Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The story of the plants and animals that time has left behind

by Richard Fortey

From one of the world’s leading natural scientists and the acclaimed author of Trilobite!, A Natural History of Four Billion Years of Life on Earth and Dry Storeroom No. 1 comes a fascinating chronicle of life’s history told not through the fossil record but through the stories of organisms that have survived, almost unchanged, throughout time. Evolution, it seems, has not completely obliterated its tracks as more advanced organisms have evolved; the history of life on earth is far older—and odder—than many of us realize.   Scattered across the globe, these remarkable plants and animals continue to mark seminal events in geological time. From a moonlit beach in Delaware, where the hardy horseshoe crab shuffles its way to a frenzy of mass mating just as it did 450 million years ago, to the dense rainforests of New Zealand, where the elusive, unprepossessing velvet worm has burrowed deep into rotting timber since before the breakup of the ancient supercontinent, to a stretch of Australian coastline with stromatolite formations that bear witness to the Precambrian dawn, the existence of these survivors offers us a tantalizing glimpse of pivotal points in evolutionary history. These are not “living fossils” but rather a handful of tenacious creatures of days long gone.   Written in buoyant, sparkling prose, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms is a marvelously captivating exploration of the world’s old-timers combining the very best of science writing with an explorer’s sense of adventure and wonder.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Nature, History, Evolution, Natural History

402 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Richard Alan Fortey was a British palaeontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter, who served as president of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007.

Reviews

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Richard Fortey’s science writing. Two of his books are among my absolute favourites (Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth and Dry Storeroom No. 1). Perhaps because there’s an awful lot of stuff happening in my life right now, I didn’t get into this book in quite the same way as those two.

Still, it’s an extremely enjoyable book if you are a fan of paleontology and natural history. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of a “living fossil” and Fortey explores it thoroughly in this book (while explaining that the whole idea of a living fossil is a bit off-base—they may look the same, but many things will still have changed over the millennia). I am more than a little envious of Mr. Fortey, as I would dearly love to travel to see some of the creatures that he visited for this book. I mean, Horseshoe Crabs? Sign me up to go see them at spawning time! Wouldn’t you like to hold a Lungfish in Northern Australia? Or is it just me?

What I truly appreciate about Fortey’s writing is the enormous depth and breadth of knowledge of paleontology. Now, he does shine brightest when talking about invertebrates, as you would expect of a trilobite specialist, but he’s a dab hand at fish too and obviously an enthusiastic naturalist when it comes to plants and birds. I am amazed how much natural history knowledge resides in one person’s skull.

Add to that the charm of quoting poetry and literature in meaningful ways, making allusions to dance and art, and one has to admit that this is a well-rounded scholar.

Recommended for those who are fascinated with paleontology in all its glory.

[Anie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This.book.is.brilliant.

The book's purpose is to examine life---and not in the philosophical way. It leads us through the living world, from cyanobacteria to mammoths, in a beautiful, back-and-forth-in-time journey. There is an immense amount to be learned in here; if you ever were curious about trilobites, or jellyfish, or sulfurophilic bacteria, this book is a fantastic way to suck down a huge amount of information all at once.

To top it off, Fortey is an incredibly gifted writer; this book had me genuinely laughing out loud at numerous points, and then contemplating donating to the Sierra Club the next. He clearly revels in words, and has the skill to do so.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a scientist or even an amateur observer (other than PBS and National Geographic cable TV) of scientific physical studies or natural studies, so I can only be pop-culture expressive. Be warned: expect a review with minimal scientific attitudes.

Horseshoe crabs are awesome. Just saying. However, the foregoing sentence is an example of how scientific I am.

The author is all science correct (if definitely a general-reader - me - approved), and his book, 'Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms', which is about animals and plants whose lineage can be tracked backwards in time to at least 500,000,000 years ago, and perhaps even older, (as he points out in the first chapter, these animals are not actually 'living fossils' because, hello, they are alive right now and probably have evolved since their lineage maybe can be traced back half a billion years), has informative glossaries, further reading suggestions, and an index. But the 'living fossil' status applies to all of the plants and animals and sort of alive things he presents in this book.

Since I am a science doofus, I thought I'd present the tour of words and photographs the author includes in a different format - Googled videos which describe the same things the author describes. I used the book as a guide to what to Google.


