Preface

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Volumes such as this obviously don't just happen. We take the opportunity here to thank those individuals who played an integral role in helping us bring this project to fruition and had a substantive impact on the entire volume. First and foremost, we thank Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir series editor N. Fraser for being so receptive to the concept of this volume and for his meticulousness and diligence in editing the final product. We also thank the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology editorial staff, Senior Editor R. Reisz, Technical Editor R. Nydam, and especially Managing Editor M. Wilson, for their roles in shepherding manuscripts through the editorial process and ensuring that they were of the highest quality, and all of the manuscript reviewers for their insights and constructive comments. Special gratitude is also extended to A. Michel, Production Editor at Taylor and Francis LLC, for her expert handling of the various manuscripts of this volume and for her patience in dealing with 11^th hour changes to the proofs. We are immensely grateful to all of the authors, who have suffered through our constant prodding to meet deadlines and, in our admittedly biased opinion, combined to write the most comprehensive treatment yet of any crocodyliform. We also thank field crew members of the Mahajanga Basin Project who collected the various specimens of Simosuchus clarki that form the material basis of this volume. In particular, we single out former Université d'Antananarivo graduate student L. Randriamiaramanana for finding the holotype specimen in 1998, with apologies for not naming the species S. randriamiaramananai, a name that would have surely tongue-tied at least all English speakers. Most of the articulated specimens of S. clarki were skillfully prepared, molded, and cast by J. Groenke. Preparation of the holotype skull was initiated by G. Buckley and C. van Beek but was completed by V. Heisey, who also prepared the postcranial skeleton of FMNH PR 2597 and various isolated elements. The uniform quality of the illustrations in this volume is owing to the countless hours and immense talents of artist L. Betti-Nash and most of the photographs were taken by J. Neville and M. Stewart, whose patience and expertise are infinite. We also thank A. Rasoamiaramanana, P. Wright, B. Andriamihaja and the staff of the Madagascar Institute pour la Conservation des Environnements Tropicaux, and the villagers of Berivotra for logistical support of fieldwork and J. Groenke, R. Jacobs, W. Simpson, and especially J. Sertich for assistance with curation. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation (grants EAR-9706302, DEB-9904045, EAR-0106477, EAR-0116517, EAR-0446488) and the National Geographic Society (grants 6400–99, 6940–00, and 7645–04).