Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind [NOOK Book]

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Overview

From one of the world’s leading natural scientists and the acclaimed author of Trilobite!, Life: 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 ...
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Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind

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Overview

From one of the world’s leading natural scientists and the acclaimed author of Trilobite!, Life: 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.
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Editorial Reviews

Dwight Garner
The good news about Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms is that Mr. Fortey is as vivid and charming about live things as he's long been about dead ones, perhaps even more so. Reading this book is like stepping into the field with a man who's equal parts naturalist and poet…It's a bewitching combination…[Fortey's] book is not only well built and witty but emotionally profound too. It's the work of a survivor appraising other survivors.
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Compared to sponges and cyanobacteria, human life is in its infancy. In this delightful account, former Natural History Museum (London) paleontologist Fortey (The Hidden Landscape: A Journey into the Geological Past) gives us the stories of those plants, animals, and other creatures that have survived from Earth’s early days—the planet’s “true marathon runners.” We encounter the horseshoe crab sealing off wounds with its strange blue blood, the leisurely lungfish surfacing for a puff of air before returning to sweep the mud of Australia’s Mary River, and the rainbow of extremophile bacteria huddling within the sulphuric maws of Yellowstone’s boiling geysers. Fortey examines factors that might have contributed to these species’ longevity and, mourning the threat from climate change and invasive species that looms over these ancient organisms, contemplates what these creatures might teach us “as a metaphor for the brevity of human history in the face of true persistence.” In his quest, Fortey treks to a variety of far-flung locales, from the quaint fishing villages perched on Delaware Bay to the stark, windswept cliffs of Mistaken Point on the coast of Newfoundland, and misty Chinese mountain peaks ribbed with primeval stands of gingko trees. Despite the odd title, even those squeamish about worms will find Fortey’s enthusiastic excavations charming. Agent: David Godwin Associates Limited. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
"Mr. Fortey is as vivid and charming about live things as he's long been about dead ones, perhaps even more so. Reading this book is like stepping into the field with a man who's equal parts naturalist and poet, equal parts E.O. Wilson and Paul Muldoon. It's a bewitching combination . . . You begin to love Mr. Fortey as much as he loves horseshoe crabs. You want to throw him over your shoulder, like a big stuffed animal won at a fair, and lug him home to explain the mysteries of your backyard . . . His book is not only well built and witty but emotionally profound too . . . an inducement to be as awake and observant as possible." —The New York Times

"A lively writer with a penchant for slightly goofy jokes, a vast storehouse of arcane knowledge, and an inexhaustible fund of enthusiasm for his subject, Fortey is the perfect interpreter and guide to the marvels and mysteries of archaic existence." —The Boston Globe   

"[A] delightful account . . . even those squeamish about worms will find Fortey’s enthusiastic excavations charming." —PW (starred)

"In this fascinating, well-written book, [Fortey] offers a worldwide tour of places whose lands and waters shelter extraordinary forms of life that have overcome mass extinctions, sea-level changes, ice ages and other obstacles to survive into the present. Taking great joy in his trip back in time, Fortey plays both adventurer and detective as he searches for these ancients . . . Informative, engrossing and delightful." —Kirkus (starred review) 

"A magnificent book . . . Fortey’s intense, humane passion for everything that lives and has lived is amply proven on every page . . . This book (like all his others) demonstrates that Fortey is, principally, not a scientist who can write, but a writer who does science." —Literary Review
 
"Erudite and engaging." —Times Literary Supplement

"A wide-ranging survey . . . Fortey keeps the long discussion lighthearted . . . Instructive and entertaining." —Booklist
 
"Fortey leads us on a ramble that is not only global but takes us through aeons, to look at creatures that haven’t changed much for hundreds of millions and in some cases billions of years . . . It’s a great story, and no one is better equipped to tell it than Fortey . . . Excellent natural history." —The Guardian
 
"Fortey has a unique way with the most humble of life forms, an infectious curiosity that can slide into near rapture, coupled with a lack of presumption that many of his peers I the field of evolutionary biology lack entirely." —London Evening Standard
 
"An exploration of the world that went before. Fortey retains his characteristic ability to paint vivid word pictures of times long ago and places far away…Passionate, clear and comprehensive." —The Telegraph
 
