The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Stephen Brusatte

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us Reviews

• 
  Nataliya

  “It was the Age of Dinosaurs, but in the smaller and hidden niches, it was already the Age of Mammals.”

  There’s something fascinatingly majestic about dinosaurs. Those colossal creatures ruling prehistoric planet, cut down in their prime by an apocalypse from space. Mammals, on the other hand, seem to be getting the short shrift fascination-wise. Yeah, they lucked out and inherited the earth while poor dinosaurs got relegated to chirping in the trees angiosperms — but mammals are boring. They are everywhere. They are pests. They are us.
  
  Normally when I think paleontology I think T. rex, not rodents.
  
  But Steve Brusatte of
  The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World fame does not think so. As a matter of fact, he tells is that after all the dinosaur adventures he has had an about-face and now is very much into prehistoric mammal fossils. And he’s clearly very passionate about this. Forget the brontosaurus and the triceratops — below their feet a fascinating parallel world of mammals was just waiting for its chance.
  

  

  
  He gives us a very detailed look at the earliest mammals, with a lot of descriptions of teeth and jaw/ear bones. The minutia about what made mammals what they are now.
  

  “Here paleontologists can gloat: it is only the fossils, and not DNA, that reveal the story of how whales moved into the water. It’s a tale of how Bambi turned into Moby Dick.”

  But just as I resigned myself to accept that rodent-like creatures are still cool, Brusatte reminded us that mammals are still pretty awesome even if they are not T. rex. The largest living animals - blue whales. The flying mammals - bats who mastered flight in a new way, different from other flying creatures. The majestic elephants thundering through the savanna.

  

  “What many of us—me included, to be honest—don’t often appreciate is that there are many superlative animals alive right now, which share the earth with us. Many of these are mammals. The blue whale is the most extreme of these “extreme mammals.” It is not merely the largest mammal alive today, but the largest living animal, period. Nobody has ever found a fossil of anything bigger, which means that the blue whale is the all-time record holder, the heavyweight champion of the history of the world.
  
  It’s a simple but profound statement that bears repeating: the biggest animal that has ever lived is alive right now. Of all the billions of species that have lived during the billions of years of Earth history, we are among the privileged few that can say such a thing. How glorious is it that we breathe the same air as a blue whale, swim in the same waters, and gaze at the same stars?”

  
  
  Not to mention the now-extinct megafauna of the last Ice Age. Woolly mammoths, sabertooth tigers - all that awesome megafauna that sadly is lost to us now.
  

  

  Even if he destroys my mental image of fighting megafauna pretty quickly:
  

  “What this means, perhaps disappointingly, is that saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths were not adversaries. They might have been casual acquaintances, which occasionally met on the fringes of their ranges, where the Mammoth Steppe gave way to more temperate biomes. They were not, however, Batman and the Joker, or Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, or T. rex and Triceratops.”

  
  It’s comprehensive and detailed and full of minutia which you may want to interpret as tedious or fascinating, based on your inclinations — but I dare say that if you willingly picked up a 500+ page book on mammalian paleontology, you may just fall into the “fascinating” camp. And just like his dinosaur book, it’s full of Brusatte’s slightly nerdy humor which I think is perfect.
  
  4.5 stars.
  
  ————
  Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
  
  ————
  Hopefully we’ll leave a world of more than just fossils for generations to come.
  

  “It comes down to this: if our human species had not spread around the world, then a lot of the megafauna would still be here. Maybe not all of them, but probably most. Dinosaurs like T. rex and Triceratops were felled by an asteroid. For mammoths and sabertooths, we were the asteroid.”

  
  ——————
  
  Also posted on
  my blog.
  
• 
  Ian

  A follow-up to the author’s highly successful book on the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. This one is perhaps a smidgeon less enjoyable, but that’s a mere quibble. Like the earlier book it combines being enlightening with being entertaining.
  
  Dr. Brusatte starts his book in the Permian Era with what used to be called the “mammal-like reptiles”, although he explains that term is no longer used as the animals concerned were not actually reptiles (although they certainly look like reptiles). “Stem mammals” is the phrase now favoured. Probably the spectacular looking predator Dimetrodon is the most famous of these animals, although its direct line did not survive, so sadly none of us can claim a Dimetrodon as one of our ancestors.
  
  The book continues with the fairly well-known story of how mammals evolved during the Age of Dinosaurs, mostly occupying the ecological niche of small and often burrowing animals, many of them insectivores and mainly active at night, with dinosaurs taking up all the daytime slots. It was precisely this sort of lifestyle of course, that allowed (a few) mammals to survive the asteroid strike and to proliferate once the world had recovered, and with dinosaurs out of the way.
  
  One thing I would say about this book is that there is a great deal about teeth! The author spends a lot of time discussing how the teeth of different types of mammal evolved differently to allow them to maximise different resources. I didn’t always find this the most exciting subject, although I recognise its significance.
  
  On the whole I am less familiar with prehistoric mammals than I am with dinosaurs. Although the book includes plenty of photos of skeletal remains, I kept breaking off to look on the web for artistic reconstructions of what the animals might have looked like. Of course once we get to the Ice Age the animals tend to be more familiar. I probably enjoyed that chapter the best, along with the author’s explanations as to why these huge climatic shifts happened.
  
