Remarkable Creatures
Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species
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Narrated by:
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Jim Bond
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By:
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Sean B. Carroll
About this listen
Remarkable Creatures celebrates the pioneers who replaced our fancies with the even more remarkable real story of how our world evolved. Inspired by Humboldt, the first group we meet - Darwin, Wallace, and Bates - returned from their explorations with the makings of the theory of evolution. The second group undertook expeditions that produced some of the most spectacular finds in paleontology: Eugene Dubois uncovered Java Man, the first claimed missing link between apes and humans; Charles Walcott located pre-Cambrian life in the Grand Canyon and Cambrian life in the Burgess Shale; and Roy Chapman Andrews unearthed dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert of Mongolia. The discovery of the kinship of dinosaurs and birds and the emergence of the "fishapod" formed more links in the evolutionary chain, as did the work of Louis and Mary Leakey, who for five decades searched for our deepest past in East Africa.
The final section of the book moves into the laboratory and the future, following the trailblazers who discovered a time clock in our DNA and extracted ancient DNA from extinct species.
Join Carroll and his cast of naturalists for a rousing voyage through the most dramatic adventures and important discoveries in two centuries of natural history.
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Story
In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.
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"The Rise of the Scientists Who Study Dinosaurs"
- By Daniel Powell on 09-16-18
By: Steve Brusatte
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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The Sediments of Time
- My Lifelong Search for the Past
- By: Meave Leakey, Samira Leakey
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Preeminent paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey brings us along on her remarkable journey to reveal the diversity of our early pre-human ancestors and how past climate change drove their evolution. She offers a fresh account of our past, as recent breakthroughs have allowed new analysis of her team’s fossil findings and vastly expanded our understanding of our ancestors. Meave’s own personal story is replete with drama, from thrilling discoveries on the shores of Lake Turkana to run-ins with armed herders and every manner of wildlife, to raising her children....
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Brilliant!
- By tess koffler on 04-07-21
By: Meave Leakey, and others
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First Peoples in a New World
- Colonizing Ice Age America
- By: David J. Meltzer
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 11 hrs
- Abridged
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More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.
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Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy
- By Thomas66 on 01-05-17
By: David J. Meltzer
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn't know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world's leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant.
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The Only Book I reread imediatley after reading
- By Andrew on 11-09-09
By: Bill Bryson
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America Before
- The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization
- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Stunning new archaeological discoveries in North America together with new genetic evidence have launched a revolution in our understanding of the remote past of our species and of the origins of civilization. Graham Hancock, the internationally best-selling author has been overwhelmingly vindicated by recent discoveries. America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is a mind-dilating exploration of the mystery of ancient civilizations, amazing archaeological discoveries, and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.
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Fun to Think About
- By Amazon Customer on 04-26-19
By: Graham Hancock
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The Statues That Walked
- Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island
- By: Terry Hunt, Carl Lipo
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?
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The "Mystery of Easter Island" remains raveled
- By Diane on 09-14-12
By: Terry Hunt, and others
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The Galápagos
- A Natural History
- By: Henry Nicholls
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot.
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Thought-Provoking
- By Jean on 10-23-18
By: Henry Nicholls
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Almost Human
- The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
- By: Lee Berger, John Hawks
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, heard of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators - men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. It worked.
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A deep story on the rocky trail to human origins
- By Peter Matthews on 01-14-19
By: Lee Berger, and others
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The Beak of the Finch
- A Story of Evolution in Our Time
- By: Jonathan Weiner
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend 20 years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are 400 at the time of the author's visit or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about 20 generations of finches - continuously.Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.
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Fascinating in-depth look at evolution in action
- By Philip on 05-15-11
By: Jonathan Weiner
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A Most Improbable Journey
- A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves
- By: Walter Alvarez
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Big History, the field that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to human existence, has so far been the domain of historians. Geologist Walter Alvarez - best known for his Impact Theory explaining dinosaur extinction - makes a compelling case for a new, science-first approach to Big History.
