The present volume marks a change in editorship. After a long and distinguished career, Dr. Peter WELLNHOFER has recently retired from his post at the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie (München), and asked me to assume the editorship of the series. I would like to thank him for his hard work on the parts published during his tenure, and will work to uphold the high editorial standards set by him. During Dr. WELLNHOFER’s term, Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil assumed the responsibility for the publication of the Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie. This change in publishing house has had a beneficial effect on production quality and commercial promotion of the volumes. I am grateful to Dr. Friedrich PFEIL for his continuing interest in and enthusiastic support of the project. I would like to announce two editorial changes. First, starting with the present volume, all remaining parts of this series (as well as planned revisions of already published volumes) will review taxa in an explicitly cladistic framework. Contributors will be asked to provide the character-taxon matrices that they have compiled and used to develop phylogenetic hypotheses of the interrelationships of the taxa under discussion. Second, the English version of the original German series title Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie has been changed to the more correct Handbook of Paleoherpetology, matching that of the corresponding series, the Handbook of Paleoichthyology.