Horseshoe crabs:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ne...#


Velvet worms below!

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/v...


Stromatolites:

http://youtu.be/FSTiH8-Y3JQ


Red seaweed:

http://youtu.be/2H7Y3LMr91c



Chytrids:

http://youtu.be/oXWJ6iknpjo



Norris Geyser Basin:

http://youtu.be/0_egDFtO0vQ



lingula anatina:

http://youtu.be/eh2ETLB57RU



Pearly or Chambered Nautilus:

http://youtu.be/YBCsF8hQK1M



Sponges:

http://youtu.be/m8a0oNsDEx8



Jellyfish documentary:

http://youtu.be/TPQG3ngkwMU



Liverworts and early plants:

http://youtu.be/vVy8BrKn2W4



Ferns:

http://youtu.be/c4YtOT0Z6Ek



Ginkgo biloba:

http://youtu.be/gBzqPX4dI7w


Welwitschia mirabilis:

http://youtu.be/PVLACJsoGjk


Tuatara:

http://youtu.be/2xg18zNbCLs


Cute Mallorcan midwife toad:

http://youtu.be/XpW057fREbI

[Steve Van Slyke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe the British title of the book was "Survivors," which is a much better encapsulation of what the book is about, namely those forms of extant life that are far down on the tree of life, and therefore long term survivors, with very little evolutionary change over huge spans of time and yet having the ability to adapt to a myriad of changes in their environment.

Fortey tells the story of these creatures in the form of a travelogue as he wanders the globe to see in person not only the title characters in their native Maryland and New Zealand, but several other players such as the stromatolites of Shark Bay, Australia and the extremophiles of Yellowstone Park.

He uses the stories of these survivors to also describe the various extinction events that he likens to hurdles that they had to leap in order to avoid the fate of the overwhelming majority of their past fellow species. And towards the end of the book he waxes political as he talks about the "sixth mass extinction" being caused by a relative newcomer species which he says rightly deserves to be called the Terminator.

I am a big Fortey fan because not only do I have an interest in his field of science but also because of the way he writes, with genuine enthusiasm and a touch of humor. For example, when discussing the "living fossil" fish Coelacanth, he says: "It is possibly commonest around the Comoro Islands, which were fomenting a ferment of fighting at the time of writing."

[Mark Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

How many books by a paleontologist can make you laugh? How many books on science and evolution contain references to Edward Scissorhands and Piglet? For me, the answer is one – Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms.

Richard Fortey tracks down animals that closely resemble the fossils of their ancestors from 50 million, 100 million, a billion years ago. From the titular animals to bacteria that form on the edge of geyser springs, these “living fossils” help us better understand how life has developed on our planet.

A fascinating book.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this enough that I've reserved the other books by Richard Fortey that my local library has. He has a somewhat rambling style, though, which might not be to your taste. I enjoyed the ride, in general; in terms of the science, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know, concept-wise, but some of the animals and habitats Fortey described were new to me.

It was quite personal to him, in a way, covering stuff he's particularly interested in and documenting his travels to find these creatures (to the extent of talking about sipping gin and tonic from a plastic cup while sat on the balcony of the inn at Yellowstone). That might be less than interesting to some, but I did quite like knowing about the wider habitats surrounding these creatures, and the human context that they're so often really close to, maybe even endangered by.

The inserts with colour photos are nice: words generally work better for me than pictures, so I wasn't that interested, but it does give you a glance at some of the stranger, more anciently derived creatures of our planet.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an obscure little book. It deals with the animals and plants that evolution has left behind - survivors from mass extinctions and relic populations living in niche environments.

I found this an excellent book, full of facts, quaint observations and written with a jaunty style - I had feared that it might be a dry academic book but certainly not

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a review of the Kindle edition which, of course, has teeny black and white images. I imagine the hard copy version is lavishly and colourfully illustrated.

Richard Fortey writes about his encounters with creatures whose ancient origins are not difficult to discern in the fossil record. The renowned palaeontologist travels widely in pursuit of these survivors - thrillingly for me, describing several encounters in my little corner of the planet.

I found myself having to concentrate uncomfortably hard early on but either I became more informed or the author's style loosened up because the last two thirds of the book were an easy read. And not just easy, sometimes poetic:

"...the whitish transparency of other [jellyfish] conforms to the palette of ghosts. Yes, this is the nub of it: jellyfish are spookily beautiful, spun out of something that has little substance yet can engender complex form."

or brutally truthful, as picnickers on Kangaroo Island will attest:

"Emus are little more than feathered stomachs borne on mighty legs and ruled by a tiny brain. If an emu wants one of your sandwiches he will get it, and then run away. He cannot help you with your sudoku."

I finished the book filled with a renewed enthusiasm for palaeontology - with its geological and biological foundations - and with a desire to at last find out something about botany.

[Max Carmichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a pleasure to read a book about evolution that was written with such humility and respect for non-human life! Fortey acknowledges and furthers the legacy of Lynn Margulis and gets in some subtle digs against the overweening patriarch of evolutionary science, Richard Dawkins. Fortey's rambling, self-effacing style of storytelling, and his avoidance of pedantic advocacy, underscore the fact that evolution is just another creation myth, albeit an entertaining one. The legend is best told by people like this who really love and honor the unsung, uncharismatic organisms whose stories are updated in this book: stromatolites, archaea, Lingula, Huperzia, Amborella, lungfishes and the tinamou. And it quickly becomes obvious that while evolution is the big, charismatic paradigm defining mythical ages of the earth, ecology is at the heart of each story: the intimate paradigm that shows organisms working together in real habitats. Evolution provides the "wow" factor; ecology gives us the wisdom we need to thrive.

[Corinna Bechko · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third Richard Fortey book I've read, and like the others it's top-notch science writing. The author unravels the life histories of life forms great and small, allowing us to discover what makes each of them special and to marvel at how deep into the history of life on earth each of them roots. This book is for anyone interested in ecology, paleontology, or even conservation. One can't but feel awestruck when contemplating even the simplest of these organisms with Fortey as their guide.

[Tomislav · Rating 5 out of 5]

The other day I took my to-be-read list to the local library and looked up all the books that were actually currently on the shelf, and checked out the few of them. This was one of them. I had not read any of Fortey’s books before, and the closest thing I can remember reading would be Stephen Jay Gould’s Burgess Shale book – although this subject matter shows up in less concentrated form throughout popular science writing.

My expectations were of a somewhat dry recitation of a list of living fossils, but from the onset chapter on horseshoe crabs I was enthralled. There is biological and geologic nomenclature (with British spellings), but the context is pretty familiar to me, and Fortey brings in his own personal perspective and just enough human story-telling to keep the writing alive. This is NOT a textbook, although sometimes a few more diagrams would have been helpful.

After using horseshoe crabs and velvet worms to introduce the themes and concepts Fortey wants to cover, he does go through the major classifications of survivors – which corresponds nicely to a chronological pass through the history of life on Earth. He spends quite a bit of time on microbial life and its origins before the “Great Oxygenation Event” and “Snowball Earth”, and that was where I learned the most. He ends with a summary that corrects the popular misconceptions of “living fossils” and “survival of the fittest” evolution.

I recently moved from Wisconsin to South Carolina. In case you are unfamiliar, Wisconsin has a geologically very young terrain (the last glacier retreated maybe 10,000 years ago) and the plant and animal life is similarly young. However, I am now here near the South Carolina coast, where I have been exploring the inland salt marshes and tidal zones in my kayak. During the time I was reading this book, besides finding the relatively recently arrived birds (osprey, pelicans, ibis, loons, etc.) and mammals (otters, dolphins, humans, etc.), I encountered Paleozoic-survivor horseshoe crabs and Precambrian-survivor jelly fish for the first time. I see them with a better understanding than I might have.

I highly recommend this book. Fortey’s more popular book “Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth” is now on my to-be-read list.

