FINS INTO LIMBS: EVOLUTION, DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION

FINS INTO LIMBS: EVOLUTION, DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION. B. K. Hall (ed). 2007. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0226313375. 344 p. $45.00 (softcover).—As implied by its title, the book Fins into Limbs provides a review of recent work on fins, limbs, and their evolution. This is certainly a fascinating topic, in which many exciting recent discoveries have been made (Coates and Clack, 1990; Sordino et al., 1995; Daeschler and Shubin, 1998; Shubin et al., 2004, 2006; Boisvert, 2006; Daeschler et al., 2006; Laurin et al., 2007). However, this topic has long interested scientists, as shown by the opening quote from Aristotle which shows that Greek philosophers had already thought about the relationship between fins and limbs about 2,700 years ago. This book is timely because the evolution of fins and limbs has probably not been reviewed nearly as intensively as the more general but related problem of the conquest of land by vertebrates (e.g., Lombard and Sumida, 1992; de Ricqlès and Laurin, 1999; Clack, 2002, 2006; Laurin, in press). The review below is organized as the book, by chapter and larger book section, although a section of this review is devoted to a chapter which appears to be problematic.

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