Beasts of Eden : Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution

Berkeley: University of California Press. Good+ in Good+ dust jacket. (2004). First Edition. Hardcover. 0520237315 . Ex-library. Library stamps, labels and markings. Dust-jacket in clear plastic cover, taped to boards and endpapers.; xxviii, 340 pages. Red boards with green cloth spine. Bronze lettering on spine. Page dimensions: 228 x 151mm. Illustrated. "Mammals first evolved at about the same time as dinosaurs, and their story is perhaps the more fascinating of the two - in part because it is also our own story. In this book, eminent naturalist David Rains Wallace brings the saga of ancient mammals to a general audience. Using artist Rudolph Zallinger's majestic "Age of Mammals" mural at the Peabody Museum as a frame for his narrative, Wallace deftly moves over varied terrain - drawing from history, science, evolutionary theory, and art history - to present a lively account of fossil discoveries and an overview of what those discoveries have revealed about early mammals and their evolution. In these pages we encounter towering mammoths, tiny horses, giant-clawed ground sloths, whales with legs, uintatheres, zhelestids and other exotic extinct creatures as well as the scientists who discovered and wondered about their remains. We meet such memorable figures as Georges Cuvier, Richard Owen, Edward D. Cope, George Gaylord Simpson and Stephen Jay Gould and learn of their heated disputes, from Cuvier's and Owen's fights with early evolutionists to present controversies over the Late Cretaceous mass extinction. Wallace's own lifelong interest in evolution is reflected in the book's evocative style and in the personal experiences he weaves into the tale, providing an altogether expansive perspective on what Darwin described as the "grandeur" of evolution." Contents: List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Prologue: The Fresco and the Fossil; 1. Pachyderms in the Catacombs; 2. Dr. Jekyll and the Stonesfield Jaws; 3. The Origin of Mammals; 4. The Noblest Conquest; 5. Terrible Horns and Heavy Feet; 6. Mr. Megatherium versus Professor Mylodon; 7. Fire Beasts of the Antipodes; 8. Titans on Parade; 9. Five-toed Horses and Missing Links; 10. The Invisible Dawn Man; 11. A Bonaparte of Beasts; 12. Love and Theory; 13. Simpson's Cynodont-to-Smilodon Synthesis; 14. Shifting Ground; 15. Dissolving Ancestries; 16. Exploding Faunas; 17. The Revenge of the Shell Hunters; 18. Simpson Redivivus; 19. Winds Thieves of the Kyzylkum; 20. The Serpent's Offering; 21. Anthropoid Leapfrog; Epilogue: Cenozoic Parks; Notes; Select Bibliography; Index. .