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Work on evolution on islands has a long-established biogeographical pedigree, stretching back to the work of Darwin and Wallace. Research generated ideas, theories, and models which have played a central role in the development of mainstream ecology, evolutionary biology, and biogeography.

Island Biogeography is a new textbook, aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduate students. This is the first comprehensive book to be written on the topic since 1981. It provides a much needed synthesis of recent development across the discipline, linking current theoretical debates with applied island ecology. Some themes that the book covers include: the nature and formationof island environments, island ecological theories concerning species numbers, species assembly, and composition, and an assessment of the human impact on island biodiversity.

Written by an author who has been researching and teaching biogeography for many years, Island Biogeography is wide-ranging, authoritative, and accessible to students from across geography and the life sciences. This is the first truly modern textbook on a fascinating and important subject in evolution and ecology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent, well-organised and highly-readable
This book is an excellent and much-needed textbook of Island Biogeography. The approach taken by Dr. Whittaker blends detail and overview, and the book is well-organised, informative and interesting. He says at thebeginning of the book that he hopes to "provide access for students ofdiffering backgrounds and disciplines to the full array of islandbiogeographical themes and issues." I think this book does justthat.

The book starts by stressing the importance of islands as arenasfor the study of the natural world: 'natural laboratories' in which thecomplexity of nature may be simplified, enabling the development andtesting of theories of general importance. Dr. Whittaker then moves fromthe general and long-term (beginning with the physical and biologicalproperties of islands themselves) to the more specific and shorter-term(including island evolution, species richness and endemism, and islandtheories). He finishes by applying the theories and insights gained fromwork on islands to present-day conservation issues.

There is sufficientdetail to give the reader a fair understanding of the issues addressed, butnever so much that the text gets dull or bogged. Throughout, the book iswell-referenced, with appropriate and informative references, and providesplenty of encouragement for the reader to delve further into theliterature. Considerable clarity is achieved, even when discussingcomplicated and contentious issues, and on many occasions Dr. Whittakerdemonstrates his considerable ability to be insightful and pertinent. Hemaintains a fair and balanced outlook, even when he addresses opinions andauthors that oppose his own work. There is also an air of pragmatism to hisarguments that others would do well to emulate. This is borne out, forinstance, in his treatment of the SLOSS (single large or several smallnature reserves) debate, and in the way he manages to reconcile a number ofdichotomies in the literature by noting that various apparently-conflictingtheories actually represent different points along continua. As might beexpected from the background of the author, Chapters 7 and 8, which dealwith island ecological theory, are particularly impressive: erudite andauthoritative, while still being interesting and highly readable. Thesechapters deal with areas in which Dr. Whittaker is well known for hisprofessional contribution (in which he has published papers of considerableinternational repute).

Overall, I thoroughly recommend this book toanyone with any interest in island biogeography. Written primarily as atextbook for undergraduate students, it will provide very sound reading forstudents encountering the subject for the first time. It will be all themore useful for the fact that (to my knowledge), there is no other textbookwritten within the last 20 years that covers an equivalent subject area.But it will also interest experts in the field, who may well learnsomething from it, as well as finding it a useful reference for relatedliterature. It will be a good addition to any science-related library, aswell as to the personal collections of students of relevant subjects. ... Read more

Product Description

This 30^st jubilee volume (2010) of "Palaeoecology of Africa" looks back and reflects the "state of the art" of what is actually known on former African climates and ecosystems in the format of review articles authored by specialists in the field. New research articles on climate and ecosystem dynamics as well as applied topics on geomorphic hazards and future environmental trends in Africa are included.
This book will be of interest to all concerned with ecosystems dynamics, tropical forests, savannahs, deserts and related development problems of third world countries, especially ecologists, botanists, earth scientists (e.g. Quaternary and recent climate change), regional planners. It will also be valuable for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates as a reference for review and overview articles as well as a source of information for new original manuscripts and reviews on the state of the art of long term and Quaternary and Holocene landscape evolution esp. in subsaharan Africa. Palaeobotanists, Palynologists and Quaternarists will equally find this edition useful for their work.

