No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species
Nearly every species that has lived on earth is extinct. The last of the dinosaurs was wiped out after a Mount Everest-sized meteorite slammed into the earth 65 million years ago. The great flying and marine reptiles are no more. Before humans crossed the Bering Land Bridge some 15,000 years ago, North America was populated by mastodons, mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and cave bears. They too are MIA. The passenger pigeon, once the most numerous bird in North America, is gone forever.\ In No...
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Ellis, a popular American writer and painter on marine natural history, provides a necessarily selective account of how species have gone and are going extinct during the long life of his home planet, both one-by-one and in the great orgies called mass extinctions. He also looks at species today that are either on or have been pulled back from the brink. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Publishers Weekly In his latest book, multitalented marine naturalist Ellis (Imagining Atlantis; The Empty Ocean) broadens his attention from life in the oceans to an examination of the process of animal extinction. Readers will be tantalized by brief descriptions of many odd species some extinct, many endangered. They will learn about the 50-foot-long megatooth shark; the 10-foot-tall duck known as Bullockornis, or "the demon duck of doom"; and the tiny leaf deer of southeast Asia, so named "because it was small enough to wrap its body in a single large leaf." Ellis condenses a century of research and postulation into one comprehensive volume of extinction; additionally, he discusses recently discovered species ("The Anti-Extinctions") and offers future extinction-prevention techniques ("Rescuing Animals from Oblivion"). Even with much compelling material, however, the book is not wholly successful. Although Ellis presents some fascinating theories (among them, he casts doubt on Christianity's placement of "humans confidently perched on the top rung" of the animal ladder), the text as a whole fails to develop a focused message, and lacks the intrigue necessary to sustain reader interest throughout. While certainly a home run on information, this volume proves only a single on entertainment. 70 line drawings. Agent, Carl Brandt. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
IIntroductionExtinction (sort of) explained3Mass extinctions33IIWhere did everybody go?OK, what really happened to the dinosaurs?51The dinosaurs are not extinct after all77Your extinct ancestors91The Pleistocene extinctions95IIIFinaleExtinctions (and nonextinctions) in near time (the last 1,000 years)131Death (and extinction) by disease185Threatened species, or under the gun193The anti-extinctions249Rescuing animals from oblivion269Mammals back from the brink293The oceans327Everybody off the train353
\ BooklistInformative, accessible, and just plain fascinating.\ \ \ \ \ Booklist“Informative, accessible, and just plain fascinating.”\ \ \ Publishers WeeklyIn his latest book, multitalented marine naturalist Ellis (Imagining Atlantis; The Empty Ocean) broadens his attention from life in the oceans to an examination of the process of animal extinction. Readers will be tantalized by brief descriptions of many odd species some extinct, many endangered. They will learn about the 50-foot-long megatooth shark; the 10-foot-tall duck known as Bullockornis, or "the demon duck of doom"; and the tiny leaf deer of southeast Asia, so named "because it was small enough to wrap its body in a single large leaf." Ellis condenses a century of research and postulation into one comprehensive volume of extinction; additionally, he discusses recently discovered species ("The Anti-Extinctions") and offers future extinction-prevention techniques ("Rescuing Animals from Oblivion"). Even with much compelling material, however, the book is not wholly successful. Although Ellis presents some fascinating theories (among them, he casts doubt on Christianity's placement of "humans confidently perched on the top rung" of the animal ladder), the text as a whole fails to develop a focused message, and lacks the intrigue necessary to sustain reader interest throughout. While certainly a home run on information, this volume proves only a single on entertainment. 70 line drawings. Agent, Carl Brandt. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalNoted marine biologist and artist Ellis (Encyclopedia of the Sea) surveys the various causes of extinction of both land and aquatic animals, from disease, climate change, and excessive hunting to evolutionary changes and the impact of large asteroids. The first third of the book summarizes mass-extinction events through geological time, while the remainder deals with individual species that have faced extinction over the last 1000 years. Ellis also includes surprising discoveries of animals previously thought to be eliminated and others whose populations have revived thanks (and no thanks) to human intervention. Readers will find useful the one- to five-page accounts of the more famous extinctions and near-extinctions, including those of the California condor, dodo, giant panda, North American bison, and others. Most accounts contain brief excerpts from popular and scientific sources, which Ellis appears to have read exhaustively. Highly recommended for public and academic natural history collections.-Alvin Hutchinson, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsA terrible and elegant portrait gallery of lost animal souls, including those about to take the off-ramp to extinction and a few brought back from the edge. Extinction is as old as time, notes naturalist Ellis (Aquagenesis, 2001, etc.) with his typically smooth, cautious, and illuminating delivery; not all of it can be explained as the work of "Homo destructivus," though much can be laid at our doorstep, particularly when it comes to recent extinctions. But ancient modes of extinction are far less certain, and the confusion about what might have caused them is exacerbated by the complexity and imprecision of extinction theory. (For instance, what exactly is a species, the most typical taxa used to measure extinction?) Ellis provides an exemplary overview of the debates over extinction's causes-over-kill, over-chill, over-ill (also known as hyper-disease pathogen)-discovering often enough that the same problems that plagued earlier thinkers continue to dog those at work today. He covers the great macroextinctions, but perhaps microextinctions like those of the aurochs to the dusky sea sparrow are more digestible, occurring at a scale that readers can grasp. Accompanied by Ellis's fine-line drawings, the text introduces us to creatures on the brink (rhinos, tigers, saiga, chiru, bilby), those that have staged a comeback (the whooping crane, Spix's macaw), and those that have appeared out of the mists, though believed to be extinct (the coelacanth, the indigo-winged parrot). Of great interest here is the author's discussion on the role of pathogenic, epizootic diseases like emergent viruses (think Ebola, AIDS, Marburg) that could have been as catastrophic as any giant meteor. "Extinction ispart of the evolutionary process (or perhaps evolution is part of the extinction process)," writes Ellis, who takes the necessary next step by identifying the victims and rounding up some of the perps. (70 line drawings)Agency: Brandt & Hochman\ \
