But this chapter held some surprises for me: for example, although I was aware there was a bottleneck in human evolution where the entire species nearly died out at least several times, I was surprised to learn that a small group clung to life for tens of thousands of years, confined in an African wetland that was a veritable ‘Garden of Eden’ surrounded by inhospitable deserts. 89).īy the time Dr Gee discusses what we know about the evolution of hominids, most readers are back on more familiar footing, with the added bonus of having fewer names to keep track of. 23) and Lystrosaurus, which was probably the most successful vertebrate ever: “with the body of a pig, the uncompromising attitude towards food of a golden retriever, and the head of an electric can opener, Lystrosaurus was the animal equivalent of a rash of weeds on a bomb site.” (p. Had it had wheels, it would have been an armoured personnel carrier. Latin names for many of these earlier creatures may overwhelm some readers, but Dr Gee’s vivid descriptions of these plants and animals provide fascinating mental images of these beings that lived so long ago, such as the land-dwelling amphibian, Eryops, “which looked like a bullfrog imagining itself as an alligator.
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