Here are my chapter by chapter notes:
1 Old Horseshoes. Horseshoe crabs are not crabs, but arthropods that date from before the Permian Extinction. They are contemporaries of trilobites. They have blue copper-based blood with an amazing ability to coagulate. Recent harvesting for human medical treatments has impacted their numbers. Fortey speculates on trilobite behavior, and wonders about their blood.
2 The Search for the Velvet Worm. Velvet Worms of New Zealand seem related to Cambrian lobopods. The Burgess Shale species Hallucigenia is also related. Fossils are rare because the animals were made only of soft tissues. The newly labeled Ediacaran Era has been carved out of the late Pre-Cambrian.
3 Slimy Mounds. Fortey visits stromatolites of Shark Bay Australia. Built by blue-greens (cyanobacteria) living in colonies on the filmy surface. Prokeryotes are everywhere, but fail to compete effectively with eukeryotes where there are nutrients. Fossil stromatolites on edges of remaining continental shields. Drove the Great Oxygenation Event that enabled later complex life. Plants, Fungi, Animals. (5*)
4 Life in Hot Water. Fortey visits Yellowstone NP, discusses microbial life, survivors from the beginnings (Archaean, 3 billion years ago). Color patterns due to extreme temp sensitivity of many varieties. Life developed on oxygenless Earth. Some survived by embedding symbiotically, such as animal digestion. Three domains of life: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya (which recently includes plants, fungi, animals).
5 An Inveterate Bunch. Invertebrates: Brachiopods, Mollusks, Sponges, Jellies. I did not realize that brachiopods still live (Fortey finds them in Hong Kong. They are eaten by humans.)
6 Greenery. A survey of botanical survivors. Fortey's first fossil find was lepidodendrum bark in the family's coal. Mine too. I still have it. This chapter covers lycopods, liverwort, horsetails, ginkgo, cycad, araucaria, welwitschia, DNA research causing a reorganization of classifications. Previously "related" plants are actually the result of convergent evolution from diverse branches into morphological niches.
7 Of Fishes and Hellbenders. Lamprey, Lungfish, Coelacanth. The adaptation from fish to air breathers. Sharks. Development of the jaw. Almost no amphibian diversity survived the extinctions; all current amphibians are descended from very limited stock. Tuartara not competitive with mammals, but preserved on mammal-free islands near New Zealand. Reptiles, turtles, crocodilians, snakes.
8 Heat in the Blood. Mammals and birds. Specifically, egg-laying mammals (monotremes) such as Echidna, Platypus. Also, early primates, such as tarsier. Land birds (Kiwi, Emu, etc.) have returned to flightlessness; this does not indicate they are at the root of birds. Flying birds developed simultaneously with the later dinosaurs, but survived the extinction, perhaps resembling the South American tinamou.
9 Islands, Ice. Recent (100,000 years) survivors and near-survival extinctions. Survivors more like in isolated pockets protected from competitive incursions. Islands also created by climate limits (poles) and mountain ranges. Midwife toads (ferrera) of Majorca. Homo floresiensis. Polar Bear. North American megafauna extinctions (mammoth, giant sloth) and survivors (bison, musk ox). European (auroch, bison, ibix).
10 Survivors Against the Odds. Review of the great extinction events in the Earth's history. "Living fossil" inaccurate term; survivors continue to evolve. "Survival of the fittest" inaccurate concept; more like athletic event hurdles. Survival of interdependent species in surviving habitats is important. Tendency of long-lived low-reproducing species to survive.
Epilogue. Cockroaches and Humans.
End of text.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've recently found myself caught up in a sort of arm-chair enthusiasm for natural history, especially with regards to the ever-changing biology on the face of this ever-changing earth. When I was about seven, I told all my friends and teachers that I was going to grow up to be a paleontologist, and reading books like these makes me kick myself for not following through. Oh what to give for a time-machine videoscreen where we could watch trilobites in all their nautical glory!

Richard Fortey has done the next best thing in this book, wherein he tracks down species of flora and fauna that have managed to survive more or less intact since the era of fossils. These are creatures that, due to endurance, persistence, and luck, managed to dodge the massive extinction events that kill off most of the earth's life every dozen million years or so. The tree of life, as represented by all living things today, is mostly clusters of the topmost twigs. Most of the larger branches from which highly specialized mammals, birds, etc developed already died off long ago. But there are still some organisms alive today that stem from somewhere near the tree's trunk: horseshoe crabs may have shared sub-aqueous mud with trilobites, though the latter has been extinct for millions of years. The flightless birds and egg-laying monotremes of Oceania retain ancient characteristics from before the super-continent Pangea drifted off into separate land masses--natural pressures differed across the continents, forcing change to some organisms and allowing others to stay more or less as they were. In some remote areas of Australia and China there are still some pockets of prehistoric plants and insects that managed to survive the ice age (and the last 2k years of human expansion...so far).

