Customer Reviews

Mammal Evolution: An Illustrated Guide

5 star:		(3)
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A well written and beautifully illustrated coffee table book, or reference resource. I have found the book facinating to read. I especially have enjoyed the well executed drawings and paintings throughout the book. It gives the reader factual information, yet alludes to common theories and hypothetical possibilities. One possiblity it poses is; what if primates had not been the evolved species, and instead had been dominated by reptilian type species?

I haven't read the book through, but the illustrations are terrific. I did notice that the cladograms are quite clear and they alone answered many of my basic questions. I think the price was fabulous for this volume.

I still pick up this book often to gawk at, even after owning it for several years. This has to be one of the most visually captivating books I have ever seen. Savage and Long succeed in bringing back to life a magnificent array of extinct mammals in this plentifully illustrated work. This is not an exhaustive, comprehensive textbook, but more of a glorious introduction to the history and evolutionary inteagues of major mammal groups. Even so, the book is very ambitious. It contains thought provoking commentary, family trees and charts, illustrations of fossil specimens, and best of all, drawings of all sorts of extinct mammals as they might have looked in life. Marvelously educational, and seriously fun.