The Future is Wild

Rating:
Summary: Impressive companion to After Man
Review: An impressive companion to After Man, another book by Dougal Dixon written on the same genre. However, After Man is less far fetched in its animals than in this book, which are computer generated rather than illustrated. Extremely detailed verbal sketches are accomplice to beautiful graphics of astounding animals of the future. My only complaint is that occasionally there is a bad computer generated image that probably would have done better as an illustration. After Man, Dixon's most masterful book, is best read either immediately before or after reading this one.

Rating:
Summary: Very informative book.
Review: Any fan of "The Future is Wild" and other speculative future evolutionary theories would be pleased by this great coffee table book. Not only does it have large, splendid full-color pictures of all the animals from the documentary's episodes, but it explains in-depth the evolution of each creature: what it looks like, what its lifestyle is, and why. Dougal Dixon is quite good at predicting based on science what life will be like millions of years in the future. After all, billions of years ago, who would have guessed that humans would have evolved, or any of the other amazing creatures of today? When you consider some of the weird animals the crawl the earth right now as we speak, this book seems much more credible than you might originally think. There are definite scientific reasons behind these predictions; they're not the work of crazy science fiction authors who are just trying to be as "far out" as possible.

Rating:
Summary: And Life Goes On...
Review: Following After Man and The New Dinosaurs, Dougal Dixon and several biologists take a look at how the course of evolution might go over the next 200 million years if man left the earth. Made to follow a television mini-series, this lavishly illustrated book features commentaries from leading biologists and a wonderful introduction to evolution and continental drift. All the animals featured are smoothly done in CG art, but there are pictures of modern animals that are similar or even related to these hypothetical beasties. Incidentally, each chapter features certain clips that were not featured on the show the first time it aired, so if you saw the tv special you may have missed certain parts of the book.

The book opens up in the next Ice Age 5 million years into the future (a very real possibility btw), and actually matches up closely with Dixon's book "After Man". In this period, northern Europe is covered in ice sheets, where giant rodents and semi-aquatic birds are hunted by gigantic wolverines. The Mediterranean has dried up into a salt desert inhabited by lizards and wild boars (which was not featured on the show). In the Americas, the Midwest has become a sweeping desert/plain where gigantic predatory bats swoop across the sky and quails tunnel underground. And the Amazon has become an endless savannah where giant ground dwelling birds of prey hunt down the last few primates.

Jump to 100 million years from now, when the Ice Age ends. A great sea covers much of the earth, and it is warmer and more humid. Giant jellfish and sea slugs lurk in the warm shallow oceans, while India/South Asia has become a large swamp where elephant sized turles, land octopi and giant angler fish live. Antarctica is a tropical forest, inhabited by colorful birds and monsterous insects (this part wasn't in the tv series originally). Meanwhile Australia crashed into Asia forming huge mountains, in which giant spiders harvest rodents while dodging high altitude birds (which BTW feature anatomical adaptations recently discovered in prehistoric birds; victory for Dixon's views!)

Then 200 million years in the future a mass extinction eliminated most of the life on earth and the continents have reformed into Pangea II. A colossal inland desert occupies much of Pangea II and in it highly specialized termites co-exist with a variety of worms (not in the original airing). In the oceans the ultimate predators, sharks, have become even more adapted for hunting and prey upon colossal squid while flying fish have adapted to take the niche of birds. A rainshow desert exists beyond coastal mountains, and in it can be found hopping snails and scavenging insects. And in the humid northern forests, fish-birds and predatory fungi can be found, along with terrestrial squid which may one day evolve into intelligent life.

All in all, I found this to be a wonderful book. If you enjoyed Dougal Dixon's previous works or saw the television special, you know what to expect. If you have an interest in natural history, evolution or even just sci-fi, then I really suggest checking this book out (along with Dixon's other books like "The New Dinosuars" and "After Man"). Its really a great read and it gets your thoughts going too. So check it out.

Rating:
Summary: The Future Is Wild
Review: How wonderful it would be if we could only peek out of our windows and see how the world would be 200 million years from now!
What kind of creatures, birds, mammals, flowers, organisms, and humans, would inhabit planet earth?

Authors Dougal Dixon and John Adams with the support of several scientists specializing in Geology, Zoology, Paleontology, Biology, Marine Biology, Herpetology, and other inter-related disciplines, have authored a fascinating book entitled The Future Is Wild.

Testing our imagination to its limits, the authors have been able to give us a glimpse into what life will be on planet earth 200 million years from now.
As indicated in the introduction, "the organisms you'll encounter in this book are based on fundamental biological and evolutionary principles. They could, and may yet, exist."

The organisation of this magnificent book is divided into five sections each giving the reader a broad perspective of what has transpired in the past and what can be expected in millions of years from today.

In order to imagine how the future of planet earth will appear, it is necessary to have some basic knowledge of what transpired during the past millions of years.
The first section of the book presents a brief resumé of earth's history illustrating the recurring patterns of evolution.
The next three sections devote themselves to showing earth 5, 100 and 200 million years from today.

If we were to return 5 million years from now we would notice that Earth is at the peak of an Ice Age that has been going on for million of years.
According to the authors, the glacial cycle of an Ice age lasts somewhere in the order of 100,000 years. During this time frame, 90,000 years consists of a cold spell while 10,000 years consists of a warm spell, known as interglacial.

Our era, or as it is termed in the book, the Human era, took place during one of these warm spells.
As a result of the destruction of habitats and ecosystems, as well as the extinction of so many plants and animals,
various new animals take over.
Among them would be rodents called shagrats filling the ecological niches left vacant.
They are the largest animals in the North European region.

