Download or read book Spying on Whales written by Nick Pyenson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A palaeontological howdunnit…[Spying on Whales] captures the excitement of…seeking answers to deep questions in cetacean science.” —Nature Called “the best of science writing” (Edward O. Wilson) and named a best book by Popular Science, a dive into the secret lives of whales, from their four-legged past to their perilous present. Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-sized creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and travel entire ocean basins. Whales fill us with terror, awe, and affection--yet there is still so much we don't know about them. Why did it take whales over 50 million years to evolve to such big sizes, and how do they eat enough to stay that big? How did their ancestors return from land to the sea--and what can their lives tell us about evolution as a whole? Importantly, in the sweepstakes of human-driven habitat and climate change, will whales survive? Nick Pyenson's research has given us the answers to some of our biggest questions about whales. He takes us deep inside the Smithsonian's unparalleled fossil collections, to frigid Antarctic waters, and to the arid desert in Chile, where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whale site ever found. Full of rich storytelling and scientific discovery, Spying on Whales spans the ancient past to an uncertain future--all to better understand the most enigmatic creatures on Earth.
Download or read book 50 Million Years of Whales written by Ted Rechlin and published by Rextooth Studios. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dinosaur was the largest animal to exist on Earth, right? Wrong! The largest animal in Earth's 4.7-billion-year history exists today: the enormous Blue Whale that swims the oceans. Come along on an evolutionary journey of 50 million years as we learn other remarkable facts and follow the ancestors of today's cetaceans from the time they crawled out of the oceans and then back to become the magnificent beasts we admire in every ocean on our planet earth. The whales' journey has not been a smooth one, but it is a magnificent story. Award-winning author and illustrator Ted Rechlin (Lions and Tigers, Sue, Jurassic) takes the reader on this journey using his engaging and dynamic graphic novel style to entertain and enlighten readers. 50 Million Years of Whales is an eye-opening look at the long and fascinating story of whales. Appropriate for ages 6 and up.
Download or read book The Walking Whales written by J. G. M. Hans Thewissen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-04-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A ... first-person account of the discoveries that brought to light the early fossil record of whales. As evidenced in the record, whales evolved from herbivorous forest-dwelling ancestors that resembled tiny deer to carnivorous monsters stalking lakes and rivers and to serpentlike denizens of the coast. Thewissen reports on his discoveries in the wilds of India and Pakistan, weaving a narrative that reveals the day-to-day adventures of fossil collection, enriching it with local flavors from South Asian culture and society"--Dust jacket flap.
Download or read book When the Whales Walked written by Dougal Dixon and published by . This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moment life crawled out of the oceans and onto land, to when our primate ancestors climbed down from the trees, the history of Planet Earth is filled with incredible stories. This beautifully illustrated guide explores some of the most exciting and incredible events in evolution, through 13 case studies. Step back in time and discover a world where whales once walked, crocodiles were warm-blooded, and snakes had legs! Meet terrifying giant birds, and tiny elephants living on islands in this fascinating creature guide like no other. Learn how whales once walked on four legs before taking to the oceans; how dinosaurs evolved into birds; and how the first cats were small and lived in trees. Featuring a stunning mix of annotated illustrations, illustrated scenes, and family trees, evolution is explained here in a captivating and novel style that will make children look at animals in a whole new way.
Download or read book The Rise of Marine Mammals written by Annalisa Berta and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling look at the evolutionary history of marine mammals over the past 50 million years. Marine mammals have long captured the attention of humans. Ancient peoples etched seals and dolphins on the walls of Paleolithic caves; today, engineers develop microprocessors to track these denizens of the deep. This groundbreaking book from highly respected marine mammal paleontologist Annalisa Berta delves into the story of the extraordinary adaptations that gave the world these amazing animals. The Rise of Marine Mammals reveals remarkable fossil record discoveries that shed light on the origins, relationships, and diversification of marine mammals. Focusing on evolution and paleobiology, Berta provides an overview of marine mammal species diversity, enhanced with gorgeous life restorations by Carl Buell, Robert Boessenecker, William Stout, and Ray Troll and extensive line drawings by graphics editor James L. Sumich. The book also considers ongoing conservation challenges, demonstrating how the fossil record of adaptation in response to past environmental shifts may illuminate the way that marine mammals respond to global climate change. This invaluable evolutionary framework is essential for helping us understand how best to protect and conserve today’s polar bears, whales, dolphins, seals, and fellow warm-blooded ocean dwellers. The Rise of Marine Mammals also describes exciting breakthroughs that rely on new techniques of study, including 3-D imaging, and molecular, finite element, and morphometric analyses, which have enhanced scientists’ understanding of everything from the anatomy of fetal whales to the genes behind limb loss in cetaceans. Mammalogists, paleontologists, and marine scientists will find Berta’s insights absorbing, while developmental and molecular biologists, geneticists, and ecologists exploring integrative research approaches will benefit from her fresh perspective.
