Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Vintage) by Neil Shubin |
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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
YA-This book explores the "extraordinary technologies" species have devised to ensure their survival. This Darwinian struggle has produced strategies, tactics, and weaponry that rival or surpass even the most sophisticated efforts produced by humans. Levy's evocation of military terminology will be familiar to generations raised with television, movies, and video games. Discussions of early warning and navigation systems, echolocation, and "primary target acquisition systems" pepper the text. The author pays special attention to the weapons technology that abounds in nature-claws, talons, teeth, suffocation (constrictors), toxic injection (scorpions), and electricity (eels). He points out offensive and defensive strategies practiced by a range of species, such as the schooling strategies of fish, the cooperative hunting exhibited by wolves and other carnivores, and the recruitment of mercenaries, evidenced by the relationship between thorn acacia trees and ants. Although Levy limits his focus to "familiar organisms," he includes an impressive array of species, from the microbial world to the largest vertebrates, past and present. The exquisite drawings provide the crowning touch.
Dori DeSpain, Herndon Fortnightly Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
This compendium of evolutionary adaptations describes the violent nature of natural selection along with illustrative support of evolution. The author emphasizes vertebrates, although a large number of invertebrate structuresAincluding poison-filled jellyfish, corals, and anemones, and the chemical warfare weapons of bombardier beetlesAare also covered. Just the varieties of tongues described is astounding, from the highly specialized form found in woodpeckers to the adhesive tongues of anteaters. Still, Levy makes no mention of the rasping tongues of tigers that can tear flesh off bones, and in describing the guided missile tongue of the chameleon, he misses one of its more inventive mechanical components: the telescopic sliding of the actin and myosin muscle filaments. However, it is impossible to cover everything, and there do not appear to be any obvious errors in content. There is certainly no other book that covers the evolutionary adaptations of so many species in as much detail. Of interest to public libraries, K-12 schools, and introductory biology courses in colleges and universities.ALloyd Davidson, Seeley G. Mudd Lib. for Science & Engineering, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
YA-This book explores the "extraordinary technologies" species have devised to ensure their survival. This Darwinian struggle has produced strategies, tactics, and weaponry that rival or surpass even the most sophisticated efforts produced by humans. Levy's evocation of military terminology will be familiar to generations raised with television, movies, and video games. Discussions of early warning and navigation systems, echolocation, and "primary target acquisition systems" pepper the text. The author pays special attention to the weapons technology that abounds in nature-claws, talons, teeth, suffocation (constrictors), toxic injection (scorpions), and electricity (eels). He points out offensive and defensive strategies practiced by a range of species, such as the schooling strategies of fish, the cooperative hunting exhibited by wolves and other carnivores, and the recruitment of mercenaries, evidenced by the relationship between thorn acacia trees and ants. Although Levy limits his focus to "familiar organisms," he includes an impressive array of species, from the microbial world to the largest vertebrates, past and present. The exquisite drawings provide the crowning touch.
Dori DeSpain, Herndon Fortnightly Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
This compendium of evolutionary adaptations describes the violent nature of natural selection along with illustrative support of evolution. The author emphasizes vertebrates, although a large number of invertebrate structuresAincluding poison-filled jellyfish, corals, and anemones, and the chemical warfare weapons of bombardier beetlesAare also covered. Just the varieties of tongues described is astounding, from the highly specialized form found in woodpeckers to the adhesive tongues of anteaters. Still, Levy makes no mention of the rasping tongues of tigers that can tear flesh off bones, and in describing the guided missile tongue of the chameleon, he misses one of its more inventive mechanical components: the telescopic sliding of the actin and myosin muscle filaments. However, it is impossible to cover everything, and there do not appear to be any obvious errors in content. There is certainly no other book that covers the evolutionary adaptations of so many species in as much detail. Of interest to public libraries, K-12 schools, and introductory biology courses in colleges and universities.ALloyd Davidson, Seeley G. Mudd Lib. for Science & Engineering, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
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