Bringing Fossils to Life: An Introduction to Paleobiology

In the late Paleocene, when I took upper division paleontology, we used Clarkson's Invertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, which was very good. But in all honesty, it was a lovely grad student/lab instructor who made paleontology interesting and kept students motivated. Prothero does the same here with his words (rather than his figure!) since he's consulted over the years with those who matter most: his students. I've read his EVOLUTION: WHY IT MATTERS and AFTER THE DINOSAURS and find Prothero's writing style easy to digest. He also packages chapters efficiently. I picked up an older and cheaper edition of this title and confirmed that his method is no fluke. If you can afford the price of the latest edition, it's probably worth it.

In my opinion, this book provides a great introduction to the study of paleobiology. It is an introductory book in the sense that it does not require any previous knowledge, but it is a serious textbook that would typically require more that just casual reading. The first few chapters cover the basic material need to understand the history of life on Earth. It starts with fossilization and fossils, which provide the currently existing record of life in the past. The next few chapters cover the concepts of species, cladistics and evolution. There are also chapters on functional morphology which is very important when trying to determine how animals lived by studying their fossils and paleoecology which is important to understanding how they interacted. This material provides the backbone for the rest of the book. I thought it was really well done and was definitely written by someone that wanted the reader to understand the material. The next several chapters cover the evolution of animals. It is broken up in terms of phyla, with one or more phyla being covered per chapter. The coverage is not excessively deep for any phyla, if it were the book would be far too large. The final two chapters were quite interesting. One covered the fossil evidence for animal behavior. The other covered the evolution of plants. Since the evolution of plants seems to be ignored in most books on evolution, I found this to be particularly nice. There is no coverage of human evolution. I thought this was a good choice because there are so many other resources for this topic. In addition to being a good book on paleobiology, I thought this was a good book on science in general. Rather than just presenting the material as a list of facts, the book gives a nice emphasis on why various things are believed to be true. I think this makes the material more interesting, it certainly gives the reader more reason to believe it other than because it is in a book. It also gives a better sense of what science is and how it is done. If there is any downside it is that a fair amount of space is spent covering ideas that have been discredited. To summarize, I thought this was a great book that was truly intended to teach the subject.

I have not read this book yet (for my fall class in college), but I am happy with the professional courtesy that I received during shipment. I would buy books from the seller again. The book description was accurate and as expected for a used text book. I am happy with my purchase. Thank you.

Excellent coverage of both the biological and geological aspects of this most fascinating science. Well illustrated with both 'further readings' and bibliography. Includes glossary. An essential text suitable for both the interested enthusiast and first/second year university students.