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LIFE AFTER MAN
Fifty-million years after the Age of Man the world's northern continents of Africa, Eurasia and North America have joined with Australia to form a single unit. South America is separated from North America as it was in the Tertiary.
The world 50 million years after man is one he would still
recognize; the climate and vegetation are broadly similar, only the geography
has changed.
Plate tectonics, the force responsible for continental drift, has driven
the continents of Eurasia,
Australia and North America together and turned South America into an island.
The animals on the other hand, although still falling into the familiar
classes offish, mammals, reptiles and so on are remarkably different even
though there are, in most cases, underlying similarities between them
and the species that man would have known.
The most profound differences are in the higher forms of life,
the birds and mammals, which, because of their adaptability, respond rapidly
to changing environmental conditions by evolving and producing new species
quickly.
As the earth's major habitats are broadly unchanged they cannot be
responsible for the changes that have occurred in the earth's fauna since
the time of man. The answer must lie more with the infinite variability
of nature and the large number of solutions
that exist in terms of form and shape for any one animal in a given environment.
Which solution is ultimately adopted bears strongly on the animal's ancestry.
If a creature
has a particular feature that, in the short term, can be modified to suit
a certain role,
then that feature will develop in the course of evolution
to suit the purpose in preference to one that is
hypothetically better but which would have to evolve from scratch.
The vacuum created by the demise of man provided the stimulus
that led to the creation of this new fauna and it is their solutions to
the successful
exploitation of the earth's vast variety of habitats that is
described on the following pages.
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INTRODUCTION BY DESMOND MORRIS 9
Cell Genetics : Natural Selection : Animal Behaviour
: Form and Development :
Food Chains
The Origins of Life : Early Living Forms : The Age of
Reptiles :
The Age of Mammals : The Age of Man
LIFE AFTER MAN 33
The World after Man
TEMPERATE WOODLANDS AND GRASSLANDS 36
The Rabbucks : The Predators : Creatures of the Undergrowth
:
The Tree Dwellers : Nocturnal Animals : The Wetlands
The Browsing Mammals : The Hunters and the Hunted : Tree Life
TUNDRA AND THE POLAR REGIONS 58
The Migrants : The Meaching and its Enemies : The Polar
Ocean :
The Southern Ocean : The Mountains
The Sand Dwellers : Large Desert Animals : The North American Deserts
The Grass-eaters : Giants of the Plains : The Meat-eaters
The Tree-top Canopy ; Living in the Trees : The Forest
Floor :
Living with Water : Australian Forests : The Australian Forest Undergrowth
ISLANDS AND ISLAND CONTINENTS 100
South American Forests : South American Grasslands :
The Island of Lemuria :
The Islands of Batavia : The Islands of Pacaus
The Destiny of Life
Glossary : The Tree of Life : Index : Acknowledgements