Rui Diogo

Virginia Abdala

The Vertebrata is one of the most speciose groups of animals, comprising more than 58,000 living species. This book provides a detailed account on the comparative anatomy, development, homologies and evolution of the head, neck, pectoral and forelimb muscles of vertebrates. It includes hundreds of illustrations, as well as numerous tables showing the homologies between the muscles of all the major extant vertebrate taxa, including lampreys, elasmobranchs, hagfish, coelacanths, dipnoans, actinistians, teleosts, halecomorphs, ginglymodians, chondrosteans, caecilians, anurans, urodeles, turtles, lepidosaurs, crocodylians, birds, and mammals such as monotremes, rodents, tree-shrews, flying lemurs and primates, including modern humans. It also provides a list of more than a thousand synonyms that have been used by other authors to designate these muscles in the literature. Importantly, it also reviews data obtained in the fields of evolutionary developmental biology, molecular biology and embryology, and explains how this data helps to understand the evolution and homologies of vertebrate muscles. The book will useful to students, teachers, and researchers working in fields such as functional morphology, ecomorphology, evolutionary developmental biology, zoology, molecular biology, evolution, and phylogeny. As the book includes crucial information about the anatomy, development, homologies, evolution and muscular abnormalities of our own species, Homo sapiens, it will also be helpful to physicians and medical students.

Comparative Anatomy, Evolution, Homologies and Development

Muscles of Vertebrates

This guide provides a detailed account on the comparative anatomy, development, homologies and evolution of the head, neck, pectoral, and forelimb muscles of vertebrates. It includes hundreds of illustrations of, as well as numerous tables showing, the homologies between the muscles of all the major extant vertebrate taxa.

Janine M. Ziermann

Julia Molnar

Natalia Siomava

Chordates comprise lampreys, hagfishes, jawed fishes, and tetrapods, plus a variety of more unfamiliar and crucially important non-vertebrate animal lineages, such as lancelets and sea squirts. This will be the first book to synthesize, summarize, and provide high-quality illustrations to show what is known of the configuration, development, homology, and evolution of the muscles of all major extant chordate groups. Muscles as different as those used to open the siphons of sea squirts and for human facial communication will be compared, and their evolutionary links will be explained. Another unique feature of the book is that it covers, illustrates, and provides detailed evolutionary tables for each and every muscle of the head, neck and of all paired and median appendages of extant vertebrates.

Virginia Abdala

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