《自然史智人：一位才华横溢的年轻古生物学家的一次激动人心的、令人大开眼界的深入时间之旅》，从冰河时代到5.5亿年前微生物生命的首次出现。
过去已经过去，但它确实留下了线索，托马斯·哈利迪（Thomas Halliday）用尖端科学比以往任何时候都更彻底地破译了这些线索。在其他国家，韩礼德在这一页上创造了16个化石遗址。
这本书探索了地球过去的存在，历史上发生的变化，以及生命适应与否的方式。它带我们从肯尼亚上新世的大草原观看一条巨蟒追赶一群南方古猿进入一棵金合欢树；一座悬崖俯瞰着地中海空盆的盐田，就像中新世大西洋的海水溢出一样；进入南极始新世的热带森林；在澳大利亚埃迪卡拉纪的浅水池下，我们瞥见了第一批微生物。
Otherlands也为我们提供了一个关于地球现状的广阔视角。例如，像大堡礁这样巨大的生物，其生机勃勃的多样性，有一天可能很快就会消失，这种想法听起来不太可能。但化石记录告诉我们，这种大规模的变化不仅是可能的，而且在整个地球历史中反复发生过。
即使是在这幅广阔的画布上，韩礼德也让我们接近了定义这些失落世界的复杂关系。在掩盖其研究广度的小说散文中，他阐述了生态系统是如何形成的；物种如何灭绝和被取代；以及物种如何迁徙、适应和合作。这是一个惊人的成就：一个关于生命的持续性、看似永久的生态系统的脆弱性以及深层时间范围的令人惊讶的情感叙事，所有这些都可以告诉我们当前的危机。
Otherlands: Journeys in Earth’s Extinct Ecosystems (CA Edition)
Sapiens for natural history: a stirring, eye-opening journey into deep time, from the Ice Age to the first appearance of microbial life 550 million years ago, by a brilliant young paleobiologist.
The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life on the page.
This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt-or not. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree; to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will be the Mediterranean Sea just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in; into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica; and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life.
Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth history.
Even as he operates on this broad canvas, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose that belies the breadth of his research, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed; how species die out and are replaced; and how species migrate, adapt, and collaborate. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.
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