Evolution of the Insects

Evolution of the Insects

David Grimaldi. American Museum of Natural History, New York
Michael S. Engel. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press, pp.772, 2005

Un recensore l’ha definito sontuoso. Non sbaglia; sfogliate il sommario e l’estratto e sarà sufficiente per rendersi conto della ricchezza dei contenuti, della completezza forniti da oltre 700 pagine riccamente illustrate. Una monografia rara sugli insetti il cui numero di specie è immensamente superiore a tutte le altre riunite insieme.

Vi ripropongo un brano della descrizione presente sul web della Cambridge University Press:
This book chronicles the complete evolutionary history of insects--their living diversity and relationships as well as 400 million years of fossils. Introductory sections cover the living species diversity of insects, methods of reconstructing evolutionary relationships, basic insect structure, and the diverse modes of insect fossilization and major fossil deposits. Major sections then explore the relationships and evolution of each order of hexapods. The volume also chronicles major episodes in the evolutionary history of insects from their modest beginnings in the Devonian and the origin of wings hundreds of millions of years before pterosaurs and birds to the impact of mass extinctions and the explosive radiation of angiosperms on insects, and how they evolved into the most complex societies in nature……………David Grimaldi is curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History and adjunct professor at Cornell University, Columbia University, and the City University of New York………………Michael S. Engel is an assistant professor in the Division of Entomology at the University of Kansas; assistant curator at the Natural History Museum, University of Kansas; research associate of the American Museum of Natural History; and fellow of the Linnean Society of London………….