At the Water's Edge: Macroevolution and the Transformation of Life [Hardcover]

Macroevolution is the interesting part of evolution: the rise and fall of major groups like dinosaurs or horses, the development of whole new organs (like eyes) and ways of life (like pollination). Such changes are difficult to study, and harder still to prove. Carl Zimmer looks at metamorphoses across the boundary between land and sea: how fish learned to walk on land, and how whales went back to the ocean. "The story of each of these transformations hides its own unexpected details, as startling as the skyward eyes that sat on top of our ancestors' heads or the delicate toes that turned up in the equation of a whale." Zimmer's account is accurate yet lively, covering recent discoveries in taxonomy and dolphin intelligence, embryology and eight-toed fossil fish. --Mary Ellen Curtin

At the Water's Edge delves into evolution's most dramatic transitions -- the journey of animal life from water to land, and the return of some land creatures to the sea. In a story that encompasses four billion years, Carl Zimmer describes the changes -- in bodies, minds, and living habits -- that occurred as descendants of fish evolved to become a dynasty of animals ranging from dinosaurs and snakes to elephants and human beings. He then tells the mirror tale of how wolf-like mammals took to the sea and became today's whales and dolphins.

With first-person accounts by scientists in the forefront of these macroevolutionary studies, and detailed drawings of fossils, this entertaining, accessible book demonstrates how newly discovered ecological, developmental, and behavioral evidence is shedding new light on the patterns and processes of nature. Like The Song of the Dodo and The Beak of the Finch, At the Water's Edge presents fascinating and authoritative answers to age-old questions.

How our fish ancestors came ashore--and how whales went back
I've always been fascinatined by the shape-shifting that life has gone through over the course of evolution. It's unsettling to picture your ancestors swimming around in the ocean. Just as strange is the idea that whales once ran around on dry land. The clues to these transformations are scattered around the world--Greenland, Pakistan, Australia--but one of the best places to look is central Pennsylvania, where our ancestors were splashing around at the water's edge 365 million years ago. I spent a couple days with paleontologists there, sitting along the side of a highway, hammering out fossils of ancient fish, tree branches, and bugs--the remnants of a hot, mucky coastal wetland where we got our start. It's hard to believe those fossils have all been waiting there all this time to be discovered.