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Learned so much
- By Niki on 12-09-18
By: Walter Alvarez
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Evolution
- What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters: Adapted for Audio
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrated by: John Bishop
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Over the past 20 years, paleontologists have made tremendous fossil discoveries, including fossils that mark the growth of whales, manatees, and seals from land mammals and the origins of elephants, horses, and rhinos. Today there exists an amazing diversity of fossil humans, suggesting we walked upright long before we acquired large brains, and new evidence from molecules that enable scientists to decipher the tree of life as never before.
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NOT WORTH THE PRICE OF ADDMISSION
- By CRAIG on 12-25-14
What listeners say about Remarkable Creatures
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Susan
- 06-07-09
Good tales, not a good narrator
I wonder why the author didn't read this himself. The narrator makes these tales sound like a text book with one declarative sentence after another, droning on and on and on. Carroll, whom I greatly admire, is a scientist, not a writer, and that shows in some places, but his enthusiasm for the subject matter would have brought these amazing stories to life much better than Jim Bond. I don't expect sing-song, but I do want a hint of enthusiasm in the reader's voice!! I doubt if many could stick with this all the way through with this narrator.
Publishers: don't be terrified to have authors and women narrators. You seem to think the only acceptable narrator must have a DEEP monotone. Not true!
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9 people found this helpful
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- Allison
- 06-04-12
My New Favorite
Where does Remarkable Creatures rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
The best book I have listened to on audible so far!
Any additional comments?
This book truly captures the way that science works in lay terms and is a great combination of History, Geology, and Biology with a special emphasis on the plight of every new scientific discovery. I could have listened to this book in one sitting. It is a must read, seriously buy this one if you are on the fence.
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- Gringuita
- 03-10-10
remarkable piece of work
Basically a riveting collection of the "greatest hits of biology, paleontology, geology, etc. The author doesn't take himself too seriously and offers up one great story after another: Darwin, Wallace, Bates, Leakey, Chapman, Alvarez.
Really entertaining and informative
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2 people found this helpful
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- Boris Petrov
- 03-13-20
Outstanding science book - written with integrity
This science book is well researched and as all other Sean Carroll's books written with high integrity and easy to read/listen. My highest recommendation.
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- quinet
- 04-26-13
A terrific book
If you are an evolutionist like myself you will find this book very entertaining and informative, lots of background information I did not know. It's a kind of adventure story of the histories of some early naturalists, evolutionary theorists, and geologists. Also the narration is perfect and never gets in the way of the story.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Michael Dowd
- 03-22-09
A Remarkable Journey
I am a professional science writer; I love science and have learned a great deal about evolutionary biology and the history of that field. But Sean Carroll's "Remarkable Creatures" brought me back to the first-taste delight and gratitude I felt 25 years ago when I began reading the classic books in this subject. Bravo!
Anyone who loves science will fall in love with this book. Anyone who loves biographies will love this book. Anyone who loves great storytelling and adventure tales will love this book. More, I can think of no more pleasant and powerful way for anyone to truly grasp the power and beauty of the scientific endeavor as the most trustworthy way of knowing. In these stories of the great discoveries that birthed and honed an understanding of evolution and the deep-time frame that it requires, one comes to viscerally understand why the openness of science to new ideas (the liberal side of science) is necessarily tempered by the skepticism of those who have a stake in then-current understandings (the conservative side of science). Both are essential. This book gives the listener a profound appreciation of both.
Finally, the author's choice of precisely what biographical elements to convey is masterful. Of note was his choice of including a vignette from each discoverer's childhood that would play out during the course of the narrative as pivotal for shaping his or her character, persistence, or field of interest. The importance of mentors was also very clear in these stories. How crucial to offer up such opportunities to questing youth in every generation!
Overall, I give this book my highest recommendation.
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25 people found this helpful