Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Berta, Annalisa, author

Title Return to the sea : the life and evolutionary times of marine mammals / Annalisa Berta ; illustrated by James L. Sumich and Carl Buell
Edition 1st ed
Published Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2012

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xiii, 205 pages) : illustrations, maps
Contents Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication Page; Table of Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1. Marine Mammals; Major Groups of Marine Mammals; Discovering, Naming, and Classifying Marine Mammals; Reconstructing the Hierarchy of Marine Mammals; Adaptations and Exaptations; What is a Species and how do New Species Form?; Where do they Live and why are they where they are?; Chapter 2. Past Diversity in Time and Space, Paleoclimates, and Paleoecology; Fossils and Taphonomy; The Discovery of the First Fossil Marine Mammal (a Whale); The Importance of Fossils
How do we Know the Age of a Fossil?How do we Know where Marine Mammals were?; Marine Mammal Diversity and Communities through Time; What Led Marine Mammals Back to the Sea?; Chapter 3. Pinniped Diversity, Evolution, and Adaptations; The Earliest Pinnipeds: Webbed Feet or Flippers?; Crown Pinnipeds; Desmatophocids: Extinct Phocid Relatives; Evolutionary Trends; Structural and Functional Innovations and Adaptations; Mating and Social Systems, Reproduction, and Life History; Chapter 4. Cetartiodactylan Diversity, Evolution, and Adaptations; Early Whales Had Legs!; Crown Cetacea (Neoceti)
Evolutionary TrendsStructural and Functional Innovations and Adaptations; Mating and Social Systems, Reproduction, and Life History; Chapter 5. Diversity, Evolution, and Adaptations of Sirenians and Other Marine Mammals; Walking Sea Cows!; Crown Sirenia; Evolutionary Trends; Structural and Functional Innovations and Adaptations; Mating and Social Systems, Reproduction and Life History; Desmostylians; Aquatic Sloths; Marine Otters; Polar Bears; Chapter 6. Ecology and Conservation; What Marine Mammals Eat and what Eats them; Interactions between Human and Marine Mammals: Lessons Learned
Extinction: The Rule, not the ExceptionGlossary; Further Reading and Online Sources; Illustration Credits; Index
Summary The life and evolutionary times of marine mammals, from giant whales and sea cows that originated 55 million years ago whose ancestors walked on land, to deep diving elephant seals and clam-eating walruses of modern times
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Subject Marine mammals -- Evolution
Marine animals -- Evolution
NATURE -- Animals -- Mammals.
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Zoology -- Mammals.
Meer
Anpassung
Meeresökologie
Meeressäugetiere
Landtiere
Evolutionsbiologie
Evolution
Säugetiere
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2011052056
ISBN 9780520951440
0520951441
9781280593307
128059330X
9786613623133
661362313X
9780520355521
0520355520