Before the Backbone

Views on the origin of the vertebrates
1996
ISBN: 978-0-412-48300-4
Verlag: Springer Netherlands

Buch, Englisch, 346 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 1540 g

We cannot catechise our stony ichthyolites, as did the necromantic lady of the Arabian Nights did the coloured fishes of the lake which had once been a city, when she touched their dead bodies with her wand, and they straightaway raised their heads and rephed to her queries. We would have many a question to ask them if we could - questions never to be solved. Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone When I started this book in 1991, the subject of vertebrate origins was fusty and unfashionable. Early drafts for this preface read like an extend­ ed complaint at the lot of traditional morphologists, cast aside by the march of modern molecular biology. But no longer - this book should reach you at a time of renewed inter­ est in the origin of the vertebrates, our own particular corner of creation. For although the topic has excited interest for well over a century, molec­ ular biology has only lately achieved the maturity necessary to test its predictions. As a legitimate field of study, it is fashionable again.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gee, H.

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geologie Paläontologie, Taphonomie
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Tierkunde / Zoologie Wirbeltiere (Vertebrata)
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Evolutionsbiologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The origins of vertebrates.- Head to head.- Jefferies’ Calcichordate Theory.- Conclusions.