Why is this all so fascinating? I guess we tend to assume that life on earth develops and changes at more or less the same pace, but this is far from accurate. Not organism is advancing, or needs to advance into a more complex form. Sulfur-eating bacteria has been around longer than anything else, and it still exists today in areas no other living thing can survive. There may have been a time when jellyfish were the most advanced and widespread creature in the oceans, and they still exist today (along with more recently evolved predators that like to eat them). A little toad from the island of Mallorca was originally known in Jurassic-era fossils. Ginko trees may have been eaten by dinosaurs. All these organisms ARE little time capsules, and some of them we see every day.

I found Mr. Fortey's book to be a fascinating, if somewhat tangential, expedition of discovery that altered the way I perceive nature at large. If anything, it pinged off in too many directions at once, and I occasionally found myself confused when the topic would veer in an unexpected direction mid-paragraph, leaving questions unanswered. But my curiosity is piqued, and I'm eager to read up more on natural history.

[Nola · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a good reference book, or maybe a book to read over and over again until committed to memory. The author planned this book carefully based on an obvious lifetime of experience in the field of paleontology. All the preparation was done well before a reader starts the book. There are specific organisms chosen to illustrate how life evolved on the planet, and the author visited most of these in preparation of the book. This makes the descriptions personal and realistic. The author analyses conclusions that can be drawn from organisms that have survived, or not, since long ago. Since the book was published in 2011 and the author discusses recent discoveries, reading it in 2015 means learning about these. It’s a good feeling to be up on the latest things, or at least stuff from no more than 4 years ago.
There is a lot of information on the earth’s geologic ages, the major traumatic events, and the evolution of living forms. This information is presented in easily digestible and logically put-together pieces throughout the book. Again, well planned. ..The author doesn’t talk down to readers, which I appreciate. It always annoys me when too many points that I already know, or could get on my own, are spelled out. Fortey doesn’t do that, and the vocabulary he used was, for me, challenging, both in words that I just didn’t know the meaning of, and also in the use of British terms, which is sort of like a foreign language for me. The writing includes well-paced humor. For some authors, too much humor gets in the way and trips up the writing, but the humor here just makes the reading more engaging. Descriptions of the author’s trips to see organisms have just enough of the right kind of detail to give the reader a sense of place and what it was like, but not enough detail to go over the edge into boring.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

A SLOW read. So slow I feel that I must have started it in a different epoch--I now know what the passing of geologic time feels like. Drier than a fossil dig in New Mexico. Replete with fascinating information but you have to be willing to uncover it like a paleontologist with her hand brush.

Yet another book wanting for better editing. There is a terrific book in there somewhere; it just needed to be polished. I did not enjoy reading this book but I truly enjoyed so much of the information it presented as well as the author's perspective.

A level of detail beyond my interest. History and philosophy of paleontology component I did not care about.

Fully grasping the geologic eras is something I continually find difficult and this book did nothing to help that.

Unfocused narrative. With a step back a cohesive narrative can be discerned but while reading seemingly disparate subjects are poorly linked and it felt disjointed.

I did not care at all for the travel log aspect—very distracting.

Use of unnecessarily obscure vocabulary (and I’m not even talking about the scientific terminology).

Thank goodness for the internet. Needed pictures to facilitate understanding of the subject. I don’t know what the print version is like but the Kindle version had some photos but many of them were at the end and not easy to refer to while reading.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars for my personal opinion, four stars for the content and writing.

This is a case of me deliberately reading something out of my comfort zone, something that I knew I'd have to work through, as an effort to branch out and expand my horizons. I'm not a science person; I'm a history person. Secretly, I was hoping this would be more of a "history of scientific stuff" kind of book, but it was a "science book about species from ancient history". The author's tone was pleasant, and downright funny in areas. I certainly learned a lot! And if you're a science person, I'd definitely recommend it. I didn't love it, but I also don't love exercise or remembering to take vitamins or other things that are good for me.

