The Rise of Animals: Evolution and Diversification of the Kingdom Animalia

Among the major events in evolutionary history, few rival in importance the appearance of animals.  The Rise of Animals – a significant reference providing a comprehensive synthesis of the early radiation of the animal kingdom – fully captures this moment in geologic time.

Five of the world’s leading paleontologists take us on a journey to the most important fossil sites that serve as unique windows to the earliest animal life – including the Ediacara Hills of Australia, the Russian taiga and tundra, the sandy deserts of southwest Africa, and the rugged coasts of Newfoundland. Each of these places is a rich record of how animals came into existence and how some succeeded and others failed. The authors also explore the diversification of Animalia into the familiar body plans of today: from simple sponges to complex mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms, and chordates that appear explosively in the Cambrian.