Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. These species are not exactly the same as those in the distant past, but they are here and alive now.Ī Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence. With occasional outbursts of “And there it is!” he tracks down many other creatures, including the lizard-like tuatara on a log in New Zealand “looking as if it were resting after a stroll from the Triassic,” and the echidna, an oddly shaped mammal living on Australia’s Kangaroo Island. In Shark Bay, Australia, he finds living stromatolites (mounds built by microscopic organisms) dating back 3.5 billion years.

Detailing the appearance and behavior of each species, Fortey explains each life form’s place in evolutionary history. On New Zealand’s North Island, in a rotting pine log, he finds the elusive caterpillar-like velvet worm, which survived the same event that killed the dinosaurs. At Delaware Bay, he watches the mating orgy of horseshoe crabs, which for millennia have laid and fertilized their eggs along the shoreline. Taking great joy in his trip back in time, Fortey plays both adventurer and detective as he searches for these ancients. “In the life of the planet, the latest model does not always invalidate the tried-and-tested old creature.” In this fascinating, well-written book, he offers a worldwide tour of places whose lands and waters shelter extraordinary forms of life that have overcome mass extinctions, sea-level changes, ice ages and other obstacles to survive into the present. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, 2008, etc.), formerly a senior paleontologist at London’s Natural History Museum.

“Deep history is all around us,” writes Fortey ( Dry Storeroom No. A leading natural scientist’s search for animals and plants that have survived nearly unchanged for millions of years.

Horseshoe crabs and velvet worms