An unforgettable journey into our ancient past, containing powerful lessons to learn about our future.Today there are 20 million species on our planet. Yet what we see is just a snapshot in time. 99% of earth's inhabitants are lost to our deep past. The story of what happened to these lineages—their rise and their fall—is truly remarkable.Accompanying the ground-breaking Netflix series, Life on our Planet uses the latest technology to bring long-extinct creatures back to life. It tells the story of life's epic battle to conquer and survive on Earth, showing in a new light what's been lost to us, and how life's future is now being written by us. From ancient ocean worlds and plant life's first forays onto land, to the rise and fall of the dinosaurs and the devastation of the last Ice Age, this is a sweeping view of evolution, through five extinctions and, with the arrival of humans on earth, the beginning of the sixth...With over 200 photos and images from the series created by the team behind the original Planet Earth series, including remarkable CGI reconstructions, this is an unforgettable journey into our ancient past, containing powerful lessons to learn about our future. Read more

Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024 A gorgeously composed look at the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on EarthFossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root show us that dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and even humans would not exist without the evolutionary efforts of their leafy counterparts. It has been the constant growth of plants that have allowed so many of our favorite, fascinating prehistoric creatures to evolve, oxygenating the atmosphere, coaxing animals onto land, and forming the forests that shaped our ancestors’ anatomy. It is impossible to understand our history without them. Or, our future.Using the same scientifically informed narrative technique that listeners loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black brings us back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides listeners along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press. Read more

New from the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (“A masterpiece of science writing.” —Washington Post) and “one of the stars of modern paleontology” (National Geographic), a sweeping and revelatory history of mammals, illuminating the lost story of the extraordinary family tree that led to us.We humans are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals. Our lineage includes saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, armadillos the size of a car, cave bears three times the weight of a grizzly, clever scurriers that outlasted Tyrannosaurus rex, and even other types of humans, like Neanderthals. Indeed humankind and many of the beloved fellow mammals we share the planet with today—lions, whales, dogs—represent only the few survivors of a sprawling and astonishing family tree that has been pruned by time and mass extinctions. How did we get here?In his acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs—hailed as “the ultimate dinosaur biography” by Scientific American—American paleontologist Steve Brusatte enchanted readers with his definitive history of the dinosaurs. Now, picking up the narrative in the ashes of the extinction event that doomed T-rex and its kind, Brusatte explores the remarkable story of the family of animals that inherited the Earth—mammals— and brilliantly reveals that their story is every bit as fascinating and complex as that of the dinosaurs.Beginning with the earliest days of our lineage some 325 million years ago, Brusatte charts how mammals survived the asteroid that claimed the dinosaurs and made the world their own, becoming the astonishingly diverse range of animals that dominate today’s Earth. Brusatte also brings alive the lost worlds mammals inhabited through time, from ice ages to volcanic catastrophes. Entwined in this story is the detective work he and other scientists have done to piece together our understanding using fossil clues and cutting-edge technology.A sterling example of scientific storytelling by one of our finest young researchers, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals illustrates how this incredible history laid the foundation for today’s world, for us, and our future.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

2022 Library Journal Best Books of the Year, Long-listedIn The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks listeners through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just don’t know it yet.The cause of this disaster was identified decades ago. An asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanished seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life on Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years.A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press Read more

The story of our world and the different living things that have populated it is an amazing epic with millions of species, exotic settings, planet-wide cataclysms, and surprising plot twists. These 36 lectures tell the all-embracing story of life on Earth - its origins, extinctions, and evolutions - in a manner that assumes no background in science. At half an hour per lecture, you’ll cover the entire 4.54-billion-year history of Earth in 18 hours, averaging 70,000 years per second! Professor Sutherland notes that if the story of Earth is compared to the height of the Washington Monument, then all of human history is the thickness of a sheet of paper balanced at the top. He devotes most of these lectures to the incredible happenings beneath that piece of paper, including stirring episodes such as Earth’s “snowball” phase, which should have been permanent according to some theories; the Cambrian explosion, after which life’s complexity soared in an explosion of genetic diversification; and the age of giant insects, where dragonflies had 30-inch wingspans and cockroaches reached 20 inches in length. By the time you reach the origin of humans in Lecture 35, you’ll appreciate our species in the widest possible context. Why does the Earth have continents? What causes periodic mass extinctions? How did animals move from water to land? What are the oldest fossils? Experience the thrill of scientists searching for answers to questions such as these. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

