Evolving Eden: an Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Large Mammal Fauna

Abstract

A. Turner, M. Anton. 2004. Evolving Eden: an Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Largemammal Fauna. Columbia University Press, New York, 269 Pp. ISBN 0-231-11944-5, Price (hardbound) $39.50. Africa is rightly celebrated as harboring the world's last surviving megafauna, and today supports more orders of mammals than any other continent. However, until now, the forerunners of this fauna have lurked outside the ken of nonspecialists. Works comparable to Flannery (2001) for North America or Simpson (1980) for South America have been lacking for Africa's Tertiary mammal fauna; instead, interested biologists needed to tackle the technical literature (e.g., Vrba and Schaller 2000). Happily, that void has now been expertly filled. Evolving Eden is a collaboration between a paleontologist (Turner) and an artist (Anton). Turner worked for years at the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, South Africa, contributing much to understanding of carnivore (especially felid) and hominid evolution. Anton is affiliated with the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, and has presented reconstructions of extinct mammals to numerous films, documentaries and books. The present volume is their 2nd together, succeeding The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives: An Illustrated Guide to Their Evolution and Natural History (1997). As in the earlier volume, they sought to develop an accurate visual account of extinct species and the landscapes and communities in which they lived. As noted by Elizabeth Vrba in the Foreword, this is an ambitious book written for both professional and lay audiences. It seeks to relate Africa's past …