"Fortey tells a series of fascinating stories that serve to bring alive what is for most of us an unfamiliar past. Under his tutelage, fossils of all kinds—survivors or not—seem to come alive." —Financial Times

Library Journal
Fortey (former senior paleontologist, Natural History Museum, London; Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth) mingles natural history with geology as he rambles the globe seeking out the locations of plants and animals that appear to have survived to the present day from as far back as the Paleozoic era. He discusses how they currently fit into their ecosystems and shares information gleaned from the geologic record. Fortey admits that these "living fossils"—or living species that appear the same as species known only from fossils and that are without close living relatives—are unlikely to have survived for so long without changing, as it is the nature of all life to change and mutate. While this book provides a glossary, its major weakness is that there are too few illustrations. Readers unfamiliar with these little-known species will have trouble visualizing the plants Fortey discusses. VERDICT The information presented here will appeal to readers interested in living fossils; recommended with the caveat that images are lacking. [See Prepub Alert, 9/29/11.]—Betty Galbraith, Washington State Univ. Lib., Pullman
Kirkus Reviews
A leading natural scientist's search for animals and plants that have survived nearly unchanged for millions of years. "Deep history is all around us," writes Fortey (Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, 2008, etc.), formerly a senior paleontologist at London's Natural History Museum. "In the life of the planet, the latest model does not always invalidate the tried-and-tested old creature." In this fascinating, well-written book, he offers a worldwide tour of places whose lands and waters shelter extraordinary forms of life that have overcome mass extinctions, sea-level changes, ice ages and other obstacles to survive into the present. Taking great joy in his trip back in time, Fortey plays both adventurer and detective as he searches for these ancients. At Delaware Bay, he watches the mating orgy of horseshoe crabs, which for millennia have laid and fertilized their eggs along the shoreline. On New Zealand's North Island, in a rotting pine log, he finds the elusive caterpillar-like velvet worm, which survived the same event that killed the dinosaurs. Detailing the appearance and behavior of each species, Fortey explains each life form's place in evolutionary history. In Shark Bay, Australia, he finds living stromatolites (mounds built by microscopic organisms) dating back 3.5 billion years. With occasional outbursts of "And there it is!" he tracks down many other creatures, including the lizard-like tuatara on a log in New Zealand "looking as if it were resting after a stroll from the Triassic," and the echidna, an oddly shaped mammal living on Australia's Kangaroo Island. Evolution goes on, writes the author. These species are not exactly the same as those in the distant past, but they are here and alive now. Informative, engrossing and delightful.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780307957412
  • Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 4/10/2012
  • Sold by: Random House
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 352
  • Sales rank: 119,019
  • File size: 15 MB
  • Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

Meet the Author

Richard Fortey was a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London until his retirement in 2006. He is the author of several books, including Fossils: The Key to the Past; The Hidden Landscape, which won the Natural World Book of the Year in 1993; Life: A Natural History of Four Billion Years of Life on Earth; Trilobite!, which was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Earth: An Intimate History; and Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science from Rockefeller University and the Michael Faraday Prize from the Royal Society. He was president of the Geological Society of London during its bicentennial year in 2007 and is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Oxfordshire.
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Read an Excerpt

PROLOGUE

These anomalous forms may almost be called living fossils; they have endured to the present day, from having inhabited a confined area, and from having thus been exposed to less severe competition.
—Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species

Evolution has not obliterated its tracks as more advanced animals and plants have appeared through geological time. There are, scat- tered over the globe, organisms and ecologies which still survive from earlier times. These speak to us of seminal events in the history of life. They range from humble algal mats to hardy musk oxen that linger on in the tundra as last vestiges of the Ice Age. The history of life can be approached through the fossil record; a narrative of forms that have vanished from the earth. But it can also be understood through its survivors, the animals and plants that time has left behind. My intention is to visit these organisms in the field, to take the reader on a journey to the exotic, or even everyday, places where they live. There will be landscapes to evoke, boulders to turn over, seas to pad- dle in. I shall describe the animals and plants in their natural habitats, and explain why they are important in understanding pivotal points in evolutionary history. So it will be a journey through time, as well as around the globe.