  If you’ve read the author’s earlier book on dinosaurs, this one is written in similar style, and should be a safe bet for anyone who enjoyed the previous book.
• 
  Clif Hostetler

  I can remember learning in grade school science that dinosaurs ruled the earth for a while until they disappeared; then the mammals took over. Years later that perception was reinforced while visiting the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History where I noticed a small model of a fur ball on the floor next to a display of a gigantic dinosaur skeleton. As I recall there was a label next to the fur ball indicating that it represented the typical mammal during the time of the dinosaurs.
  
  There's some truth to my past perceptions, but The Rise and Reign of Mammals makes clear that their relationship was a bit more nuanced and complicated. Both dinosaurs and mammals had their origin back in the Triassic period, about 225 million years ago, when their common ancestor was an
  Amniote whose subsequent descendants split into two branches—
  synapsid (mammals) and
  diapsid (dinosaurs). These two branches of descendants coexisted and evolved into a variety of species, some of which managed to survive the
  Triassic-Jurassic extinction event and continue to thrive in their own niches through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
  
  The Jurassic and Cretaceous are the eras during which dinosaurs dominated the realm of large life forms while mammals were masters of the world of small creatures. During this period no mammal got bigger than a badger, but they were very diverse and thrived in their own world of hiding in the shadows, underground, and under bushes. Meanwhile, the smallest known dinosaur was about the size of a pigeon with most of them being much larger.
  
  Then about 66 million years ago a large asteroid crashed into earth. The multi-year ecological disaster that followed is known as the
  Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event and resulted in the end of three-quarters of plant and animal species on Earth. Any animal that couldn’t find shelter and be able to eat dead flesh and vegetation for the next couple years didn't survive. Large size under these circumstances was disadvantageous. Dinosaurs didn't have a chance. A good share of mammal species didn’t survive either, but luckily for us some did survive and in subsequent years were free to evolve into larger life forms free of competition with the dinosaurs.
  
  About half the this book covers the time period preceding the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction with the balance of the book describing mammal life afterward. Only one chapter is devoted to primates and humans.
  
  The number of mammal species continued to expand and diversify through the Paleogene era. South America, Australia, and Madagascar experienced some unique species because of their isolation. About three million years ago the drifting continent of South America made connection with North America which resulted in the extinction of many of the South American mammals because of new predators moving in from the northern continent.
  
  The really widespread extinction of megafauna occurred in the last 100,000 years (much of it in the last 10,000 years) when humans spread throughout the world. One of the weirdest extinct species worth mentioning is the
  Chalicothere which is so unlike anything alive today that it required DNA analysis to figure out its ancestry. This creature, as well as many other extinct mammals, lived recently enough to allow the acquisition of DNA samples.
  
  The following are some miscellaneous facts I learned from this book that were new to me.
  
  1. During the early evolution of mammals some of the bones that started out as being part of the jaw became much smaller and migrated to the side of the skull and became part of the inner ear. Consequently mammals are able to hear better than birds and reptiles. Interestingly, these same bones do a similar migration during the course of the human gestation in the womb.
  
  2. Grasses were not a common fauna during the time of the dinosaurs. If you see a picture of dinosaurs walking across an open grassy area, the artist made a mistake. Vegetation back then consisted of trees, plants and ferns. Grassland, savannas, and prairies became widespread about 20 million years ago due to a dryer cooler climate.
  
  3. Actually, it was the retreating jungle and the expanding savannas that played a role in the evolution of humans. The human progenitor was probably a little animal that crawled out on tree limbs and learned to reach out and grasp fruit to eat. The survival advantages of having stereo vision prompted the eyes to move from the side to the front of the face. Likewise the advantage of being able to see fruit in color encouraged color vision (not common in other mammals). Retreat of jungles and expansion of savannas encouraged venturing out into the open in an upright position to see over the top of tall grass. The well developed arms and hands enabled the gathering of food. Their skills of hunting and gathering enabled increased food intake which in turn permitted the development of larger brains which in turn led to improved survival skills.
  
  Want to look at the book's pictures?
  This book contains lots of pictures and illustrations which are also available at
  THIS LINK. At the link you can download a PDF file with 97 pages of illustrations and pictures and 62 pages of chapter notes. So if you don't have time to read the book it's possible to just look at the pictures.
• 
  Lizzie Stewart

  ** Thanks to NetGalley, Steve Brusatte, and Mariner Books for this ARC **
  
  I absolutely ADORED Steve Brusatte's last book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World, which came out in 2018. I read it in November of 2019 and was absolutely captivated. When I saw that Brusatte had a new book releasing in June of 2022, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.
  
