Book Description

In recent years dinosaurs have captured the attention of the public at an unprecedented level. At the heart of this resurgence in popular interest is an increased level of research activity, much of which is innovative in the field of paleontology. For instance, whereas earlier paleontological studies emphasized basic morphologic description and taxonomic classification, modern studies attempt to examine the role and nature of dinosaurs as living animals. More than ever before, we understand how these extinct species functioned, behaved, interacted with each other and the environment, and evolved. Nevertheless, these studies rely on certain basic building blocks of knowledge, including facts about dinosaur anatomy and taxonomic relationships. One of the purposes of this volume is to unravel some of the problems surrounding dinosaur systematics and to increase our understanding of dinosaurs as a biological species.Dinosaur Systematics presents a current overview of dinosaur systematics using various examples to explore what is a species in a dinosaur, what separates genders in dinosaurs, what morphological changes occur with maturation of a species, and what morphological variations occur within a species. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Dinosaur Systematics: Approaches and Perspectives
Dinosaur Systematics: Aproaches and Perspectives edited by Kenneth Carpenter and Philip J. Currie is a book that serves as a handbook for further research into dinosaur systematics and be a valubable addition to the bookshelves of vertebrate paleontologists. This is NOT a childrens book as it is written as abstract form from twenty-three different authors.

The purpose of this volume is to unravel some of the problems surrounding dinosaur systematics and increase our understanding of dinosaurs as a biological species. There is excellent morphological description and taxonomic classifications within the pages of this book.

How scientists look at dinosaur fossils has changed, now, including the flora , climatic and other ecological changes affecting the dinosaurs makes for a better overall picture. But this book has excellent comparative anatomy. There are nine sections within this book and each of those section is further divided into chapters making for a very educational read.

The sections of the book are as follows: Methods, Sauropodomorpha, Theropoda, Ornithopoda, Pachycephalosauria, Ceratopsia, Stegosauria, Ankylosauria, and Footprints. There is a excellent taxonomic idex at the rear of the book.

"Dinosaur Systematics: Approaches and Perspectives gives the reader a very good overview of dinosaur systematics using various examples to explore what species a dinosaur is, hat separates genders in dinosaurs, what morphological changes occur with maturation of a species, and what morophological variations occur within species,

This is a very concise yet conprehensive volume which is appointed heavely with excellent illustrations and is intended for students and professionals in the areas of palenotology, evolutionary biology, geology, and vertebrate zoology.

A Book for the Ages
A great technical volume (yeah, you might not want this book if you're buying it for your 5th grader who likes dinosaurs) that deals with dinosaurs as they were: living creatures. Included are papers on sexual dimorphism (differences between sexes), behavior, general morphology, and generally very useful papers. I highly recomend this book to anyone who is in/plans on pursuing paleontology. A great volume that is still cited today. ... Read more

Book Description

In this book the editors strive to cover all primary (i.e. non-applied) topics in Precambrian geology in a non-partisan way, by using a large team of international authors to present their datasets and highly divergent viewpoints.

The chapters address: celestial origins of Earth and succeeding extraterrestrial impact events; generation of continental crust and the greenstone-granite debate; the interaction of mantle plumes and plate tectonics over Precambrian time; Precambrian volcanism, emphasising komatiite research; evolution and models for Earth's hydrosphere and atmosphere; evolution of life and its influence on Precambrian ocean chemistry and chemical sedimentation; sedimentation through Precambrian time; the application of sequence stratigraphy to the Precambrian rock record. Each topic is introduced and a non-partisan closing commentary provided at the end of each chapter. The final chapter blends the major geological events and rates at which important processes occurred into a synthesis, which postulates a number of "event clusters" in the Precambrian when significant changes occurred in many natural systems and geological environments. ... Read more

Book Description

"The journey our ancestors made from the sea to dry land is one ofthe greatest transformation in the history of life, and Gaining Ground documentsit magnificently. This should come as no surprise, since Jennifer Clack has beenrevolutionizing our understanding of this crucial evolutionary episode for yearsnow. In Gaining Ground, she decodes a wonderful tale encrypted in fossils,genes, and flesh." --Carl Zimmer, author of At the Water's Edge

