Rise of the Dragon: Readings from Nature on the Chinese Fossil Record [Paperback]

Over the past decade, fossil finds from China have stunned the world, grabbing headlines and changing perceptions with a wealth of new discoveries. Many of these finds were first announced to English speakers in the journalNature.Rise of the Dragongathers together sixteen of these original reports, some augmented with commentaries originally published inNature's News and Views section.

Perhaps the best known of these new Chinese fossils are the famous feathered dinosaurs from Liaoning Province, which may help end one of the most intense debates in paleontology—whether birds evolved from dinosaurs. But other finds have been just as spectacular, such as the minutely preserved (to the cellular level) animal embryos of the 670 million-year-old Duoshantuo phosphorites, or the world's oldest known fish, from the Chengjiang formation in southwestern Yunnan Province.

Rise of the Dragonmakes descriptions and detailed discussions of these important finds available in one convenient volume for paleontologists and serious fossil fans.

Henry Geeis a senior editor atNature. He is the author ofBefore the Backbone: Views on the Origin of the VertebratesandIn Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Lifeand the editor ofShaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life, the last also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Foreword: Zhe-Xi Luo
Introduction
1. Three-Dimensional Preservation of Algae and Animal Embryos in a Neoproterozoic Phosphorite
Shu-Hai Xiao, Yun Zhang, and Andrew H. Knoll
Nature391, 553-558 (1998)
2. Animal Embryos in Deep Time
Stefan Bengtson
Nature391, 529-530 (1998)
3. A Pipiscid-like Fossil from the Lower Cambrian of South China
De-Gan Shu, S. Conway Morris, Xing-Liang Zhang, Liang Chen, Y. Li, and J. Han
Nature400, 746-749 (1999)
4. An Early Cambrianl³®