Remarkable Creatures - Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species: Sean B Carroll

The book with the remarkable creature in my house - my pet rabbit Bubbles

Image Credit: birdy

I have, for a long time now, been fascinated by stories from the pre-historic period. I am captivated by stories from the Ice Age or Stone Age and I like reading about new fossil finds. Thanks to this curiosity I was drawn to reading Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear series and Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski some time back. But the book to be discussed now is Sean B Carroll’s “Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search For the Origins of Species.” A summary from the book jacket –

Remarkable Creatures tells the story of the making of the theory of evolution – two centuries of exploration, adventure and discovery. Sean Carroll introduces us to ape-men, rhino-sized giant sloths and the almost hallucinogenic life forms that squirmed across Earth’s sea floors 500 million years ago. But these aren’t by any means the most remarkable creatures in this story: that distinction belongs to the men and women whose drive to discover powered the evolution revolution.”

And how! Carroll begins with Darwin’s journey across the seas aboard The Beagle and then chronicles the adventures of Humboldt, Alfred Wallace, Henry Bates and Roy Andrews. He is careful to pick those explorers whose finds have established some sort of missing link in the evolutionary puzzle. Darwin was responsible in setting the evolution revolution ball rolling, Wallace established the important concept of mimicry among species for survival and found the Wallace Line, Dubois found one of the earliest connections of the ape to man through the Java Man and so on. My personal favorites were the chapters on Archaeopteryx found by John Ostrom that proved that one species of dinosaurs had simply evolved into birds and another one on Roy Chapman Andrews who found dinosaur eggs! Another one that I loved was the findings of modern day explorer Neil Shubin who found proof that it was a certain kind of fish that later developed fingers and toes thus evolving into quadrupeds. And I learnt that fossil finds were named mostly after the finders themselves. When Charles Walcott's son Sidney found an 'arthropod' it was named Sidneyia inexpectans.

As you can see I pretty much loved all the chapters save for a couple, which were a bit too technical for my liking. But credit must be given. Although dealing with a very scientific topic, Carroll writes it like a tale to be told by the fireside. We are treated to enjoyable snippets, which also show the difficulties that these courageous men and women put themselves through –

“Wallace’s paper was just a sketch, conceived in a dilapidated house on an earthquake-ravaged island during bouts of fever, 10,000 miles from the center of science in England.”

Or consider Neil Shubin’s plight –

“Then they set up tents and made camp. They would have twenty-four-hour daylight, freezing cold temperatures, and high winds throughout their stay. They had to brace the tents with rocks. They also set up a tripwire system around the perimeter. Should a polar bear stray into camp, it would trigger an alarm and give everyone a few moments to grab their weapons.”

And it was not just the explorers who suffered. Their families too had to undergo hardship. Dubois took his pregnant wife to the malarial forests of Sumatra and on finding that it did not have much fossil prospects he shifted to Java and his wife of course had to follow. He was always on the move and each time hardly would his wife set up their house than she had to dismantle it again. In some cases, they married like-minded spouses, which was far better as the entire family would then go fossil hunting and to me that sounded like complete fun.

This is one book I thoroughly enjoyed reading and would recommend it to anyone with a curiosity for the charm of the prehistoric periods. The peripatetic life, during those harsh times when survival of the fittest matters, is unique and Carroll gave me a finely painted portrait of the people who brought those times to our attention. This book is obviously not for everyone. After a point, chasing after old, withered bones can seem a waste of time for those not inclined towards dinosaurs and apes and such. For the rest, this is a treat.


Verdict: Take a whirlwind tour of the past and be an armchair adventurer with these explorers.

Rating: 4/5