Age Of Mammals Chapter Summary

Chapter One: The author grew up in Kenya, a place which developed his love of nature and all the flora and fauna within it and provided a chance for that love to grow. His parents were both passionate naturalists, especially his father. He was taught to love fossils because of his parents love for them. Because of being raised in the wild, he has always been drawn to it. When he was younger, he would sell bones to museums. This job helped him to prepare for his future specialty in paleoanthropology. He has taken on many leadership roles in this field, one being the director of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Department. He says that life is all about change and that change is a good thing. He says humans are causing this …show more content…
Scientists estimate that the Cambrian explosion lasted for as little as 5 to 10 million years. That’s very brief in the earth’s history. This chapter focused on the nature of the Cambrian explosion and how it challenged what the traditional concept for earth’s history was. Mammals make up a very, very small percent of life on earth. While the current geological age is called the Age of Mammals, this is not very accurate. If the goal was to be an accurate representation of the life on earth at this time, they would call this age the Age of Arthropods. Arthropods make up about 40 percent of all life on earth. The Cambrian explosion has an unmatched fecundity. Scientists wonder why this is. There are two reasons that they believe may answer their questions. The first reason being that times were simple back then and the earth offered a diverse possibility for ecological expansion for many new species. This reason states that this can’t happen again because the world will never be that empty again. This goes along with the idea of Darwinism. The bursts of life after the Permian extinction quantitatively matched up with the Cambrian explosion, but not qualitatively. The second reason is that genetic changes were more “acceptable” back during the time of the Cambrian explosion. Now, genomes are very intricate and changes are less tolerated. These loosely organized genomes could have affected the species turnover rate. Life back in the Cambrian times could be described as something out of a science fiction movie. Many life forms from this time were found underwater in Pompeii-like situations. These new fossils included many organisms, including arthropods. Some species could not be matched to an existing phyla. All existing phyla were created during the Cambrian explosion. There is also a sense of randomness that helps create the history of