Around 370 million years ago, a distant relative of a modern lungfish began themost exciting adventure the world had ever seen: it emerged from the sea and layclaim to the land. Over the next 70 million years, this tentative beachhead hadbecome of worldwide colonization by any ever-increasing variety of four-limbedlife. These first ãtetrapodsä are the ancestors of all vertebrate life on land. This book tells the story of their emergence and evolution. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

First step on land
This is the book to be read. There's no reason to hesitate, neither to read the commentaries to decide. As far as books of prehistoric animals are concerned, those of dinosaurs occupy most of them. And maybe this is the first, and the best I insist, to be written on the primitive form of tetrapods. Detailed investigations show us before and after the first members of tetrapods including their environmental conditions, soft tissues such as respiratory, sensory and reproductive systems and interpretation inferred based on the existent animals whose morphological character is insinuating. And, of course, their relationship analysed by cladistics comes in later chapter.
The most important point the author puts emphasis on is to urge our public image or concept on the early members of tetrapods. She intentionally avoids the word "amphibians" for them. You'll see why through the text. This is a superb book! Why don't you take a close look at their intriguing story?

Gaining Ground: The Origin & Evolution of Tetrapods
Gaining Ground: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods written by Jennifer A. Clark is a book on comparative anatomy of tetrapods on Earth.

The origin and evolution of tetrapods started about 370 million years ago, something strange and significant happened on Earth. That time, part of an interval of Earth's history called the Devonian Period by scientists such as geologists and paleontologists, is known popularly as the Age of Fishes. After about 200 million years of earlier evolution, the vertebrates... animals with backbones... had produced an explosion of fishlike animals that lived in the lakes, rivers, lagoons, and estuaries of the time. The strange thing that happened during the later parts of the Devonian period is that some of these fishlike animals evolved limbs with digits, fingers and toes. Over the ensuing 350 million years or so, these so-caled tetrapods gradually evolved from their aquatic ancestry into walking terrestrial vertebrates, and these have dominated the land since their own explosive radiation allowed them to colonize and exploit the land and its opportunities. The tetrapods, with limbs, fingers, and toes, include humans, so this distant Devonian event is profoundly significant for humans as well as for the planet.

This book tells the story of the evolution of tetrapods from their fish ancestry and puts the sequence of events into its ecological context. The story if founded on an understanding of the evolutionary relationships between tetrapods and their fishy relatives... their phylogeny... and traces the family tree of tetrapods from its roots to the point at which the major groups of modern tetrapods branch off from its original trunk. The tetrapod family tree is in fact more like a bush, with several main branches, some of which have died out during the course of evolution and some of which have become large and important from small beginnings.

This book looks at the changes that occured in the transition from creatures with fins and scales to those with limbs and digits in an attempt to understand how, as well as when, these changes occurred, and to do this, it is necessary to understand something of the anatomy of the animals involved. Chapters 2 & 3 are devoted to these parts of the story. Chapters 4,5,& 6 set out what is currently known of the earliest tetrapods and their lifestyles. By careful analysis of what is known of them from fossils, and by comparison with modern animals that live at the transition between water and land, it may be possible to understand a little of how the early tetrapods worked as animals. After the tetrapods had become established, they radiated into a ranges of forms requiring modification of the original tetrapod pattern. Chapters 7,8,& 9 carry the story forward from the origin of tetrapods to their ultimate conquest of terrestrial living. The final chapter drws together some of the threads that have been taken up in the preceding chapters and shows how they impact the study and understanding of tetrapods today.

All in all, this is a well- written, illustrated, and organized book, making for a fairly fast read even though there is a lot of material covered. Devonian environment and the timing of anatomical changes was fascinating. ... Read more

Book Description

Morphometrics is the statistical study of biological shape and shape change.Its richest data are landmarks, points, such as the bridge of the nose, that have biological names as well as geometric locations.This book is the first systematic survey of morphometric methods for landmark data. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

good reference for shape research
Bookstein's work represents an alternative to Kendall's view of shape that is more specific to biological forms. The operationalization of D'Arcy Thompson's ideas on biological shape using thin-plate splines is reason alone to get a copy of this book. Bookstein's coverage of thin-plate splines is very clear and intuitive. Unfortunately this standard is not upheld for all subjects covered in the book, but the fact is that this is a very difficult subject. ... Read more

Book Description

Griffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.

Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology. As Peter Dodson writes in his Foreword, "Paleontologists, classicists, and historians as well as natural history buffs will read this book with the greatest of delight--surprises abound." ... Read more

Reviews (4)

A Splendid, Provocative Look At Classical Antiquity
Adrienne Mayor makes a very plausible case noting the significance of fossils to ancient Greeks, Romans and other early peoples of the Near East and other parts of Asia, most notably the Central Asian Gobi Desert. She may sound repetitive, but she does an excellent job organizing her facts and making her case as persuasive as it is. Students of classical archaeology will have to consider her novel hypothesis in any future work on ancient mythology. It's a pity Princeton University Press hasn't done an excellent job marketing this fine book. Let's hope it earns the wide readership it deserves soon.

As frustrating as it is fascinating
Don't be fooled by the gorgeous and provocative cover. Mayor has some really intriguing hypotheses to offer and has backed them up with apparently solid scholarship but Princeton University Press has done the author no favors. The book is unbelievably poorly designed - talk about widows and orphans - the maps are unreadable and the photographs rarely appear on the same page as the the relevent text. Mayor is not an especially accomplished writer but I feel sure a competent editor could have saved her from herself. At the very least they should had nixed the frequent paranthetical references to other chapters of the book which are deeply annoying. As eager as I am/was for the information contained here I have not been able to force myself past the third chapter. Mayor's theories are indeed exciting and worthy of discussion, one wishes her publisher had worked as hard at producing a worthwhile book as the author evidently did in researching it.

excellent ideas, but repetitive
This book presents the idea that ancients were well aware of fossils, and discusses their interpretations of them. It shows how different members of society tried to interpret them in different ways (most interpreted them as being signs of giants and monsters, but some took this to show divine origins, and others took it to be part of natural history). The ideas are very interesting, and the history of the importance of different fossilized bones in different cities is quite exciting. My only complaint is that the books seems to be quite repetitive. Not only are the points that the author is trying to make repetitive, but she even repeats some of the stories she tells several times. A good editor could have trimmed out 1/3 of the book. All in all, a good book. Interesting, thorough, and decently referenced. For anyone interested in classics or paleontology, this is a good buy.

Interesting and novel
Upfront I must confess that though I am very knowledgeable about history and science, I am neither a paleontologist nor an expert on Classical History. But I was intrigued by this book, and I found it fascinating.

The author begins the book with a slam-banger of an idea--The first chapter discusses the idea that the Greek legend of Griffons originated from Greek fossil observations in Asia. The author has very convincing evidence for this, based on how Griffons were described and handled differently by ancient writers, specific details of ancient writing, and fossil evidence still in place in modern times. I found it fascinating.

The later chapters are still interesting, though don't have the novel impact of the first chapter. The ancient attitude towards fossils is discussed, including quarrels between city-states over possession of fossils which were thought to be the remains of heroes and demigods.

I found the book interesting and convincing, but I cannot help wondering if maybe there is evidence being ignored when it would discredit the author's hypothesis. I lack enough expertise in either field to be sure. I fell for Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods as a teen-ager, and the experience keeps me suspicious of revolutionary ideas in archeology and ancient history, even to this day! ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Millions of years before the Age of Dinosaurs, an environmental cataclysm annihilated 90 percentof all plant and animal life on the planet. In this lost world that was swept away 250 million yearsago, the ferocious lizard-like Gorgon was the T. rex of its day. In this remarkable journey ofdiscovery deep into Earth’s history, Peter D. Ward, one of the world’s most recognized authoritieson mass extinctions, examines the strange and mysterious fate of this little-known prehistoricanimal and its contemporaries—the ancestors of the turtle, the crocodile, the lizard, andeventually the dinosaur. Based on more than a decade’s research in South Africa’s Karoo Desert,Ward’s groundbreaking work offers provocative theories on the mass extinctions of the past andconfronts the startling implications they hold for humanity’s future on the planet. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Process-Oriented
This is a pretty good book about an interesting topic, although I found that the book spent less time talking about the lost prehistoric world, its inhabitants, and how the extinction came about than I expected.Rather, the book mainly focuses on:

1) the people involved in ferreting out the historical mystery;
2) describing the kind of work that the scientists did (think lots of digging and scraping in remote South African locations);
3) the personal relationships (and tensions) between the various team members; and
4) the author's editorial comments about South Africa and its society.