A behind-the-scenes account of the discovery of the oldest skeleton of a human ancestor, named "Ardi"—a find that shook the world of paleoanthropology and radically altered our understanding of human evolution. In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White—"the Steve Jobs of paleoanthropology"—uncovered the bones of a human ancestor in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus, was 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than "Lucy," then the oldest known human ancestor. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution—how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today's chimpanzee—and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy.Fossil Men is the first full-length exploration of Ardi, the fossil men who found her, and her impact on what we know about the origins of the human species. It is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body. Kermit Pattison brings into focus a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including one of the world's greatest fossil hunters, Tim White—an exacting and unforgiving fossil hunter whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant who sometimes didn't bother going home at night to devote more hours to science; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia's most senior paleoanthropologist and who fought for African scientists to gain equal footing in the study of human origins; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paleoanthropology.An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa and a nation caught in a brutal civil war, to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must-listen for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

Bigger and Better, Updated and Expanded We live in a golden age of paleontological discovery―on average, we find one new dinosaur species per week. The most fascinating among them take their place in this updated edition of Dinosaurs―The Grand Tour; from Aardonyx, a lumbering beast that formed a link between two- and four-legged dinosaurs, to Zuniceratops, who boasted a deadly pair of horns. Here, you’ll find everything worth knowing about every dinosaur worth knowing―more than 300 in all, including: Amphibious Halszkaraptor looks like no other dinosaur we’ve found―with a head and body the size of a duck’s, sharp claws . . . and a swanlike neck.Longer than a blue whale and three times taller than a giraffe, Patagotitan is a newly discovered contender for “biggest dinosaur ever.”The speedy little feathered predator Stenonychosaurus was an anatomical marvel, with retractable claws, asymmetrical ears for advanced hearing, incredible night vision, and a huge brain.Oviraptor―whose name means “egg thief “―doesn’t deserve its bad rap. This specimen from 1923 is now proven to have been sitting by its own eggs―not stealing another’s.Sinornithosaurus prove that dinosaurs shed their skin the same way that humans do, rather than sloughing it off all at once like a snake. At-a-glance sidebars put each dinosaur’s diet, size, and location at your fingertips. Stories of harrowing expeditions conjure the thrills of history’s most famous dinosaur hunters. Highlights from recent research reveal what’s new in paleontology today, including scientists’ evolving idea of what dinosaurs actually looked like. (Hint: They were more colorful―and feathery!―than we ever thought before.) And illustrations on virtually every page bring these prehistoric creatures to life in all their glory. Color illustrations throughout Read more

"[An] extraordinary book . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."-James Gleick, New York Times Book ReviewHigh in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It holds the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book, Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history. Read more

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST, THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT [UK], BLOOMBERG, AND WATERSTONES“Vivid with a Mesozoic bestiary” (Tom Holland), this on-the-ground, page-turning narrative weaves together the chance discovery of dinosaurs and the rise of the secular age.When the twelve-year-old daughter of a British carpenter pulled some strange-looking bones from the country’s southern shoreline in 1811, few people dared to question that the Bible told the accurate history of the world. But Mary Anning had in fact discovered the “first” ichthyosaur, and over the next seventy-five years—as the science of paleontology developed, as Charles Darwin posited radical new theories of evolutionary biology, and as scholars began to identify the internal inconsistencies of the Scriptures—everything changed. Beginning with the archbishop who dated the creation of the world to 6 p.m. on October 22, 4004 BC, and told through the lives of the nineteenth-century men and women who found and argued about these seemingly impossible, history-rewriting fossils, Impossible Monsters reveals the central role of dinosaurs and their discovery in toppling traditional religious authority, and in changing perceptions about the Bible, history, and mankind’s place in the world. Read more

A top researcher proposes a controversial new theory of human evolution in a book “combining the thrill of a novel with a remarkable depth of perspective” (Nature).In this groundbreaking and engaging work of science, world-renowned paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer sets out a new theory of humanity’s origin, challenging both the multiregionalists (who hold that modern humans developed from ancient ancestors in different parts of the world) and his own “out of Africa” theory, which maintains that humans emerged rapidly in one small part of Africa and then spread to replace all other humans within and outside the continent. Stringer’s new theory, based on archeological and genetic evidence, holds that distinct humans coexisted and competed across the African continent—exchanging genes, tools, and behavioral strategies.Stringer draws on analyses of old and new fossils from around the world, DNA studies of Neanderthals (using the full genome map) and other species, and recent archeological digs to unveil his new theory. He shows how the most sensational recent fossil findings fit with his model, and he questions previous concepts (including his own) of modernity and how it evolved.With photographs included, Lone Survivors will be the definitive account of who and what we were—and will change perceptions about our origins and about what it means to be human.“An essential book for anyone interested in psychology, sociology, anthropology, human evolution, or the scientific process.” —Library Journal“Highlights just how many tantalizing discoveries and analytical advances have enriched the field in recent years.” —Literary Review Read more

