Life: an Unauthorized Biography (Text Only)

Richard Fortey

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780006384205
  9780002555609
• eBook ISBN:
  9780007397648
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Evolution

This ebook edition does not include illustrations.

A magisterial exploration of the natural history of the first four thousand million years of life on and in the earth, by one of Britain's most dazzling science writers.

What do any of us know about the history of our planet before the arrival of man? Most of us have a dim impression of a swirling mass of dust solidifying to form a volcanic globe, briefly populated by dinosaurs, then by woolly mammoths and finally by our own hairy ancestors. This book, aimed at the curious and intelligent but perhaps mildly uninformed reader, brilliantly dispels such lingering notions forever. At the end of the book we understand the complexity of the history of life on earth, and the complexity of how it has come to be understood, as, perhaps, from no other single volume. The result is enthralling.

Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

INDEX

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

adaptation 26, 156, 234, 274, 297, 325

‘Adventure of the Lion’s Mane’ (Conan Doyle) 87

Africa:

and continental drift 136-7, 218, 308;

hominids in 336-50, 352, 354;

ice age in 155, 217, 224

Ahlberg, Per 173

Ailuravus 320

Alaska 287, 289

alchemy 36-7, 48, 55

Aldridge, Dick 134, 135

Alexander, McNeil 252

algae 104, 126, 209

blooms 155;

calcareous 128, 129;

continuity 93;

fossils 70-1;

mats, see stromatolites;

oxygenating 83, 89;

planktonic 125;

as plant ancestors 159;

symbiotic 68-9, 209, 226, 293-4

Alvarez, Luis 281-3, 285

Alvarez, Walter 281

Amaltheus 265

amber 298-9, 301

Ambulocetus 306

America 137, 204, 357

American Museum of Natural History 185, 261

amino acids 42, 80

ammonia 41, 75

ammonites 203, 225, 228

and dating of rock 17;

extinction 225, 236, 278, 280, 289;

Jurassic 262, 264-5

amoeba 69-70, 79, 81-2

amphibians 192, 197-8, 204-6, 223, 318

Amphioxus 106, 135

anaerobes 47, 50, 58

ancestry, common 40, 171, 176, 182, 188, 334, 336, 354

Ancient Mariner (Coleridge) 90

Anfesta 88

Angara flora 224

animals:

Cambrian 98, 102-14, 116-18, 122-3, 135;

Carboniferous 192;

colonization of land 167-76;

defined 83;

Devonian 168-71, 190;

divisions of 108;

domestication 359-60;

first 89-90;

Ordovician 153;

Permian 231;

and plants 78-80, 83-4;

Precambrian 84-93;

skeletized 98-102, 104;

soft-bodied 98, 105-7;

sound 260;

warmblooded 223;

see also land animals; marine life

animism 78, 80n

Ankylosaurus 253, 314

Anning, Mary 263

Anomalocaris 107, 108, 111, 113, 116, 120

Antarctica 223, 224, 280, 287, 303, 308, 328, 366

anteaters 321

Anteosaurus 232

anthropomorphism 331-2

Anti-Atlas Mountains 154

ape-men, see hominids

Apennines 279

apes 333-6, 354, 356-7

aplacophorans 117

apocalypse 291

Arabia 215-17, 224, 316, 357

Archaean 49, 57-8, 65, 71, 76, 83

Archaea/Archaebacteria 47n, 73, 79

archaeology 29-30

Archaeopteryx 52-4, 257

archaic man 351, 356

Arctic 1-13, 21-5, 138, 216

arctic vole 330

Argentina 253, 313

Arkarua 88

armadillo 314-15

arthropods 102, 127

ancestral 90;

Cambrian 103, 106-7, 110-11, 113, 116, 120;

colonization of land 167-70;

feeding 123;

giant 201;

physical features 168-9

Asia 204, 308, 316, 357

aspidistra 55n

Atacama Dessert 58

Atlantis 221-2

atmosphere 162

high-oxygen 201-2;

lack of 33, 34-5;

low-oxygen 42, 48, 49-50, 58, 73;

reducing 41;

transformation of 55-7, 62, 74, 83, 89, 94, 118, 160, 368

atoms 41, 45

aurochs 359

Austin, Jeremy 299

Austin, Texas 266

Australia 110

Aborigines 61, 63, 91, 92-3, 357-8:

and continental drift 136, 217, 218;

Ediacara fauna 85-6;

glaciation 223, 224;

introduced species 222, 367;

mammals 307-8, 309-13, 316, 367;

outback 12, 61-3, 71-2, 92, 119, 138, 163, 202, 311;

shells 98, 102;

stromatolites 60-1, 63-4;

Western 167

Australopithecus 337, 342-7

A. aethiopi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Praise
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• I THE EVERLASTING SEA
• II DUST TO LIFE
• III CELLS, TISSUES, BODIES
• IV MY ANIMALS AND OTHER FAMILIES
• V MARINE RICHES
• VI LANDWARDS
• VII SILENT FORESTS, CROWDED OCEANS
• VIII THE GREAT CONTINENT
• IX MONSTROUS AND MODEST
• X THEORIES OF THE END
• XI SUCKLING SUCCESS
• XII HUMANITY
• XIII WHEELS OF CHANCE
• KEEP READING
• GLOSSARY
• SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
• INDEX
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• About the Publisher