My first book, At the Water's Edge, was graced by illustrations by the marvelous Carl Buell. He's got a lot of irons in the fire these days, including Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, which publishes this month. Paleontologist Donald Prothero is the author, and it's packed with illustrations such as this one, which shows mammal-like reptiles that were increasingly more closely related to the first mammals. While you wait for the book to arrive, you can peruse his Flickr pages.
[Illustration couresy of Carl Buell]
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tags: Evolution: What The Fossils Say And Why it Matters, fossils, dinosaurs, creationism, Donald Prothero, book review
I was in love with dinosaurs when I was a kid, and I still am. It was my love for dinosaurs and fossils and especially my time spent learning the minutea of the evolutionary…
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters is an expansive new book authored by vertebrate paleontologist Donald Prothero and lushly illustrated by Carl Buell. The quality of the plates and illustrations, the binding as well as the texture of the pages, screams out "Coffee Table Book."…
This past fall my friends Julia and Neil were kind enough to obtain a signed copy of the new book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters for me from the annual SVP meeting. Although I had not heard of the author, Dr. Donald Prothero, prior to reading the book I was certainly impressed…
The skeleton of Inostrancevia, a Permian synapsid from modern-day Russia. From the American Museum Journal.
The science of paleontology has long been concerned with searching out the origins of modern groups of animals, but at the turn of the 20th century there were frustratingly few…
He also has a blog showcasing some of his works, though he hasn't updated it in nine months.
Hi Carl
Loved "At the Water's Edge" and the segment on the evolution of the Synapsids was a delight particularly for me. Papers that outlined the transition from pelycosaurs to mammals were what caused me to abandon Creationism about 15 years ago. Whenever I hear that old canard "no transitional fossils" I can say "that's total BULLSHIT! Here's a few dozen, at least!"
But I think I was an unusual Creationist - I actually wanted to know the truth, not delude myself into thinking I already had it.
Love the Morph sequence - should be more of them in kids' science books. And bigger kids' books too - some of us adults like pretty pictures that communicate more than a thousand words ;-)
Could use a macaque showing its canines.
I thought the first mammals were small mouse sized animals. This seems to imply much larger creatures?
Carl Buell is absolutely the bee's knees, and I'd bet a study of bees' knees drawn by him would be enlightening. He's one of three or four people I know of whose random doodles and asides carry more information than whole libraries of blather by earnest strivers like me. What a gift!