  This was really, really good! I enjoyed it slightly less than The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, maybe because it felt a little bit more meandering at points. I learned so much from this book, though, and was captivated by stories of Thomas Jefferson making The Louisiana Purchase in part to look for living mastodons. It is so humbling to read the story of mammals in just over 500 pages and to realize what a small part of global history we are and how unfairly large our impact has been. At one point Brusatte comments that we are to the megafauna what the asteroid was to dinosaurs. We have wreaked havoc on our animal cousins and we are rapidly approaching centuries where we will have to live in habitats that we did not evolve for as a result of our actions. I am grateful not to be living in 3000 and cannot imagine what our world will be like in another thousand years. It is so difficult for us to process harm caused on the magnitude of thousands of years, but it is crucial that we identify that we are changing our world in ways that will be irreversible in the short-term. What kind of planet do we want to leave for the last vestige of our Homo genus? How long will we survive the effects of our actions? Will any of the remaining megafauna survive us? What other animals will be an afterthought in the extinction event of our time - mastodons, tigers, bison. Will the hundreds of years separating their demise feel meaningful to the paleontologists of the future, if there are any?
  
  I am very grateful to have had the chance to read this and highly recommend it.
• 
  Tanja Berg

  The mammals before the dinosaurs weren’t small. They became smaller as the big lizards filled the landscape - and they prevented the dinosaurs from becoming small. A fantastic book, informative, fun and accessible.
• 
  Judyta Szacillo

  I’m one of those people who struggle to remember what came first, Triassic or Cretaceous, and who have no idea what the difference is between a phylum, a kingdom, and a family in biological classification. This book is for the ignorant like myself – detailed, yes, but also captivating and helping to learn. I’m not likely to retain all the information about cynodonts and gorgonopsians for long, but reading about them was actually great fun thanks to the Author’s engaging style. Also, thanks to the helpful timeline at the beginning of the book to which I referred every chapter or so, I might finally be able to remember my geological periods… The vivid descriptions like that of the ocean encroaching into the Carboniferous forests and making all the coal can certainly help my memory.
  
  The main subject matter – i.e. the evolution and spread of the mammals – is interwoven with personal stories and scientific contributions of various members of the academic community, but the proportions are healthy – just a wee bit of gossip that nicely blends with the main story, and it’s all friendly, with the purpose to recognise the achievements of the Author’s colleagues.
  
  One downside is: there aren’t enough pictures! The drawings of extinct creatures are really good, and I would love to see more of them.
• 
  The Inquisitive Biologist

  Epic in scope and majestic in execution, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals thoroughly convinces that the evolutionary history of mammals is just as fascinating as that of the dinosaurs. Read my full review at
  https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2022...
• 
  Lindsay

  Proceeding in much the same vein as the excellent
  The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World, this follows the evolution of the mammalian lineages from the early synapsid proto-mammals right through to modern mammals including carnivora, rodents, primates, whales and bats.
  
  There are some excellent chapters on proto-mammals, mammals during the time of the dinosaurs and their explosion in diversity after the chicxulub impact. There are details on the evolution of bats, whales, mammoths and the homo lineage, and also on the extinct predecessors of the major mammalian groups of our world.
  
  Like the previous book, the author sprinkles a number of personal anecdotes throughout along with travelogue notes for some of the locations of the important paleological finds. There's also some fascinating biographical notes on the major figures responsible for many of the discoveries talked about.
• 
  Nicole Barbaro

  After reading Brusatte’s excellent first book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals.
  
  As expected, the book is fantastic! Brusatte is truly one of the greatest science writers I’ve had the privilege of reading. Great detail, organized delivery, and fun to read.
  
  I blew through this in 3 days and may or may not have put off other important things to do so because I couldn’t put it down.
  
  Grateful for receiving an advanced copy. Pre-order a copy to get it next month when it’s out! (June 7 in the US)
• 
  Xavier Bonilla

  Brusatte’s first book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, is the standard for the history of the dinosaurs. It was always curious to see what the follow up would be for this fantastic book. The Rise and Reign of the Mammals is just as good, if not better, than Brusatte’s first book. He discusses what makes mammals who they are with detailed evidence of jaw structures and body temperature. He continues to dispel the idea that mammals came after non-avian dinosaurs went extinct and how mammals and dinosaurs lived together. This book is extremely well-written and salient because it is our story as mammals. I highly recommend reading this book!
• 
  Dax

  Loved it. The title is somewhat misleading, as Brusatte actually goes all the way to the early Triassic, before even the earliest dinosaurs, to trace the lineage of mammalian ancestry. Back then there were no mammals, but some early reptiles, such as the well known Dimetrodon, were developing characteristics that would be passed along to mammals. He also covers the relationship between dinosaurs and mammals during the Jurassic and Cretacious; how they likely interacted and the impacts they had on each other's evolutionary paths. Of course the end Cretacious extinction is covered, including how a few of the smallest mammals were able to survive.
  
  Other highlights include a chapter dedicated to the most unique mammals still living today, such as bats and whales, and the chapter dedicated the the ice age icons; the Woolly Mammoths and Sabre Toothed Tigers.
  
  It wouldn't be a history of mammals without covering the most infamous mammal of them all: Homo Sapiens. Our ancestry is no less fascinating than those of the long extinct animals that have captivated our imaginations for decades. Lastly, Brusatte wraps up his book by considering the future of mammals. You can likely guess that major discussion points there.
  