"An insightful and informative meander through the evolution of dinosaurs and other extinct species, with a touch of personal flair.”—Steve Brusatte, professor and paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs An enrapturing tale of the age of the dinosaurs, tracing their earliest origins, their astounding two-hundred-million-year reign and their infamous demise Dinosaurs. No other class of animals captures the hearts of both children and adults alike. Paleontologist Armin Schmitt brings us a firsthand account of the latest research on dinosaurs and their lives millions of years ago, including his spectacular global excavations and fascinating discoveries in the field. With the help of cutting-edge technology and unbelievable new finds, the age-old tale of the dinosaurs is now revitalized for the very first time, complete with astonishing illustrations by Ben Rennen that help us imagine dinosaurs like never before. Though we’re all familiar with popular dinosaurs such as the renowned Tyrannosaurus rex—every dino fan’s favorite—Schmitt answers the questions we’ve all been asking, such as:What is excavating at a dig site like?Why did birds survive the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous, unlike the rest of the dinosaurs?How has the field of paleontology changed since the Bone Wars?Does climate change and its effects on the dinosaurs’ survival compare to our current climate crisis today?The Lost World of the Dinosaurs is an all-encompassing exploration traveling back in time into the world of the primeval giants, perfect for anyone interested in the largest land creatures that ever inhabited Earth. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

From the author of the bestselling series ESCAPING FROM EDEN, THE SCARS OF EDEN, ECHOES OF EDEN and THE EDEN CONSPIRACY : Today we are witnessinga dramatic stand-off between elements of The Pentagon and elements of the U.S. Congress. The David Grusch complaint of 2023 has exposed a dark web of secrecy surroundingthe Pentagon’s R&D operations to reverse-engineer materials recovered from UFO/UAP retrievals. Where does this put us on the path to disclosure? Are members of congress right to be concerned? Are you and I being kept in the dark regarding an existential threat to humanity? Paul Wallis probes archaeological sites, Biblical and other ancient texts, and ancestral narratives from around the world, and casts a unique light on these questions.THE INVASION OF EDEN takes us on a journey from Washington D.C. to Arlington, Virginia, from ancient Armenia to the Red Sea, from the Trossachs of Scotland to the hills of ancient Greece, from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the Hawaiian Island of Molokai. En route we learn from figures in the world of military intelligence, guardians of indigenous knowledge, astrophysicists, and sources close to prime-ministers and presidents. Paul lifts the lid on information suppressed for more than 80 years and asks, “What are signs that our civilization may be on the cusp of a whole new world of E.T. contact?”Paul Anthony Wallis is one of my best colleagues…very intelligent man and a brilliant author of books. His arguments and proofs are enlightening. Paul has a way of speaking that everyone can understand. I have full respect for him.Erich von Daniken – Chariots of the Gods (on the Chariots of the Gods Podcast)“Incredible! Paul has written an amazing series and with what timing on this particular topic! Everything in our past has led up to what we are now experiencing and we need to be aware and make mindful choices. It is the most important thing right now.” Laura EisenhowerPaul Wallis takes us on a journey that we will never forget. This generation’s “Chariots of the Gods!”George Noory – Coast to Coast, Beyond BeliefFantastic! Enthralling! Paul is a really incredible researcher - one of the most interesting researchers when it comes to paleocontact. Benjamin Grundy – Mysterious Universe Read more

From the author of the bestselling ESCAPING FROM EDEN and THE SCARS OF EDEN...Ancient stories from around the world describe entities which today we would call ETs. What other secrets lie hidden in the world's ancestral narratives? From Senate briefings in Washington DC to secret ceremonies in southern Africa, from strange phenomena in Australia and Iraq to mysterious encounters in modern Brazil and ancient Greece, Echoes of Eden will take you around the globe to discover why Military, Intelligence and other government agencies are so interested in archeology, indigenous rituals and traditional initiation practices. What is the connection between higher cognitive powers like remote viewing and precognition and ET contact in the deep past? And what are the implications for you and me?"Paul has done it again with his Eden series... delving deep into the power of the mind to do incredible things."GEORGE NOORY, host of Coast to Coast AM"One of my best colleagues and a brilliant writer of books, Paul's way of seeing things, his arguments...and his proofs are enlightening. It will be the new understanding of our world and our religion. I have full respect for him."ERICH VON DANIKEN, author of Chariots of the Gods. Read more

Stunning coloring book for adults with hand-drawn dragon scenes.Awesome, relaxing dragon fantasy designs will allow you to escape everyday life and dive into the land of peace and relaxation.All drawings are drawn by hand of dragons in beautiful fantasy settings.40 different scenes, finished to a high qualityOne-sided pages - each image is placed on its own pageRelax - Coloring wonderful animals is a great way to escape and enter a new world free from anxietyBacked - Each page is backed with a black page to help accentuate the colorsGift - this coloring book is a great gift for anyone who needs a moment of peace and relaxationSpecifications:Premium Soft CoverDimensions: 8.5 x 11 inches40 individual fantasy dragon scenes Read more

