Zetsumetsu Ugokumonozukan Chikyu Kara Kieta Ikimono-Tachi [Lost Animals: The Story of Extinct, Endangered and Rediscovered Species]

About this book

Language: Japanese with scientific nomenclature

Documenting the species that have emerged, disappeared and been reborn over the millennia since the Cambrian Explosion, Lost Animals is the story of life on Earth.

Over 520 million years ago, all the major animal groups – molluscs, worms, crustaceans, vertebrates – appear in the fossil record in what is, geologically speaking, the blink of an eye. As well as the animals we're familiar with today, evolution also experimented with now-obsolete body forms. Once, the world was a blank slate, but as this slate filled up, some lines were erased while others carried on to this day.

Beautifully illustrated with artist's interpretations, photographs of fossils and excavations and scientific drawings, Lost Animals brings back to life some of the most charismatic creatures to inhabit the planet, as well as those representing an important link or leap in evolutionary terms. Zoologist Dr John Whitfield discusses those species we have lost, are only just discovering and those thought extinct until rediscovered, and the attempts to conserve and resurrect others.

Summary in Japanese:
アノマロカリスからドードーまで、6億年の全記録!

35億年以上にわたる生命の歴史の中で、動物の歴史は6億年。この間、壊滅的な大量絶滅が5回あり、そのたびに全生物種の4分の3以上が姿を消した。生命の歴史は絶滅の歴史でもある。

本書は、絶滅してしまった動物や、絶滅したと思われていたがその後再発見された動物を、それぞれの時代背景を踏まえつつ紹介する。カンブリア紀の不思議な生き物から人類の祖先まで全87種を、豊富なイラストとわかりやすい解説で堪能するビジュアル図鑑。

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