I was disappointed that the book focussed on the process rather than the resulting scientific conclusions, but overall it is a pretty interesting book nonetheless.People more interested than I am in the four topics listed above should find it interesting indeed.And if you are thinking about becoming a paleontologist, you should definitely read this book!

TMR

Beautiful and passionate scientific writing.
If you believe that scientific studies must only be looked at through the cold eyes of facts and figures then this may not be for you. But, if you see the world with the eyes of a wondering youth, no matter what your age, then you will be completely enchanted by "Gorgon" by the time you finish the preface. The writing will make you wish that you were as even half as passionate as Peter Ward- about anything; if I had read this as a child my career and study choices may have been much different. Adolescents beware, you may find yourself wanting to dig in the dirt in the middle of nowhere for the rest of your life. If your anything like Mr. Wark you will undoubtably lead a happy life!

I would recommend this to anyone that loves great scientific writing or that loves studying the history of Earths wildlife. ... Read more

Book Description

Most archaeological sites contain remains of animals. The identity and condition of these animals, represented by fragments of their skeletons or shells can provide invaluable information about past economies and the impact of humans on the environment in which they lived. This reference book for archaeology students and professionals, both in the field and the laboratory, is designed to help in the identification and analysis of animal bones, teeth, and other hard tissues, such as mollusk shells. Global in scope, the examples range from the Pleistocene to the nineteenth century. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Zooarchaeologist's Bible!
Certainly the best overall book on the subject of Zooarchaeology. Useful for both the student and professional, it provides great detail on all aspects of this field and has many valuable references. It is superbly used as a textbook, and is a must-have for all archaeologists or anybody else that wishes to learn more about historic or prehistoric human interaction with animals. Dr. Wing founded the Zooarchaeology laboratories at the Florida Museum of Natural History (Gainesville, FL) and as curator, she is considered one of the leading experts in the field. Dr. Reitz is Director of Georgia's Museum of Natural History and is also highly regarded as a leading expert. I certainly keep this book at close hand on my reference shelf! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Did the dinosaurs disappear, or did they merely take flight? In The MistakenExtinction, two eminent paleontologists make a case for the continued existence of dinosaurs, atleast in the form of some relatively diminutive descendants: birds. To prove their point, LowellDingus and Timothy Rowe first review leading theories about the dinosaurs' extinction, pointing tothe shortcomings of each. Instead of dying out, Dingus and Rowe write, the dinosaurs merely evolvedinto another form. For skeptics troubled by such a direct link between their backyard blue jay and thelumbering T. rex, the authors point to problems with the current Linnean system of classifying life.Under a rival system known as cladistics, they contend that it's possible to identify the anatomicalcharacteristics shared by birds and dinosaurs. It's an intriguing hypothesis, and one open toconsiderable debate. Either way, this beautifully illustrated and admirably comprehensive volume hasmuch to offer birders and dinosaur buffs alike. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

The Mistaken Extinction: Dinosaur Evolution-Origin of Birds
The Mistaken Extinction: Dinosaur Evolution and the Origin of Birds written by Lowell Dingus and Timothy Rowe is a dinosaur book that makes a difference. This is a frank account of how we know what we know about the dinosaurs and how the work can and should be approached. There are issues surrounding a dinosaur extinction as though they are elements in a scientific detective story; following a trail of geologic and paleontologic clues toward a solution. This book show the reader the way of intelligent thinking and the conclusions that make sense.

Over the course of this book, it will become clear that the questions being raised today actually have their roots in the debates that raged within the scientific community in the nineteenth century, when Dawin's theory of evolution first burst upon the scene. This book is divided into two parts.

The Search for the Smoking Gun is part 1. The eight chapters include: The Seductive Allure of Dinosaurs, Earlier Extinction Hypotheses, Contrating Volcanic and Impact Hypotheses, Enormoud Eruptions and Disappearing Seaways, THe Fatal Impact, Direct Evidence of Catastrophe, Patterns of extinction and Survival, and Our Hazy View of Time at the K-T Boundary.

