Advances in vertebrate palaeohistology: Recent progress, discoveries, and new approaches

Abstract

This special issue of the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (2014, volume 112: issue 4) focuses on advances in vertebrate palaeohistology, a dynamic area of research that relies on an understanding of the constraints acting on vertebrate mineralized tissues, and enables, through comparison with living organisms, access to biological data for fossil taxa. Substantial advances have been made in recent years and the special issue presents new discoveries from some rapidly developing fields of investigation. This introduction briefly reviews the discipline of palaeohistology and then introduces the twelve contributions. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London.