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Volume: Fieldiana Zoology v.14, no.1Publisher: Chicago : Field Museum of Natural HistoryPublication date: 1921Subjects: CaenolestesNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. ... Read more

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The problem of the origin, differentiation, and relationships of living mammals has long been of great interest. Although some individuals have attempted to address the entire question, no one has been able to provide a complete synthesis. In recognition of this need, a based consortium was organized to provide a multifaceted, multidisciplinary attack on the problems of mammal phylogeny. Mammal Phylogeny brings together sixty distinguished researchers representing the fields of vertebrate paleontology, anthropology, mammal morphology, embryology, and molecular biology, resulting in 35 state-of-the-art papers addressing the current questions of this important field. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from UXL Encyclopedia of Science, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1546 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This collection of entries covers major areas of science including: biology, genetics, microbiology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, engineering, technology, geology, weather, archaeology, psychology, mathematics, and medicine, and provides readers with a wide range of up-to-date, relevant, and accurate information. ... Read more

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Australia is home to animals that are like none other in the world. Come on 'down under' to see the unusual development of newborn koalas and high-stepping kangaroos. Also staring the platypus and echidna.

Zoobooks, the 59-book animal series - the "everything you wanted to know but didn't know who to ask" guide to the world's most fascinating creatures. Each exciting edition of Zoobooks is packed with current scientific facts, striking photography, beautiful illustrations and unique activities that teach children about animals and the habitats in which they live. With innovative publications and products, Wildlife Education, Ltd. has enriched the lives of children, parents, and educators nationwide for 20 years. All titles are offered in library-bound hardcover and soft-cover styles.Zoobooks, ideal for the knowledge-hungry 4-11 year old! ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Didelphimorphia is the order of common opossums of the Western Hemisphere. They are commonly also called possums, though that term is also applied to Australian fauna of the suborder Phalangeriformes. The Virginia Opossum is the original animal named opossum. The word comes from Algonquian wapathemwa. Opossums probably diverged from the basic South American marsupials in the late Cretaceous or early Paleocene. A sister group is Paucituberculata (shrew opossums). ... Read more

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Reading is a "palooza" of fun with Lithgow Palooza Readers!JohnLithgow is a passionate supporter of the arts and a dedicated advocatefor literacy and young children.Hence, his inspiration for the LithgowPalooza Readers!Research has proven that children benefit academicallyfrom participation in the arts.Guided by national art curriculumstandards and cross-curricular themes pulled from John Lithgow'sbest-selling picture books, each Lithgow Palooza Reader helps childrenexplore the wonderful worlds of arts and literacy -- in a fun, whimsicalway!Each book features vibrant full-color photography, an attractivepage layout to keep young readers engaged, a vocabulary listhighlighting key words from the story, and comprehension questions thatreinforce important reading concepts.Plus, the leveled reader serieswas carefully designed to match the abilities of developing readers. The Marsupial Sue Library contains 1 teacher reference guide and 6 ofeach of the following titles:

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A viviparous animal is an animal employing vivipary: the embryo develops inside the body of the mother, as opposed to outside in an egg. The mother then gives live birth. The less developed form of vivipary is called ovoviviparity, which, for instance, occurs in most vipers. The more developed form of vivipary is called placental viviparity; placental mammals are the best example, but other animals have also adapted by incorporating this behavior, such as in scorpions, some sharks, some snakes, and in velvet worms. Certain lizards also employ this method such as the genera Tiliqua and Corucia. The placenta is attached directly to the mother in these lizards which is called viviparous matrotrophy. Viviparous offspring live independently and require an external food supply from birth. There are numerous advantages and disadvantages to being viviparous. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals,characterized by a distinctive pouch (called themarsupium), in which females carry their youngthrough early infancy. It was once commonly believedthat marsupials were a primitive forerunner ofmodern placental mammals, but fossil evidence, firstpresented by researcher M.J. Spechtt in 1982,conflicts with this assumption.[citation needed]Instead, both main branches of the mammal treeappear to have evolved concurrently toward the endof the Mesozoic era. In the absence of soft tissues,such as the pouch and reproductive system, fossilmarsupials can be distinguished from placentals bythe form of their teeth; primitive marsupialspossess four pairs of molar teeth in each jaw,whereas placental mammals never have more than threepairs. ... Read more

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John Lithgow makes Arts and Literacy a Palooza of fun for kids!

