Neptune's Ark: From Ichthyosaurs to Orcas

This book begins and ends with visions and beautiful, heartfelt language but as the author traces some of what we know about the evolution of marine life, there are passages clogged with jargon. For example: "...creodonts were a separate, primitive group that vanished in the Miocene epoch. In some ways, they resembled mesonychids, the early, flesh-eating ungulates and putative whale ancestors. Indeed, early paleontologists thought mesonychids WERE creodonts, so Cope's observations about the seal-like aspects of his 1872 Wyoming fossil, Mesonyx, probably influenced Wortman's thinking." I could go on but my point is the book could easily have been made a bit less of a slog for the general reader, for example with a chart somewhere of the show more conventional designation of time periods, so that someone like me doesn't have to go to another book or the web to refresh their memory of when and how long the Miocene epoch was. show less

A most worthy addition to marine life of the past, from ammonites to sea bears. Masterfully illustrated, clearly written and a must for the paleontologically inclined.