A Natural History of Shells

Description

Geerat Vermeij wrote this 'celebration of shells' to share his enthusiasm for those supremely elegant creations and what they can teach us about nature. Most popular books on shells emphasize the identification of species, but Vermeij uses shells as a way to explore major ideas in biology. How are shells built? How do they work? How did they evolve? The author lucidly and charmingly demonstrates how shells give us insights into the lives of animals in our own day as well as in the distant geological past.

Geerat J. Vermeij is Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Evolutionary World: How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization; Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life; Nature: An Economic History (Princeton); and Evolution and Escalation: An Ecological History of Life (Princeton).

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1994 Winner of the 1993 Award for Excellence, New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) "Vermeij provides an elegantly written and beautifully illustrated account of shell construction, function, and evolution, while showing how these molluscan houses give us insights into ecology and the history of life. [It is a] book that will be treasured by scientists and lay readers alike."--Nature "Vermeij provides an elegantly written and beautifully illustrated account of shell construction, function, and evolution, while showing how these molluscan houses give us insights into ecology and the history of life. [It is a] book that will be treasured by scientists and lay readers alike."--Nature "A Natural History of Shells is a fascinating biological view of shells as the products of living organisms...We come to appreciate and understand the diverse wonders of economy, function, and construction that can be seen in shells."--Douglas Palmer, New Scientist "This is a pleasingly different book. Most other popular books on shells help one to identify them. In this book Vermeij uses shells to help understand the ecology, evolution, and history of snails, clams, and other Mollusca, the phylum of animals that construct 'shells.' ... This book uses both contemporary and fossil shells to explore many ideas and processes in general biology... I have been seeking this book for years."--The Quarterly Review of Biology "I was swept away by the world of molluscs and found myself fascinated and informed... By the end of the book I was convinced that anyone with a passion for their subject would enjoy and be educated by Vermeij's obvious passion for his."--Biologist