2016 reading challenge: a nonfiction book about science

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this latest exploration of our planet's past, present and future by Richard Fortey three stars because it felt a bit programmatic, less spontaneous, than other of his books I have read. I am being unfair to Fortey, because like his other books, this one is well-written, almost poetry in some passages, and fascinating. He writes a kinder, gentler brief for evolution by focusing on species that seem from the fossil record to have survived unchanged for millions of years and discussing ways the current, living creatures both resemble and differ from their fossilized relatives. For example, I learned about as much as I want to about stromatolites and just enough to whet my curiosity about several kinds of plants and birds.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written book by a scientist who writes like a fiction or travel writer. Chapters are "Bio"graphies of plants and animals that have clear ancestors millions of years old. Not exactly a page turner, but beautifully written--something I'll probably read again some day. Wish I had bought the hard copy instead of the e-book cause there are pictures that don't look so good on a Kindle.

The book says there have been six disasters where most of the plants and animals on the planet have died off. He says man might be the seventh and the epilogue compares us with cockroaches.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Fortey, paelontologist and trilobite expert, tells the story of plants and animals that hail from very low on the evolutionary tree of life. There's a patch in the middle that was a bit dry (I found it difficult to get invested in stromatolites), but the beginning and end thirds of the book are absolutely fascinating. I have a newfound and intense love for horseshoe crabs, musk oxen, gingko trees, Welwitschia (look it up), and especially echidnas. This book was fantastic and I definitely want a copy on my shelf.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moved around the whole world learning about surviving species from millions of years ago. Fortey's sense of wonder at the absolute magnitude of time is contagious, and despite his vast knowledge, his writing is quite accessible.

[Shadowspawn]

So far this is excellent if you're a biology or paleontology geek, which, of course, I am.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of field trips as we explore the lives of plants and animals that have literally "stood the test of time". Another way to say it, living fossils. Featuring some of my personal favorites ammonites, horseshoe crabs, ferns, coelacanths, and stromatalites.

[Tim Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Television in the 21st century has taught me that paleontology is about colour, movement and music. The old style books with lots of text and few diagrams are cold, dry and grey by comparison. (Strangely enough, mystery stories work BETTER in print.) And so it is with this book here.

[Michel · Rating 3 out of 5]

يسرد ريتشارد فورتي قصة الحياة على كوكب الارض من خلال الحديث عن بعض الانواع "الناجية" التي استطاعت مقاومة الزمن ونوائب الدهر.. الكتاب هو اكثر من توصيف مجرد لهذه الانواع وهو اقرب للقصة.. الوصف الزائد أحيانا هو ما خفض علامة هذا الكتاب طويلا وأطال جدا فترة قرائتي له

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very unstructured. More of a slog than a romp. There is a good level of referencing and crediting scientists, but there is additional description and attention to the scientists that sometimes makes me feel like I learn more about the author and other scientists than the plants and animals. I want an abridged version that keeps the parts describing locations where we find flora and fauna, what we know about them, and how we know what we know. Then, I want it structured in a way that makes sense. The mystery reveal of animals isn't really a mystery reveal because there are no clues or context.I like that the author starts with current day and transitions to past day, but it's all a bit jumbled. There is some reference to a tree of life and moving up and down, but I haven't a clue how that structured the book or how we are supposed to be following along. He talks a lot of the base and the top and the roots of trees of life and animals and the analogies with time are a bit mixed up throughout the book it seems.

Chapter 1: is generally good and focused about horseshoe crabs

Chapter 2: is sparse about velvet worms. lots of filler.

Chapter 3: is about really cool stromatolites or slimy mounds, but becomes unbearable because it's also sparse and filler heavy. He talks about the stromatolites long before actually defining what a stromatolite is - this happens a lot in the book.

Chapter 4: starts talking about national parks and bacteria and that's cool. has better diagrams. then kind of goes on a tangent...a related tangent but not why we are here.

Chapter 5: is all over the place. Why are we reading the author's "quiet contemplation"? We are never fully introduced to one creature before another is introduced and then we go back to the first. It's just bizarre. We then "expand on the subject of worms and worminess" wasn't the chapter on velvet worms a good place for that? Jellyfish are in here though, and that's cool. Again, I feel like more time is spent on flowery language than communicating clearly about jellyfish.

