Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year history of the Human Body
A book by Neil Shubin. Available on Amazon.
I assign Your Inner Fish as a common reading when offering comparative vertebrate anatomy. Students seem to benefit from Dr. Shubin's stories about finding fossils while simultaneously illustrating the reasons we believe all vertebrates are evolutionarily related. The focus of the book is the evolution of limbs, but other similarities in the size, shape, and position of anatomical features between species is remarkable.
The practical aspects of field paleontologists are described well in the text which emphasizes extended periods of time looking at rocks. Frequently, these rocks are located in remote places under adverse weather conditions. Crawling over rocks in heat, cold and wind is just part of the game. However, Shubin does point out that today's extensive knowledge of geology helps. Paleontologists are now able to locate rocks of the right age, right location and right type on maps, but these rocks must be easily visible not be covered by grass and trees.
I found the integration of developmental biology, genetics and comparative anatomy to be presented in an easy to digest form. This is especially important to students, who need to see concepts presented in multiple ways to gain a real appreciation for the main themes of science. Using the book as a supplement to a standard textbook certainly increases the student's interest in comparative anatomy while hinting at the integration of multiple scientific fields of inquiry.
I highly recommend the book. My favorite line in the book describes the vertebrate limb as "one bone, two bones, bunch of bones".
February 24, 2024
P.S. As a note, one of my students met Neil Shubin at a meeting, and he was approachable and generous. She sent me a selfie of them taken at the meeting.
"I walked the dinosaur, I walked the dinosaur." Walk the Dinosaur - Was (Not Was).