Book Review: Fossils: The Key to the Past

In Chapter 8, "Making a Collection," Fortey discusses what the amateur can do to build a collection of invertebrate fossils, where to find fossils, and important resources to identify the fossils. The section of Further Resources contains Further Reading, Websites, and a Glossary

Fossils is filled with many photographs (mostly black and white with some colour photos) that will aid both the amateur and the experienced paleontologist in identifying many common invertebrate fossils. Fortey also includes charts to aid in the understanding of geologic time, the timing of mass extinctions, the positions of the continents at different times, and in the relationships through time of some of the major groups of fossil animals. As Dr. Fortey is an invertebrate paleontologist, vertebrate animals are given little attention in Fossils, but it is an excellent book to introduce the reader to the study of paleontology, especially invertebrate paleontology.

The only complaint that I had with Fossils was in "The Origin of Life and Its Early History," (Chapter 5) in which Fortey writes, "...dinosaurs but not birds (which may be close relatives of the dinosaurs)..." in his discussion of the meteorite theory of dinosaur extinction. Perhaps because Fortey is an invertebrate paleontologist he may be allowed some disbelief in the relationship of birds and dinosaurs, but the vertebrate paleontologists that I know are quite convinced that birds are the extant (still living) descendents of dinosaurs.

Richard Fortey is an invertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, England. His other books include Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution (2000) and Life: An Unauthorised Biography (1998).

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