  Really excellent. Never boring despite the deep dive in some mammalian characteristics (such as teeth and hearing bones). High four stars.
• 
  TL

  Depression was kicking my butt most of the time reading this, but it also helped me reading this. I didn't mind taking my time with this one.
  
  It's just as fascinating as his other book 📖. I kept telling different facts to mom as I was going along and showing her the pictures. The history of Whales 🐋 was one of the most fascinating ones to me (I couldn't stop looking at the evolution pictures)
  
  There's many more tongue twisting names in this one (probably didn't pronounce them right in my head haha) so if you're worried about that, I would suggest the audiobook.
  
  
  Still staggering to comprehend the whole of history of the earth and everything that has lived on it. I would love to go back in time for a day to see some of these long gone creatures.
  
  
  How we live now.. how it will affect the earth and animals... little bit scary to think about.
  
  Would highly recommend 👌 👍
• 
  Betsy

  [28 Nov 2022]
  I read and enjoyed Brusatte's earlier book,
  The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World, so reading this one was a no brainer. This one was much like the dinosaur book, a description of the development of mammals from their earliest appearance to today. The author is a practicing paleontologist and includes much about other scientists in the field and what is involved in finding the rare fossils that are our primary clues to how these creatures lived and changed over time. He includes much interesting detail about their anatomy and their lives. It's amazing how much they can tell from just a few teeth.
  
  The book does bog down occasionally from an excess of detail. So many different species are described and sometimes they seem so similar it's difficult to separate them in your memory. I had to take occasional breaks from reading, to refresh my appetite for Latin names. But Brusatte does a pretty good job of sprinkling in stories -- some true, some imagined -- about his and others' experiences in the field, and about how these mammals might have lived.
  
  It's an interesting read, and I recommend it.
• 
  Zan Safra

  Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for this ARC!
  
  Wow! Steve Brusatte's "The Rise and Reign of the Mammals" is a wonderfully worthy sequel to his "Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs". My knowledge of the evolution of mammals has always been pretty sparse; I'd always imagined early mammals as boring little rat-critters running around trying not to be stomped by giant reptiles. (Okay, I did know that they weren't actually rodents, but that's all I could picture.) This book showed me how incredibly wrong I was.
  
  This book covers the mammalian journey from the evolution of the earliest stem mammals to the Ice Age megafauna, ending with our own hominid development. Other than the fascinating stories about the discovery of the fossils Brusatte describes, I particularly enjoyed the Ernest Thompson Seton-esque tidbits about the hypothetical lives of these animals.
  
  I'd prefer not to give too much more away, so paleontology fans: check it out yourselves!
  
  Easily 5 stars. Wonderfully done!
• 
  Zora Beaty

  Steve Brusatte brings extinct and extant mammals to life in his most recent masterpiece. Each story presents Brusattes’ hypotheses in a creative way in imagining what could have led to the downfall or success of a particular species

  .
  
  

  The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History From the Shadows of the Dinosaurs to Us is a follow-up to his highly acclaimed bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of their Lost World. While this book is a part of a series, readers do not necessarily have to follow the series to understand the content presented in this book

  .
  
  

  In the `Introduction: Our Mammalian Family,’ Brusatte details why mammals are appealing thus providing a strong explanation on why this group was the primary subject. Then, Brusatte focuses our attention on a personal experience he had with one of his graduate students finding her first fossil discovery. The joy and excitement from this discovery is reflective from Brusatte’s account, and these emotions rubbed off on me, causing me to smile. This structure, narratives combined with scientific knowledge and reasoning, is present throughout the book. At the end of the introduction, Brusatte states his goal is telling the story of mammal evolution. I believe he successfully did this as each chapter walks the reader through the mammal evolutionary timeline. Brusatte’s book answers a question I had in the back of my mind, what gave rise to humans (Homo sapiens)?, by describing the mammal groups that existed before and during our existence

  .
  
  

  Currently, I am taking a Vertebrate Biology course, and the information presented in this book directly connects to class concepts I have learned as well as increased my awareness of new terms and adaptations. I was inspired by this new information, and this motivated me to explore further by searching for visuals, when not available in the text, and background information from the Internet. For example, Brusatte’s description of aerial hunters’ keen senses to find their prey impressed me, and expanded my knowledge on sensory ecology of the animal kingdom. I appreciated that many of the diagrams in the book had a scale alongside a common object, such as a penny, or metric unit for the reader to understand the size of the fossil collected. While I never had a childhood obsession with dinosaurs, every fossil discovery presented in this book excited me and genuinely piqued my interest in paleontology. Brusatte makes sure the reader understands the significance of these findings in piecing together the mammal evolutionary story by emphasizing its importance

  .
  
  

  I liked how Brusatte logically presented information, sometimes even bringing the reader back to points discussed from the previous chapter. The vivid imagery of different traits such as Brusatte’s description of the grating of the upper and lower molars in Cretaceous multituberculates, made my teeth hurt as I read. As Brusatte details different mammal groups and their prominent features, he also shares their connections to humans for the reader to clearly understand these adaptations

  .
  
