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Chuckwalla land [[electronic resource] ] : the riddle of California's desert / / David Rains Wallace



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Autore: Wallace David Rains <1945-> Visualizza persona
Titolo: Chuckwalla land [[electronic resource] ] : the riddle of California's desert / / David Rains Wallace Visualizza cluster
Pubblicazione: Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2011
Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (279 p.)
Disciplina: 578.75409794
Soggetto topico: Desert biology - California
Deserts - California
Soggetto genere / forma: Electronic books.
Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Prologue. Bushes and Lizards -- 1. A Sphinx in Arcady -- 2. The Country of Dried Skin -- 3. A Cactus Heresy -- 4. The Creator's Dumping Ground -- 5. An Evolutionary Backwater -- 6. Anti-Darwinian Lacertilians -- 7. Descriptive Confusion -- 8. A Murderous Brood -- 9. Hopeful Monsters -- 10. An Old Earth-Feature -- 11. A Climatic Accident -- 12. An Evolutionary Frontier -- 13. A Neo-Darwinian Galapagos -- 14. Mexican Geneses -- 15. Desert Relicts -- 16. Madro-Tertiary Attitudes -- 17. A Friendly Land -- 18. Furry Paleontologists -- 19. Dawn Horses and Dinosaurs -- 20. Axelrod Antagonistes -- 21. The Midday Sun -- 22. Lacertilian Ambiguities -- 23. Xerothermic Invasions -- 24. Sand Swimmers -- 25. Axelrod Ascendant -- 26. An Evolutionary Museum -- 27. The Riddle of the Palms -- 28. Bushes and Camels -- 29. Axelrod Askew -- 30. Paradigms Postponed -- 31. The Falcon and the Shrikes -- Epilogue. The Sphinx's Lair -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index
Sommario/riassunto: Described as "a writer in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and other self-educated seers" by the San Francisco Chronicle, David Rains Wallace turns his attention in this new book to another distinctive corner of California-its desert, the driest and hottest environment in North America. Drawing from his frequent forays to Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, Kelso Dunes, and other locales, Wallace illuminates the desert's intriguing flora and fauna as he explores a controversial, unresolved scientific debate about the origin and evolution of its unusual ecosystems. Eminent scientists and scholars appear throughout these pages, including maverick paleobiologist Daniel Axelrod, botanist Ledyard Stebbins, and naturalists Edmund Jaeger and Joseph Wood Krutch. Weaving together ecology, geology, natural history, and mythology in his characteristically eloquent voice, Wallace reveals that there is more to this starkly beautiful landscape than meets the eye.
Titolo autorizzato: Chuckwalla land  Visualizza cluster
ISBN: 1-283-27779-4
9786613277794
0-520-94866-1
Formato: Materiale a stampa
Livello bibliografico Monografia
Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
Record Nr.: 9910456666103321
Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II
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