2008-06-03 It tiktaaliks all the right boxes

purchased this book on impulse as it was evident at a glance just how well edited and put together it was. I learned a great deal and my only complaint is that the cover of the UK hardback was not half as nice as the one featuring the outstanding fossil - Tiktaalik.

This is a vertebrate paleontology book with strong underlying genetic, evolutionary and anatomical themes. If anything the book kept me asking more questions and it filled in the gaps of the following series -
Eusthenopteron, Panderichthys, Acanthostega, Ichthyostega with the description of the discovery of Tiktaalik. One more star in the VP pantheon representing a missing link in the ancestry of creatures that culminated in modern vertebrates. In a lighter vein, the book showed me just how close I was to a shark or a ray or even to a sponge. Yes, this book made the genetic linkages between organisms and their developmental heritages so perspicacious.

It was easy to read, reasonably well illustrated and above all quite a simple rendition of a complex subject. In the end, it humbles the reader into acknowledging his/her affinity with the natural world. That we are not creatures apart from it.

I expect the editors helped erase out back slapping gestures on the heros of this story such as Jarvik, Clack and Romer - that would however, perhaps be another story - as would more information on lungfish, the coelocanth ... this is a very fishy sort of book and now more than ever, I need to know my kinship to them.

In the end a simple phylogenetic framework is indicated and how we arrive at branching trees that describe our ancestry. I hope this book stimulates more work into conservation and taxonomic research which is very poorly funded.