These chapters give the reader adequate background information, to take us back to the time of the murderous extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundry of geological time. Here we find a theory of gradual extinction... a theory that most reseachers favor, but could this be true... there are convincing theories.

Part 2: Dead or Alive has ten chapters and it includes: Living Dinosaurs?, Dinosaurs Challenge Evolution, Dinosaurs and the Hierarchy of Life, The Evolutionary Map for Dinosaurs, Death by decree, The Road to Jurassic Park, Crossing the Boundary, Diversification and Decline, The Real Great Dinosaur Extinction, and The Third Wave.

Here we learn why most researchers now believe that birds and other dinosaurs sprung from the same ancient ancestors, all this stems from one of science's theories... evolution. This book is beautifully illustrated and has plenty of morphoroloigal drawings arising for comparitive anatomy.

I found the book to be a wealth of information easily readable and a plethora of detailed compendia on dinosaur facts. This is a book that lays out the extinction of dinosauria with great skill and clairy

Comprehensive and very entertaining!
I originally bought this book for a class I'm taking, coincidentally being taught by one of the authors, Timothy Rowe. Not only does this book include facts and myths about the extinction of dinosaurs, but it makes them comprehendable, and very entertaining by including recent myths such as those presented in popular movies. A total must read for dinosaur fanatics!

Best Book Ever
If you love dinosaurs, this book is amazing. A little hard to understand, but overall, very descriptive, and helpfull, if you want to see the connections between birds and dinosaurs.

best dino book in a long time
this book ties together the relationship between dinosaurs and birds in a readable, graphically pleasing format that would make a great gift book for an older (teen age and above) dino fan. It also gives an extensive discussion of the extinction of the dinosaurs, with emphasis on the then new asteroid impact theory, whch it covers quite well.

A very excellent reference...
I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow a copy of this book from one of my professors. I was most pleased with the diagrams of evolutionary sequences in theropod dinosaurs. In fact, I was so pleased, I'm getting my own copy! ... Read more

Book Description

Early Life: Evolution on the PreCambrian Earth, Second Edition offers an informative and compelling analysis of microbial evolution, often overlooked as the opening chapter of life's history. With this long-awaited new edition, Lynn Margulis and Michael Dolan integrate new discoveries from the past two decades, such as the enormous contribution of molecular biology, especially the accumulation of protein and DNA sequence information upon which the Woese three-domain system is based. Yet the prokaryotic-eukaryotic distinction remains the largest evolutionary discontinuity in life on Earth. Are the well-formed filaments found so recently in the Warrawoona Series of northwestern Australia really evidence of the oldest life on the planet? Do the fossils found in the great Gunflint Iron Formation of Ontario tell use that bacteria were instrumental in the accumulation of the most important iron reserves in the world? These questions are not solved here, but they are raised for students, scientists, and general readers interested in the most basic evolution and its consequences. No special scientific background is required of the reader, only a lively interest. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

assigned 1 chapter...devoured all
Many years ago I was assigned one chapter in this book for a microbiology course. Instead I couldn't stop until I'd read it all. It was really good.

Comprehensive book on early life
This book on early life delves persuasively into the chemistry of ancestral prokaryotes. Although Carl Woese's three-kingdom classification system is presently scientifically fashionable, archea (archeobacteria) are morphologically identical to other bacteria, and so the wisdom of giving them their own kingdom, despite their RNA differences (and RNA changes over evolutionary time) is debatable.

I have to say, since I am Dorion Sagan
that that last reviewer did not know what the bleep they were talking about. Yes, this is a very good book but, listen, my mum, Lynn was the one who put the idea of "seme" in Microcosmos! Where people (and Richard Dawkins was one!) get off "mind-reading" who writes which part of a co-authored book is beyond me. The writer was correct, however, that this is a very good book, perhaps the best, for a nuts-and-bolts overview of early life. Now for some fluff: Check out our new book Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species--if you like it, Frank (or whatever your name is) be sure to credit the good parts to me! Also check out Up From Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence and Into the Cool: The Thermodynamics of Life (forthcoming) if you are curious...

