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This book is devoted to the late Cenozoic (Neogene) mammalian biostratigraphy and geochronology of Asia. It employs cutting-edge biostratigraphic and geochemical dating methods to map the emergence of mammals across the continent. Written by specialists working in a variety of Asian regions, it uses data from fossil records to establish a geochronological framework for the evolution of land mammals. It shows how Asia's violent tectonic history has resulted in some of the world's most varied topography, and shows how the region's high mountain ranges and intense monsoon climates have spawned widely diverse environments over time. It describes how these geologic conditions profoundly influenced the evolution of Asian mammals and their migration into Europe, Africa, and North America. The book focuses on new fossil finds that have redefined Asia's role in mammalian evolution, and synthesizes information from a range of field studies on Asian mammals and biostratigraphy. In this way, it traces the histories and movements of extinct and extant mammals from various major groups and all northern continents, and provides geologists with a richer understanding of a variety of Asian terrains.

The invasion of land by ocean-dwelling plants and animals was one of the most revolutionary events in the evolution of life on Earth, yet the animal invasion almost failed—twice—because of the twin mass extinctions of the Late Devonian Epoch. Some 359 to 375 million years ago, these catastrophic events dealt our ancestors a blow that almost drove them back into the sea. If those extinctions had been just a bit more severe, spiders and insects—instead of vertebrates—might have become the ecologically dominant forms of animal life on land. This book examines the profound evolutionary consequences of the Late Devonian extinctions and the various theories proposed to explain their occurrence. Only one group of four-limbed vertebrates exists on Earth, while other tetrapod-like fishes are extinct. This gap is why the idea of “fish with feet” seems so peculiar to us, yet such animals were once a vital part of our world, and if the Devonian extinctions had not happened, members of these species, like the famous Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, might have continued to live in our rivers and lakes. Synthesizing research and a wealth of new discoveries, this book explores the causes of the Devonian extinctions, the reasons vertebrates were so severely affected, and the potential evolution of the modern world if the extinctions had never taken place.