The diversity of life is ultimately generated by evolution, and much attention has focused on
the rapid evolution of ecological traits. Yet, the tendency for many ecological traits to instead …

The plant Cannabis sativa has been used by humans for thousands of years because of its
psychoactivity. The major psychoactive ingredient of cannabis is δ9–tetrahydrocannabinol …

In The Genesis of Animal Play, Gordon Burghardt examines the origins and evolution of play
in humans and animals. He asks what play might mean in our understanding of evolution …

Extinctions are normal biological phenomena. Both mass extinctions in geological time and
local extinctions in ecological time are well documented, but rates of extinction have …

Vertebrate palaeontology is a lively field, with new discoveries reported every week... and
not only dinosaurs! This new edition reflects the international scope of vertebrate …

Darwinian Natural Selection t is quite conceiveable," Darwin wrote in his introduction to On
the Origin of Species (1859, p. 3)" that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of …

Mammals are the dominant large animals of today, occurring in virtually every environment.
This book is an account of the remarkable 320 million year long fossil record that documents …

Abstract Squamata (amphisbaenians,“lizards”, mosasaurs, and snakes) is an extremely
diverse clade with a rich fossil record. There is little consensus about the interrelationships …

Amphibian reproductive modes (RMs) have been extensively described and applied to
amphibian biology studies. However, due to new behavioural observations and past system …

The deep sea is the largest habitat on earth. Its three great faunal environments–the twilight
mesopelagic zone, the dark bathypelagic zone and the vast flat expanses of the benthic …