Gaining Ground: The Origin and Early Evolution of Tetrapods

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Summary: Fills a Large Gap in Early Tetrapod Evolution
Review: Dr. Clack has really come up with a winning book. I envy her personal experiences finding Paleozoic fossils in Greenland. She goes into considerable detail with fish and amphibian osteology which is difficult to non-exitant to find in popular literature. But this book is no dry scientific text. It is an exciting subject and she does an excellent job of handling the task. I found her understanding of chemistry a little weak in a couple of places but the other information is superb. I had to give this book five stars because it is well presented and it is alone in its class. I am glad I purchased the book because it will make a great reference for my library. Thank you Jennifer Clack for a wonderful book!


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Summary: How our ancestors learned to walk
Review: Even if you are tired (as I am) of reading books about the dinosaurs, you should still read this one. It is a book on the origins of the tetrapods. You should be interested in tetrapods because, of course, you ARE a tetrapod (and so are frogs, birds and turtles). The author has made important contributions to our knowledge of the paleontology of the early tetrapods: the book shows pictures of the author taken during one of her expeditions to Greenland.

This book covers lots of ground: the fossil findings, reconstructions of the original animals, and description of the ecology of the fossil-bearing location at the time, including plant and invertebrate life. Detailed descriptions of the anatomy of the specimens are given and of their relationships to earlier fish and present-day animals. The developmental origins of the changes are also covered, with a discussion of the HOX genes.

Cladistic analyses of the relationships of the early tetrapods are also given. Covered in some detail is the development of the physiology and sensory organs of the tetrapods (especially the all-important ears). The story of the tetrapods is followed from the late Devonian up to the end-Permian mass extinction.

I have to add that the book contains many enlightening photographs, drawings and diagrams: it is difficult to imagine a clearer book on this important subject. However, because of the depth of the discussion, this book, while not very difficult, does require some effort.


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Summary: Gaining Ground: The Origin & Evolution of Tetrapods
Review: Gaining Ground: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods written by Jennifer A. Clark is a book on comparative anatomy of tetrapods on Earth.

The origin and evolution of tetrapods started about 370 million years ago, something strange and significant happened on Earth. That time, part of an interval of Earth's history called the Devonian Period by scientists such as geologists and paleontologists, is known popularly as the Age of Fishes. After about 200 million years of earlier evolution, the vertebrates... animals with backbones... had produced an explosion of fishlike animals that lived in the lakes, rivers, lagoons, and estuaries of the time. The strange thing that happened during the later parts of the Devonian period is that some of these fishlike animals evolved limbs with digits, fingers and toes. Over the ensuing 350 million years or so, these so-caled tetrapods gradually evolved from their aquatic ancestry into walking terrestrial vertebrates, and these have dominated the land since their own explosive radiation allowed them to colonize and exploit the land and its opportunities. The tetrapods, with limbs, fingers, and toes, include humans, so this distant Devonian event is profoundly significant for humans as well as for the planet.

This book tells the story of the evolution of tetrapods from their fish ancestry and puts the sequence of events into its ecological context. The story if founded on an understanding of the evolutionary relationships between tetrapods and their fishy relatives... their phylogeny... and traces the family tree of tetrapods from its roots to the point at which the major groups of modern tetrapods branch off from its original trunk. The tetrapod family tree is in fact more like a bush, with several main branches, some of which have died out during the course of evolution and some of which have become large and important from small beginnings.

This book looks at the changes that occured in the transition from creatures with fins and scales to those with limbs and digits in an attempt to understand how, as well as when, these changes occurred, and to do this, it is necessary to understand something of the anatomy of the animals involved. Chapters 2 & 3 are devoted to these parts of the story. Chapters 4,5,& 6 set out what is currently known of the earliest tetrapods and their lifestyles. By careful analysis of what is known of them from fossils, and by comparison with modern animals that live at the transition between water and land, it may be possible to understand a little of how the early tetrapods worked as animals. After the tetrapods had become established, they radiated into a ranges of forms requiring modification of the original tetrapod pattern. Chapters 7,8,& 9 carry the story forward from the origin of tetrapods to their ultimate conquest of terrestrial living. The final chapter drws together some of the threads that have been taken up in the preceding chapters and shows how they impact the study and understanding of tetrapods today.

All in all, this is a well- written, illustrated, and organized book, making for a fairly fast read even though there is a lot of material covered. Devonian environment and the timing of anatomical changes was fascinating.

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Summary: First step on land
Review: This is the book to be read. There's no reason to hesitate, neither to read the commentaries to decide. As far as books of prehistoric animals are concerned, those of dinosaurs occupy most of them. And maybe this is the first, and the best I insist, to be written on the primitive form of tetrapods. Detailed investigations show us before and after the first members of tetrapods including their environmental conditions, soft tissues such as respiratory, sensory and reproductive systems and interpretation inferred based on the existent animals whose morphological character is insinuating. And, of course, their relationship analysed by cladistics comes in later chapter.
The most important point the author puts emphasis on is to urge our public image or concept on the early members of tetrapods. She intentionally avoids the word "amphibians" for them. You'll see why through the text. This is a superb book! Why don't you take a close look at their intriguing story?