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Title: At the Water's Edge : Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea by Carl Zimmer ISBN: 0-684-85623-9 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 08 September, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Masterful, fascinating and a complete joy to read
Comment: I've probably read this book 4 times completely, and bits of it more. Each time I not only learn more, but I become more convinced that this is one of the finest natural history titles I've ever read. Zimmer is a masterful writer with the capacity to make fairly complex ideas immediately understandable yet never over simplified or trivialized. But it is the images I can construct in my mind of what he describes that amazes me. I've recommended this book to many students and colleagues and have given several copies away just because I wanted someone to share my enjoyment of science writing at its best--and to grasp some of the most exciting evolutionary milestones of the vertebrate record--the movement onto the land of the Paleozoic and the great return to the sea of the Cenozoic--the "fish with fingers and the whales with legs" of the title.
Get it, read it, savor it, and then share it widely.
Rating: 5
Summary: Simply the best
Comment: There's really not much I can add to the previous reviews which state quite nicely what this book is about. However, I have to mention that this is the first book I have come across (at least for the general reading public)that goes into such depth on the evolution of whales. Nowhere else have I been able to find the kind of in-depth information which Carl Zimmer has put in this great book.
He is one of my favorite writers and I look forward to anything he writes in the future.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great read!!!!!!!..........
Comment: ........if you enjoy evolution, then this book is a must read for you! "At the Water's Edge" takes you through the history of vertebrate evolution in minute detail. Specifically, Zimmer details the evolution of terapods (land vertebrates as well as those vertebrates that returned to the water) from our common ancestor that lived in the water. He shows the movement onto land and, in the case of mammals that live in the sea, back into the water again. For each evolutionary step, Zimmer presents highly detailed evidence, mostly in the form of major fossil discoveries. Be ready to go on an expedition with each of the paleontologists that contribute their scientific data to this book! This book reads like an adventure that is loaded with discoveries and that covers the far reaches of our planet!
Be ready for a scientific history that spans 380 million years, from the Devonian period to the present day. Zimmer shows us how minute genetic changes can lead to anatomical modifications that allow an animal to respond differently to its environment. As we read, we see the slow unfolding of our own "family tree". Zimmer includes an entire mind-boggling chapter on the evolution of the hand from limb-like fins. The book begins by explaining just how it is that creatures became adapted to life on land and came ashore (with several surprises). He also has several chapters devoted to the evolution of the whale (and other mammals such as dolphins and manatees that live in water today) from land back into the water again. He details the necessary changes in anatomical structure, brian size, sensory perception and more, that were necessary for such dramatic changes in living environment (from water to land and back) to take place. This book is simply too crammed full of compelling evolutionary info for me to even do it justice here.
Even if you aren't into evolution, this book, I believe, will grab you. It's Zimmer's strong gift for detail and presenting ideas and evidence in common language that will hold any inquisitive reader. As you read, it is simply not possible to see yourself as anything other than a product of all life that is interrelated on this earth. This book is simply a fabulous read!
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Title: Parasite Rex : Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures by Carl Zimmer ISBN: 074320011X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 11 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Evolution : The Triumph of an Idea by Carl Zimmer ISBN: 0060958502 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Life : A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth by RICHARD FORTEY ISBN: 037570261X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Sea Dragons: Predators of the Prehistoric Oceans by Richard Ellis ISBN: 0700612696 Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Trilobite! : Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey ISBN: 0375406255 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 31 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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