  

  Fortunately, in ‘Chapter 8: Ice Age Mammals,’ Brusatte acknowledges the first people to find and accurately identify mammal fossils in this nation were enslaved people and Native Americans, and how their discoveries helped aid current and past paleontologists' findings

  .
  
  

  This book will appeal to anyone who has an interest in mammals or paleontology, especially eager young scientists like myself. I usually steer away from books that are thick in size, but if you have any interest at all on this subject matter, you will find yourself quickly flipping through the pages. Brusatte’s passion for mammals is contagious, and by the end of this book, you will find yourself deeply committed to assisting in the conservation of mammals

  .
• 
  Emily

  4.5 stars, Another brilliant history of species that roam the world. I really enjoyed the parts about the giant sloths and how unique of an animal the platypus is! I enjoyed this even more than Brusatte's other book that I tackled.
• 
  John Beckett

  This book was even better than his book on dinosaurs. While it was difficult to keep up with all of the names, the chapters were nicely broken down. Even the extensive end notes were worth reading and lead me to purchase two more books!
  
• 
  Cat Gatto

  Another great overview by Steve Brusatte (if you have not yet read The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, I highly recommend that you do). In this book, Brusatte covers the evolution of mammals from Carboniferous period mammal ancestors up through present-day species. One of my favorite aspects of the book are the fictional vignettes Brusatte includes at the beginning of many of the chapters. These short stories (which are based on fossil evidence) really enrich the reading experience and illustrate what these animals would have been like while alive. I also enjoyed the passages where he talked about his own experiences as a paleontologist. Like The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, which I sped through in a few days, this book is highly readable.
  
  I think the only negative for me was that at some points during the book I felt like I wanted more. However, as the book covers over 300 million years of history, I can see why not every detail could be included. I’ll just have to pick up some of the titles mentioned in the extensive notes section of the book!
  
  (Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the advanced reader copy.)
• 
  Klaas Bottelier

  This book was an interesting overview of the rise and development of Mammals, starting back a long time ago, all the way to where we are right now. I enjoyed part of it but I thought the use of technical terms a bit much at times, this made it a little less enjoyable to read than the previous Brusatte book, about Dinosaurs.
  
  The last few chapters were really good, really interesting and well told. I gave the book 3 stars because not all chapters were as interesting as the last few, I found my mind drifting off several times during the early chapters. All in all though, a pretty good read.
• 
  Troy Tradup

  Audiobook, so no quotes. Read by Patrick Lawlor with verve and absolute authority over the many tongue-twisting scientific names. Another fantastic piece of popular science writing from Steve Brusatte. On the basis of only two books -- this one and his debut masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs -- Brusatte has absolutely become one of my very favorite nonfiction writers of all time.
  
  That said, I'm not sure this book is as immediately compelling as its predecessor if for no other reason than mammals simply aren't as cool as dinosaurs. Sorry, family tree, there's just nothing on the twisty path toward us that can compare with a marauding T. Rex.
  
  Part of my slightly lesser experience here may have to do with my own lack of familiarity with many of the mammalian ancestors Brusatte discusses. When he mentioned a given species of dinosaur in his first book, I generally already had a picture in my head of the animal he was talking about. In the case of mammals, especially the early ones, the image often remained hazy even when Brusatte offered contemporary animals for comparison. That's also a product of listening to the audiobook while navigating increasingly chaotic summer road construction during my commute. I have the paper version of the book as well, and I know its many illustrations will help me on a future re-read.
  
  There are a couple of sections in the book where it felt like Brusatte was leaning a little heavily into the speculative-fiction style of Riley Black's recent The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, but my minor impatience with one of those of sections may just have been its particular subject matter: a horse. I am just not a horse guy, what can I say?
  
  This book rates four and a half stars from me, so the question becomes whether to round up or down. I'm going to opt for up this time, because I'm guessing the experience would have been different on paper with fewer distractions and the illustrations to help me along.
  
  Note to Folio Society: PLEASE do a fancy version of this book to go along with your gorgeous edition of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs.
  
  And note to Steve Brusatte: Please do insects next. Dinosaurs and bugs -- I'll even forgive the damned horse story!
  
• 
  Kam Yung Soh

  A fascinating book about mammals, starting with their origins in the Carboniferous, alongside the group that would become the dinosaurs, then following their development through the various ages before becoming the dominant large animals after the downfall of the non-avian dinosaurs. The book makes clear that mammals did not develop from dinosaurs, nor were mammals prevented from diversifying during the age of dinosaurs (some common myths). Instead, mammals may be small, but they diversified and occupied various ecological niches before the asteroid strike gave mammals the opportunity to get large. Even then, it was not a given that our kind of mammals (placentals) would dominate the Earth, as placentals shared it with other kinds of mammals before eventually dominating the Earth. The book closes with a look at the current extinction crisis being faced by mammals (and other animals).
  
  What follows is a chapter by chapter summary.
  