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The author reviews the classical literature on embryology, morphogenesis, and paleontology, and presents recent genetic and molecular studies on development. The result is a unique perspective on a set of problems of fundamental importance to developmental and evolutionary biologists. ... Read more

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By studying evolution across geological time, paleontologists gain a perspective that sometimes complements and sometimes conflicts with views based solely on studies of extant species.The contributors to Causes of Evolution consider whether factors exerting major influences on evolution are biotic or abiotic, intrinsic or extrinsic.

Causes of Evolution presents a broad sampling of paleontological research programs encompassing vertebrates, invertebrates, and vascular plants; empirical work and theoretical models; organisms ranging in age from Cambrian to Recent; and temporal scales from ecological time to hundreds of millions of years.The diverse array of research styles and opinions presented will acquaint scientists in related fields with the strengths and weaknesses of paleontology as an approach to evolutionary studies and will give evolutionary biologists of every stripe new bases for evaluating the scope and bias of their own work. ... Read more

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This book surveys the current debates in evolutionary theory from a paleontological perspective, discussing such controversial topics as punctuated equilibrium, species selection, mass extinctions, and taxonomic diversification of the biosphere.These ideas are critically reviewed and presented in the context of a broad background: the neodarwinian paradigm of modern evolutionary biology, the potential and limitations of the fossil record as a source of data on organic evolution, and the methodology of evolutionary interpretation of paleontological data.The author argues that much current research leads us astray, and proposes that another interpretation of the history of the biosphere be adopted--one based on the assumption that there are no general laws, that large-scale historical biological patterns merely reflect a summation of smaller-scale phenomena, and that none of these components must be neglected in our attempts to explain the larger patterns.Clear and concise, thisbook will be invaluable to scientists and students and accessible to interested lay readers. ... Read more

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The environmental setting within the Central Sahara was subject to considerable changes during Late Quaternary, mainly driven by major global climate variations, although human impact increased constantly since Early Holocene.

Such global events can be reconstructed with the help of reliefs, sediments and palaeosoils and their specific morphological, chemical and mineralogical properties. The project’s focus is to ascertain new and established data on climate variations and associated palaeoenvironmental changes within the Central Sahara and to systematically collate and correlate them to results obtained from the Afro-Asian dry land belt and adjacent areas. The joint analysis of Late Quaternary landscape development and present environmental conditions in the Central Sahara will result in the modelling of Late Pleistocene and Holocene palaeoenvironments, emphasising various aspects.

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Fundstellen außergewöhnlich gut erhaltener Fossilien (Fossillagerstätten) erlauben uns wichtige Einblicke in die Geschichte des Lebens auf der Erde. Die Erforschung solcher Lokalitäten auf allen Kontinenten und aus verschiedensten geologischen Zeiten ergibt ein recht vollständiges Bild von der Entwicklung der Ökosysteme durch die Erdgeschichte. Um dies dem Leser näher zu bringen, haben die Autoren knappe und prägnante Darstellungen von vierzehn gut untersuchten Fossillagerstätten zusammengestellt und mit mehr als 250 farbigen Fotos und Grafiken ausgezeichnet illustriert. Nach einer allgemeinen Einführung über Fossillagerstätten, behandelt jedes Kapitel ein einzelnes Fossilvorkommen nach einem einheitlichen Schema: Zuerst wird die Position und Bedeutung innerhalb der Evolution der Organismen beleuchtet; danach folgt ein Überblick über die Sedimentologie, Stratigraphie und die ehemaligen Umweltbedingungen; darauf die Beschreibung der Organismen und ihrer Lebensbedingungen und schließlich ein Vergleich mit ähnlichen Lagerstätten. Ein Anhang bietet Informationen zu Museen und zum Besuch der Lokalitäten.Dieses Buch richtet sich an eine breite Leserschaft von Studenten und professionellen Geologen und Paläontologen aber auch von Sammlern und Hobbypaläontologen. ... Read more

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The Chesapeake Miocene will always be considered a paleontological treasure. Given the richness and accessibility of the Maryland and Virginia Miocene shell beds, it seems remarkable that very few people have ever described new species from these strata over the past 185 years. Until now. Integrating elements from paleontology, geology, environmental science, and ecology, Molluscan Paleontology of the Chesapeake Miocene assembles previous research and the authors’ experience into a synoptic field guide.

