Mammals: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

John's College, Oxford, and a widely respected expert on the evolution of mammals. He is the author of several books widely used by students, including The Origin and Evolution of Mammals (OUP, 2005), and The Origin of Higher Taxa (OUP, 2015).. Tom Kemp is Emeritus Researc

Yet others evolved tobe specialist termite eaters able to dig into the hardest mounds, or tunnel creating burrowers, and a few took to the skies as gliders and the bats. Many species are still small, and follow the lifestyle of the ancestor, but others have adapted to become large grazers and browsers, like the antelopes, cattle, rhinos, and elephants, or the lions, hyaenas, and wolves that prey upon them. S. Kemp explains how it is a tenfold increase in metabolic rate - endothermy or. Many live partly in the water, such as otters, beavers, and hippos, while whales and dugongs remain permanently in the seas, incapable of ever emergingonto land.In this Very Short Introduction T. From a modest beginning in the form of a little shrew-like, nocturnal, insect eating ancestor that lived 200 million years ago, mammals evolved into the huge variety of different kinds of animals we see today

I very much recommend this concise book as an apt introduction to the palaeobiology of our own peculiar branch on the Tree of Life * Dr Robert Asher, Curator of Vertebrates, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge * . Tom Kemp is the world's senior authority on the origin and evolution of mammals, and an excellent writer to boot