Authors:
- Simplifies a complicated picture of why a particular shape has evolved into its current form
- Provides an interdisciplinary approach that integrates mechanics into biology, anatomy and paleontology
- Presents zoological, primatological and anthropological aspects of functional morphology
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book discusses how and why animals evolved into particular shapes. The book identifies the physical laws which decide over the evolutionary (selective) value of body shape and morphological characters. Comparing the mechanical necessities with morphological details, the author attempts to understand how evolution works, and which sorts of limitations are set by selection.
The book explains morphological traits in more biomechanical detail without getting lost in physics, or in methods. Most emphasis is placed on the proximate question, namely the identification of the mechanical stresses which must be sustained by the respective body parts, when they move the body or its parts against resistance.
In the first part of the book the focus is on ‘primitive’ animals and later on the emphasis shifts to highly specialized mammals. Readers will learn more about living and fossil animals.A section of the book is dedicated to human evolution but not to produce anotherevolutionary tree, nor to refine a former one, but to contribute to answering the question: “WHY early humans have developed their particular body shape".
Authors and Affiliations
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Bochum, Germany
Holger Preuschoft
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Understanding Body Shapes of Animals
Book Subtitle: Shapes as mechanical constructions and Systems moving on minimal energy level
Authors: Holger Preuschoft
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27668-3
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27667-6Published: 29 June 2022
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27670-6Due: 30 July 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-27668-3Published: 28 June 2022
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 581
Number of Illustrations: 222 b/w illustrations
Topics: Animal Anatomy / Morphology / Histology, Paleontology, Vertebrates, Evolutionary Biology, Animal Physiology, Classical Mechanics