Customer Reviews

Origin and Early Evolution of the Metazoa (Topics in Geobiology)

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I read this book as part of an ongoing research project into the evoulution of the first multicellular organisms, and it provided a great range of information, covering an array of differing viewpoints as to what happened when and why. The book is a collection of "papers" written by accaimed experts in the field from all over the world (including the USA, Russia, Germany and the UK).

The book covers a range of different fauna of varying ages from all parts of the world. It takes a range of groups in turn, looking into each one in depth.

It looks at the Ediacaran fauna, which consisted of frondose and discoid organisms, found in the latest Precambrian prior to the evolution of hard parts, listing evidence to show how they fitted into the evoultionary scheme of things.

It moves on to cover the first instances of hard body parts, and in sections, loks at evolutionary trends found in keynote fossil groups, like the burgess shales, monitoring evolutionary changes in them, and how, why and when the members of these groups diversified.

It is a fascinating book, opening the mind to a range of ideas as to where the first multicellular animals came from, and although very technical at times, is well worth the read