The Walking Whales: From Land to Water in Eight Million Years

As brilliant a Paleontology book as you could hope to read. Written for the ordinary punter not an academic and it makes the whole book highly readable. Even today's whales and dolphins have vestigial rear legs on their skeletons , but this book is about hunting their ancestors back to whales with rear legs and, eventually, to Hippo like creatures. And all this happens in a few hundreds of million years; a relatively short time if, like me, you are a Stromatolite fan.

This book is well-written so that even a layman can understand. Unfortunately, though, it's a bit one-sided concerning the origin of whales, and facts (such as the bones found) are not clearly separated from fiction (the evolutionary story-telling).

There's an old saying about a cat on a hot griddle that applies admirably to this work, which jumps around all over the place 'like a cat on a hot griddle.' Worse still, you have to go to page 171 of Richard Dawkins' 'The Greatest Show on Earth' to get a clear, precise and very helpful diagram of the evolution of whales. The one purporting to do this on page 123 in this work is cramped up into just one third of a page with tiny, poorly explanatory text. The diagram on page 202 is a little better, but still accompanied by tiny print and tiny illustrations. The diagram on page 141 is the best one and much more helpful and there's another good one on page 152.. Fortunately, the colour illustrations and line drawings by Jacqueline Dillard are very good.There are two problems that prevent this work from being a top grade reference work. First, instead of taking the reader step by step through the evolution of whales it goes backwards and forwards and round about all over the place in a most confusing fashion. Second, it mixes up personal data with scientific data in a most irritating manner. The author doesn't seem to be able to make up his mind as to whether he is writing a scientific work or an account of the adventures and personal relationships involved in his fossil hunting activities. All this has the effect of bouncing the reader around in the most unhelpful fashion.Here is an example of the kind of thing to expect when reading this work. Page 37: 'Arif lost his soap box, and leaves the soap bar lying open on the veranda.' The work is full of this sort of stuff, which often intrudes just when it's getting interesting about whales and the reader is anticipating some proper co-ordination between one of Jacqueline Dillard's excellent illustrations and the text. The author can't seem to make up his mind as to whether he's writing a popular account along the lines of 'the trials and tribulations of a fossil hunter' or a bona fide scientific work. This approach may very well work for some readers, but certainly not for all of us. Fortunately, Hans Thewissen comes across as a really nice, kind hearted guy in love with his work and this certainly does help.I'm deducting two stars for the reasons as stated above. However, Jacqueline Dillard is a top grade illustrator. It's just a shame that text-illustration co-ordination, and sometimes insufficient space not being given to her diagrams, falls short of using her genius to its best effect.

Ein kurzes Buch über die evolutionäre Entwicklung der Wale, von landlebenden Vorfahren bis zu heutigen Formen. Beschrieben werden sowohl wie die Erkenntnisse, dass Wale von landlebenden Vorfahren abstammen, gewonnen worden sind, als auch persönliche Beschreibungen von Ausgrabungen und Auswertungen der gefundenen Fossilien durch den Autor und Kollegen. Kurz und prägnant, mit herrlichen Illustrationen versehen. Absolute Kaufempfehlung.

A detailed yet essy to read book.