The most complete compendium of Miocene species created since 1904, this long-awaited resource lists nearly 500 species. It contains illustrations of 260 species, including more than 60 not found in any previous book and 26 newly discovered. It describes Chesapeake molluscan faunas in terms of local geology, paleoceanography, and marine paleobiology. Organized by stratigraphic geology, the book covers fossils of the Eastover, St Mary’s, Choptank, and Calvert Formations. It illustrates 24 collecting sites and fossil exposures, showing details of in situ specimens, along with maps of 4 Miocene paleoseas and detailed stratigraphic columns for Maryland and northern Virginia. The text is accompanied by a CD-ROM with color illustrations of the forty known species of ecphora shells. Armed with these, you should be able to identify the species found in the amazingly rich shell beds of the Chesapeake Bay area.

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When, why, and how early humans began to eat meat are three of the most fundamental unresolved questions in the study of human origins. Before 2.5 million years ago the presence and importance of meat in the hominid diet is unknown. After stone tools appear in the fossil record it seems clear that meat was eaten in increasing quantities, but whether it was obtained through hunting or scavenging remains a topic of intense debate. This book takes a novel and strongly interdisciplinary approach to the role of meat in the early hominid diet, inviting well-known researchers who study the human fossil record, modern hunter-gatherers, and nonhuman primates to contribute chapters to a volume that integrates these three perspectives. Stanford's research has been on the ecology of hunting by wild chimpanzees. Bunn is an archaeologist who has worked on both the fossil record and modern foraging people. This will be a reconsideration of the role of hunting, scavenging, and the uses of meat in light of recent data and modern evolutionary theory. There is currently no other book, nor has there ever been, that occupies the niche this book will create for itself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"Love said, come taste my meate..."
"Love said, come taste my meate,
So I did sit and eate."John Donne's verse has endeared itself to countless undergraduates, not least through suspicion of a triple-entendre (at the very least).Be that as it may, the book under review is about ordinary eating of ordinary meat, specifically wild mammal meat.It supports the traditional consensus view that humans evolved from a mostly-vegetarian ape-like ancestor with a small brain, with the evolution of sociability, intelligence, and cooperation being due in large part to the exigencies of meat-eating.Meat is good food for the growing brain, among other things, but hunting--in an animal lacking fangs and claws--tends to require a great deal of cooperation.(In fact, even such fanged creatures as lions and wolves depend on exquisite cooperation within complex social systems.)Humans evolved in Africa, which seems less well endowed with easily exploited vegetable foods than some other continents, forcing more dependence on hunting and scavenging.The present book summarizes the enormous recent advances in our understanding of human evolution.A combination of archaeology, nutrition studies, and comparative studies of other primates have provided new proofs for the old model.It looks as if humans progressed (if that is the word) from near-vegetarians two million years ago to people who, at the dawn of agriculture 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, were eating anywhere from 10% to nearly 100% animal foods--average perhaps 20%.Neither the view of humans as natural vegetarians nor the view of humans as savage "killer apes" can be supported.
The book suffers from two flaws: first, over-reliance on a very few contemporary hunter-gatherer groups--especially the Hadza, who hunt with bows and metal-tipped poisoned arrows.These are a far cry from the crude stone tools of early hominids.Second, the authors seem a bit unclear on whether human advance was due more to meat as a food, or hunting as an activity, or omnivorous foraging (with hunting as only one part).I vote for the last alternative.We have evidence enough to make it reasonably clear that human skills in finding and processing vegetable food went right along with improvements in hunting.By widening their ethnographic net, the authors would have had to deal with hunter-gatherers who relied overwhelmingly on vegetable foods, often cooperatively produced, harvested, and/or processed.The Australian aboriginals and the Native Americans of what is now the western US come to mind.
The serious student of human foodways should definitely read this book!And the less serious meat-lover can revel in shoving it under the noses of those vegetarians who insist that theirs is the "natural" way. ... Read more

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Many ancient diseases with a long history of afflicting mankind such as Tuberculosis and Malaria are now re-emerging. Greenblatt brings together palaeopathologists, anthropologists, molecular biologists and modern infectious disease specialists to examine this phenomenon.New techniques allow us to detect ancient pathogen DNA and other biomarkers, in effect the chemical 'signatures' of pathogens. These tools could help us develop strategies to combat modern emerging diseases. This book focuses on ancient diseases in order to bridge the gap that has for so long separated today's infectious disease specialists and the paleopathologists who describe pathology in skeletal and mummified remains. Linking these two research communities, and incorporating the views of anthropologists, medical ecologists and molecular/evolutionary biologists, will hopefully promote a better understanding of this complex but vitally important field.A more thorough knowledge of the impact of evolutionary biology on the host-parasite relationship may even enable us to coexist with these pathogenic micro-organisms. The book is intended to stimulate debate and co-operation between infectious disease specialists, medical researchers, archaeologists, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists. ... Read more

