Antananarivo, P. Wright of the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments, B. Andriamihaja and the staff of the Madagascar Institut pour la Conservation des Ecosystèmes Tropicaux, and the villagers of the Lac Kinkony Study Area for logistical support of field work and the ministries of Mines and Higher Education of the Republic of Madagascar for permission to conduct field research. J. Groenke at SBU's Vertebrate Fossil Preparation Laboratory skillfully executed preparation of the cranium of V. sertichi. J. Thostenson and M. Hill of the American Museum of Natural History Microscopy and Imaging Facility, New York; J. Diehm and B. Ruether of Avonix Imaging, Plymouth, Minnesota; and various members of the Department of Radiology at SBU provided outstanding and expert assistance in CT scanning of the cranium.

For direct input into the production of this memoir, I thank, first and foremost, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir series editor J. Wilson for being receptive to the concept of this volume and for his painstaking diligence in editorial oversight. I also thank the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology editorial staff, including Senior Editors A. Berta and P. O'Connor, Managing Editors J. Anderson and R. Holmes, and Technical Editor J. Harris for their roles in shepherding the various manuscripts of this volume through the editorial process, ensuring that they were of the highest quality. The content and presentation of the manuscripts were improved through the insightful and constructive comments of a plethora of peer reviewers, including G. Wilson, who reviewed the manuscript of this preface. I also thank the staff of Taylor & Francis LLC, particularly A. Michel, for the high standards exacted during the production phases of this memoir. I am, of course, immensely grateful to all of the authors, who have suffered through my constant and pertinacious prodding to meet deadlines, but who never compromised quality in the process. The uniformly high quality of the illustrations in this volume is owing to the countless hours and immense talents of artist L. Betti-Nash (SBU) and photographer J. Neville (SBU). G. Staab of Staab Studios undertook the restoration of the head of V. sertichi and seemingly brought to life for the cover of this volume what has been extinct for over 66 million years.

Various figures or parts of figures that appear in this volume were reproduced or modified from figures that appeared in Krause et al. (2014). These include the interpretive line drawings in Figure 1 of Krause et al. (2014) (Figs. 1D, 3C, 4C, 5C, and 6C in Krause, Wible et al., this volume); Figure 2 (Figs. 1B; 3; 4A, D in Krause, this volume); Extended Data Figure 1 (Fig. 2D in Koenigswald and Krause, this volume); Extended Data Figure 2a (Fig. 2B in Krause, Wible et al., this volume); Extended Data Figure 2b (Figure 35B in Krause, Wible et al., this volume); Extended Data Figure 2c (Fig. 38C in Krause, Wible et al., this volume); Extended Data Figure 2d (Fig. 38A in Krause, Wible et al., this volume); Extended Data Figure 5 (Fig. 6B in Krause, Wible et al., this volume); Extended Data Figure 6 (Figs. 4E and 5B in Schultz et al., this volume); Extended Data Figure 7 (Fig. 7 in Schultz et al., this volume); and Extended Data Figure 8a, 8b, 8c, and 8d (Figs. 3, 7, and 6 in Kirk et al., this volume, and Fig. 13 in Hoffmann et al., this volume, respectively). I am immensely grateful to the editors of the journal Nature for permission to include these figures or parts of figures in this volume.

Finally, for financial support, I gratefully acknowledge the National Science Foundation (grants EAR-0446488 and EAR-1123642) and the National Geographic Society (grant 8597-09).