The Evolution of Mammalian Brain-from Darwin's The Origin to the New Evidence of Mesozoic Mammals

摘要

In the year 2009,we celebrate both Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species (the Origin,Darwin 1859) by presenting various research results that make sense only within the context of evolution.While numerous new disciplines related to evolution have been established since Darwin,many classical researches have remained lively and made enormous progresses,of which is the study on brain evolution (Smulders 2009a).Although from the first edition to the later ones of the Origin,Darwin did not discuss brain evolution in any detail,but he paid increasingly attention to the issue.He did state that natural selection applies to the brain as it does to all the other organs in the 6th edition (Darwin 1872).However,Darwin was aware of the issue not only because brain evolution was a subject actively studied by his contemporary anatomists,such as Huxley,but also because he had published the first edition of The descent of man (Darwin 1871) before the 6th edition of the Origin.