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基本説明
Five of the world's leading paleontologists take us on a journey to the most important fossil sites that serve as unique windows to the earliest animal life - including the Ediacara Hills of Australia, the Russian taiga und tundra, the sandy deserts of southwest Africa, and the rugged coasts of Newfoundland.
Full Description
Among the major events in evolutionary history, few rival in importance the appearance of animals. The Rise of Animals-a significant reference providing a comprehensive synthesis of the early radiation of the animal kingdom-fully captures this moment in geologic time. Five of the world's leading paleontologists take us on a journey to the most important fossil sites that serve as unique windows to the earliest animal life-including the Ediacara Hills of Australia, the Russian taiga and tundra, the deserts of southwest Africa, and the rugged coasts of Newfoundland. Each of these places holds a rich fossil record that reveals how the animal form came into existence and why some groups succeeded while others failed. The authors describe the diversification of the Kingdom Animalia into the familiar body plans of today: from simple animals such as sponges to complex groups like mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms, and chordates that appear explosively in the Cambrian. This exquisitely illustrated book reveals the early moments of an evolutionary process that eventually resulted in our own species.
An essential resource for paleontologists, biologists, geologists, and teachers, The Rise of Animals is the best single reference on one of earth's most significant events.
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: The Background: The Archean and Proterozoic Eons
Chapter 1. The Background. The Archean (4.5 Million to 2500 Million Years Ago)
Chapter 2. The Background. The Proterozoic (2.5 Billion to 542 Million Years Ago)
Part II: The Fossil Sites: Rare and Extraordinary
Introduction
Chapter 3. The Misty Coasts of Newfoundland
Chapter 4. The Nama Fauna of Southern Africa
Chapter 5. The Ediacara Hills
Chapter 6. The White Sea's Windswept Coasts
Chapter 7. Podolia's Green Valleys
Chapter 8. The Siberian Tundra
Chapter 9. The Urals
Chapter 10. The Canadian Cordillera
Chapter 11. Beyond the Major Sites
Part III: Other Evidence of Animalia
Chapter 12. First Trace of Motion
Chapter 13. The World of the Very Small: Fueling the Animalia
Part IV: A Dramatic Crossroads—The Cambrian "Explosion"?
Chapter 14. Body Plans, Strange and Familiar, and the Enigma of 542
Atlas of Precambrian Metazoans
Bibliography
Index
