Лучшие книги Ричарда Форти

Перед нами первая популярная книга на русском языке о трилобитах. Миллионы лет назад эти необычайные животные самых немыслимых форм и размеров, хищные и смирные, крошки и гиганты, царили в океанах и на суше... а потом исчезли. О загадках их ушедшей жизни интеллигентно и остроумно рассказывает Ричард Форти, большой знаток трилобитов, влюбленный в них с самого детства. Читатель не только получит основательные сведения о трилобитах и их современниках. Он почувствует поступь эволюции, которая произвела на свет этих существ, позволила им сначала триумфально шествовать по океанам и эпохам, а потом — таинственно исчезнуть. Вы узнаете, как с…

The history of life on Earth is far older - and odder - than many of us realise. In this groundbreaking book, prize-winning author Richard Fortey takes us on a journey across the globe, via America, China, Australia and New Zealand, uncovering creatures who have survived, almost unchanged, through geological time. Algal mats, musk oxen, the horseshoe crab and the velvet worm; these remarkable plants and animals offer a tantalising glimpse of pivotal points in evolutionary history Written with Fortey's customary gusto, Survivors combines the very best science writing with an explorer's sense of adventure and a poet's wonder at the natural world.

This monograph describes early Ordovician (Ibexian:Tremadocian–early Floian) trilobites from Northern Spitsbergen from the section through the Kirtonryggen Formation adjacent to Hinlopen Strait. The Formation is divided into three Members, each with distinct trilobites collectively representing the fullest known succession from the Bathyurid biofacies of the eastern Laurentian carbonate platform. Previous research on the Ordovician of Spitsbergen is summarised and correlations with similar faunas previously described from Canada, Greenland, western Newfoundland, Vermont–New York State, Oklahoma and Missouri are discussed. Taxonomic problems are discussed in detail leading to the recognition of 53 species, of which 15 are new, belonging to 31 genera including four new. Twenty-four taxa are described under open or tentative nomenclature. The lower Member yields the earliest known occurrences of the Illaenoidea, Proetoidea and Scutelluoidea, supporting the hypotheses relating the origin of new major clades to inshore habitats.