  - Mammal Ancestors: the story of mammals starts in the Carboniferous period. Two groups of animals would develop from the early amphibians: the Diapsids (reptiles and dinosaurs) and Synapsids (mammals). As the climate became drier, they diversified in various ways. For Synapsids, their teeth would become diverse, allowing them to handle different kinds of food. The Synapsids would lead to the Therapsids, who have a more upright posture. At this time, indications that this group is becoming warm-blooded become apparent. They would also develop one mammalian feature: hair.
  
  - Making a Mammal: in the Permian period, the Therapsids would give rise to Cynodonts. But the Permian would end with a massive extinction event due to super volcanic eruptions. The Cynodonts would then diversify, but became smaller and nocturnal. The dinosaurs and crocodilians would, however, became larger. The Cynodonts would also become fully warm-blooded. At this time, a defining feature of mammals would develop: a new kind of hinge for the lower jawbone, which would give mammals the ability to chew.
  
  - Mammals and Dinosaurs: It is now the Jurassic period. Mammals have become small, and appear nondescript. But diversification among different groups of mammals still continued, and some groups of mammals would become extinct. At this time, evidence for the development of mammary glands and milk can be found. And some bones that once formed the jaw of mammals would migrate to the inner ear, allowing better hearing. This would happen many times among different lines of mammals due to the many ways of chewing food, which affects bone development.
  
  - The Mammalian Revolution: during the Cretaceous period, the supercontinent, Pangaea, begins to break apart into northern and southern hemispheres. Mammals could now be found everywhere in the northern continent, but were mainly rodent-like. A group of mammals called Multituberculates would evolve to feed on the new flowering plants now appearing. Another mammals ground, the Therian mammals, would come up specialized molar teeth to handle insects now showing up to pollinate flowers. The Therians would give rise to modern day marsupial and placental mammals. The Monotreme mammals (like the platypus) would develop in the southern continents.
  
  - Dinosaurs Die, Mammals Survive: heading into the Palaeocene, an asteroid hits the Earth, causing large scale extinctions, especially the non-avian dinosaurs. They were too large, with specialized diets, to be able to survive. The small, generalist mammals would survive, and eventually grew bigger as Earth recovered.
  
  - Mammals Modernize: the Eocene period would be populated by mainly placental mammals that were now larger. They are also recognizable when compared to modern day mammals. Modern DNA analysis can now be used to generate the family tree of mammals. They showed that the first placental mammals to appear were the hoofed animals and primates, followed by the rodents and carnivores. South America would have its own host is mammals different from the northern continents, including predatory marsupials. But DNA would show that South American rodents and primates were from Africa, probably arriving via drifting vegetable rafts from Africa.
  
  - Extreme Mammals: mammals have now grown into various extremes, based on sizes and their habitats. In Africa, mammals ranging from elephants, manatees, and aardvarks to golden moles, would be found to be more closely related to each other via DNA studies. There were also numerous elephants, some bigger than current day ones. Bats would also master flight, but how is not clear due to a lack of fossils. In contrast, fossils of various whales have been found, showing that their ancestors were small, hoofed animals that could swim.
  
  - Mammals and Changing Climates: during the Oligocene and Miocene periods, other recognizable mammals like rhinos, camels, horses would appear. Grasslands would develop and spread during a cooler and dryer climate. Mammals would form various adaptations for eating grass, like having longer teeth or constantly growing teeth. During this time, the Marsupials in the southern continents would start to die out, replaced by placental animals, except in Australia.
  
  - Ice Age Mammals: the cooling climate would lead to various Ice Ages and ice age mammals like the mastodons and mammoths in North America. North and South America would meet during this time, leading to a major migration of species. Other megafauna like woolly rhino and sabre tooth cats could now be found.
  
  - Human Mammals: the story of primates would start with the first, very early primates discovered in Montana, which was a tiny tree dweller with teeth adapted for fruits and soft vegetation. Primates would spread around the world before going extinct in North America. Afterwards, primates would become reduced in numbers in the rest of the world, except Africa. It is in Africa that hominids would get their start in walking and tool making and began to spread throughout the world. Big mammal extinctions would begin, probably caused by humans and climate change. The domestication of dogs and other animals and plants would also being.
• 
  Lauriann

  Another insightful work by Steve Brusatte. I didn’t think I would find mammals as endearing as dinosaurs, but Brusatte convinced me. The science in his book is accessible and I enjoy the history of the field that he incorporates into the larger narrative of mammalian history. The most laudable achievement of this book is the way it highlights other scientists, promoting their work and commending their achievements. Brusatte’s humility makes his prose engaging.
• 
  Tyler J Gray

  So fascinating and well written. Seriously, so many amazing facts written in an engaging way. I loved The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and I loved this just as much if not more!
  
  I did a tiktok book review and posted it to my blog
  here.
• 
  Cait

  This was fine? I learned a lot, but the biggest lesson I learned is I don't care about the evolutionary history of mammals, oops.
• 
  Sierra

  Ok so I may or may not use this as a handbook for who to contact for a PhD advisor. That makes me not exactly a general audience member,,,but obviously I was super excited for this book. And it delivered! Honestly I wasn't the hugest fan of the writing style but I am Rather Fond of tracing broad strokes of mammal evolution so I didn't notice the writing after like page 10. I thought I knew about mammals before, but in fact I did not. thank u Dr. Brusatte for making my brain cells crash into each other and create thoughts, and watch out for that email coming your way in fall 2024.
  
  ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Jeff Bursey

  A thorough and well-written guide to much change over many millions of years. Personable and detailed, explanatory without getting lost in details, with good notes at the back that expand a bit on the contents of each chapter and provide Brusatte's sources. There are also drawings and photos. Recommended for those interested in natural history.
• 
  Emily

  Great book! I’m totally geeked out. I would have liked more illustrations. I had to stop periodically and consult Google to see a picture of some fascinating early mammal forerunner. Overall, though, very readable, enthralling and humbling, vast tale of life. I recommend.
• 
  Lili Kyurkchiyska

  Благодаря ти, Стийв Брусати, и за тази великолепна книга!
  
  Ако вече сте чели "Възход и падение на динозаврите", знаете, че ви очаква чудесно написана книга, в която разбираемо и увлекателно хронологически е описана забележителната история на бозайниците - създания преживели масови измирания, глобални затопляния и ледени епохи; съумели да еволюират през поставените им предизвикателства и да покорят всяко кътче на планетата Земя. История, в която участваме и ние...
  Но имайте нещо предвид - "Възход и властване на бозайниците" е по-предизвикателна за четене. Предполагам, защото децата повече се увличат по динозаврите и масовият читател има по-добра изходна база, когато чете за тях. Очаквам и вашето мнение по въпроса.
• 
  Ashley

  I read The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs a few years ago and loved it. I was actually surprised how much I loved it. I put The Rise and Reign of the Mammals on hold as soon as I saw it available from my local library and I loved this just as much. Brusatte writes in such an accessible way that my non-science mind can completely understand what he is writing about. I can't wait to see what he brings us next.
• 
  Bruce Katz

  3.8 rounded up.
  
  I've long wondered how mammals evolved. Were they around with the dinosaurs? How did they survive the asteroid impact that ended the very successful Age of Reptiles? Brusatte answers these and other questions in a clear, comprehensive manner in this follow-up to his book about the rise and fall of dinosaurs.
  
  As he says early on, "Mammals ... originated around the same time as the dinosaurs, over 200 million years ago, when all land was gathered together as one supercontinent, scorched by vast deserts." He goes on to sweeten the pot with a very enticing observation: "There were once wee mammals that glided over the heads of dinosaurs and others that ate baby dinosaurs for breakfast, armadillos the size of Volkswagens, sloths so tall they could dunk a basketball, and “thunder beasts” with three-foot-long battering-ram horns... Elephants were once the size of miniature poodles, camels and horses and rhinos once galloped across an American savanna, and whales once had legs and could walk." How could I resist an invitation like this?
  
  The book races through the stages of mammal evolution, from the proto-mammals (neither reptile nor mammal) and the creatures that came into the world as continents split and global weather changed, those that survived the massive extinction events and those that didn't, to the appearance of humans. It not only explains the "what" (the mammalian "family tree") but also the "why" (e.g., anatomical changes --palate, jaws, legs and feet, the senses) that were responses to a changing physical envir0nment, and "how do we know" (teeth provide a lot more evidence than I had thought, and more recently, DNA) and even the "who discovered this"?
  
  An example -- Brusatte poses this question: "Where along this evolutionary lineage should we put the dividing line between nonmammal and mammal?" And then offers an answer that he will expand upon throughout the book: "Mammals would be all those animals that evolved from the first creature to develop a key innovation: a new jaw-closing joint between the dentary bone of the lower jaw and the squamosal bone of the upper skull... This unlocked a completely new way of eating, one we take for granted, but which is extremely rare among animals: chewing. By chewing their food into mush, these early mammals could do most of the processing in the mouth—essentially beginning digestion before the food hit the stomach. It was yet another way to take in more calories, more efficiently."
  
  I won't even try to summarize what "The Rise and Reign of the Mammals" covers. Rather, I'll share a couple of highlights and representative passages.
  
  "The Pennsylvanian trees—and the supersize dragonflies that buzzed around their branches and millipedes that scurried around their trunks—were able to grow so large because there was much more oxygen in the air then, some 70 percent more than today."
  
  "The end-Permian was the mother of all mass extinctions, and it claimed something like 90 percent of all species, maybe more... Volcanoes did it—so-called megavolcanoes... They caused runaway global warming. Temperatures increased by about 9 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (5–8 degrees Celsius) within a few tens of thousands of years—similar to what is happening today, although actually at a slower pace than modern warming (a fact that should give everyone reading this pause)>"
  
  We are introduced to an (ahem) eccentric naturalist named William Buckland, whose life goal "was to eat his way through the animal kingdom." Buckland, it seems was quite the showman. Next time I fret about awkward family meals and reunions I will call to mind a typical Buckland culinary experience: "During dinner parties, he would trot out his pet bear—clothed, like its master, in academic robes—while he fed his guests mystery meat from across the British Empire. Mice on toast was a staple, as were panther and porpoise. Occasionally his friends might get lucky and only have to stomach ostrich or crocodile, which Buckland surely considered boring." For all this -- and that's saying a lot -- Buckland is remembered for presenting the scientific community the bones of a creature he called Megalosaurus, the "very first dinosaur." (An addendum to my dinner comment: I will most assuredly not think of Buckland's dinners when I watch reruns of "Jurassic Park."
  
