Buy used: $149.33

$4.66 delivery March 25 - 26. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Acceptable | Details

Sold by quirkybooksabq

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Jennifer A. Clack

Follow

Gaining Ground, Second Edition: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods (Life of the Past) Hardcover – Download: Adobe Reader, June 27, 2012

by Jennifer A. Clack (Author)

4.5 53 ratings

Part of: Life of the Past (41 books)

See all formats and editions

Around 370 million years ago, a distant relative of a modern lungfish began a most extraordinary adventure―emerging from the water and laying claim to the land. Over the next 70 million years, this tentative beachhead had developed into a worldwide colonization by ever-increasing varieties of four-limbed creatures known as tetrapods, the ancestors of all vertebrate life on land. This new edition of Jennifer A. Clack's groundbreaking book tells the complex story of their emergence and evolution. Beginning with their closest relatives, the lobe-fin fishes such as lungfishes and coelacanths, Clack defines what a tetrapod is, describes their anatomy, and explains how they are related to other vertebrates. She looks at the Devonian environment in which they evolved, describes the known and newly discovered species, and explores the order and timing of anatomical changes that occurred during the fish-to-tetrapod transition.

Part of series

Life of the Past
Print length

544 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Indiana University Press
Publication date

June 27, 2012
Dimensions

7 x 1.7 x 10 inches
ISBN-10

025335675X
ISBN-13

978-0253356758
See all details

John Foster
128
Hardcover
48 offers from $39.98
George McGhee Jr.
67
Paperback
29 offers from $40.00
Nathalie Bardet
21
Hardcover
54 offers from $21.95
Sébastien Steyer
76
Paperback
47 offers from $20.20
Richard Arnold Davis
102
Hardcover
39 offers from $36.03
Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
25
Hardcover
64 offers from $4.21

Editorial Reviews

Review

This well-illustrated microcosm of vertebrate paleontology provides exciting glimpses of what research in this field is about.December 2002 -- F. S. Szalay, University of New Mexico

The questions of our ancestry are far-reaching and oft argued. In Gaining Ground, Clack offers a new synthesis that demystifies many of the puzzles and cuts straight to the facts., Dino Land Book Reviews

This outstanding update of early tetrapod anatomy, phylogeny and systematics . . . will be extremely useful to students and lecturers in palaeontology, geology, zoology and general biology [and] a ‘must’ for researchers in the field., Nature

[A] remarkable reference work, with detailed anatomical descriptions of early tetrapods and their ancestors, a discussion of the environments these creatures inhabited, a chronicle of important fossil sites and discoveries, and an expert summary of the tetrapod family tree. The text is clear . . . and the book is well illustrated, making it an ideal reference for students and researchers. . . . Highly recommended., Choice

A landmark review of some of the most important discoveries in vertebrate biology and evolution during the close of the past century., PALAIOS

Review

A wonderful tale encrypted in fossils, genes, and flesh. -- Carl Zimmer, author of At the Water's Edge

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Indiana University Press; Second edition (June 27, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 025335675X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0253356758
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.75 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 1.7 x 10 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,909,797 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #533 in Paleontology (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 53 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Important information

To report an issue with this product or seller, click here.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Jennifer A. Clack

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

53 global ratings

1 star

0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Chahnadscfsabgtfdhn

Clear, readable simplification of a complex topic

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2012

Verified Purchase

As a layperson with some interest in paleontology, I found this book a rewarding read. Clack starts with an overview of the book, followed by a (for laypeople) detailed chapter on tetrapod anatomy. After this, the book looks at the lobe-finned fishes and goes on to present the transition to land in chronological order, focusing on key fossil deposits (Greenland, Quebec, southern Scotland, and more). The book is relatively expensive for an e-book, but is long and packed with detail. The presentation of theory and evidence here is very clear and understandable. There is a reasonable amount of taxonomic and anatomical info, enough to provide some support for the book's claims, but not so much to slow it down. I found it well worth the money, but this is a popular science book with the emphasis on the science. The focus is strictly on the facts; if the topic doesn't interest you, the book won't win you over.

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Rick Theis

Great Title

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2016

Verified Purchase

And a truly great book. For anyone who's interested in our early cousins' transition from aquatic life forms to terrestrial tetrapods, I cannot recommend any but Jennifer Clack's "Gaining Ground". This is a wonderful exposition on this most important of events in prehistoric times. I LOVED this book, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in evolution as I am. Thank you Jennifer, for a wonderful work!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

DrBones

Tetrapods Rule

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2020

Verified Purchase

A VERY detailed look at the evolution of tetrapods. It examines not only the bony evolution, but respiratory systems, skulls, teeth, jaws, and hearing. Not for the casual reader, but most informative.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Laurence Chalem

Tetra stars for tetrapods

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is an impressive book. Dr. Clack has put together a textbook-quality history of fossils and phylogenies to tell the tale of us tetrapods. Included are detailed comparative anatomy tables that brings amateurs up to speed on, well, everything. 18 color plates add nice context. If you can't get enough Tiktaalik or Ichthyostega, this book is for you. Highly recommended... - lc

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

kevin w. wright

gaining ground

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

I think the book gaining ground was a very interesting book and would recommend to any learned audience. A person
should have a background in a related field. I learned alot and found it well written and worth the money spent.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

J. Yang

Kindle problems

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2013

Verified Purchase

The book is a good read so far. Figures and diagrams are bit of a nightmare. The problems are 2-fold:
1. Can't view diagram and read any accompanying text at the same time.
2. Diagrams and figures are tiny and unreadable. even when you zoom in the image is simply a blown up thumbnail (text in image blurry and unreadable)

Does anyone have a remedy for this?

