Survivors : The Animals and Plants that Time Has left Behind
Author(s): Richard Fortey
The history of life on Earth is far older - and far odder - than many of us realise. In SURVIVORS, acclaimed author Richard Fortey traces this history not through fossil records, but in the living stories of organisms that have survived nearly unchanged for hundreds of millions of years and whose existence today affords us tantalising glimpses of landscapes long vanished. For evolution has not obliterated its tracks. Scattered across the globe, strange and marvellous plants and animals have survived virtually unchanged since life first began. They range from humble algal mats dating back almost two billion years to hardy musk oxen, which linger as the last vestiges of Ice Age fauna. Following in Forteya??s questing footsteps, SURVIVORS takes us on fascinating journey to these ancient worlds. On a moonlit beach in Delaware where the horseshoe crab shuffles its way through a violent romance, we catch a glimpse of life 450 million years ago, shortly after it diversified on the ocean floor. Along a stretch of Australian coastline, we bear witness to the sights and sounds that would have greeted a Precambrian dawn. Finally, in the dense rainforests of New Zealand where the secretive velvet worm burrows into the rotting timber of the jungle floor, we marvel at a living fossil which has survived unchanged since before the dissolution of the Gondwana supercontinent.
Product Information
'Fortey is one of the world's most acclaimed natural history writers.' Tim Flannery, New York Review of Books 'A true delight: full of awe-inspiring details! the book blends travel, history, reportage and science to create an unforgettable picture of our ancient earth.' Sunday Times 'Dazzling!. Richard Fortey is without peer amongst science writers.' Bill Bryson More praise for Dry Store Room Number One: 'Teeming with life, Fortey's prose is eloquent, lively and suffused with often self--deprecating humour.' New Statesman 'Fortey has a scientist's regard for fact but a poet's delight in wonder. This is a rare intoxicating insight into a hidden community intent on unlocking the universe's myriad secrets.' Metro 'Engaging! Fortey's writing is enough to make the behind--the--scenes work of the museum totally fascinating!(his) delightful book, like the museum it describes, is both rambling and elegant.' Sunday Telegraph 'Compendious and entertaining!much of the narrative interest of the book is carried anecdotally, by wonderful stories!it is a book filled with a passion for nature and pride in an institution that has done so much to compile its inventory. Fortey is a knowledgeable guide, with a keen eye and gentle humour' Evening Standard 'Richard Fortey's wonderful book!shows the unspectacular elements of the museum collection as the most interesting part of its work, while placing the well-known exhibits in a new and often comical light!with eccentricity flourishing unchecked among its staff Fortey has amassed a brilliant collection of anecdotes about their habits' Daily Telegraph
Richard Fortey retired from his position as senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in 2006. He is the author of several books, including 'Fossils: A Key to the Past', 'The Hidden Landscape' which won The Natural World Book of the Year in 1993, 'Life: An Unauthorised Biography', 'Trilobite!' and 'The Earth: An Intimate History' and Dry Store-room No. 1. He was elected President of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
General Fields
- :
- : HarperPress
- : HarperPress
- : 0.723
- : January 2011
- : 234mm X 153mm
- : United Kingdom
- : November 2011
- : books
Special Fields
- : Richard Fortey
- : Hardback
- : 10-Nov
- : 578
- : 400
- : 20 b/w illus, 16 col plates (16pp), (Author pays pix costs), With index
