1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910461922203321

Autore

Knell Simon J

Titolo

The great fossil enigma [[electronic resource] ] : the search for the conodont animal / / Simon J. Knell

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Bloomington, : Indiana University Press, 2012

ISBN

1-283-73545-8

0-253-00606-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (438 p.)

Collana

Life of the past

Disciplina

562.2

Soggetti

Conodonts

Science - Social aspects

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication Page; Table of Contents; List of Illustrations; Preface & Acknowledgments; Prelude: The Impossible Animal; 1: The Road to El Dorado; 2: A Beacon in the Blackness; 3: The Animal with Three Heads; 4: Another Fine Mess; 5: Outlaws; 6: Spring; 7: Diary of a Fossil Fruit Fly; 8: Fears of Civil War; 9: The Promised Land; 10: The Witness; 11: The Beast of Bear Gulch; 12: The Invention of Life; 13: El Dorado; 14: Over the Mountains of the Moon; Afterword: The Progress of Tiny Things; Notes; Index

Sommario/riassunto

Stephen Jay Gould borrowed from Winston Churchill when he described the conodont animal as a ""riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."" This animal confounded science for more than a century. Some thought it a slug, others a fish, a worm, a plant, even a primitive ancestor of ourselves. The list of possibilities grew and yet an answer to the riddle never seemed any nearer. Would the animal that left behind these miniscule fossils known as conodonts ever be identified? Three times the animal was ""found,"" but each was quite a different animal. Were any of them really the one? Simon J