Margulis at her best -- but a missed opportunity
I wish this book were available as a normal paperback. I really like nearly everything about it. Understanding Margulis on the origin of Meiosis is so much easier with line drawings! If you are interested in Margulis's ideas about the serial endosymbiont theory and how the eukaryotic cell arose, it's hard to do better than "Early Life." The clarity of this book is wonderful. Why a "missed opportunity"? Despite the fact that this is a new edition with Michael F. Dolan, the science appears not to have been updated. For example, Margulis thought an "aggressive" bacterium such as Bdellovibrio might have invaded cells to form mitochondria. Genomic research has shown that mitochondria came from a Rickettsia species. In illustrations, Bdellovibrio is still shown and the Rickettsia connection is not mentioned. Does Margulis completely reject evidence from nucleic acid sequencing?

Evidently -- because the biggest "hole" in this book is a complete lack of recognition that the Archaea are something completely different from Bacteria. Margulis makes a friendly mention of Carl Woese in the introduction of the new edition, as if his research were the only stone in the massive structure that shows Archaea are a separate domain of life. It is not just the rRNA's that are different (as Woese showed) -- the membrane lipids are different, the Archaea have histones (like eukaryotes) and some have multiple chromosomes (like eukaryotes). Lumping them with other "prokaryotes" in spite of the current state of science is nothing less than a willful act of ignorance, and it's too bad that this book is damaged by her prejudices. I hope some day that a third edition will include modern scientific discoveries. And I hope that some day her "Five Kingdoms" will be updated to "Six." But somehow I doubt it will happen. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The first account of dinosaurs in the "big boot"!
It's only been in the past decade that science has discovered there ever was a presence of dinosaurs in Italy, kicked off primarily by the amazing find of Scipionyx, the interesting little dinosaur fossil that appears to even include soft tissue (internal organs) preservation. But now, as this book shows, a number ofdinosaurs and other prehistoric animal fossils have also been discovered within the boundaries of the "giant boot." From dinosaur footprints, the Trieste hadrosaurs and the recently found carnivore "saltriosaur" to marine reptiles and pterosaurs such as the large shastasaurid ichthyosaur Besanosaurus and ancient flying Eudimorphodon, Italy is becoming a virtual cornucopia of newly named prehistoric animals. It also turns out that evidence of an incredible planetary catastrophe exists in the Italian town of Umbria that sheds light on the disappearance of the dinosaurs. This interesting book includes fossil photographs and numerous illustrations. The author is head of the Laboratory of Paleonotlogy at the Museum of Natural History in Milan. ... Read more

Book Description

Expanded and updated This handsome book addresses the questions of what the fossil record tells usabout the evolution and extinction of dinosaurs, what their relationship to therest of the organic world was, and what we can learn from them about our ownplace in the history of life on our planet. This edition has been updatedthroughout, with a new final chapter that details exciting recent discoveriessuch as the feathered dinosaur fossils in China. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

What do we really know about dinosaurs?
After visiting the National Musuem of Natural History, I wondered about many of the claims that the museum made.So I decided to read a book about the "terrible lizards" and found out what I had guessed -- the study of dinosaurs and their fossils is not an exact science and many of the fundamental questions we have about them cannot be answered, including:

How old are they?How fast were they?How big were they?What did they look like?What color were they?What is their relation to birds?How are fossils aged?Do we have any dinosaur DNA?

The authors of this book do a good job at trying to answer many of these questions about dinosaurs, but in the end their explanations merely lay out the science of guesswork.The first part of this book is fifty questions about dinosaurs, and I would recommend this section to anyone interested in the subject.The next two sections are about dinosaurs digs and specific dinosaur species, and is a little bit extensive for the "casual dino reader."

What do we really know about dinosaurs?
After visiting the National Musuem of Natural History, I wondered about many of the claims that the museum made.So I decided to read a book about the "terrible lizards" and found out what I had guessed -- the study of dinosaurs and their fossils is not an exact science and many of the fundamental questions we have about them cannot be answered, including:

How old are they?How fast were they?How big were they?What did they look like?What color were they?What is their relation to birds?How are fossils aged?Do we have any dinosaur DNA?

