| Description |
1 online resource (xxii, 255 pages) |
| Contents |
A sphinx in Arcady -- The country of dried skin -- A cactus heresy -- The creator's dumping ground -- An evolutionary backwater -- Anti-Darwinian Lacertilians -- Descriptive confusion -- A murderous brood -- Hopeful monsters -- An Old Earth-feature -- A climatic accident -- An evolutionary frontier -- A neo-Darwinian Galapagos -- Mexican geneses -- Desert relicts -- Madro-tertiary attitudes -- A friendly land -- Furry paleontologists -- Dawn horses and dinosaurs -- Axelrod antagonists -- The midday sun -- Lacertilian ambiguities -- Xerothermic invasions -- Sand swimmers -- Axelrod ascendant -- An evolutionary museum -- The riddle of the palms -- Bushes and camels -- Axelrod askew -- Paradigms postponed -- The falcon and the shrikes |
| Summary |
Drawing from his frequent forays to Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, Kelso Dunes, and other locales, the author illuminates the desert's intriguing flora and fauna as he explores a controversial, unresolved scientific debate about the origin and evolution of its unusual ecosystems. Eminent scientists and scholars appear throughout these pages, including maverick paleobiologist Daniel Axelrod, botanist Ledyard Stebbins, and naturalists Edmund Jaeger and Joseph Wood Krutch. Weaving together ecology, geology, natural history, and mythology in his characteristically eloquent voice, the author reveals that there is more to this starkly beautiful landscape than meets the eye |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Desert biology -- California
|
|
Deserts -- California.
|
|
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Biological Diversity.
|
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SCIENCE -- Paleontology.
|
|
Desert biology
|
|
Deserts
|
|
Wüste.
|
|
Ökologie.
|
|
California
|
|
Kalifornien.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780520948662 |
|
0520948661 |
|
1283277794 |
|
9781283277792 |
|