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Once the world's largest marsupial predator, the doglike Tasmanian tiger(Thylacinus cynocephalus) ranged across Australia and as far north as New Guinea. Afterhumans introduced dingoes to the area 4,000 years ago, the misnamed "tiger" was driven toextinction everywhere except the island of Tasmania. With the arrival of European settlers therein the 1800s, however, its days became numbered. Unsubstantiated tales of its blood-thirst and itsunnaturally savage attacks on sheep led to the creation of "extermination societies" andultimately to the introduction of a law in 1886 that mandated the destruction of the species.Hunted indiscriminately for fifty years, Tasmanian tigers were granted a reprieve in 1936, whenthe government was persuaded to protect the species. But it was too late: the last specimen diedin a Hobart zoo two months later.

In Tasmanian Tiger, David Owen tells the tragic story of the thylacine, from itsevolutionary origins and its physical and behavioral characteristics to its ill-fated encounter withEuropean civilization and the ongoing fascination with the "Tassie Tiger" as a potent symbol ofwildlife conservation. Elegantly written and full of interesting facts and first-hand stories fromthose who saw the animal in the wild, Tasmanian Tiger offers a compelling account ofhow fear and ignorance doomed an entire species over the course of a century. And in recountingnumerous recent sightings of the thylacine in Tasmania, Owen explores the power that thisonce-despised creature continues to hold on the imagination today. Indeed, as described in thisbook, serious efforts are being undertaken to bring back the Tasmanian tiger through cloning, acontroversial project that raises a number of ethical questions for scientists and conservationistseverywhere. For both those familiar with the thylacine and those discovering this remarkableanimal for the first time, Tasmanian Tiger is a poignant cautionary tale of human follyand the fragility of the natural world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent science journalism
When you visit Tasmania, you'll see plenty of tourist gifts featuring the Tassie Tiger - but behind the trinkets lies a tragic tale of extinction. And then when you drive through mountainous valleys, shrouded in mist and rain, full of trees hundreds of years old, you might even believe the Tiger is still out, hiding from its human nemesis.
This book is well written, beautifully printed and worth the investment.

Helpful and well done.A great resource on Thylacines.
Tasmanian Tiger: The Tragic Tale of How the World Lost Its Most Mysterious Predator
by David Owen is a very good book with lots of helpful information.Well written and engaging.

Everything I was looking for
If you are like me and have always wondered what happened to these fascinating mammals, then get this is a book for you.It covers everything, but in a readable approach.I particularly like the way it introduces you to the tasmanian residents, new and old.Losing the tassie tiger was a great blow to conservation, but I still hear howls in the background of history.

Dull book on an interesting creature
The last known living thylacine - the proper name for what is often popularly (and mistakenly) called the Tasmanian tiger - died in a Hobart city zoo in 1936. It was already an old beast, and the Great Depression had worsened its condition through neglectful care. Two months before it died, the Tasmanian parliament gave the species full protection - a delayed counter-response to earlier Tasmanian and Australian policies that for decades put a bounty on its head. But the change in policy came too late. In all the years since 1936, there has not been a single piece of solid evidence the species still exists.

Most experts guess that a few thylacines lived on in the wild for some years after the mid-30s before succumbing to the problems of low population numbers. But many Tasmanians, and a few experts, continue to believe the animal still survives in the wilds of Tasmania. There are a number of reasons for this. Thirty percent of the island is a wildlife preserve. There have been over a hundred reliable sightings of the animal in recent years. And the creatures were nocturnal and shy, even when populations were abundant.

If the thylacine does survive, it would be a remarkable story, for it was a remarkable beast. The largest marsupial predator in modern times, the thylacine took its popular name from the stripes that covered the back half of its elongated frame. Without those stripes, a thylacine would have had some resemblance to a long, skinny dog or wolf, except for two obvious features: its enormous jaw, which the thylacine was able to open to an angle of nearly ninety degrees, and its sloping back, which was somewhat similar to a hyena's (another dog-like creature that is not related to the canines). But whatever resemblance existed between thylacines and the family of canines was superficial -- a matter of convergent evolution, not relatedness. The thylacine was a marsupial, with its pups born and partially raised in a poach.

