Vertebrate Skeletal Histology and Paleohistology (ePub)

Vivian de Buffrénil received a double university degree: history, through a master's degree, specialized in the history of sciences (Paris 1972), and biology, through a PhD (Paris, 1980) as well as a "thèe d'éat" (Paris 1990). His professional career began in 1982 as a "maîre de conferences" at the Musém National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, where he remained until 1986. Since the beginning, Buffréil's research activity has been related to comparative bone histology and paleohistology in extant and extinct mammals, reptiles and amphibians. About one hundred scientific articles were published on this subject. In parallel, Buffrénil took an active part in international programs led by CITES and FAO (two UN institutions) on the conservation of exploited reptiles, especially African monitor lizards and crocodiles and produced many expert reports.

Louise Zylberberg received her university degrees at Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique with a double curriculum in biology and biochemistry. She defended her doctoral thesis in histology there in 1968. Her career began as a researcher at the CNRS (1961) and she continued as "directrice de recherche" (1977) until her retirement (2001). She is still active as "emeritus directrice de recherche". Her research has focused on comparisons of the results obtained with conventional histology and more specialized ultrastructural techniques. Since joining the "Formations squelettiques" team in 1980, she has applied these techniques to the study of mineralized tissues of the skeleton of extant and extinct species including reptiles, amphibians and "fishes". She is also familiar with immunological techniques and comparative histological and cytological analyses which have revealed the wide variety of skeletal tissues and possible relationships between these various tissues during development and during evolution. She has published about two hundred articles.