A sterling example of scientific storytelling that is sure to be an instant classic, The Rise and Fall of the Mammalsillustrates how this incredible history laid the foundation for today’s world, for us, and our future. This story was updated on June 28, 2022, to correct that the hammer and anvil are bones of the middle ear, not inner ear. They might have been casual acquaintances, which occasionally met on the fringes of their ranges, where the Mammoth Steppe gave way to more temperate biomes. It is in Africa that hominids would get their start in walking and tool making and began to spread throughout the world.

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History [PDF] [EPUB] The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History

In his acclaimed and bestselling The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs(“A masterpiece of science writing. Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. The book closes with a look at the current extinction crisis being faced by mammals (and other animals). With a head like a horse, a body resembling a giant bear and possessing huge, clawed knuckles upon which it walked like a gorilla, Anisodon looks like a figure from Greek mythology. For what we see today is but a very limited range of the mammals that have existed; in this fascinating and ground-breaking book, Steve Brusatte tells their – and our – story.

The macroevolutionary story is fascinating in itself, yet Brusatte makes it even better with some interesting observations of his own. While I never had a childhood obsession with dinosaurs, every fossil discovery presented in this book excited me and genuinely piqued my interest in paleontology. You can read this before The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us PDF EPUB full Download at the bottom. These survivors garnered new adaptations: their lower jaw changed from having a collection of bones to just one, and a new type of joint emerged – long thought the hallmark of true mammals. It was precisely this sort of lifestyle of course, that allowed (a few) mammals to survive the asteroid strike and to proliferate once the world had recovered, and with dinosaurs out of the way.

mammals came to rule ‘Dinosaurs are not us’: book reveals how mammals came to rule

This small lizardlike creature evolved into two major lineages, one eventually becoming reptiles (including birds), the other mammals.

Three lovely mammoths, a sabretooth, a short nosed bear, assorted grazers, and a small group of hominids. The book continues with the fairly well-known story of how mammals evolved during the Age of Dinosaurs, mostly occupying the ecological niche of small and often burrowing animals, many of them insectivores and mainly active at night, with dinosaurs taking up all the daytime slots. Another great overview by Steve Brusatte (if you have not yet read The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, I highly recommend that you do).

THE RISE AND REIGN OF THE MAMMALS | Kirkus Reviews THE RISE AND REIGN OF THE MAMMALS | Kirkus Reviews

The vestigial bones were repurposed, becoming tiny bones in the middle ear commonly known as the hammer and anvil – a radical development that super-charged hearing. Now, picking up the story in the ashes of the extinction event that doomed T-rex and his kind, Brusatte explores the remarkable story of the family of animals that inherited the Earth: mammals.

I have the paper version of the book as well, and I know its many illustrations will help me on a future re-read. I absolutely ADORED Steve Brusatte's last book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World, which came out in 2018. In The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, palaeontologist Steve Brusatte weaves together the history and evolution of our mammal forebears with stories of the scientists whose fieldwork and discoveries underlie our knowledge, both of iconic mammals like the mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers of which we have all heard, and of fascinating species that few of us are aware of. It is like a chatty literature review in which he recommends books and papers, indicates where literature has become outdated, adds more technical details or clarifications, discusses where there is active debate and disagreement, and shortly touches on topics that he had to omit from the main narrative. It is so humbling to read the story of mammals in just over 500 pages and to realize what a small part of global history we are and how unfairly large our impact has been.