The authors of this book do a good job at trying to answer many of these questions about dinosaurs, but in the end their explanations merely lay out the science of guesswork.The first part of this book is fifty questions about dinosaurs, and I would recommend this section to anyone interested in the subject.The next two sections are about dinosaurs digs and specific dinosaur species, and is a little bit extensive for the "casual dino reader." ... Read more

Reviews (10)

An excelent and profound book. Read it!
This profusely illustrated and well written book deals with the Neanderthals and the world they lived in, as well as their lifestyles and "technology". Starting in Chapter 1, the author gradually introduces the reader in the Neanderthal world, also explaining other interesting areas related to their study, such as how evolution works, how was the world during Neanderthal periods, and techniques used in dating the antiquity of fossils. The book contains a lot of photographs on Neanderthal skulls and skeletons, as well as some of the tools they used. Requiring almost no background in anthropology or paleoanthropology, this book contains a lot of information and it is very thought provoking, and I think is a must for anyone interested in learning about our closest relatives.

Wonderful Illustrations!
The Last Neanderthal is a wonderfully illustrated book perfect for anyone interested in human evolution. While providing an excellent overview of human evolution and the history of the discovery and study of Neanderthals, this book's true merit lies in its photographs of all the major finds of both Neanderthals and other human ancestors. Great as a reference for someone wishing to begin a more in-depth study of Neanderthals for class or just for fun.

Superb Illustrations, Clear Concepts, Outstanding Text
I'm not a reader who usually pays too much attention to photos and illustrations, but I could recommend "The Last Neanderthal" on that basis alone. There are nearly 150 of them in this 200-page book, some covering an entire page in my oversized edition. Almost all of them are superb. The illustrations are mostly of various fossilized bones and reconstructions. They are not haphazardly thrown throughout the book or tightly grouped in the middle, but introduced when appropriate for the text.

Ian Tattersall's set-up of what is known about Neanderthals is masterful. Most of the first third of the book is about evolution, how fossilization works, and a brief description about what is known of the precursors to both Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. Tattersall is clearly at home with this material and confident in his presentation of it. He takes his time in this area - even though it has little to directly do with the topic of his book - because one cannot understand Neanderthals unless one has some understanding of other pre-modern humans and the scientific techniques used to understand them.

The set-up is not wasted on a flat ending. When Tattersall finally gets to the Neanderthals, he maintains a high level of interest for the reader by first showing how the scholarly views on Neanderthals have changed so much over the last hundred-fifty years (much more fascinating than it sounds) and then by moving into areas about its evolution and what is known about its lifestyle. He appears to be a fair partisan, pointing out evidence both for and against different sides of the numerous controversial topics on Neanderthals.

great intro to current thoughts on neanderthals
This book was my entry into current theory on neanderthal man and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very well written, it covered most if not all of my basic questions. The author's biases are clear yet he is seemingly forthwright about opposing views. The language he uses betrays the complexities of conjecture and theory behind many finds, rather than simply laying things out as 'fact'. Many excellent photographs, paintings, etc...

the last neanderthal
Tattersall's book is a must have. It covers all the basics in a compelling style and with particular focus on site locations. The photos and illustrations are as good as those of any "coffee table" book. It is too light on some particular aspects concerning extinction, e.g. hybridization, pelvic ring size, birth/death ratios, and exotic disease resistance, but is superior in descriptions of Neanderthal morphology and environment. ... Read more

Book Description

First appearing about 40 million years ago in North America, rhinoceroses diversified into an incredible array of taxa, with a variety of ecologies that don't resemble any of the five living species. They ranged from delicate long-legged dog-sized forms, to huge hippo-like forms that apparently lived in rivers and lakes. Including a complete systematic review, and discussions of biogeography, evolution and paleoecology, this book summarizes our current knowledge of North American rhinos and constitutes the most complete reference available. ... Read more

Book Description

Gregory Edgecombe has assembled premier specialists in the study of arthropods, each of whom addresses a major issue in arthropod diversity by reviewing evidence of key fossils from a common perspective and examining the interplay between extinct and extant species through inference of the structure of the arthropod evolutionary tree.

