Beasts of Eden: Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution

· Univ of California Press
5,0
1 recenzija
E-knjiga
368
Stranica
Ispunjava uslove

O ovoj e-knjizi

Mammals first evolved at about the same time as dinosaurs, and their story is perhaps the more fascinating of the two—in part because it is also our own story. In this literate and entertaining book, eminent naturalist David Rains Wallace brings the saga of ancient mammals to a general audience for the first time. Using artist Rudolph Zallinger's majestic The Age of Mammals mural at the Peabody Museum as a frame for his narrative, Wallace deftly moves over varied terrain—drawing from history, science, evolutionary theory, and art history—to present a lively account of fossil discoveries and an overview of what those discoveries have revealed about early mammals and their evolution.

In these pages we encounter towering mammoths, tiny horses, giant-clawed ground sloths, whales with legs, uintatheres, zhelestids, and other exotic extinct creatures as well as the scientists who discovered and wondered about their remains. We meet such memorable figures as Georges Cuvier, Richard Owen, Edward D. Cope, George Gaylord Simpson, and Stephen Jay Gould and learn of their heated disputes, from Cuvier's and Owen's fights with early evolutionists to present controversies over the Late Cretaceous mass extinction. Wallace's own lifelong interest in evolution is reflected in the book's evocative and engaging style and in the personal experiences he expertly weaves into the tale, providing an altogether expansive perspective on what Darwin described as the "grandeur" of evolution.

Ocene i recenzije

5,0
1 recenzija

O autoru

David Rains Wallace is the author of fifteen books, including The Klamath Knot: Explorations of Myth and Evolution (Twentieth Anniversary Edition, California, 2003), winner of the John Burroughs Medal; The Bonehunter's Revenge: Dinosaurs, Greed, and the Greatest Scientific Feud of the Gilded Age (1999); and The Monkey's Bridge: Mysteries of Evolution in Central America (1997).

Ocenite ovu e-knjigu

Javite nam svoje mišljenje.

Informacije o čitanju

Pametni telefoni i tableti
Instalirajte aplikaciju Google Play knjige za Android i iPad/iPhone. Automatski se sinhronizuje sa nalogom i omogućava vam da čitate onlajn i oflajn gde god da se nalazite.
Laptopovi i računari
Možete da slušate audio-knjige kupljene na Google Play-u pomoću veb-pregledača na računaru.
E-čitači i drugi uređaji
Da biste čitali na uređajima koje koriste e-mastilo, kao što su Kobo e-čitači, treba da preuzmete fajl i prenesete ga na uređaj. Pratite detaljna uputstva iz centra za pomoć da biste preneli fajlove u podržane e-čitače.