Readership: This accessible text is suitable for graduate students taking advanced courses in evolutionary developmental biology, invertebrate zoology, molecular phylogenetics and palaeontology, as well as professional researchers in thesee fields requiring an authoritative and up-to-date overview of this dynamic topic.
Alessandro Minelli, University of Padova, Italy
"The book does not merely list facts about animal evolution. It is a celebration of the intellectual puzzles posed by the wonderful diversity of animals, an effective spur for further exploration and debate of the mysterious but"
"unmistakable signs of unity hidden beneath this diversity. No serious student of animal evolution can afford to miss this book. Minelli gives it a distinctive flavour eminently suited to repeated sampling, with or without a glass of wine at hand." - Ronald Jenner, NATURE
"This concise account easily can and should be read by all serious students of animal phylogeny evolution." - William Arthur, SCIENCE
Preface 1: Reading the history of life 2: Animal phylogenetics 3: Metazoans enter the stage 4: Deep branches of the metazoan tree 5: The entangled phylogeny of the Bilateria 6: A gallery of major bilaterian clades 7: The life cycle and its evolution 8: The evolution of animal body architecture 9: The overall picture References Index
