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Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution
by: John A. Long, Michael Archer, Timothy Flannery, Suzanne Hand

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 569.0994
EAN: 9780801872235
ISBN: 0801872235
Label: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: January 03, 2003
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Sales Rank: 897498
Studio: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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Product Description:
From kangaroos and koalas to the giant Diprotodon and bizarre 'thingodontans,' prehistoric mammals evolved within the changing and sometimes harsh environments of Australia. As part of Gondwana, Australia was the first landmass to be isolated from the supercontinent Pangaea. In Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea, four respected paleontologists present a history of the development of modern mammals from the unique evolutionary environment of Australia and New Guinea. The authors describe both what is known about prehistoric Australian mammals and what can be reconstructed from the fossil evidence about their appearance and behaviors.

This accessible reference work offers facts about how each mammal got its name and provides a description of how the fossil mammal resembles its modern descendants. Over 200 four-color illustrations enhance the text, which describes the age, diet, and habitat of these extinct mammals. The authors also detail how each mammal evolved and is now classified. Diagrams showing skeletal features and tooth structure and a glossary of technical terms are also included.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Mixed Emotions
I have mixed emotions about this book. It starts out with a very good set of chapters introducing Australia's mammals. It talks about how they developed, how they were found and the constraints that living on a small and mostly desert continent puts on them. That part is almost worth the cost of the book. The rest of the book is a mixed bag from the point of view of the interested non-specialist. It has very good illustrations and lots of them. Some of the species descriptions are written in such a way that an intelligent layperson can get the gist of them. Others probably have something profound to say, but not to the non-specialist. For example: "Distinguishing features of Diprotodon include: its large size; relatively small P3 (compared to the molars); P3 shearing blades which unite to form a horse-shoe shaped crescent open on the buccal side; bilophodont molars without conspicuous midlinks; molar enamel with ... Read More

Rating:

- Good news and bad news
The good news first: This book succeeds in the almost impossible task of being both an attractive coffee-table book and a valuable scientific reference. Within its purview, every known species is carefully and exactly defined, and the book is full of superb illustrations, not just of life reconstructions, but of the actual fossils themselves.

The book is aimed at Australians, and readers from elsewhere should familiarize themselves with the continent's living mammals (not just the famous ones) before reading it. It helps a great deal to know what a dibbler or a bettong is and does before attempting to confront their ancestors.

Which brings us to the bad news. The species descriptions focus on tooth morphology to the almost total exclusion of all other factors, and beyond the illustrations there is little attempt to deal with what these creatures actually looked like or how they behaved. ... Read More

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