A comprehensive guide to the evolution of life during the Cambrian Period, and a story of one man’s search for the world’s oldest animal fossils.“Told with a wry humor, the odd pop cultural/sci-fi reference, and personal anecdotes, Foster does a great job in making this an enjoyable read and bringing the Cambrian to us. An alien world is transformed before our eyes into one that is increasingly more familiar.” —Quarterly Review of Biology This volume, aimed at the general reader, presents the life and times of the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than five hundred million years ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth’s history. During this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals appeared. Although life had been around for more than two million millennia, Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance of complex animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and complex ecologies. Grazing, predation, and multi-tiered ecosystems with animals living in, on, or above the sea floor became common. The cascade of interaction led to an ever-increasing diversification of animal body types. By the end of the period, the ancestors of sponges, corals, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, brachiopods, arthropods, echinoderms, and vertebrates were all in place. The evidence of this Cambrian “explosion” is preserved in rocks all over the world, including North America, where the seemingly strange animals of the period are preserved in exquisite detail in deposits such as the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. Cambrian Ocean World tells the story of what is, for us, the most important period in our planet’s long history. “Definitely the best introductory textbook within its field. It is clearly worth reading.” —Deposits Magazine Read more

'Exciting. I absolutely recommend The Scars of Eden', Erich Von DanikenFrom the author of the bestselling ESCAPING FROM EDEN. Do our world mythologies convey our ancestors' ideas about God? Or are they in reality ancestral memories of extra-terrestrial contact? How do ancient stories of contact, adaptation and abduction relate to people's experiences around the world today? The Scars of Eden will take you around the world to hear first-hand from ancestral voices alongside contemporary experiencers and world-renowned researchers. Recent revelations from US Navy, the Pentagon, and French Intelligence bring the reader right up to date in examining what has been forgotten and remembered, hidden and disclosed. If world mythologies, including the Bible, have confused the idea of God with ancient ET visitations, what difference does it make? How does it impact society today? And why is this cultural taboo so widespread and, for the author, so personal? Read more

“Immersive . . . bracingly ambitious . . . rewinds the story of life on Earth—from the mammoth steppe of the last Ice Age to the dawn of multicellular creatures over 500 million years ago.”—The EconomistLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE • “One of those rare books that’s both deeply informative and daringly imaginative.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White SkyONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Prospect (UK)The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life on the page.This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree; to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will be the Mediterranean Sea just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in; into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica; and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life. Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth history. Even as he operates on this broad canvas, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose that belies the breadth of his research, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed; how species die out and are replaced; and how species migrate, adapt, and collaborate. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis. Read more

Hunting fossil shark teeth is a very popular activity in Florida. Every day people find shark teeth and wonder what kind of shark they came from. This identification guide answers those questions with color photos and detailed descriptions. Read more

An illustrated guide to the marvelously diverse bird life of the dinosaur ageBirds are today’s most diverse tetrapod group, but they have a rich and complex evolutionary history that extends far beyond their modern radiation. Appearing during the Jurassic more than 160 million years ago, they took to the skies and evolved into myriad forms. This comprehensive and up-to-date illustrated field guide covers the staggering diversity of avialans—modern birds and their closest fossil relatives—that lived from the origin of the group until the mass extinction that ended the reign of the nonavian dinosaurs 66 million years ago. With a foreword by eminent paleontologist Luis Chiappe, Birds of the Mesozoic is a must-have book for bird lovers and anyone interested in paleontology.Features more than 250 stunning full-color illustrationsCovers more than 200 kinds of Mesozoic birdsDetailed fact files provide information about each species, including its name, location, size, period, habitat, and general characteristicsTraces the evolution of the group from other feathered dinosaurs to the emergence of modern birds in the Late CretaceousDescribes all facets of phylogenetic, morphological, and ecological diversityIntroduces readers to bird skeletal anatomy and the cutting-edge methods that paleontologists use to reconstruct fossil bird color, diet, and biologyFormatted like a field guide for birdwatching in the Mesozoic Read more

** WINNER OF THE PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE 2021 **'Beautiful, evocative, authoritative.' Professor Brian Cox'Important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity.' Yuval Noah HarariKindred is the definitive guide to the Neanderthals. Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins.Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience at the cutting edge of Palaeolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside clichés of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them to be curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. Above all, they were successful survivors for more than 300,000 years, during times of massive climatic upheaval.Much of what defines us was also in Neanderthals, and their DNA is still inside us. Planning, co-operation, altruism, craftsmanship, aesthetic sense, imagination, perhaps even a desire for transcendence beyond mortality. Kindred does for Neanderthals what Sapiens did for us, revealing a deeper, more nuanced story where humanity itself is our ancient, shared inheritance. Read more