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76 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fortey's Favorite Fossil, November 1, 2000
The very best science book for laymen is the book that is written by an expert in a field about his favorite area of expertise. So it is a delight to read _Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution_ (Knopf) by Richard Fortey. Fortey is surely an expert; he is a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, and has done extensive research in fossil fields all over the globe. His favorite specimens (he refers to them as "my animals") are trilobites, and reading his lucid, humorous, enthusiastic pages, one can certainly understand why. Fortey writes with humor about his adventures in the field. He has hunted trilobites everywhere on the globe, in desert as well as arctic wastes. But of course, most of Fortey's book is about the trilobite itself. The name comes from it's three lobes, not head, thorax, and tail, but the central body axis flanked by the left and right pleural regions. It was originally thought to be some sort of flatfish, but as more specimens were found, it became clear that it was an arthropod, with the nearest living relative the horseshoe crab (although they look more like the woodlice or roly-poly bugs, and some balled up like them). What is generally fossilized in trilobites is the outer upper shell. The underside, with the legs, is thin cuticle that decomposed before fossilization could take place. It was only when specimens were found from a certain field in New York state that details of limbs became plain. Because of a peculiarity in the minerals of the area, the thin cuticle had become gilded with pyrites, fool's gold. Every segment was shown to have a pair of branched legs, and the creature even showed antennae. Fortey's chapter on trilobite eyes, the only ones ever to use calcite prisms for lenses, is amazing. In Fortey's account, trilobites become interesting in themselves, but he clearly shows that they have larger importance. Trilobites were always marine, never freshwater, and they generally inhabited the coastal areas. Because of this, the outline of trilobites in what is now land shows where the coasts used to be. Trilobites help to track the movements of the continents as they split off and sailed to their current positions on the globe over millions of years. Fortey shows how tracking trilobites can sometimes top paleomagnetism as a way of documenting continental drift. In addition, trilobites serve as timekeepers. They are found all over the world and range through such times as Cambrian, Devonian, and Permian, and if you can confidently identify a trilobite, you can spot what range of times your rocks come from. Trilobites lived for over three hundred million years (humans have been around about a thousandth of that time), so they had, as the British say, a very good innings. They have been gone for over two hundred and fifty million years, and yet in this fascinating book, they live still and, with help from a superb reporter, they have news to tell us.
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54 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Gem: Puts mystery, romance & discovery back into science, May 17, 2001
This is a remarkable book that will introduce you to the process of science and a fascinating aspect of the emergence of life. Trilobites are among the best fossils for children to get to know because they are very distinct (the tri lobed shells) and very different from anything currently living (the horseshoe crab on American Atlantic beaches is comparable in unique appearance and attracts children with similar fascination). For those who want a better system of American science education, Fortey gives some powerful hints. Consider his language: "The fever of discovery was upon me.... I found a trilobite...the textbook came alive...this was my first discovery of the animals that would change my life (p.18)." He continues, "I knew, by some principle which I could not articulate, that the wider end was the head of the animal. And of course upon the head there were the eyes. Despite the unfamiliar conformation of the fossil I knew that eyes must always belong on heads. So despite the exoticism of the fossil there was already a common bond between me and the trilobite - we both had our heads screwed on the right way."(p.19) Again and again Fortey reminds us that scientists grow from discovery, mystery, romance, intrigue, while the memorization comes later. He reminds us that there is an enormous amount we still do not know and in the process introduces us to a world we have never considered: "I want to invest the trilobite with all the glamour of the dinosaur and twice its endurance. I want you to see the world through the eyes of trilobites, to help you make a journey back through hundreds of millions of years...this will be an unabashedly trilobite-centric view of the world,"(p.19). For anyone who wants to take a few hours to think different thoughts, to consider how brief our history has been and how successful other organisms have been, to contemplate the various catastrophic extinctions and their dramatic impact on life, to ask about life beyond the rush hour traffic and the monthly report, Fortey's work is a little gem of an introduction to a fascinating part of the world. I highly recommend it.
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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Winner from Richard Fortey, November 12, 2000
This is a wonderful book! Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution is a skillfully crafted narrative that displays Fortey's impeccable scientific credentials and his engaging and highly entertaining style of writing. Readers unfamiliar with these remarkable creatures and their 300 million year history will benefit from well organized chapters that explain the physiology, life habits, evolutionary patterns and geological time line with insight and clarity. Those readers with a better understanding of the class Trilobita, will enjoy the personal observations and anecdotes of a superb writer, who just happens to be a leading authority on the subject. Fortey even tackles the role of ombudsman in his attempt to soften the contentious battles between Simon Conway-Morris and Stephen J. Gould over those controversial early arthropods and other creatures of arguable affinity. I applaud his restraint and gentle hand in dealing with the emotional fervor of his contemporaries. If I have any criticism of this book, it would be to step on to the soapbox and point out that Fortey details the moment when he chipped out his first trilobite at age fourteen as an epiphany that determined his lifes work. He discusses Walcott and other self taught geologists and paleontologists who started as eager young fossil hunters. Sadly, in several places throughout the text, Fortey explains that these sites are now closed to collecting. Typically, these closures are to protect the area from the hammers of interested collectors (with special emphasis on those who might profit from the sale of their collections) in the misguided notion that invertebrate fossils are national treasures that must be protected for all through restrictions and the intervention of government agencies. I subscribe to the belief that a fossil left uncollected is a fossil that is lost. If common sense prevails, the search for specimens- even for profit- can benefit us all. Instead, we get over zealous regulation and permanent site closures. In the final pages of his book, Fortey marvels at the recently discovered trident Comura trilobite. (now Walliserops trifurcautus) I only wish he'd made it clear that this unique fossil discovery resulted from the activities of Moroccans digging the Devonian strata for a modest profit and that future fossil wonders, as well as future paleontologists, are much more likely to occur when people are allowed to freely explore the rocks, as Fortey was allowed to do in his youth.
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