Feeding
Subtitle: Form, Function, and Evolution in Tetrapod Vertebrates
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: Academic Press
Published: July 15, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 537
ISBN-13: 9780126325904
Subjects: Evolution; Vertebrates; Animal Anatomy; Animal Behavior (Ethology); Science; Science/Mathematics; Life Sciences - Biology - General; Life Sciences - Evolution; Life Sciences - Zoology - General; Science / Zoology; General; Digestive organs; Food
First sentence: Despite huge strides in our understanding of gene structure and function, we remain largely ignorant about how phenotypes evolve.
Description: As the first four-legged vertebrates, called tetrapods, crept up along the shores of ancient primordial seas, feeding was among the most paramount of their concerns. Looking back into the mists of evolutionary time, fish-like ancestors can be seen transformed by natural selection and other evolutionary pressures into animals with feeding habitats as varied as an anteater and a whale. From frog to pheasant and salamander to snake, every lineage of tetrapods has evolved unique feeding anatomy and behavior. Similarities in widely divergent tetrapods vividly illustrate their shared common ancestry. At the same time, numerous differences between and among tetrapods document the power and majesty that comprises organismal evolutionary history. Feeding is a detailed survey of the varied ways that land vertebrates acquire food. The functional anatomy and the control of complex and dynamic structural components are recurrent themes of this volume. Luminaries in the discipline of feeding biology have joined forces to create a book certain to stimulate future studies of animal anatomy and behavior.--Annotation Published: September 2013.