Most eyewitness accounts said thylacines were neither fast nor ambush predators. The creature's sloping gait, that so resembled a hyena's, was built for endurance not speed. A thylacine would give chase to its prey over long distances, tiring it out, before catching up with it and pinning it down with the enormous jaw and sharp teeth. The preferred prey seems to have been kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, and, a few years after the arrival of white settlers in 1803, sheep. The thylacine's taste for sheep, however, would end up spelling its doom as settlers - many of whom went to Tasmania to raise sheep - grew to hate the beast.

David Owen, a Tasmanian novelist, and the author of "Tasmanian Tiger", argues that the thylacine's reputation for eating sheep was probably undeserved or at least exaggerated. Feral dogs also inhabited Tasmania, and in some cases were known to attack and eat sheep. But whoever the culprit, the "tiger" - as the thylacine was known locally - was blamed by most Tasmanians and bounties were put on its head. As a result, by the early twentieth century, the writing was on the wall for the beast. From 1878 to 1896, more than 3,400 tiger skins were tanned and made into waistcoats. In 1902, 119 thylacines were presented for the bounty. In 1906, just 58. In 1909, the last year any tigers were presented for bounty, only two were given up. The population had been decimated. It was now only a matter of time.

Owen's book is fairly dry, considering the rich nature of the subject matter. David Quammen, in his "The Song of the Dodo", has a far more interesting section on the thylacine, filled with fascinating facts and a strong narrative, covering almost all the ground Owen does in much less space. Perhaps because he is a novelist, Owen has little new to add. He has read the necessary books and source material, but unlike Quammen, and many others who have studied thylacines, he has no scientific background or interest. Quammen put the extinction of the thylacine in perspective by showing its similarities to other extinctions elsewhere in the world; Owen simply portrays it as a sad story in the history of Tasmania.

Owen does add one interesting twist to the story by telling of the project to reconstruct a thylacine using the DNA from a dead fetus preserved in alcohol for several decades. Most scientists think it's an impossible scientific feat to pull off, but Owen interviews a couple of bright-eyed, true believers who think otherwise. The project has found sponsors and some small progress has been made. But with Australia still losing species, counter-arguments have been voiced that the money - which will run into the millions of dollars per thylacine, assuming they are ever successfully cloned - could be better spent saving creatures that still exist.

The same general argument can be made for the money spent on this book. "Tasmanian Tiger" is a dull study on an interesting subject. Owen is an experienced novelist, but you wouldn't know it from reading this book. The narrative never gets going. For a much better book, one with a superb section on thylacines, read David Quammen's "The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions."

Gone the way of the dodo
David Owen's "Tasmanian Tiger..." is a little gem that will delight the naturalist, the environmentalist, and just the intelligent reader.It is a poignant tale about an animal that became extinct in relatively recent times, gone the way of the dodo.The book is written unusually well by an impassioned nature-writer, and it is capable of evoking frustration and sadness by the insensitivity of man toward preserving the balance of nature.It is entertaining and richly illuminating about this strange animal, and also about a land as obscure and inaccessible as any spot on earth.I would recommend this book with unrestrained enthusiasm. ... Read more

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An excellent and highly recommended introduction
Among the most unusual and interesting animals in the world are the marsupials. These are the animals who carry their babies in pockets or pouches -- even after they are grown. Marsupials include the kangaroo, the koala, the Tasmanian Devil, wallabies, bilbies, quolls, and the opossum. While Australia is home to the most marsupials, they are mammals that can be found in many other places around the world. As their environments are disturbed and non-native animals introduced to their ecosystems, marsupials are often endangered and require help to survive and thrive in their native habitats. Enhanced with truly impressive photography, and an excellent edition to school and community library Pets & Wildlife collections, "Pocket Babies And Other Amazing Marsupials" by award-winning children's author Sneed B. Collard III is an excellent and highly recommended introduction to these fascinating animals for children ages 11 and older.
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This insightful examination of the history and extinction of one of Australia's most enduring folkloric beasts--the thylacine, (or Tasmanian tiger)-- challenges conventional theories. It argues that rural politicians, ineffective political action by scientists, and a deeper intellectual prejudice about the inferiority of marsupials actually resulted in the extinction of this once proud species. Hb ISBN (2000):0-521-78219-8 ... Read more

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a book that does what the title says
i write this recommendation to emphasise to potential readers that this is a very worthy study of the extinction of the Thylacine.whilst true that this book will not inspire hope that this most unique of creatures survives, it does unravel the reasoning behind it's rapid fall into extinction.Paddle offers a gentle introduction to the species' biology and ecology, aswell as a history in captivity, but it is his research of bounty records and contemperary accounts that sets this work above others.scientific maybe, but well planned, researched and written, and the twist he brings in regarding the reason for the bounty is worthy of an agatha christie novel!an excellent piece of work and well suited to conservation biologists, natural historians and anyone with an interest in the twentieth century's greatest loss.

Controversial Theories Versus Accepted Logic
Robert Paddle's controversial book, The Last Tasmanian Tiger, attempts to overturn most previously accepted anecdotal reasoning on a subject that is fast becoming popular world wide. Paddle has rather recklessly thrown caution to the wind in his sometimes dangerous dismantilling of sound anecdotal evidence, replacing it with his own logic, which is in many cases sadly wide of the mark. The Last Tasmanian Tiger could prove to be a dangerous book in the wrong hands, for it could lead astray thosetender souls genuinely seeking information of this unique creature. Being pro-scientific as it is, Paddle's book is written in a style that can be hard to decipher for us mere mortals. But, all this aside, Paddle has done a tremendous ammount of research in assembling his book, some of it ground breaking, and from this point alone it makes worthwhile reading. The Last Tasmanian Tiger is definitely not suitable for the novice thylacine enthusiast. ... Read more

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John Lithgow makes Arts and Literacy a Palooza of fun for kids!

Collect all 18 titles for your developi ... Read more

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To many people, the suggestion that a kangaroo could live up a tree is fantasy.Yet, in the rainforests of far north Queensland and New Guinea, there are extraordinary kangaroos that do just that.Many aspects of their anatomy and biology (particularly their bipedal hopping ability) suggest a terrestrial kangaroo ancestor.Yet no one has, so far, come forward with a convincing explanation of how, why and when an animal that was so superbly adapted for life on the ground should end up back in the trees.This book reviews the natural history and biology of tree-kangaroos from the time of their first discovery by Europeans in the jungles of West Papua in 1846 right up to present day, covering the latest research being conducted in Australia and New Guinea.Combining information from a number of disparate disciplines, the author sets forth the first explanation of this apparent evolutionary conundrum. ... Read more

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Describes the history of the kangaroo, looks at various species and their characteristics and behavior, and discusses kangaroo conservation. ... Read more

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Interesting
The book covers the many types of kangaroos.Interesting and informative although it stops short in some cases, leaving you with unanswered questions.Still is one of the best I've read. ... Read more

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When the first platypus specimen reached England from Australia in 1799, the scientific community claimed that it was a hoax. On closer investigation, dubious European naturalists eventually declared it to be real, though in an age obsessed with classification, the category-defying platypus sparked heated debates across Europe for a century. In Platypus, Ann Moyal provides a unique biography of one of the world's most famously strange creatures and tells the incredible story of how it became the focus of the great scientific debates of the nineteenth century. Eloquent and concise, Platypus uncovers the earliest theories and latest discoveries about this delightfully odd member of the animal kingdom.

Scientists continue to study the platypus, Moyal writes in closing, for its remarkable traits, including a seeming sixth sense that helps it locate its prey in the underwater darkness. Her graceful book sheds new light on the history of biology and ought to earn Ornithorhynchus anatinus many new admirers. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Breezy, light work of natural history
This is a little gem of a book. The platypus frustrated naturalists' taxonomic efforts and inspired some creative speculation about how exactly an animal that looks like a mammal might lay an egg like a bird. The scientific study of the platypus inspired heated debates, international posturing, and a surprising amount of awkwardly rhyming poetry. To be fair, this is not a weighty work and it tells more the story of European fascination with the animal than the biology and behavior of the animal itself.

Still, this is a charming work of natural history and runs as a nice tangent to the broader fields of the history of science and evolutionary biology. It isn't for everyone, but it is a breezy, fun work of popular science for readers interested in the subject.

A hsitory as interesting as the animal
Ann Moyal's "Platypus" is really two stories in one.As the tital suggests one of those stories is the history of the scientific struggle to understand an animal originally thought to be a chimaera and hoax.The second story is that of the people, preconceptions, and politics surrounding the science of natural history in the decades preceding and immediately following the Darwinian revolution of scientific thought.Moyal, through the narrow lens of a platypus-centralized story tells of the struggles, missteps and transformation of western science from franco/clerical to anglo-colonial/secular domination, and finally to the global excersise it has become today.It is fascinating that many of the greatest names in 18th and 19th century science (Cuvier, Meckel, Home, Geoffrey St-Hilaire, Owen, Darwin) all studied to some degree the anatomy and biology of the platypus!

The difficulties in studying the platypus are recreated in the pattern and pace of Moyal's prose.The overall progression of the book is temporal, but the chapters focus on the individuals and many of the chapters begin by backtracking in time to follow the story of another player in the story.This allows Moyal to explore each portion of the story she is telling as a series of mini-biographies, but requires diligence on the part of the reader to keep maintain an orderly timeline.

What was even more suprising is the size of the book, 15 chapters covering 205 pages (in an 5 in. X 8 in. format) with glossary (incomplete, but good for non-scientists), references, and index bringing the total to 226 pages.Out of the box my first impression was that is was too short.However, by the end of the book I felt satisfied that Moyal had adequetly, though not exhaustively, recounted the history of the study of the playpus and illuminated the position of this enigmatic creature as a focal point (one of many to be sure) of contention and controversy during a crucial period in the maturation of biological science.

A mediocre book about an extraordinary animal
This book is the story of a fascinating creature and those who studied it. Unfortunately, it was a letdown; the author's style is wordy and repetitive and the book is inflated with paragraphs and even chapters that could and should have been deleted. The entire story could have easily been told more concisely in the form of a magazine article. But then, the author wouldn't have had a book, would she? I am starting to think that these writers, who otherwise don't have much to say, stuff their manuscripts with minimally related material so as to have as many pages as they can. Do they get paid by the number of pages they write, or what?

WOW!
This book was an amazing story of how one small creature stumped a bunch of stuffy scientists. It really taught me about the platypus, and amused me at the same time. Kudos to the author.

Beautiful scholarly treatise.
Ann Moyal's portrait of the evolution of science with the Platypus as the centrefold was richly rewarding. The detail is a blessing as is the easy description of scientific terminology. I probably learnt as much about science as I did about the platypus. Complaints ? I don't read fiction so I love this stuff and it was too short. C'mon Ann, what's next ?***** ... Read more

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This book covers the proceedings of a major 2006 symposium on macropods that brought together the many recent advances in the biology of this diverse group of marsupials, including research on some of the much neglected macropods such as the antilopine wallaroo, the swamp wallaby and tree-kangaroos.

More than 80 authors have contributed 32 chapters, which are grouped into four themes: genetics, reproduction and development; morphology and physiology; ecology; and management.

The book examines such topics as embryonic development, immune function, molar progression and mesial drift, locomotory energetics, non-shivering thermogenesis, mycophagy, habitat preferences, population dynamics, juvenile mortality in drought, harvesting, overabundant species, road-kills, fertility control, threatened species, cross-fostering, translocation and reintroduction. It also highlights the application of new techniques, from genomics to GIS.

Macropods is an important reference for academics and students, researchers in molecular and ecological sciences, wildlife and park managers and naturalists.

Features
* Covers the first major symposium on macropods since 1988
* Deals with a diverse group of marsupials, including research on some of the much neglected macropods such as the antilopine wallaroo, the swamp wallaby and tree-kangaroos
... Read more

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Describes some of the distinctive animals found in Australia, including the echidna, platypus, and bandicoot. ... Read more