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Dinosaurs of the Air: The Evolution and Loss of Flight in Dinosaurs and Birds presents the most recent work of renowned evolutionary scientist and dinosaur illustrator Gregory Paul. Dinosaurs of the Air synthesizes the growing body of evidence which suggests that modern-day birds have evolved from theropod dinosaurs of prehistoric times. Paul argues provocatively for the idea that the ancestor-descendant relationship between the dinosaurs and birds can on occasion be reversed, and that many dinosaurs were secondarily flightless descendants of creatures we would regard as birds. Controversial and comprehensive, Dinosaurs of the Air also offers new, firsthand interpretations of major fossils; a balanced, rewarding discussion ofthe ways we think flight may have evolved (comparing "ground up" and "trees down" scenarios);a close look at the famous urvogel Archaeopteryx, discussing what it can and cannot tell us about bird origins; and in-depth analyses of bird and theropod phylogenetics. Full of rich detail for the specialist but accessible to the intelligent lay reader, the book includes the author's own stunning illustrations anda technical appendix which provides information, for example, on body mass/wing dimension relationships and avian/dinosaurian metabolics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Dinosaurs of the Air
Dinosaurs of the Air:The Evolution and Loss of Flight in Dinosaurs and Birds written by Gregory S. Paul is a well detailed book on comparetive anatomy between bird and dinosaurs.

The author is a well known evolutionary scientist and dinosaur illustrator and he has some interesting things to tell about in this book.For instance, the ancestor-descendant relationship of to birds and dinosaurs, most of the conventional thinking is that dinosaurs evolved into birds, but the author believes that on occasion the rolls could be reversed.That there may be many dinosaurs that were the secondarily flightless descendants of creatures we would think as birds.

This is contraversial, but the author makes his point with in-depth analyses of bird and theropod phylogenetics.There are many line-drawings that do a comparetive analysis, wing dimensions, avian/dinosaurian metabolics... this book has very detailed information.But, the book is written so that the layperson with a little scientific knowledge will unterstand the author intent.

This book has stunning illustrations throughout and well detailed bibliography making the information found in this book believable.There is a detail appendix toward the back of the book that covers in detail things of import for the book.

If you are one of the people who has an interest in avian/dinosaurian link this is a must purchase.This is an excellent book as it combines a large amount of technical data with drawings and related bird origins, including the energetics of the origin of avian flight.But, even with this detail, it is highly readable.

This book is actually longer than Amazon claims
First of all this book is 436 pages. The cover is a painting of Sinornithosaurus I believe. The only reason I took off a perfect five star rating is the lack of pictures. Let's face it, who doesn't check out Greg's pictures first? There are illustrations (all line drawings, no color) but they do not cover enough pterosaurs. The only Pteranodons are skeletal drawings, and there are no Quetzalcoatlus life drawings. There are life restorations of Anhanguera and Pterodaustro. There are pictures of lots of fossil birds and a new skeletal drawing of Bambiraptor and of Deinonychus with the re-evaluated skull that is more like what Ostrom described in 1969. Disappointed to see no new life restoration of it. There are some of the old drawings (Oviraptor, Archaeopteryx, Elaphrosaurus, etc). Don;t expect this textbook to show up on ebay or even at your local stores. Get it if you're a completist or a dino technician or not convinced that birds are related to dinos. ... Read more

Product Description

The contemporary deserts of Arabia form some of the most dramatic arid landscapes in the world; yet, during many times in the past, the region was well-watered, containing evidence for rivers and lakes. Climatic fluctuations through time must have had a profound effect on human population that lived and passed through the region. In this book, paleoenvironmental specialists, archaeologists and geneticists are brought together to provide a comprehensive account of the evolution of human populations in Arabia. A wide range of topics are explored in this book, including environmental change and its impact on human populations, the movement and dispersal of populations through the region, and the origin and spread of food producing economies. New theories and interpretations are presented which provide new insights into the evolution of human populations in a key region of the world.

