The Link by Tudge, Colin -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestors Copyright Page Dedication Contents Foreword Chapter 1: Discovering Ida Chapter 2: Ida’s Story Begins Chapter 3: Ida’s Eocene World

What Was the Eocene and Why Was It So Warm? The Life of the Eocene The Denizens of Ancient Messel Why Did the World Grow Cooler?

Photographic Insert I Chapter 4: The Messel Pit

How the Messel Pit Was Created The Ecology of Messel Maar Why Messel Has So Many Excellent Fossils How Did the Fossils Come to Light? Life in Eocene Messel Puzzles with Animals Messel’s Nonmammal Species The Mammals of Messel

Chapter 5: How Primates Became

What Makes a Primate a Primate? Primates in Their Place Prosimians The Anthropoids The Brains of Primates The Social Life of Primates

Chapter 6: Primate Evolution

How Old Are the Primates? Mammals and Dinosaurs What Do We Really Know of Ancient Primates? The Archaics The First of the Prosimians The World’s First Anthropoids The Ticklish Issue of Missing Links

Photographic Insert II Chapter 7: From the Eocene to Us

Why the World Grew Cooler The Rise and Rise of Grass From Ida to the Hominoids What Do the Fossils Tell Us? From the First Anthropoids to Near Modernity The Meandering Path to Humanity From Homo Habilis to Homo Sapiens

Photographic Insert III Chapter 8: Who and What Is Ida?

The Family Tree of Primates Ancestors and Sister Groups Four Scenarios Missing Links and Ida Ida To Whom Is Ida Related? Who Was Ida and How Did She Live? How Did Ida Die? Is Ida Really Our Grandmother?

Chapter 9: Revealing Ida to the World Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author