Beasts of Eden Walking Whales Dawn Horses and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution 1st Edition by David Rains Wallace ISBN 978-0520246843 0520246845

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Product details: 

ISBN 10:   0520246845

ISBN 13: 978-0520246843

Author: David Rains Wallace

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.

Table of contents: 

1. Pachyderms in the Catacombs

2. Dr. Jekyll and the Stonesfield Jaws

3. The Origin of Mammals

4. The Noblest Conquest

5. Terrible Horns and Heavy Feet

6. Mr. Megatherium versus Professor Mylodon

7. Fire Beasts of the Antipodes

8. Titans on Parade

9. Five-Toed Horses and Missing Links

10. The Invisible Dawn Man

11. A Bonaparte of Beasts

12. Love and Theory

13. Simpson’s Cynodont-to-Smilodon Synthesis

14. Shifting Ground

15. Dissolving Ancestries

16. Exploding Faunas

17. The Revenge of the Shell Hunters

18. Simpson Revived

19. Winds Thieves of the Kyzylkum

20. The Serpent’s Offering

21. Anthropoid Leapfrog

22. Epilogue. Cenozoic Parks

23. Notes

24. Select Bibliography

25. Index

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Tags: David Rains Wallace, Beasts of Eden, Whales Dawn Horses, Enigmas of Mammal