Primate Adaptation and Evolution

ISBN-13: 9780123786326 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 441 str.

John Fleagle

Opis

Primate Adaptation and Evolution, Third Edition, is a thorough revision of the text of choice for courses in primate evolution. The book retains its grounding in the extant primate groups as the best way to understand the fossil trail and the evolution of these modern forms. However, this coverage is now streamlined, making reference to the many new and excellent books on living primate ecology and adaptation - a field that has burgeoned since the first edition of Primate Adaptation and Evolution. By drawing out the key features of the extant families and referring to more detailed texts, the author sets the scene and also creates space for a thorough updating of the exciting developments in primate palaeontology - and the reconstruction through early hominid species - of our own human origins. This updated version covers recent developments in primate paleontology and the latest taxonomy, and includes over 200 new illustrations and revised evolutionary trees. This text is ideal for undergraduate and post-graduate students studying the evolution and functional ecology of primates and early fossil hominids.

• Long-awaited revision of the standard student text on primate evolution
• Full coverage of newly discovered fossils and the latest taxonomy
• Over 200 new illustrations and revised evolutionary trees

Recenzje

"...an indispensible reference and must-have textbook for students and scholars with an interest in the evolutionary history of the primates...Hats off to Fleagle for producing a superb book that every primatologist needs and only he could write." --The Quarterly Review of Biology

"Fleagle has revised and rewritten each chapter, redone all the tables, added many new figures, and replaced almost all the references. One of the changes is that he now uses a suite of criteria to estimate body mass from fossil skeletons, rather than the single formula he formerly used."--Reference and Research Book News, August 2013

Reviews of the First Edition:"Fleagle's book...is a tour de force as well as a tour d'horizon of the primate order....Fleagle's book fills a long-standing need for a comprehensive and up-to-date introductory text in its field." --NATURE

"Just occasionally in academic life there comes together in one person research ability, industry, and the willingness to communicate. This is indeed the case for John Fleagle's textbook. An admirable book that deserves the success that it will undoubtedly achieve." --BIOLOGY AND SOCIETY

"Professional primatologists and students alike will be delighted with John Fleagle's Primate Adaptation and Evolution, which will brilliantly refresh any university reading list in the subject. For many university courses on primate biology, it will undoubtedly become a primary text." --THE TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT"This is an excellent book on primate comparative anatomy, behavioral ecology, and paleontology." --AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST"John Fleagle has done it! Primate Adaptation and Evolution is the readable and "seeable," but still traditional, textbook that my students have been waiting for someone to write." --AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

"This book will be welcomed with a sigh of relief in departments of anatomy and biological anthropology world-wide. Here at last is an up-to-date, comprehensive and reliable textbook for courses in primate and human evolution.... It will, and should, stand as a major teaching resource for primate evolution for some years to come. It is an excellent text and a reflection of Fleagle's major contributions to our field." --PRIMATE EYE

"This volume is basically designed as an advanced undergraduate or graduate textbook but is so well illustrated and organized that it can also be used as a general source or reference for less specialized readers. No other single work can match the range of its topics, which matches the interests of its author, one of the leading students of primate paleontology, behavior, morphology, and evolution." --CHOICE

Spis treści

Adaptation, Evolution, and Systematics; The Primate Body; Primate Lives; Prosimians; New World Anthropoids; Old World Monkeys; Apes and Humans; Primate Communities; Primate Adaptations; The Fossil Record; Primate Origins; Fossil Prosimians; Early Anthropoids; Fossil Platyrrhines; Fossil Apes; Fossil Old World Monkeys; Fossil Hominids; Patterns in Primate Evolution