With the most complete collection of modern perspectives on the history of Arthropoda, this volume advances the current debate on paleontology's role in discovering life's hierarchy. Of interest to specialists in a wide range of fields including paleontology, petroleum geology, oceanography, and entomology, Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny will be the standard general reference on arthropod paleontology for years to come.

Reviews (1)

Arthropod Systematics at its eclectic best
Arthropods are one of the most diverse and long-lived phyla in the animal kingdom. Their origins date back to the pre-Cambrian, and over the decades that they have been studied, they have generated controversy that persists to the present and will likely extend into the future. Yet this controversy is not fueled by idle speculation, but by the sometimes-bewildering complexity of arthropod diversity, both in the living representatives and in the fossil record. This book delves into the analyses of molecular, morphological, and paleontological data, and allows the critical reader to assess the disparate conclusions of the leading arthropod systematists. At the same time, the spotlight chapters on celebrated fossil arthropod sites (such as the Burgess Shales, the Chengjiang site, and others, allow a focus on the early diversification of Arthropod groups, as well as lobopods and the earliest crustaceans. Many illustrations and charts add interest to this challenging book. If you want more than a cursory exposure to Arthropod evolution. This is the book for you! ... Read more

Book Description

A comprehensive introduction and handy methodological reference to the essential techniques of quantitative field ecology, or paleoecology, integrating the intuitive approach of the field researcher with the rational analytical tools of the statistician.

Reviews (2)

THIS BOOK MAKES STATISTICS FUN!
I have to say that before reading this book I hated statistics and everythingto do with any type of natural sampling.But this book has changed my life! It's easy to read text and easy to follow examples have reinvigorated my love for statistical sampling.I recommend this to anyone who has any interest in statistics.It will change you life too!

This Book Rules
When I was Reading this book i got the chills.The creative quality of the statistics and inciteful view of populations is so rad.I love this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Rather survey of the extensive data, this book focuses on the ideas, methodology and scope of contemporary palaeobiology.It devotes four chapters to the central principles of the field and then describes in detail five areas of current research: fossils and phylogenetic inference, the mechanism of speciation, taxonomic turnover on the geological time-scale, mass-extinctions, and the origin of new taxa. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Pattern and Process
This is a very good and not too technical summary by an expert in the Darwinian field not only of the current state of evolutionary theory, but of the real difficulties, stated with a succinct clarity often absent in other such works. A sort of Neo-Neo-Darwinian Synthesis emerges from the presentation of the complexities of the pattern and process debate, with good treatments of many issues, from cladistics, to punctuated equilibrium, and much else. The book is very clear, and, without parting ways with conventional Darwinism, highlights the complexities of the 'epistemological gap'as revealed in the actual state of our knowledge of the fossil record. As the author notes, there is "no single universally applicable theory of the cause of evolution that all agree explains all aspects of all cases". Such statements are more effective in the Darwin debate than the blank wall of massive denial that attends too many treatments. Very clear, rigorous, and with excellent references. Good book to get one's bearings in a changing field, whatever one's views of evolution. ... Read more

Book Description

Dinosaurs of Darkness opens a doorway to a fascinating former world which existed in Australia more than 100 million years ago--when it was a polar region joined to Antarctica and plunged into darkness much of the year. The way we have come to know about this lost world--so different from any that exists on Earth today--makes for a fascinating story. The authors, who played crucial roles in this discovery, describe their efforts to collect the fossils indispensable to our knowledge of this realm and the laboratory work that unlocked their secrets. Dinosaurs of Darkness is an intriguing personal account of the way scientific research is actually conducted and how hard it is to mine the knowledge of this remarkable life of the past. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A mixed verdict
One really has to give two reviews for this book. As a chronicle of fieldwork, it rates a 4. These folks had to face some of the most difficult excavating imaginable - tunneling through hard rock often being pounded by surf!

Unfortunately, they give us very little on their thoughts about the lives of the dinosaurs they found other than that their star hypsilophodont probably had unusually acute vision, and fail in that respect where "Digging Dinosaurs" and "Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs" succeed so wonderfully. One gets the impression that they rushed this book out before fully completing their research, which is a shame because this could have been a very good book indeed if there had been a bit more about the dinosaurs themselves. For fans of dino behavior this really is only a 2. ... Read more