Customer Reviews

Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dogs and their kin have an extensive fossil record, especially in North America. The authors have recently published three extensive technical monographs on fossil dogs, wolves, coyotes, foxes, etc. based on the unbelievably huge collections at the American Museum of Natural History and elsewhere. This book is essentially a popularization of the technical work, although this volume can be a bit technical in places.

The authors cover the taxonomy of modern Canidae, the origin of carnivores, dogs, and numerous doglike mammals, anatomy, hunting and social activity (not only of modern dogs, but what can be interpreted from fossils), how the evolution of dogs is related to the last 40 million years of climate change, the migration of dogs from North American into the Old World, and a short chapter on domestic dogs.

Included as appendices are listings of all 200 plus fossil and living Canidae species and an evolutionary tree base on the author's research.
The artwork by Antön is wonderfully done with his sketches rivaling his almost photographic looking color paintings in quality. Antön previously has illustrated other books on vertebrate paleontology, including The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives.

Almost anyone who is interested in dogs and/or vertebrate paleontology should read this book. Natural History magazine has a short non-technical summary article by the authors in July-August '08 issue if you want a good preview. Dr. Wang has a wonderful website with links to much of his research and a pdf of the Natural History article.

This book encompasses everything that inspired me to pursue paleontological research...the meticulous manner in which the authors document the evolutionary history of dogs, and the unparalleled illustrations that bring those concepts and species to life. The paleontologists who wrote this book are authorities in their fields, and are much respected for the quality of their work. The price tag for the book is a huge understatement of its value. Be glad you are getting such a bargain for a priceless work, just short of picking the brains of the authors themselves!

This book is a great follow-up to The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives and like the forementioned it doesn't disappoint! Well researched, well written and accompanied by outstanding illustrations (Mauricio Anton really displays his talents as a reconstructive artist), this book is a treasure to anyone interested in carnivoran evolution. The list of pertinent reference books relating to mammalian evolution is an added bonus. I just wish it could go into more depth on many of the interesting species it reveals to us. A great introduction to canid evolution, you can't go wrong with this one!

The medium sized book provides an excellent, well written, and entertaining summary of the evolutionary history of the canine family; described in the context of the changing geologic, climatic, and biologic conditions of the past 60 million years. The many excellent illustrations truly add a sense of life to both the many living and long extinct species. The book is fairly technical, but is written is such a way as not to scare off the non-scientific reader. I highly recommend it for both the technical and casual reader.

Why is a dog's snout longer than a cat's? How is it that I can communicate with the "wolf" that shares my house? And why did Man's Best Friend leap into existence when the ancient forests retreated to become the sweeping plains of Africa? This book is a fascinating, inciteful and glorious tribute to the evolution of canidae. I can guarantee that you'll be investigating your dog's teeth and paws with awe and amazement before you are half-way through .......

As another reviewer put it, this book gave me much more than I expected. I have heard a lot said about the derivation of the dog from the wolf many centuries or even millenia ago. The PBS show on the subject is one such program that comes to mind. But the evolution of dogs from a weasel-like ancestor over 35 million years ago? Who would have known that all but the last 3 million years of dog evolution happened right here in North America? The parallels between the hypercarnivore/generalist borophagines/canines of the Oligocene to Pliocene and the gorgonopsids/therocephalians of the late Permian are very intruguing.

I have to give this volume fives stars because there is no other work that fills this gap in animal diversity. I will think of dogs differently from now on. What a fantasitic voyage through deep time to see the remote ancestors of dogs!

If you love dogs this is the book for you, it is much better than what I expected, is very complete and details the dog family from the oldest prehistoric forms to the dogs and wild dogs of today. It details size and body of the principal members of this wonderful family.

This was a gift for my mother, an avid dog lover, who saw it in a local bookstore and begged for it for Christmas. I got it for her and she absolutely loves it. The pictures are detailed and beautiful, and the information is presented in both an informative and interesting way.

As my mother put it, "A beautiful piece of scholarly work."

"Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History" answers so many questions that have been floating in my mind over the years. For example, are hyenas related more to cats than dogs, as has been reported by other authors? Well, not exactly. They once were, fifty million years ago or so. But thanks to a process called convergent evolution, they've adapted the canine method of hunting in packs. And so, today, hyenas have become very much like dogs.

The most interesting part of the book deals with the difference between dogs and cats. It turns out that everything revolves around the cat's retractable claws. How this simple mechanism caused cats to evolve into a (usually) solitary animal, as opposed to the canine whose pack structure so closely matches that of we humans, I leave to the reader to find out.

Some minutia on the ancient members of the canidae family from which our dogs have evolved may slow you down. These paragraphs can easily be skipped. With its bounty of illustrations, ample index, and bibliography, the book contains meat for even every reader.

This book is exactly what I was looking for when I ordered it. I already knew Anton's work, and though not as abundant as in "The Big Cats", his drawings are always a vivid and perfect complement to the text. The writing is simple and complete, tackling the most important issues about extant and extinct feral and domestic dogs, and the domestication event. What we need now is a comprehensive book on mammalian carnivores' history, including that of long gone orders such as creodonts and borhyaenids. In the meantime I think anyone who has a minimum interest in paleonthology should read this book at once.