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

H. Koenig

Gaining Ground - I can hardly wait!

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2014

Verified Purchase

I just got this book in the mail this AM! From everything I can tell, it is truly awesome and I can hardly wait to dive into it!

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

A great read about an interesting period of time.a textbook.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Amazon Customer

Muito técnico.

Reviewed in Brazil on October 3, 2019

Verified Purchase

Muito técnico para uma obra de popularização científica, entediante. Parece ter sido um livro escrito de cientista para cientistas que alguém lançou para o público em geral.

Translate review to English

Hansen

How we crawled ashore - 2

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2012

Verified Purchase

This is the long-awaited second edition of Jennifer Clack's classic from 2002. A lot of new spectacular fossil finds during the last 10 years must have shed new light on the issue of how vertebrate animals transformed themselves from fish to lizards.
The new edition is, as expected, clear, well written and packed with facts and information. Although the book starts out with brief explanations of basic paleontology, e.g. the meaning of latin anatomy terms, definitions of time eras, etc., the text here is not for the layman. It is a scientific treatise and sum-up of a huge volume of research work done by the author and her colleagues. The text is packed with latin names and terms, which probably will make most lay readers give up before the end. For the scientists or paleontology students it is of course a different matter.
The book has a nice appearance, although the black print in my copy tends to be a bit grayish. The illustrations are good looking, clear and very numerous, mainly depicting bones and skeletons - and closely backing up the text. Reconstructions of the animals are fewer, and little attempt is made to describe theories on their lifestyles, ecology etc. The book also contains a number of colour plates. Many of these resemble holiday shots of landscapes around fossil locations, and in several cases with the author included. A few (too few) depict specimens of actual fossils. A curious feature is that all the colour plates, which are located together between pp. 224 & 225, also are printed in black and white, throughout the book at the locations where the subject is dealt with in the text. This seems like a waste of paper.
And how, then, did we crawl ashore? In the good old paleontology books it was simple. We had a fish with some slightly arm-like fins just venturing out of the water. A little later we had a somewhat fishy amphibian doing a bit more crawling and then came a proper four-legged land-dweller. End of story. Clack shows in her book just how much more complex the picture is looking now. The amount of 300+ million years old fossil material found is enormous, and the level of detailed studies made possible is impressive. Comparable bones from a number of different species have been investigated one by one, feature by feature.
In many cases it is easy to see which features developed into the next step, but the problem is that they do not do it in an orderly way. Specimens show a curious mixture of fish-like and amphibian-like traits in different combinations. Attempts to range the species, i.e. whom begat whom, by using the so-called cladistics method, give different results depending on which part of the animals you choose to look at.
The fact emerging is that a lot of experimenting was done back then, and many of the developments happened in animals, which probably never left the water; the new features served other purposes. Accordingly, we by now have a tremendous amount of knowledge, but we still do not know exactly who went ashore for the first time.
But that does not make the book less interesting.

12 people found this helpful

pristerognathus

Informative and engaging.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

Fascinating, clearly written and well illustrated. Anyone interested in tetrapod evolution should consider this as an excellent primer and I would imagine a useful reference for many who are expert in the field.

One person found this helpful

Surferaly

Kindle version let down by very poor quality illustrations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2022

Verified Purchase

There is plenty of detail in this kindle book, and the uncertainties associated with the detective work required to unpick the history of the emergence of tetrapods are not shied away from. This is a thorough treatment of a facinating subject by an expert in the field, and I'm prepared to dig deep to work my way thru it. But it is badly let down by the really poor quality of the illustrations - detailed annotated anatomical drawings that are so fuzzy, small and just badly reproduced some of them are simply not ledgible. Hopefully others will have found the print version better, but for the Kindle version I think the author (and me) have been badly let down by the publisher. I don't think the format supports the subject matter and no effort appears to have been made to address this.

Amazon Customer

Best book around for anyone interested in tetrapods

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 29, 2018

Verified Purchase

As an aspiring palaeontologist with an interest in tetrapods this book was perfect for me, amazing detail in the evolution of tetrapods, very helpful

One person found this helpful

See more reviews

Image Unavailable

Follow the author

Gaining Ground, Second Edition: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods (Life of the Past) Hardcover – Download: Adobe Reader, June 27, 2012

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

Editorial Reviews

Review

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

Important information

About the author

Jennifer A. Clack

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries