What do we know about animal evolution in the early twenty-first century? How much more do we know today than Darwin did? What are the most exciting discoveries that have been made in the last few decades? Covering all the main animal groups, from jellyfish to mammals, this book considers all of these questions and more. Its 30 short chapters, each written in a conversational, nontechnical style and accompanied by numerous original illustrations, deal equally with the pattern and the process of evolution - with both evolutionary trees and evolutionary mechanisms. They cover diverse…mehr
What do we know about animal evolution in the early twenty-first century? How much more do we know today than Darwin did? What are the most exciting discoveries that have been made in the last few decades? Covering all the main animal groups, from jellyfish to mammals, this book considers all of these questions and more. Its 30 short chapters, each written in a conversational, nontechnical style and accompanied by numerous original illustrations, deal equally with the pattern and the process of evolution - with both evolutionary trees and evolutionary mechanisms. They cover diverse evolutionary themes, including: the animal toolkit, natural selection, embryos and larvae, animal consciousness, fossils, human evolution, and even the possibility of animal life existing elsewhere than on Earth. This unique text will make an excellent introduction for undergraduates and others with an interest in the subject.
Wallace Arthur is Emeritus Professor of Zoology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), and has a special interest in explaining scientific concepts in plain, nontechnical language. He is the author of nine previous books, including Biased Embryos and Evolution (Cambridge, 2004) and The Origin of Animal Body Plans (Cambridge, 1997).
Inhaltsangabe
Preface Acknowledgements 1. What is an animal? 2. Before there were animals 3. How to make a fossil 4. The Cambrian explosion 5. How to make a species 6. Jellyfish and their kin 7. How to make a tree 8. The enigmatic urbilaterian 9. Animal symmetry and heads 10. A plethora of worms 11. Trends in animal complexity 12. Where the octopus is king 13. How to make an animal 14. Exoskeletons galore 15. Extinction 16. Mouth first, mouth second 17. Comparing embryos 18. Larvae, mouthparts and moulting 19. The animal toolkit 20. Vertebrate origins and evolution 21. From water to land to water 22. Variation and inheritance 23. Evolutionary novelties 24. Human origins and evolution 25. Animal plasticity 26. The nature of adaptation 27. The direction of evolution 28. Animal extremophiles 29. Extraterrestrial animals? 30. The ghost in the machine Appendix References Index.
Preface Acknowledgements 1. What is an animal? 2. Before there were animals 3. How to make a fossil 4. The Cambrian explosion 5. How to make a species 6. Jellyfish and their kin 7. How to make a tree 8. The enigmatic urbilaterian 9. Animal symmetry and heads 10. A plethora of worms 11. Trends in animal complexity 12. Where the octopus is king 13. How to make an animal 14. Exoskeletons galore 15. Extinction 16. Mouth first, mouth second 17. Comparing embryos 18. Larvae, mouthparts and moulting 19. The animal toolkit 20. Vertebrate origins and evolution 21. From water to land to water 22. Variation and inheritance 23. Evolutionary novelties 24. Human origins and evolution 25. Animal plasticity 26. The nature of adaptation 27. The direction of evolution 28. Animal extremophiles 29. Extraterrestrial animals? 30. The ghost in the machine Appendix References Index.
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