Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution

Description:

This is the first popular science book to completely re-tell the story of our most ancient of ancestors. This book proves they weren't mammal precursors, they were pioneers.

For most of us, the story of mammal evolution starts after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, but in the last 20 years scientists have uncovered new fossils and used new technologies that have enabled them to drastically rewrite this story. This book takes readers back to the real origin story of our mammalian ancestors, three-hundred million years earlier in the alien world of the Carboniferous.

In Beasts Before Us, palaeontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage in the Carboniferous period, and travels forward into the Permian and then Triassic periods, to teach us how our ancient mammal ancestors evolved from large hairy beasts with accelerating metabolisms to exploit miniaturisation, which was key to unlocking the traits that define mammals as we now know them.

Elsa criss-crosses the globe to explore the sites where discoveries are being made and meet the people who make them. From Scotland to South Africa, and China, Elsa radically reframes the narrative of our mammalian ancestors and provides a counterpoint to the stereotypes of mighty dinosaur overlords and cowering little mammals. It turns out the earliest mammals weren’t just precursors, they were pioneers.