  We are introduced too -- albeit in passing, because this is a book about mammals -- to "the very biggest birds of all time, the extinct elephant birds of Madagascar—which weighed between 1,000 and 1600 pounds."
  
  More seriously, the reader learns about an extremely important (and not widely known among non-scientists) fact about evolution: "Convergent evolution. Two organisms may independently evolve the same feature if they are faced with similar environmental pressures... Because form follows function, these teeth would naturally look similar to each other even though they were the product of many separate evolutionary acquisitions."
  
  "Elephants were once the size of miniature poodles, camels and horses and rhinos once galloped across an American savanna, and whales once had legs and could walk."
  
  "As you read this, magma is snaking its way through the mantle and crust underneath the North Atlantic, scabbing into basalt rock as it hits the cool ocean waters. The still-growing basalt blob has a name: Iceland." (I've been to Iceland and enjoyed it immensely. I did not, however, think of it in these terms. And now I find it hard to get out of my mind.)
  
  Today, marsupials represent a small part of the world of mammals, but there was a time when they were far more populous and diverse: "They didn’t look like kangaroos or koalas—marsupials we are familiar with today—but were dead ringers for weasels, dogs, cats, hyenas, and bears, all placentals. One of them, Thylacosmilus, had enormous saber canines on its upper jaws, which it used to rip open the bellies of its prey, to feast on the internal organs. You would swear it was a saber-toothed tiger, that famous giant Ice Age cat." There would be marsupial versions of anteaters, moles, wolves, lions, and groundhogs.
  
  In Egypt, not are from the Fayum Oasis, is a place called Wadi al-Hitan. In Arabic, we are told, this translates as “ 'Valley of the Whales.' It is no metaphor. Whale skeletons litter the desert pavement, as if an Eocene seafloor has been thrust onto the land and turned to stone. The scene is jarring, a clash of reality: thousands of whales, sitting on the sand, roasting in the heat, in one of the driest parts of the world."
  
  There are numerous well-known prehistoric mammals -- saber-tooth tigers, mastodons, mammoths, etc. Before these, however, a time traveler visiting what was at the time the so-called American Savanna (i.e., Nebraska and environs) might have, unhappily, encountered a "thankfully extinct group of dogs—including the hell hound Epicyon—that acted like hyenas in wolves’ clothing, chasing down prey, then dismembering it with bone-crushing bites. Or maybe the amphicyonids, another group of dead dog relatives nicknamed the “bear dogs” because they seem like a nightmarish mashup of these two creatures blended together. The group’s namesake, Amphicyon, was about eight feet (two and a half meters) long and weighed thirteen hundred pounds (six hundred kilograms)..".
  
  "The first people in North America to find and accurately identify mammal fossils, and have their impressions recorded in writing, were African slaves." This took place in 1725 when their work uncovered a field of massive bones. They recognized them, rightly, as elephant bones.
  
  "Around one hundred lemur species live on Madagascar today, but until just a few hundred years ago there were many more, and they were magnificent. There were koala lemurs as tall as humans, sloth lemurs that hung upside down from the trees on their spindly limbs, and most hallucinogenic of all: the giant lemur Archaeoindris, the size of a gorilla, a 440-pound (200-kilogram) silverback."
  
  It truly is a fascinating voyage, reading this book -- watching different species evolve, seeing the dead ends, the continents being torn apart and then reforming and observing the effects these changes had on geography, weather, and evolution. Learning that "mammoths had a diversity of hair colors just like humans. Hair ranged from blond to orange to brown to black." I read of creatures I'd never heard of before and could barely pronounce: Arthropleura, a monstrous millipede more than six and a half feet (two meters) long; Meganeura, a pigeon-size dragonfly; pelycosaur; therapsids and Thrinaxodons; Hadrocodium "with a head that could fit on your fingernail and a body that could perch on a paper clip"; "Morganucodon-type mammals [that] kept on trucking through the global warming;" Repenomamus; brontotheres and chalicotheres; Palaeoloxodon (the largest elephant ever to have existed). Wonderful words solidly anchored in paleontology but entirely unacceptable for use in Scrabble and existentially demoralizing to spell-check programs.
  
  Towards the end of the book, Brusatte writes about visiting a local zoo with his family. Seeing the diverse artificial habitats created for the animals, he has a sombre realization: "Temperatures are rising—that’s a fact. As we’ve seen throughout this book, temperatures have risen before, but what’s different now is the speed. Warming spikes that took many tens of thousands of years at the end-Permian and end-Triassic—which, lest we forget, were mass extinctions!—are now taking place within a few human generations." (Italics mine.) It's a fitting and necessarily alarming conclusion to an ambitious voyage, one we must heed.