Description
Steve Brusatte the author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs brings mammals out from the shadow of their more showy predecessors In this beautifully written terrific book he tells the extraordinary story of how mammals came to be and makes the case for them as creatures who are just as engaging as dinosaurs The Sunday Times
The passing of the age of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to become ascendant But mammals have a much deeper history They or more precisely we originated around the same time as the dinosaurs over 200 million years ago mammal roots lie even further back some 325 million years
Over these immense stretches of geological time mammals developed their trademark features hair keen senses of smell and hearing big brains and sharp intelligence fast growth and warmblooded metabolism a distinctive lineup of teeth mammary glands that mothers use to nourish their babies with milk qualities that have underlain their success story
Out of this long and rich evolutionary history came the mammals of today including our own species and our closest cousins But todays 6000 mammal species are simply the few survivors of a once verdant family tree which has been pruned both by time and mass extinctions
In The Rise and Reign of the Mammals Brusatte weaves together the history and evolution of our mammal forebears iconic mammals such as the mammoths and sabretoothed tigers of which we have all heard and fascinating species that few of us are aware of In this fascinating and groundbreaking book Steve Brusatte tells their and our story
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