Download or read book Beautiful Whale written by Bryant Austin and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVPhotographer and conservationist Bryant Austin’s breathtaking photographic project Beautiful Whale is the first of its kind: It chronicles his fearless attempts to reach out to whales as fellow sentient beings. Featuring Austin’s intimate images—some as detailed as a single haunting eye—that result from encounters based on mutual trust, Beautiful Whale captures the grace and intelligence of these magnificent creatures. Austin spent days at a time submerged, motionless, in the waters of remote spawning grounds waiting for humpback, sperm, and minke whales to seek him out. As oceanographer Sylvia A. Earle says in her foreword to the book, “As an ambassador from the ocean—and to the ocean—Bryant Austin is not only a source of inspiration. He is cause for hope.†? Praise for Beautiful Whale: “You can’t help thinking, with every passing page, that this is what’s it’s like to swim with the whales.†? —The Wall Street Journal /div
Download or read book The Rise of Marine Mammals written by Annalisa Berta and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Setting the stage : rocks, fossils and evolution -- The oldest marine mammals : whales and sea cows -- Later diverging whales : Neoceti -- Aquatic carnivores : pinnipeds and a bear-like carnivoran -- Crown sirenians and their desmostylian relatives -- Aquatic sloths and recent occupants of the sea-sea otters and polar bears -- Diversity changes through time : the influence of climate change and humans
Download or read book Spying on Whales written by Nick Pyenson and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection - yet we know hardly anything about them.
Download or read book Sharks written by Ted Rechlin and published by Sweetgrass Books. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Action! Science! Amazing Art! Epic Showdowns! Experience the history of planet earth as seen through the eyes of the coolest sharks of past and present in this thrilling graphic novel adventure!
From the mind of Ted Rechlin, author and illustrator of Jurassic and Dinosaurs Live! comes the thrilling new epoch-spanning adventure Sharks, a life-science graphic novel adventure. Sharks have been cruising our planet's waters for millions of years. They were here long before humanity and even pre-date the dinosaurs. Rechlin weaves a captivating history of strange and ancient shark species while sharing insights into the distant past of life on Earth. The amazing and action-packed art teaches readers of all ages how these legendary ocean dwellers got their start - and how they developed into the sharks we know today. Educational, fascinating, and beautifully produced, this is the perfect book for budding marine biologists, comic fans, and enthusiasts of these ancient apex predators of the deep.
> Newest installment in series of educational, IMAX-style adventure comics that includes Tyrannosaurus Rex, Bears, Jurassic and more.
> 96 Action-packed pages featuring Megladon, Helicoprion, Xenacanthus, Great Whits, and more!
> High Plains Book Award nominated author/illustrator
> Author available for interviews, presentations, and singings upon request
> Full-color illustrations engage readers ages 6 and up in a beautiful hardbound format.
Download or read book Wild Blue written by Dan Bortolotti and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-10-14 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The blue whale holds the title of largest creature that has ever lived, and it may also be the most mysterious. The biggest blue whales can outweigh every player in Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League combined. Their mouths can gulp more than thirteen thousand gallons of seawater. A newborn can be over twenty feet long and gain nearly twenty tons in seven months—about eight pounds per hour. Blue whales emit more powerful sounds than any other animal on earth, though many of their vocalizations are beyond the range of human hearing. Yet nearly everything that we have learned about blue whales has come after humans almost wiped them out from the oceans. A century ago, some three hundred thousand roamed the seas. But in the first decades of the twentieth century, humans hunted and killed 99.9% of them. Their numbers decimated, the species seemed destined for extinction. Only in recent years has the number slowly begun to increase, along with hope for the blue whale's future. Equal parts history and science, Wild Blue is the first comprehensive portrait of the blue whale. It draws upon new findings from scientists who have begun to identify individual blue whales and understand how they dive, how they feed, where they migrate, and why they emit their haunting, low-frequency calls. With deft, poignant writing, Dan Bortolotti gives us the most vibrant, breathtaking view to date of these magnificent creatures.
