An awe-inspiring journey through the eons & across the globe in search of visible traces of evolution in the living creatures that have survived from earlier times. In this groundbreaking book, prize-winning science writer Richard Fortey chronicles life`s history not through the fossil record, but through the stories of organisms that have survived, almost unchanged, through geological time. Fortey takes us on a journey to ancient worlds: on a moonlit beach in Delaware where the horseshoe crab shuffles its way through a violent romance, we catch a glimpse of life 450 million years ago. Along a stretch of Australian coastline, we bear witness to the sights & sounds that would have greeted a Precambrian dawn. &, in the dense rainforests of New Zeal&, where the secretive velvet worm burrows into the rotting timber of the jungle floor, we marvel at a living fossil which has survived unchanged since before the break-up of Gondwana, the ancient supercontinent, over 150 million years ago. Written with Fortey`s customary sparkle & gusto, this wonderfully engrossing exploration of the world`s oldest flora & fauna brilliantly combines the best science writing about the origins of life with an explorer`s sense of adventure & a poet`s wonder at the natural world.