Neptunefs Arks From Ichthyosaurs to Orcas

摘要

Wallace's goal with this book is to cover the evolutionary pathways of large marine predators whose only apparent commonalities are their size (large), environment (marine), and dietary preferences (predatory). I was skeptical at first that he could convince me otherwise: this book covers a huge range of reptiles, birds, and mammals, some of which have been extinct for over 100 million years and some of which still thrive in today's oceans But convince me he did. Wallace convinced me that, in spite of over 150 years of scientific scrutiny and an ever-growing body of fossil and comparative data, we still know remarkably little about where these animals came from, where they go or have gone, and what they do or did for a living.