Download or read book The Great Sperm Whale written by Richard Ellis and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2011-04-06 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past several decades, Richard Ellis has produced a remarkable body of work that has been called "magnificent" (Washington Post Book World), "masterful" (Scientific American), "magical" (Men's Journal), and a "dazzling tour de force" (Christian Science Monitor). Ellis's new book-a fascinating tour through the world of the sperm whale-will surely inspire more such praise for the author heralded by Publisher Weekly as "America's foremost writer on marine research." Written with Ellis's deep knowledge and trademark passion, verve, and wit-and illustrated with a wide array of images including his own signature artwork-his study covers the full spectrum of the sperm whale's existence from its prehistoric past to its current endangered existence. Ellis, as no one else can, illuminates the iconic impact of Physeter macrocephalus ("big-headed blower") on our history, environment, and culture, with a substantial nod to Herman Melville and Moby-Dick, the great novel that put the sperm whale (and whaling) on the literary map. Ranging far and wide, Ellis covers the sperm whale's evolution, ecology, biology, anatomy, behavior, social organization, intelligence, communications, migrations, diet, and breeding. He also devotes considerable space to the whale's hunting prowess, including its clashes with the giant squid, and to the history of the whaling industry that decimated its numbers during the last two centuries. He even includes a story about a beached juvenile he helped rescue, an event that provided scientists with one of their first opportunities to observe a sperm whale in the water and up close. Offering a rich tapestry for anyone with an interest in the marvels of ocean life, Ellis's book provides an indispensable guide to the life and times of one of the planet's most intelligent, elusive, and endangered species.
Download or read book At the Water s Edge written by Carl Zimmer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-09-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everybody Out of the Pond At the Water's Edge will change the way you think about your place in the world. The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.
Download or read book Fluke written by Christopher Moore and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Readers new to the work of Christopher Moore will want to know two things immediately. First: Where has this guy been hiding? (Answer: In plain sight, since he has a cult following.)...[H]e writes laid back fables straight out of Margaritaville, on the cusp of humor and science fiction.”—Janet Maslin, New York Times Whale researcher Nathan Quinn has a problem. It’s not a new problem; in fact, it’s been around for nearly 20 million years. And Nate’s spent most of his adult life working to solve it. You see, although everybody (well, almost everybody) knows that humpback whales sing (outside of human composition, the most complex songs on the planet) no one knows why. Nate, a Ph.D. in behavior biology, intends to discover the answer to this burning question—and soon. Every winter he and Clay Demolocus, his partner in the Maui Whale Research Foundation, ply the warm waters between the islands of Maui and Lanai, recording the eerily beautiful songs of the humpbacks and returning to their lab for electronic analysis. The trouble is, Nate’s beginning to wonder if he hasn’t spent just a little too much time in the sun. Either that, or he’s losing his mind. Because today, as he was shooting an I.D. photo of a humpback tail fluke, Nate could’ve sworn he saw the words “Bite Me” scrawled across the whale’s tail. . .
Download or read book Blue Whales and Other Baleen Whales written by Christina Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions and answers explore the world of animals.
Download or read book Draw 50 Endangered Animals written by Lee J. Ames and published by Watson-Guptill. This book was released on 2013-02-12 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Draw 50 Endangered Animals teaches artists of all levels how to draw with ease by following simple, step-by-step examples. Celebrated author Lee J. Ames has brought together an assortment of animals whose numbers are threatened, including classic favorites such as the giant panda, the humpback whale, and the Asian elephant. However, you'll also find animals you may never have heard of, like the vicuña, Przewalski's horse, and the Everglade snail kite. Ames's drawing method has proven successful for children and adults of all ages over the past 40 years. The 31 books in the Draw 50 series have sold more than three million copies and have shown artists, from the beginner to advanced levels, how to draw everything from animals to airplanes. It's easy to cherish our feathered, furry, and scaly friends when it's done the Draw 50 way.
Download or read book Why Evolution is True written by Jerry A. Coyne and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection. Yet, as this succinct and important book shows, that evidence is vast, varied, and magnificent, and drawn from many disparate fields of science. The very latest research is uncovering a stream of evidence revealing evolution in action - from the actual observation of a species splitting into two, to new fossil discoveries, to the deciphering of the evidence stored in our genome. Why Evolution is True weaves together the many threads of modern work in genetics, palaeontology, geology, molecular biology, anatomy, and development to demonstrate the 'indelible stamp' of the processes first proposed by Darwin. It is a crisp, lucid, and accessible statement that will leave no one with an open mind in any doubt about the truth of evolution.
Download or read book Fathoms written by Rebecca Giggs and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction * Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A “delving, haunted, and poetic debut” (The New York Times Book Review) about the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship with other species. When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. Fathoms: The World in the Whale is “a work of bright and careful genius” (Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails), one that blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? How has whale culture been both understood and changed by human technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life on earth? In Fathoms, we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover how plastic pollution pervades our earth’s undersea environment. With the immediacy of Rachel Carson and the lush prose of Annie Dillard, Giggs gives us a “masterly” (The New Yorker) exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis. With depth and clarity, she outlines the challenges we face as we attempt to understand the perspectives of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet. Evocative and inspiring, Fathoms “immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental writing” (Literary Hub).
