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A review by bookishwendy
Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind by Richard Fortey
4.0
I've recently found myself caught up in a sort of arm-chair enthusiasm for natural history, especially with regards to the ever-changing biology on the face of this ever-changing earth. When I was about seven, I told all my friends and teachers that I was going to grow up to be a paleontologist, and reading books like these makes me kick myself for not following through. Oh what to give for a time-machine videoscreen where we could watch trilobites in all their nautical glory!
Richard Fortey has done the next best thing in this book, wherein he tracks down species of flora and fauna that have managed to survive more or less intact since the era of fossils. These are creatures that, due to endurance, persistence, and luck, managed to dodge the massive extinction events that kill off most of the earth's life every dozen million years or so. The tree of life, as represented by all living things today, is mostly clusters of the topmost twigs. Most of the larger branches from which highly specialized mammals, birds, etc developed already died off long ago. But there are still some organisms alive today that stem from somewhere near the tree's trunk: horseshoe crabs may have shared sub-aqueous mud with trilobites, though the latter has been extinct for millions of years. The flightless birds and egg-laying monotremes of Oceania retain ancient characteristics from before the super-continent Pangea drifted off into separate land masses--natural pressures differed across the continents, forcing change to some organisms and allowing others to stay more or less as they were. In some remote areas of Australia and China there are still some pockets of prehistoric plants and insects that managed to survive the ice age (and the last 2k years of human expansion...so far).
Why is this all so fascinating? I guess we tend to assume that life on earth develops and changes at more or less the same pace, but this is far from accurate. Not organism is advancing, or needs to advance into a more complex form. Sulfur-eating bacteria has been around longer than anything else, and it still exists today in areas no other living thing can survive. There may have been a time when jellyfish were the most advanced and widespread creature in the oceans, and they still exist today (along with more recently evolved predators that like to eat them). A little toad from the island of Mallorca was originally known in Jurassic-era fossils. Ginko trees may have been eaten by dinosaurs. All these organisms ARE little time capsules, and some of them we see every day.
I found Mr. Fortey's book to be a fascinating, if somewhat tangential, expedition of discovery that altered the way I perceive nature at large. If anything, it pinged off in too many directions at once, and I occasionally found myself confused when the topic would veer in an unexpected direction mid-paragraph, leaving questions unanswered. But my curiosity is piqued, and I'm eager to read up more on natural history.
Richard Fortey has done the next best thing in this book, wherein he tracks down species of flora and fauna that have managed to survive more or less intact since the era of fossils. These are creatures that, due to endurance, persistence, and luck, managed to dodge the massive extinction events that kill off most of the earth's life every dozen million years or so. The tree of life, as represented by all living things today, is mostly clusters of the topmost twigs. Most of the larger branches from which highly specialized mammals, birds, etc developed already died off long ago. But there are still some organisms alive today that stem from somewhere near the tree's trunk: horseshoe crabs may have shared sub-aqueous mud with trilobites, though the latter has been extinct for millions of years. The flightless birds and egg-laying monotremes of Oceania retain ancient characteristics from before the super-continent Pangea drifted off into separate land masses--natural pressures differed across the continents, forcing change to some organisms and allowing others to stay more or less as they were. In some remote areas of Australia and China there are still some pockets of prehistoric plants and insects that managed to survive the ice age (and the last 2k years of human expansion...so far).
Why is this all so fascinating? I guess we tend to assume that life on earth develops and changes at more or less the same pace, but this is far from accurate. Not organism is advancing, or needs to advance into a more complex form. Sulfur-eating bacteria has been around longer than anything else, and it still exists today in areas no other living thing can survive. There may have been a time when jellyfish were the most advanced and widespread creature in the oceans, and they still exist today (along with more recently evolved predators that like to eat them). A little toad from the island of Mallorca was originally known in Jurassic-era fossils. Ginko trees may have been eaten by dinosaurs. All these organisms ARE little time capsules, and some of them we see every day.
I found Mr. Fortey's book to be a fascinating, if somewhat tangential, expedition of discovery that altered the way I perceive nature at large. If anything, it pinged off in too many directions at once, and I occasionally found myself confused when the topic would veer in an unexpected direction mid-paragraph, leaving questions unanswered. But my curiosity is piqued, and I'm eager to read up more on natural history.