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How is it that we came to be here? The search for answers to that question has preoccupied humans for millennia. Scientists have sought clues in the genes of living things, in the physical environments of Earth from mountaintops to the depths of the ocean, in the chemistry of this world and those nearby, in the tiniest particles of matter, and in the deepest reaches of space. In Islands of the Cosmos, Dale A. Russell traces a path from the dawn of the universe to speculations about our future on this planet. He centers his story on the physical and biological processes in evolution, which interact to favor more successful, and eliminate less successful, forms of life. Marvelously, these processes reveal latent possibilities in life's basic structure, and propel a major evolutionary theme: the increasing proficiency of biological function. It remains to be seen whether the human form can survive the dynamic processes that brought it into existence. Yet the emergence of the ability to acquire knowledge from experience, to optimize behavior, to conceptualize, to distinguish "good" from "bad" behavior all hint at an evolutionary outcome that science is only beginning to understand.

Customer Reviews (2)

Concise & detailed overview of vanished life & its planetary environment
This book is a very broad and detailed overview of the entire Deep History of life on Earth. It is a decided plus that this 450 page book so tersely and compactly describes the vanished ecosystems and their living things, and the oceans & atmosphere & continents inhabited by these 'extinct critters'. Alternatively, one could tediously wade through a hefty Paleontology Text or endure the waffle & over-simplification of a popular-level science book.
This book describes how life and its planetary environment has changed with time, based only on tangible evidence given in the book: fossil finds, and geological evidence of past climates, continents & environments.
Readers looking for a "storybook" style, personal asides, and flowery descriptions, should look elsewhere! Each vast geological time period is compressed into a short chapter, and each dense and fact-filled sentence functions only to impart information and insight. This is not a novel, after all! Yes, the prose is a little terse and dry, but it is the numerous bizarre facts and insights about vanished worlds that entertain the reader, and the grand narrative of life's history; a narrative that no novelist could have made up.
Russell writes in the unemotional manner of the scientist, as he calmly describes volcanic catastrophes, ice ages, asteroid impacts, and the early struggle of life to come into being. It's all about insight, ideas, knowledge. Most of his statements are backed up by references to the scientific literature, so you can dig deeper if you want to know "why it is so".
Here we have something very different from a popular-level science book; this monograph is a review and summary of the entire scientific literature about Earth history. The achievement of this book is that its paleontologist author has summarized everything he has read and everything he knows....in only 450 pages, without sacrificing detail or breadth of coverage. The alternative to reading this book is to read the many thousands of scientific papers on which it is based.
In summary, think of this volume as being like a direct connection to a paleontologist's brain! If you like science books that 'get to the point', and you have a serious curiosity about what happened in the last 4.5 billion years, Russell can give you all of the facts, minus the distractions of personal asides, lengthy "human interest stories", and endless waffly prose.