I have always thought of myself as a naturalist first, and a palaeon- tologist second, although I cannot deny that I have spent most of my life looking at thoroughly dead creatures. This book is something of a departure for me, with the focus switched to living organisms that help reveal the tree of life (see endpapers). I will frequently return to considering fossils to show how my chosen creatures root back into ancient times. I have also broken my usual rules of narrative. The logical place to start is at the beginning, which in this case would mean with the oldest and most primitive organisms. Or I could start with the present and work backwards, as in Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale. Instead, I have opted to start somewhere in the mid- dle. This is not perversity on my part. It seemed appropriate to start my exploration in a place, biologically speaking, that is familiar to me. The ancient horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay were somehow fit- ting, not least on account of their trilobite connections. Amid all the concern about climate change and extinction, it is encouraging to begin with an organism whose populations can still be counted in their millions. From this starting point somewhere inside the great and spreading tree of life I can climb upwards to higher twigs if I wish, or maybe even delve downwards to find the trunk. Let us begin to explore.
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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

TABLE OF GEOLOGICAL PERIODS

Old Horseshooes The Search for the Velvet Worm Slimy Mounds Life in Hot Water An Inveterate Bunch Greenery Of Fishes and Hellbenders Heat in the Blood Islands, Ice Survivors Against the Odds

EPILOGUE

GLOSSARY

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

FURTHER READING

INDEX

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 8 )
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Sort by: Showing all of 8 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 5, 2013

    Soooo interesting

    I read the first chapter at work and it is amazing. I was telling everyone what I learned. I love this stuff, I'm thinking about getting his other books now too

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 27, 2013

    Hawkkit

    Okay

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 26, 2013

    Emeraldsea

    She padded i and went up to Maplejay. "I need t talk t u. I would like to help out with the medicine cat duties since my paws are still sore from when i sprained them. May i help u out?" (I want to be like a mix between brightheart and briarlight.) ~€~

    0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 26, 2013

    Maplejay

    Yes I lik eyour pun, and I'm not going to be on tonight. Last night I wasnt really in a normal happy hyper mood.and tonight I'm not feeling to hot again :/

    •Maplejay•••

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 25, 2013

    Medicine Den

    On the outskirts of camp, was a small pond. Beyond it was a grove of oak trees, with branches low to the ground, good for placeing herbs on. It was shielded by a rock wall behind it. ~Windwing

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 11, 2012

    It can be taken as certain that every organism alive today can p

    It can be taken as certain that every organism alive today can potentially be found represented in the fossil record by the remains of the identical or nearly identical species. Hence, in some sense, all living things are "living fossils." Thus, the central theme of Fortey's Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms is an oxymoron. This point does not evade Fortey any more than it evaded Darwin who was also aware of the phrases absurdity.
    Like much else in natural science, the term "living fossil" is, in fact, shorthand for "organisms found alive today whose remains can be found in nearly identical form in the fossil record of many millions of years ago." As a subset of that definition Fortey, himself, suggests "true living fossils" as those organisms well-known in the fossil record and eventually discovered to be still alive and well in historical times - in that order. Fortey doesn't let the ambiguity of the term stop him however. After quickly dismissing the issue, he launches into a world-wide tour of several dozen examples, "true" or not.
    Fortey's text deals with many more organisms than just horseshoe crabs and velvet worms. The prize-winning author of several other paleontological popular works such as Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution, Fortey writes in a distinctive and engaging style, if a bit peripatetic. Obviously in great command of his subject, the author often jerks the less-informed reader about as he grabs relevant (to him) examples out of thin air. Most of the book is spent describing the anatomy, physiology and ecology of one after another of both plant and animal "living fossils" Deeper analysis of the evolutionary significance of these sort-of-special organisms is reserved for the last chapter in which Fortey hesitatingly ascribes the survival of these "living fossils" not necessarily to any specific, common advantageous characteristic of the group, but simply to luck - being at the right place through geologic time.
    The ebook that is reviewed here is subject to a common limitation of electronic text media - all of the illustrations are addendum at the end of the book instead of being integrated into the text. Given Fortey's poetic and effusive writing this is a constant annoyance.
    Richard R. Pardi Environmental Science William Paterson University

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 4, 2012

    Where is it?

    As Barnes and Noble has failed to deliver this gift in several weeks, I have no idea what my friend thought of it.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted June 21, 2012

    It's Not Really a Crab and Here Way before Our Ancestors

    A thoroughly engaging and light-hearted description of the animals of the title. It transforms the reader into an armchair naturalist. It is like having a section of the American Museum of Natural history put into one's livingroom.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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