reviews

The Living Ancients... Author:  Richard Fortey Acclaimed author and paleontologist Richard Fortey has chosen a new way to travel back in time for his most recent book.  Setting aside his usual rocks and fossils, he searches the world for “living fossils” – the most primitive creatures he can find – traveling many thousands of miles and venturing hundreds of millions of years into the Earth’s ancient biological past.  The result is Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms, a formidable catalog of some of the most bizarre and stubbornly persistent beings on the planet. Leaving his favorite trilobites at home, Fortey visits [...]

Ancient Horror from the Depths...  Author:  Kenneth Gass It may have been quite some time since you’ve been reminded of this, but trilobites ruled the Earth’s primordial seas for an impressive 250 million years and over 17,000 species have been identified in the fossil record.  Ancient relatives of insects and crustaceans, this enormous group included species that filled every possible marine niche – grazers, predators, filter feeders, decomposers and so on.  However, it appears that they all vanished about 250 million years ago in a massive extinction event that wiped out 96% of all marine species.  But who knows?  Every [...]