One hundred million years from now earth is seen as moist and warm; the average temperatures would be four or five degrees higher than what they are today.
The ice has melted, sea levels have risen and the world is a global hothouse.
Organisms begin to diversify and adapting to their stable environment.
The ecosystem will be very vigorous and dynamic.

Two hundred million years we can visualize a changing planet. There is a single, huge super continent that shares Earth with a vast, warm ocean.
A globe of extremes has been created.
One million years have elapsed since 95 percent of species on Earth were extinguished.

Science- fiction you might say-however, did we not say the same about the space age, or many of the other inventions during the past century?

This is an extraordinary imaginative book that is all the more convincing when you view 100 breath taking computer-generated color photographs of such creatures as ocean fish that fly, grim worms emerging from bumble beetles, forest fish and birds with four wings.

Upon examining these spectacular images, we can easily be convinced that the authors have presented a very credible and convincing scenario. Unfortunately, I do not think we will be around to see if their predictions were accurate!
Not only is this book educational, it is also a fun read. ...

Rating:
Summary: Okay, but it nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: It is very interesting the presentation of a possible future of our planet. According to the DVD, a group of scientists from different universities gathered to describe a possible vision of out future. We could say, of course, that scientists are better qualified than the rest of us to present this type of scenario. They have studied about this.
But we should remember that scientists are also human beings, and as such, they can be fallible.
As one of them says: "Will this really happen ?"
No one knows. We will not be there to see what really happens.
Some people wrote saying that what they say is NOT POSSIBLE. They are very emphatic. But that attitude is very risky, because whenever new things have been reported, people refuse to believe them.
The giraffe, well known nowadays, a century ago some people said that such an animal could not exist. The celacanth, a fish that lived together with the dinosaurs, was supposed to be extinct until it was caught last century, alive.
In the XVIII century people in England refused to believe that some central African tribes ate raw meat.
The okapi, a strange kind of antelope, was said to be a fantasy.
According to some ancient Phoenician documents, when some mariners described the ice in the northern seas, the listeners laughed and told them that they were insane.
Arthur Conan Doyle said once, by means of his very famous character, Sherlock Holmes:"Life is much stranger than anything that human imagination can conceive."
I would say that some things are unlikely, but impossible is a very strong word.
That is my own experience as well.
Thank you very much for your attention
The English

Rating:
Summary: Unscientific
Review: Lots of pretty pictures, but there is no evidence that any of these creatures will exist in the future. The concepts of things like the Ocean Phantom have no relation to fact, it's just pure speculation on the part of these "biologists"; and they seem to have gone back in time with the Toraton. The animals today are far more interesting, and they're real.

Rating:
Summary: Cute, but.....
Review: There are some things to like about this book. Like the TV/DVD series it accompanies, it is certainly colorful and creative, and I thought some of the animals were quite realistic. Like a previous reviewer, I'd also quibble about the quality of the artwork in some places (the animals appear to be painted onto photographic background), and about the fact that the content is limited to that seen in the video (which is better artistically). My major complaint, though, is with the science. The authors appear to have extrapolated forward by looking back. The animals of 5, 100, and 200 million years in the future look disturbingly like animals from that far in our past. For instance, in 200 myr, there will be no birds, which are replaced by flying descendants of codfish that perch in trees (assuming the endangered cod survives the next few decades, at least one ice age, and a mass extinction). This kind of extrapolation ignores what appear to be general evolutionary trends towards increased intelligence, among other things. I won't even go into what's been done to the plants and other organisms... In any event, this is an entertaining book, especially for kids, but don't be surprised if biologists groan when reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Colorful Tie-In.
Review: This book is a companion book to the television series of the same name. The book itself is lovely, with pictures of the animals and habitats of future Earth with details about behavior and the changing planet.
The only problem is that the book does not go beyond the series. There is no extra information about the future creatures and the only real add on is the small glossary in the back. If you had to pick between this or the series on video or DVD, buy the video or DVD.
With 160 pages I wanted more. It took less time to read the book than watch the television series!

Rating:
Summary: Hightly authentic yet weird...
Review: Triceratops and rhinos, fish and dolphins, flying bugs, birds and bats: examples of convergent evolution, whereby animals of different phyla and genera take on similar forms. Our Earth's ecosystems have changed, yet many remain similar to their ancient formations. As animals evolve, they take on the properties that allow survival in these ecosystems; with enough similar properties, similar forms arise, each marked by the phylum's unique characteristics (e.g. dolphins breathe air, fish extract oxygen from water).
The Future is Wild casts the process of `convergent evolution' into the future. Its playful, yet scientifically informed, speculation on future species is delightful. Familiar faces, such as squid and snails, take on the forms of the jungle and ocean.
While many of the illustrations are beautifully done, others suffer from a poorer, cut-and-paste quality. Nonetheless, this makes a conversation-provoking coffee table book.
The real strength of this book is its illustration of the naturalist vision, and how this differs from a creationist view, whence humanity is the pinnacle of creation. This book shows that evolution is a continual, i.e. past, present, and future, phenomenon. Life is not a pyramid with humanity at its peak, but a tree with many branches. If humans disappear from the Earth's, life will move on.

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing.....
Review: While I loved Dixon's "After Man: A Zoology of the Future" with a lot of passion, "The Future is Wild" was the biggest disappointment in my quest for the studies of future evolution. While the mammals and birds amazed me, I was very disappointed toward the end when they started saying squids will take over the Earth. IAGH!!! Squids will NEVER take over the Earth. Maybe the waters, but never the Earth. Another thing that got me angry was this mess about the extinction of mammals. Well, if history has any bearing, major classes never die out, they become something else, like when dinosaurs evolved into modern birds.