Trilobite

By Richard Fortey,

Book cover of Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution

Book description

With Trilobite, Richard Fortey, paleontologist and author of the acclaimed Life, offers a marvelously written, smart and compelling, accessible and witty scientific narrative of the most ubiquitous of fossil creatures.

Trilobites were shelled animals that lived in the oceans over five hundred million years ago. As bewilderingly diverse then as…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Trilobite as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book because of the author’s infectious passion for fossils and geology. 

The book reads like a detective story, with the innermost secrets of long-extinct animal groups unveiled bit by bit by a master of forensic paleontology.

When I was an undergraduate student over 40 years ago, Richard showed us behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum in London. What I remember most was him describing how long it took his team to reveal just one trilobite eye. Only after many months of painstaking attention to detail were they finally able to work out how a trilobite…

Richard Fortey, a renowned paleontologist and acclaimed science writer, uses trilobites – those marvelous multi-limbed denizens of Paleozoic seas – to explain how fossils illuminate the past.  Fortey has studied trilobites for decades, and his expertise shines through on every page.  At the same time, his skills as a storyteller bring these ancient arthropods and the worlds they inhabited to vivid life. An enjoyable way to learn how paleontologists think. 

From Andrew's list on fossils and the history of life.

Want books like Trilobite?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 61 books like Trilobite.

Browse books like Trilobite

Book cover of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Book cover of Silent Spring
Book cover of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,586

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Trilobite, you might also like...

Book cover of From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

From One Cell By Ben Stanger,

Everybody knows that all animals—bats, bears, sharks, ponies, and people—start out as a single cell: the fertilized egg. But how does something no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence give rise to the remarkable complexity of each of these creatures?

FROM ONE CELL is a dive…

Book cover of I Am Taurus

I Am Taurus By Stephen Palmer,

The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.

Each of the sections is written from…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in fossils, paleontology, and dinosaurs?

Fossils 38 books
Paleontology 33 books
Dinosaurs 99 books