Mechanical
The reviewer of Russell's previous book on dinosaurs wrote, "Paleontologist Russell's thrilling word-pictures of ancient scenes such as forests of tilted trees are the strength of this book. He supports the cometary-impact theory of dinosaur extinction, concluding that dinosaurs might still exist had this event not occurred."
Russell himself describes the text of Islands in the Cosmos thus, "... the subjunctive and the conditional could widely replace the declarative mood in many places in the text that follows. The text attempts to be concise and avoid the use of specialized vocabulary--thus, one hopes, making it simpler and easier to assimilate. Those who have written thoughtfully and in more detail on various aspects of the history of life will find it too abbreviated or simple." Something went awry in the writing of this book.
Imagine page after page for 361 repetitions of impersonal, mechanical translations from a text of basic foreign grammar where subject, verb, and predicate repeat with numbing invariance, where the passive voice permeates every page with no actor in sight, where declarative sentences contain so little acknowledgment of well substantiated alternative interpretations that they sound like commands from scripture, and where I or we make no appearance until the end of the last chapter.
Imagine a language devoid of transitions where many sentences have so little connection with what goes before or comes after that they could migrate within a paragraph, even from one paragraph to another, with little loss of comprehension. Imagine having what little flow remains interrupted every two or three sentences by a parenthetical citation. Imagine a text that replaces well-established "specialized vocabulary" with simplicities that are obscurely and oh, so conveniently redefined.
Surely the good editors at Indiana University Press noticed something amiss with this text! Even without addressing the subject matter of Islands in the Cosmos, I find the book almost unreadable because it is so mindbogglingly dull, and I've read but the first chapter plus the Epilogue and glanced at enough of the rest to find neither rest nor respite.
Islands in the Cosmos has a preface by Simon Conway Morris, and Russell repeatedly quotes or cites Conway Morris. This perhaps limits Russell's field of view more than he recognizes. Russell's hypothesis of life's progress (increasing complexity) through evolution sits somewhat uncomfortably among concepts of elan vital, theistic evolution, and idiotic design. Perhaps a more vital text might have argued as cogently as possible for a synthesis of these hypotheses, but Russell treats his "Reason" only in passing at the very beginning and end, leaving the reader with yet another image of a not very bright or conscientious sci-fi scientist fiddling around in his cosmic laboratory and sacrificing one imperfect animal after another in his less than divine quest to develop an Überorganismus.
Islands in the Cosmos contains a passable summary of the evolution of life on Earth with several interesting passages relating ecological information that older summaries tend to lack. I feel that this material is too brief and sketchy and too much distorted by Russell's peculiar hypothesis to justify the book. The hypothesis Russell attaches to his material is, for the most part, already part of evolutionary science, patently obvious, or irrelevant. Russell includes relatively little about dinosaurs, his area of expertise, and I can't imagine him now making the argument that dinosaurs might still exist save for an errant asteroid, as their continued existence would compromise what little is original about his hypothesis. He seems to have a contradictory take on "living fossils" and ecological refugia (viz. pages 32 and 163). As readers might expect, research since this book was committed to press has made some comments sound less than foresightful (e.g., a passing slander of the tuatara). Russell Hawley's illustrations of ancient environments are usually helpful, though his style is somewhat plain and lacking in depth. I found no credits for the numerous color photographs that illustrate contemporary settings, many intended to demonstrate the less progressive aspects of ancient environments.
I will probably return Islands in the Cosmos, which is a shame. Russell is an active researcher in my home state, and I wish him and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences much success in their work and in presenting science to the public. I do not think this book furthers those efforts. ... Read more

Product Description
The family Equidae have an extensive fossil record spanning the past 58 million years, and the evolution of the horse has frequently been used as a classic example of long-term evolution.In recent years, however, there have been many important discoveries of fossil horses, and these, in conjunction with such new methods as cladistics, and techniques such as precise geochronology, have allowed us to achieve a much greater understanding of the evolution and biology of this important group.This book synthesizes the large body of data and research relevant to an understanding of fossil horses from several disciplines including biology, geology and paleontology. Using horses as the central theme, the author weaves together in the text such topics as modern geochronology, paleobiogeography, climate change, evolution and extinction, functional morphology, and population biology during the Cenozoic period. This book will be exciting reading for researchers and graduate students in vertebrate paleontology, evolution, and zoology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Horses and Evolution
The horse is often cited as one of the shining examples of evolution.It is even more often cited by CreationISTs and Intelligent Design proponents as an example of the folly of "evolutionists".CreationISTs consistently misquote, misreprensent and fabricate their arguments about horse evolution.

MacFadden's book is not strictly about the evolution of horses.Individual specimens are not cited, measurements are not provided, and character matrices are absent.Strictly speaking, it is a book about evolution, which just happens to use the author's extensive knowledge of fossil horses as its exemplars.

MacFadden discusses the nature of paleontology and the nature of fossils.He talks about how we erect a chronological structure for our fossils.He explicates various evolutionary processes, including variation, speciation and extinction. Functional morphology, population dynamics, ecology - all are described in terms which the non-specialist can appreciate, and are illustrated using the fossil record of horses.

For those who struggle daily against the incursion of religion into the science classroom, I cannot imagine a better preparation than a careful reading of this book. For anyone interested in learning just what a paleontologist does it provides a wide-based introduction.High school students will find it fascinating; it could be used as an excellent text for a college level course in evolutionary biology, and vertebrate paleontologists will find it a welcome state-of-the-art summary of what we know about the evolution of the horse.

