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Before the Backbone

Views on the origin of the vertebrates

  • Book
  • © 1996

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Authors:
  1. Henry Gee
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Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xx
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  2. Introduction

    Pages 1-83

  3. The origins of vertebrates

    Pages 84-159

  4. Head to head

    Pages 160-200

  5. Jefferies’ Calcichordate Theory

    Pages 201-286

  6. Conclusions

    Pages 287-303

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 305-346
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Keywords

About this book

We cannot catechise our stony ichthyolites, as did the necromantic lady of the Arabian Nights did the coloured fishes of the lake which had once been a city, when she touched their dead bodies with her wand, and they straightaway raised their heads and rephed to her queries. We would have many a question to ask them if we could - questions never to be solved. Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone When I started this book in 1991, the subject of vertebrate origins was fusty and unfashionable. Early drafts for this preface read like an extend­ ed complaint at the lot of traditional morphologists, cast aside by the march of modern molecular biology. But no longer - this book should reach you at a time of renewed inter­ est in the origin of the vertebrates, our own particular corner of creation. For although the topic has excited interest for well over a century, molec­ ular biology has only lately achieved the maturity necessary to test its predictions. As a legitimate field of study, it is fashionable again.

Reviews

Henry Gee has admirably mastered a formidable library of scattered reference to bring this timely book together...Palaeontologists, zoologists and geneticists should read this book and learn from it. - Endeavour
The book is a true mine of information. - Ethology Ecology & Evolution
Before the Backbone is certainly a valuable addition to my bookshelf, and I commend it to all of those interested in vertebrates in particular or in metazoan phylogeny as a whole. - Geological Magazine

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Before the Backbone

  • Book Subtitle: Views on the origin of the vertebrates

  • Authors: Henry Gee

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-25272-8

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Henry Gee 1996

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-412-48300-4Published: 31 August 1996

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-94-017-3778-4Published: 13 November 2013

  • eBook ISBN: 978-0-585-25272-8Published: 27 July 2007

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XX, 346

  • Topics: Evolutionary Biology, Paleontology, Zoology

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