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The Vertebrate Integument, Volume 1: Origin and Evolution; Volume 2: Structure, Design and Function

By comparison with other vertebrate organ systems, the integument has been relatively neglected in evolutionary biological research. Developing late in embryonic life, it failed to attract the attention of Haeckel’s disciples during the Golden Age of morphology: given the technical difficulties attendant on its preparation for microscopic examination, with the exception of teeth and ‘piscine scales’ (both well represented in the fossil record), the system passed into the hands of medical practitioners in the early 20th century. There is thus a plethora of volumes on clinical dermatology. However, even with the publication of the magisterial, two-volume Biology of the Integument (Bereiter-Hahn et al., 1984, 1986), containing reviews of both invertebrate and vertebrate tissues as model systems studied by developmental and molecular biologists, biochemists, physiologists, and ecologists, an evolutionary perspective was lacking.With a nearly 40-year accumulation of ‘dermatological data’ relevant to cutting-edge problems in vertebrate history, the appearance of volumes bearing titles containing the words ‘integument’ and ‘evolution’ seemed an exciting prospect. The South African author Dr. Theagarten Lingham-Soliar is well known to palaeontologists and students of avian origins for his ‘spirited’—indeed iconoclastic—questioning of the reality of ‘feathered dinosaurs.’ After his early work on interpretation of soft tissues in ichthyosaurs through studies of the role of the dermis in shark locomotion, he later invoked experimental taphonomic procedures to question the orthodox identification of filamentous protofeathers in Chinese theropod dinosaurs. Since the beginning of the 21st century, a stream of papers, many quoting philosophical and sociological themes, have argued strenuously, perhaps too strenuously at times, that so-called protofeathers are in fact collagen fibers. Pursuit of this theme has led him to question, oftenwith good reason, whether the contemporary biological academy shows sufficient rigor in pursuit of objective truths. ‘Solly’ is indeed a ‘rebel with a cause,’ but does this necessarily make him an appropriate agent to bring new dermatological findings to a world where skin is often seen as ‘a barrier to be gotten through to get to the interesting stuff’? The organization of material in the two volumes is idiosyncratic: despite the proffered subtitles, interesting new research data are scattered throughout a text whose background theme is that of an advanced undergraduate course in vertebrate evolution. Clearly the author does not believe that evolutionary biologists should automatically accept the latest cladogram as the revealed truth, and he has very little patience with those who do! But where is the integument among all these arguments and disputations? To address this question, this reviewer was forced to try to assess how much of the text deals with the integument: being as liberal as possible I come up with 20%—there are more pages on biomechanics! One might assert that currently four major research trends are identifiable in the evolutionary biology of vertebrates: (a) What are the interrelationships among and between clades of jawless and early jawed fishes? (b) How are tetrapodomorphs, lissamphibians, and early amniotes related? (c) What are the interrelationships among and between therapsid and sauropsid amniotes? (d) Can we ever resolve the question of avian origins within the archosaurs and how did powered flight and feathers originate? For each of the above four issues, significant new ‘dermatological data’ are available, but do these volumes allude to them? (a) With reference to the structure and development of dentomorphic tissues associated with dermal ossifications, a sample of new material is offered, but there could and should have been more. (b) Nothing is said concerning the structure and function of fish mucins: changes in epidermal cell differentiation that provide physical and physiological protection for the organism are ignored. (c) There are no allusions to new information concerning sensory hairs and glands in mammals; the widespread keratin diversity in amniotes is poorly expressed and inadequately documented: secondarily evolved dermal ossifications are alluded to in a single reference. (d) Although a substantial amount of space is allocated to the author’s investigations of alleged protofeathers, inadequate explanation as to how palaeontological data might support the Prum/Brush model (itself variously modified in many of the widely quoted ‘feathered dinosaur papers’) could prevent a student reader from understanding the significance of the author’s contributions to our knowledge of feather morphology. Overall, lack of citation of many papers published over the past 40 years, especially from the laboratories of L. A. Alibardi (University of Bologna, Italy), D. Dhouailly (University of Grenoble, France), and R. H. Sawyer (University of South Carolina, U.S.A.) precludes these volumes representing the ‘state of the art’ in vertebrate skin biology in any context. This reviewer was surprised by the poor standard of copy editing throughout the volumes. Many of the author’s exquisite, published illustrations appear and reproduction is excellent. However, figure identifications are sometimes incorrect and italicization of scientific names is not always followed. Having bibliographies at the end of each chapter offers many opportunities for repetition given the idiosyncratic organization of the text material. The format of the citations is varied, journal titles and pagination details are often lacking, and some references are identified only by documentation ID numbers. For a 21st century scholar seeking to complete an office shelf with ‘something concerning skin evolution,’ the high price of the hardcover editions cannot be justified. However, they are offered as e-books at a 21–22% saving and individual chapters are available at $29.95: their selection is facilitated by Springer’s Web site offering of free downloads of detailed Tables of