The fourth Symposium on "Mesozoic Fishes - Systematics, Homology and Nomenclature" was held in Miraflores de la Sierra, Madrid, Spain from August 8 to 14, 2005. The results of that meeting, as presented here in 24 research papers, reflect the current state of knowledge about Mesozoic fishes.
This volume emphasizes the two major groups of fishes, actinopterygians (mainly represented by teleosts) and chondrichthyans, that lived during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, and includes studies on related fishes up to the present, as well as papers dealing with homology problems in fishes. New discoveries are presented about fishes from Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. As illustrated by this volume, there has been recently a flowering of studies on Cretaceous teleosts, in contrast to the more limited number of studies on chondrichthyans. The new discoveries and the critical evaluation of previous research presented here are an exciting invitation to further research on Mesozoic fishes.