THE MAMMAL-LIKE REPTILES OF SOUTH AFRICA

First edition: xvi, 375 pages, numerous text illustrations, green cloth which is slightly insect scarred on the upper cover, with watermarks on the back cover, signed on the half title page by S.J. Luckhoff, a good copy in the frayed and worn dust jacket.

Loosely inserted are several letters by Robert Broom to Dr Luckhoff on palaeontological issues.

Robert Broom was first known for his study of the mammal-like reptiles of South Africa. After Raymond Dart's discovery of the Taung Child, an infant australopithecine, Broom's interest in paleoanthropology was heightened. Smuts managed to obtain a position for Broom in 1934 with the staff of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria as an Assistant in Palaeontology.

In the following years, he and John T. Robinson made a series of spectacular finds, including fragments from six hominins in Sterkfontein, which they named Plesianthropus transvaalensis, popularly called Mrs. Ples, but which was later classified as an adult Australopithecus africanus, as well as more discoveries at sites in Kromdraai and Swartkrans. In 1937, Broom made his most famous discovery of Paranthropus robustus. These discoveries helped support Dart's claims for the Taung species.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Broom