Prehistoric Ancestors of Modern Animals

Author: Matthew Rake
Publisher: Hungry Tomato ®
ISBN: 1512436097
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 35

Book Description
What if elephants were as small as dogs? What if frogs were protected by armor? In prehistoric times, they were! In fact, other than a few unique changes, lots of prehistoric beasts looked similar to modern animals that live on Earth. Hedgehogs had long tails and no quills, some birds laid eggs the size of footballs, and dragonflies could eat reptiles and amphibians! If these extinct beasts came to life, they might look familiar—but you wouldn't want to get in their way! Read this book to learn more about the incredible and terrifying prehistoric ancestors of modern animals.

Animal Ancestors

Author: Jon Hughes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781604571059
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Animals and Ancestors

Author: Brian Morris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000180670
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
Ever since the emergence of human culture, people and animals have co-existed in close proximity. Humans have always recognized both their kinship with animals and their fundamental differences, as animals have always been a threat to humans' well-being. The relationship, therefore, has been complex, intimate, reciprocal, personal, and -- crucially -- ambivalent. It is hardly surprising that animals evoke strong emotions in humans, both positive and negative. This companion volume to Morris' important earlier work, The Power of Animals, is a sustained investigation of the Malawi people's sacramental attitude to animals, particularly the role that animals play in life-cycle rituals, their relationship to the divinity and to spirits of the dead. How people relate to and use animals speaks volumes about their culture and beliefs. This book overturns the ingrained prejudice within much ethnographic work, which has often dismissed the pivotal role animals play in culture, and shows that personhood, religion, and a wide range of rituals are informed by, and even dependent upon, human-animal relations.

Prehistoric Ancestors of Modern Animals

Author: Matthew Rake
Publisher: Hungry Tomato (R)
ISBN: 1512406325
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36

Book Description
"From the megabeaver to the dwarf elephant, this book introduces readers to some prehistoric animals that might just be familiar."--

Ancestors in Evolutionary Biology

Author: Ronald A. Jenner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009302647
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
Phylogenetics emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a speculative storytelling discipline dedicated to providing narrative explanations for the evolution of taxa and their traits. It coincided with lineage thinking, a process that mentally traces character evolution along lineages of hypothetical ancestors. Ancestors in Evolutionary Biology traces the history of narrative phylogenetics and lineage thinking to the present day, drawing on perspectives from the history of science, philosophy of science, and contemporary scientific debates. It shows how the power of phylogenetic hypotheses to explain evolution resides in the precursor traits of hypothetical ancestors. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the topic of ancestors, which is central to modern biology, and is therefore of interest to graduate students, researchers, and academics in evolutionary biology, palaeontology, philosophy of science, and the history of science.

The Animal Within Us

Author: Jay D. Glass
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780966053692
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Book Description
From sports, religion, business, the war between the sexes, and emotions, the book presents in a reader-friendly manner a new way of understanding ourselves. Based upon the studies of people such as Jane Goodall, Dr. Glass shows us how we can understand our own thoughts and actions based upon the instinctual drives we have inherited from our animal ancestors.

The Animal Names of the Arab Ancestors

Author: William C. Young
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004690379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562

Book Description
In the Arab world, people belong to kinship groups (lineages and tribes). Many lineages are named after animals, birds, and plants. Why? This survey evaluates five old explanations – “totemism,” “emulation of predatory animals,” “ancestor eponymy,” “nicknaming,” and “Bedouin proximity to nature.” It suggests a new hypothesis: Bedouin tribes use animal names to obscure their internal cleavages. Such tribes wax and wane as they attract and lose allies and clients; they include “attached” elements as well as actual kin. To prevent outsiders from spotting “attached” groups, Bedouin tribes scatter non-human names across their segments, making it difficult to link any segment with a human ancestor. Young’s argument contributes to theories of tribal organization, Arab identity, onomastics, and Near Eastern kinship.

Animal Ancestors: Band 09/Gold

Author: Jon Hughes
Publisher: Collins Big Cat
ISBN: 9780007475322
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 48

Book Description
Can you imagine a world with whales that could walk and giant earth moles? They both lived on Earth long ago and their relatives still live here today. Explore the terrifying, giant, strange ancestors of everyday creatures, in this captivating information text, illustrated with realistic imagery from Jon Stuart.

Pets and Their Wild Ancestors

Author: Jane Burton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788449950476
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 72

Book Description

Tears of the Cheetah

Author: Dr. Stephen J. O'Brien
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250102316
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
The history of life on Earth is dominated by extinction events so numerous that over 99.9% of the species ever to have existed are gone forever. If animals could talk, we would ask them to recall their own ancestries, in particular the secrets as to how they avoided almost inevitable annihilation in the face of daily assaults by predators, climactic cataclysms, deadly infections and innate diseases. In Tears of the Cheetah, medical geneticist and conservationist Stephen J. O'Brien narrates fast-moving science adventure stories that explore the mysteries of survival among the earth's most endangered and beloved wildlife. Here we uncover the secret histories of exotic species such as Indonesian orangutans, humpback whales, and the imperiled cheetah-the world's fastest animal which nonetheless cannot escape its own genetic weaknesses. Among these genetic detective stories we also discover how the Serengeti lions have lived with FIV (the feline version of HIV), where giant pandas really come from, how bold genetic action pulled the Florida panther from the edge of extinction, how the survivors of the medieval Black Death passed on a genetic gift to their descendents, and how mapping the genome of the domestic cat solved a murder case in Canada. With each riveting account of animal resilience and adaptation, a remarkable parallel in human medicine is drawn, adding yet another rationale for species conservation-mining their genomes for cures to our own fatal diseases. Tears of the Cheetah offers a fascinating glimpse of the insight gained when geneticists venutre into the wild.