My go-to reference book!
This is the book that I recommend highly to our journal readers. I've been using it for reference myself since it was published. Information about the evolution of the horse's foot is my area of interest, so I cannot really comment on other aspects of the book. We cite this book frequently and I am amazed at how many people (and academics) in the horse field still don't know about it. I'm trying to change that!

Fran Jurga
Hoofcare & Lameness: Journal of Equine Foot Science

Best fossil horse book out there
I'm a novice trying to understand the incredibly complex history, 58 million years, of the horse. I went on a dig and had the fun of finding bones and teeth from Miocene thru Pleistocene horses. I had a lot of questions after I got home about various issues raised by what we found. This book answered them and more. It's a real scientist's book, not a coffee table book, so it takes some concentrated reading, but I learned things that allowed me to go the natural history museum and perceive the fine points in the display. There were interesting asides also about the perspectives of scientists from the last few centuries, and earlier graphics to compare to new ones illustrating how the understanding of evolution has changed over the years. I'm going on another dig and this time I may know what I'm looking at.

Primarily for the specialist
I got this book brand new for 50 pence as apparently the book had no buyers.

For 10,000 years human civilization depended on horses and unsurprisingly horse evolution was a hot scientific topic at a time when people had no faster means of personal transport.History and its emperors are littered with tales of the horse and the equine symbollism in war and heroism is still with us.Given such a magical subject McFadden's book represents a somewhat staid academic account in the style of a scientific paper.Peppered with many references McFadden treats the reader like an academic used to such presentation and fails to enliven his topic.He touches all too briefly on the cultural importance of the horse and the book lacks any decent illustrations save several charts and technical drawings.

McFadden has certainly put in a great deal of hard work and covers many topics from the history of the study of horse evolution to geneology, geological time and the work he and his co-workers have produced.The book is too specific on the Equidae and does not deal adequately with recently extinct members of this family like the quagga and prehistoric species.Nor does it explain clearly why horses may have dissapeared from the Americas.Parts of the book, e.g., the limb locking mechanism were for me hard to follow.The book is afraid of speculation.

It provides ample materials and references to the student and to the paleontologist and is a good textbook.It fails to dramatise its subject and to attract a "lay audience".We are not really treated to what makes horses so special but to its credit it represents a highly authoritative and up to (its) date digest. ... Read more

Product Description
This monograph approaches the evolution of the African monkey, the African Cercopithecoidea, from the perspective of the forelimb. It describes the differences apparent in the extant primate forelimb and uses this information to interpret evolution in the Plio-Pleistocene fossil record. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

ALTHOUGH AN "OLD" COLLECTION, STILL CONTAINS IMPORTANT ARTICLES
Scientific American has always been a more "scientific" magazine (albeit for a semi-"popular" audience) than, say, OMNI or Discover. Noteworthy scientists often contributed articles, that discussed cutting-edge research. The articles in this 1978 collection were actually written between 1949 and 1975; and although research has sometimes superseded the conclusions reached, many of these articles are still interesting--as least for historical purposes.

For example, H.B.D. Kettlewell's article about the peppered moth in England, "Darwin's Missing Evidence."Kettlewel concludes, "Had Darwin observed industrial melanism he would have seen evolution occurring not in thousands of years but in thousands of days---well within his lifetime. He would have witnessed the consummation and confirmation of his life's work."(Of course, it is recognized that the peppered moths are a better example of Natural Selection than of "evolution"; see the book Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story of Science and the Peppered Moth.)

Theodosius Dobzhansky's article, "The Genetic Basis of Evolution," includes the statement, "If mutations produce incapacitating changes, how can adaptive evolution be compounded of them? The answer is: a mutation that is harmful in the environment in which the species or race lives may become useful, even essential, if the environment changes. Actually it would be strange if we found mutations that improve the adaptation of the organism in the environment in which it normally lives."

This is a very diverse collection of articles, and still well worth reading.


... Read more

Product Description

The heart of the book consists of detailed systematic accounts of the known fossil snakes of North America and the localities where they occur. Extinct fossil taxa are discussed and illustrated and many are redescribed on the basis of new information. Illustrations of diagnostic vertebrae and criteria for the identification of presently living fossil snake taxa are given as well as the modern characteristics and ranges of these species.

Customer Reviews (1)

Great deal!
Great price, the book was in great shape and it was delivered fast. The book itself was not great. Will buy from them again! ... Read more