Beasts of Eden: Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal EvolutionMammals 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. |
Contents
Pachyderms in the Catacombs | 1 |
Doctor Jekyll and the Stonesfield Jaws | 14 |
The Origin of Mammals | 25 |
The Noblest Conquest | 41 |
Terrible Horns and Heavy Feet | 54 |
Mr Megatherium versus Professor Mylodon | 70 |
Fire Beasts of the Antipodes | 79 |
Titans on Parade | 91 |
Shifting Ground | 157 |
Dissolving Ancestries | 166 |
Exploding Faunas | 176 |
The Revenge of the Shell Hunters | 188 |
Simpson Redivivus | 198 |
Wind Thieves of the Kyzylkum | 207 |
The Serpents Offering | 216 |
Anthropoid Leapfrog | 233 |
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Common terms and phrases
adapiforms adaptation Africa Age of Mammals Age of Reptiles American Museum ancestors angiosperms animals anthropoid apes Asia badlands beasts bones carnivores Cenozoic cladistics Clemens continents Cope Cope's Coryphodon creatures Cuvier Darwin Dinocerata dinosaurs early mammal elephants Eobasileus Eocene Equus eutherians evidence evolutionary evolved expedition fauna Fayum fossil record fossils genera genus Geological giant Gould Granger gypsum herbivores horse Huxley ibid idea jaws Late Cretaceous Leidy living look mammalian mammals mammoth Marsh marsupials mass extinctions Matthew Megatherium mesonychid Mesonyx Mesozoic Mesozoic mammals million Miocene molars mural Museum of Natural named Natural History natural selection Naturalist Nessov North America O. C. Marsh Oligocene origins Osborn Owen Owen's Oxyaena Palaeotherium Paleocene paleontologists Patagonia Pelycodus placentals plants prehistoric primates prosimian Science scientific seemed Simpson skeleton skull sloth South species Stonesfield strata tarsiiform teeth Tertiary theory thought tion titanothere uintatheres ungulates vertebrate World Wortman wrote Yale Zallinger's The Age zhelestids