publications will not. What is needed is a measure of total stratigraphic palaeontological
effort. The measure I have used is the size of annual volumes of Zoological Record
(Figure 5.6). This is not an ideal measure, if only because Zoological Record contains
information on living animals as well as fossils, but it is a starting point. The curve in
Figure 5.6 represents a cumulative measure of the total page size of annual volumes of
Zoological Record taken from 1864 and then at decadal intervals from 1873 to 1993. Total
page size was used rather than page number because zoological record has changed page
size from octavo to quarto to A4, the last being more than twice the print area per page of
the first. Thus page number alone would seriously underestimate total zoological effort in
more recent volumes. However, I have not attempted to allow for the change from single
to double column page format, nor for any changes in font or font size. The curve is a
relatively conservative estimate of the increase in zoological effort. It shows a sharp
increase in publication rate from the 1960s onwards (Figure 5.6). I have not attempted a
breakdown of publication rate into subdisciplines or taxonomic groupings.
DataThe data are taken from Benton (1993). Some comments are necessary since the data
were not originally compiled with this particular aim in mind. I can make no comment on
the mammals because the data refer to genera within families, not species, and it is
possible that the precise record on which the first occurrence of a genus is based was
described many years after the original description of the genus. Thus, for these purposes,
Figure 5.6 Cumulative palaeontological effort as measured by the size (total printed page area) of
annual volumes of Zoological Record, at decadal intervals from 1864 to 1993.
100 CHRISTOPHER R.C.PAUL