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Mammals: A Very Short Introduction

T. S. Kemp

28 September 2017

ISBN: 9780198766940

176 pages
Paperback
174x111mm

In Stock

Very Short Introductions

Price: £7.99

Relative newcomers within the story of evolution, mammals are hugely successful and have colonized land, water, and air. Tom Kemp discusses the great diversity of mammalian species, and looks at how their very disparate characteristics, physiologies, and behaviours are all largely driven by one uniting factor: endothermy, or warm-bloodedness.

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Description

Relative newcomers within the story of evolution, mammals are hugely successful and have colonized land, water, and air. Tom Kemp discusses the great diversity of mammalian species, and looks at how their very disparate characteristics, physiologies, and behaviours are all largely driven by one uniting factor: endothermy, or warm-bloodedness.

  • Introduces the nature, evolutionary history, and modern diversity of mammals
  • Considers how one of the defining characteristics of mammals, their warm bloodedness, has affected their physiology and enabled them to adapt to a wide variety of environments.
  • Discusses the evidence in the fossil record for the origin and spread of mammals, showing how fossils illustrate patterns of evolution.
  • Part of Very Short Introductions series - over eight million copies sold worldwide

About the Author(s)

T. S. Kemp, Emeritus Research Fellow, St John's College, Oxford

Dr T. S. Kemp is Emeritus Research Fellow at St 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).

Table of Contents

    1:What is a mammal?
    2:The origin of mammals
    3:The radiation of mammals
    4:Carnivorous mammals
    5:Herbivorous mammals
    6:Diggers and burrowers
    7:Aquatic mammals
    8:Flying mammals
    9:Primates
    10:Humans and mammals: the past and the future
    References
    Further Reading
    Index

Reviews

"Mammals: A Very Short Introduction is part of a series of very short introductions published by Oxford University Press. These are gateway books, designed to draw readers into a topic and invite them to dive deeper if the topic is of interest. In this regard, Tom Kemp has done our profession a great service. We should all have a short stack of these books available to hand out to undergraduates we hope to recruit to the study of mammalogy ... In short, this very short introduction to mammals is a welcome addition to the ... series." - Christopher J Yahnke, Mammology

"Tom Kemp is the world's senior authority on the origin and evolution of mammals, and an excellent writer to boot. 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

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