The Variety of Life A Survey and a Celebration of All the Creatures That Have Ever Lived |
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| Author:
| Tudge, Colin |
| ISBN: | 978-0-19-850311-8 |
| Publication Date: | May 2000 |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press, Incorporated
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | USD $60.00 |
Book Description:
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A magnificently illustrated, highly readable and authoritative account of all creatures, alive and extinct. How is it possible to summarize such a huge number? By classification: the book does not of course describe every individual species, but it does show all principal groups to which all living things belong. Far from being a dull pursuit, the modern craft and science of classification takes us into some of the most intriguing and intricate areas of biological philosophy and...
More DescriptionA magnificently illustrated, highly readable and authoritative account of all creatures, alive and extinct. How is it possible to summarize such a huge number? By classification: the book does not of course describe every individual species, but it does show all principal groups to which all living things belong. Far from being a dull pursuit, the modern craft and science of classification takes us into some of the most intriguing and intricate areas of biological philosophy and technique, in which new studies of extraordinary fossils and of DNA plucked from the wild all play their part. We are entering a new phase of biology in which, for the first time, biologists can feel reasonably confident that they now have insight into life's true diversity, and that they have the methods required to keep track of it.The Variety of Life heralds this new phase. Here is the book that everyone who is interested in living things must own, from general readers to professional biologists.