Prehistoric Life: The Rise of the Vertebrates

This is a wonderful book, one of my five favorites when it comes to paleontology. Where to begin! First all, the book covers the entire history of life on earth, beginning with the origin of the earth itself, through the beginning of life, the advent of multicellular life, the bizarre Vendian fauna of the late Precambrian, through the now famous world of the Burgess Shale, into the explosion of life in the seas of the Cambrian, on into the debut of fishes, the conquering of land by plants, insects, and amphibians, to the development of reptiles, all the way through early mammals, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, the Cenozoic "Age of Mammals," the Ice Ages, and early man. As I have pointed out in other reviews, too many books focus exclusively or mainly on dinosaurs, and David Norman deserves high credit for not negelecting other aspects of the development of life on earth.Second, he is thorough in his coverage on most aspects of the paleonotological record. In his section on trilobites for instance, he has photographs of trilobite fossils and artists illustrations of trilobites swimming, molting, walking, curling up in defense, egg laying, and plowing the seabed for food. The accompanying text is no less detailed and useful. On the lengthy section of conquering the land, Norman has a great diagram showing the major structural changes that fishes underwent to conquer the terrestrial world (particularly in the areas of the pelvic and pectoral girdles and the spine), several illustrations of amphibian skeletons, and several nice illustrations of early amphibians, both individually and in the context of their environment. Dinosaurs as you might imagine get a huge section, with an entire additional chapter devoted the evolution of birds and dinosaur-bird relationships (including discussion of issues of dinosaur endothermy). Marine reptiles of the Mesozoic are not neglected, with many excellent illustrations including some very fine paintings, photographs of fossils, and a diagram illustrating the differences between the swimming and body styles of three main groups, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pliosaurs. The section on extinct mammals and mammalian evolution is quite thorough and one of my favorites, as extinct mammals are otherwise very poorly covered in the popular literature. In a readable and engaging format Norman discusses such varied topics in this area as the differences between birds and mammals with regards to the efficiency of their breathing systems, the evolutionary history of Australia's marsupials, the Great Faunal Interchange between North and South America, the evolution of whales, and the rise of grasslands and the role that played in mammalian evolution. Third, the book, as you might gather, is richly illustrated. Though very much a great text one can sit down and read, it is packed with excellent photographs, drawings, and paintings of fossils, skeletons, animals and plants as they appeared in life, and prehistoric environments. Personal

Norman planned this book ir order to provide a pleasant and highly understandable reading without lack of information, covering everything related to pre-historic life, from the greatest animals to the life development hypotesis. It also brings to the reader one of the best visions of life sucession and evolution on Earth. It's wonderfully ilustrated with some pictures that you can see in famous museum exibitions, such as the Deinonychus attack, from Uk National History Museum (pages 158-159) and many others. It is my favourite pre-historic book and I strongly believe that it is a must for every natural science library or collection. It's suitable for everyone interested in a good and clear aproach in this subject. It's not properlly a scholar book but it can be a great help even for paleontology students.

This book is one of the best of its kind. It uncoveres the Evolution of vertebrates in a perfekt way. Beautifull illustrations, which make the animals feel closer to you then ever. This book is really a pleasure to read!!!

The book is logically put together and is beautiful in format. Although our library has assigned a Youth designation, the book would make an excellent text for a full-year course in paleology at senior high school or college level, and serve as a reference work thereafter.

This book was very interesting because it covered vertebrates from the very beginning (origin of the universe), but it was still very thorough. Very good illustrations and pictures.