Chapter 6: finally the green stuff! Every chapter I wonder if maybe we will get to the green stuff now. pretty focused narrative here on Huperzia. The transition to China and Ginkgo-Cycads is a little rough. It gets a little unfocused towards the end.

Chapter 7: lungfish is the most primitive living form, around for hundreds of millions of years. they live to be 50 or 80 years old! the celeocanth is also covered in this chapter. There is a little too much about the author in this chapter in my opinion.

Chapter 8: again we learn the name of an animal many words before knowing what it is. This chapter covers special mammals and birds. Tinamou. Echidna.

Chapter 9: is a bit of a slog. Musk ox. Midwife toads. This chapter gets into the Americas and extinction of animal species. Not really sure why.

Chapter 10: is a summary of sorts, going over the timeline again and perhaps also generalizations about the "survivors" and their characteristics.

[Elizabeth K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had me hooked from the acknowledgements, in which the author sincerely, personally, and also succinctly thanked a wide range of his friends and colleagues all over the world who had assisted with various aspects of his research and travels. Reading it makes you realize this is the NICEST MAN IN THE WORLD. And he's English, so I imagine he's even nicer if he doesn't like you, because he feels he should make up for it. This made me realize that my only goal in this life or any other is to do something worthy of adding to Dr. Fortay's infinitely nice universe. I wonder if he wants to study any fossils in Lake Erie.

In this book, the author presents a number of living species that have relatively direct connections to ancient life, and uses them as examples to illustrate various aspects of evolution. This was all very fascinating, although I should mention that while I am the kind of armchair science reader who can manage to dimly grasp the scientific principle in question while I am in the moment of reading about it, it becomes very vague and misty by the time it is referenced again two or three chapters later. That's ok, though, because Dr. Fortay has my trust. It was also filled with crazy facts about evolution and animals and science. Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants (this kept me up at night, why?) and there are giant salamanders as long as a person (OMG, get OUT with that!).

This book also made me reflect on how I can completely understand why creationists decide to be creationists. Okay, well not completely understand, because hello, fossil record. But I can empathize with how utterly lunatic it appears to buy into the idea that first you have chemicals floating around that become proteins ... and then you have koalas. It does seem ridiculous at first blush.

[Jennifer Litchfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Fortey has a wonderful way with words; a way of describing the most apparently mundane organisms so that they become fascinating. The thermophilic bacteria in Yellowstone Park are a case in point. His vivid description and explanation of the rings of different-coloured slime caused by the bacteria around the various thermal features, all adapted over eons of time to their particular extreme niche environment, has me wanting to visit the Park and wonder at it myself.

This book (mostly) manages to navigate the tricky path between scientific treatise and fireside chat. It gets a bit rushed and muddly towards the end when discussing the plants and animals that are higher up on the tree of life - those that made their appearances comparatively late on in evolutionary history. But there is probably justification for this because the whole raison d’etre for the book is to champion the survivors that have lasted and lasted. And most of which will outlast humankind. Which in a weird kind of way is a rather comforting thought.

[Michelle Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The writing was good, and the information was fascinating. Richard Fortey details the lives of many "primitive" life forms that still exist today, and ties them back to prehistoric creatures, showing how varied evolutionary processes can be.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how exciting a book about such "simple" creatures could be, but Fortey's enthusiasm keeps up interest even in the most minuscule of species. He presents many creatures I have never even heard of, and makes them feel real.

*I would recommend the hardcover over the paperback because it has color pictures.

[Nic Mcphee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fortey is arguably a little chatty in places, but there is a lot of excellent content and many important ideas here. He does a very nice job of acquainting us with various existing species that shed valuable light on closely related species that existed millions of years ago, helping us understand the complexity of evolution, and the extinction and persistence of species over time. While the book focuses on huge stretches of geological time, it also illustrates how quickly and dramatically things change in major extinction events, which is valuable as we struggle to understand the likely impacts of the massive changes our species is bringing about.

[Stephen Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding natural history book from one of the great men of our time - superb author, important palaeologist, good TV presenter. This book relates to the TV series of the same name, which was a good watch. The book begins with the horseshoe crab, then goes backwards into Precambrian time to look at a series of animals that have lasted through some or even all of Earth's major mass extinctions; then the tale goes forward to our own epoch, looking at various plants and animals. Beautifully written and endlessly fascinating.