What on Earth Evolved? ... in Brief

by Christopher Lloyd

Why have creatures evolved as they are? Which species have been the most successful? How do life forms adapt to a world dominated by nearly seven billion humans? Christopher Lloyd leads us on an exhilarating journey from the birth of life to the present day, as he attempts to answer these fundamental questions. Along the way, he reveals the stories of the 100 most influential species that have ever lived, from slime, dragonflies, and dung beetles to dogs, yeast, and bananas. These 100 species are scored and ranked in order of their impact on the planet, life and people. "What on Earth Evolved ...in Brief?" is a lively and eye-opening insight into mankind's place in nature, and our pivotal relationship with the Earth past, present and future.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Nature, History, Evolution, Biology, Animals

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Bestselling author Christopher Lloyd began his career as a journalist with the Sunday Times newspaper. Then, while camping with his family, he had a critical realization: Even with a 1st class degree in history from Cambridge University and experience as a science writer, there was so much about the world he didn't know. So, he set out to write books that zoom out and tell the big stories, opening readers' eyes to how seemingly unrelated events fit together and showing them multiple perspectives on the world, all in highly engaging prose and matched with lively illustration and photography.

Now, with more than 20 books in print, some in over a dozen languages, Christopher divides his time between writing books for adults and children and delivering lectures and workshops to schools, literary festivals, and a wide range of other venues around the world.

Reviews

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely love this book. So well written and a fascinating read. I keep reading sections of the book the kids. I can't remember when I've enjoyed a non-fiction book so much.

[Miglė · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to know more about nature, civilization and the subtle relationships between the two, but you're not a fan of "a single explanation" books, such as "Guns, Germs and Steel", this is the book for you! I liked how the author emphasizes the subtle causal relationships, some of them accidental, to show the history of the world as a complex net of interactions.

• For example, the trypanosoma parasite which travels in the saliva of the tzetze fly, causes the fatal cattle disease. Therefore the initial spread of agriculture had to stop at Central Africa (because the cattle would get infected and die attempting to traverse the tzetze belt), thus leaving the southern parts of Africa alone and allowing the traditional lifestyle to continue and prosper there until the Bantu expansion with their resistant cows. Should we say that the parasite prevented the southern Africa to "develop civilizations", or on the contrary, that it saved the locals from agressive expansions of herders for quite some time?

• Or, look at Australia - it broke off Gondwana 250 million years ago and didn't have any big geological events since. In the absence of geological events the life-supporting minerals from deeper down couldn't get up, leaving Australia's landscape pretty arid. In order to survive in this environment, the plants had to be extremely tough and competitive - like eucalyptus. So when people started planting eucalyptus forests in other places, the plant sucked up all the water and ALL the nutrients, leaving none to the native plants, and so becoming a dangerous invasive species.

Personally I liked the history before humans most. Loved the little Cambrian fuckers, our ancestor piggish lystrosaurus, dimetrodon with his nice innovation of regulating temperature (the "sail" on its back), bacteria and so on.

• "Plants and animals are limited to just two basic modes of energy production (respiration and photosynthesis), yet Prokaryotic bacteria boast at least twenty, allowing them to feed on molecules as diverse as sulphur, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, hydrogen, oxygen, iron, ammonia, methane and sugar." Neat!

• A long long time ago all the fuckers from the sea would only eat each other when they bumped into each other. But then the trilobites evolved eyes and life has never been the same. Everyone had to react fast and evolve something in response to the eyes of the trilobites - eyes to see them coming, a shell to hide or spines to defend. Basically everyone's eyes could be tracked back to the arms race with the trilobites. Thanks, trilobites!

• Viruses can be bad (I'm sure I don't need to give an example), but they can also be good, or at least neutral. One of the theories why we have adaptive immunity (cells that can not only fight infection, but also remember the pathogen it won against) is that sharks have been infected with some retro virus, who was "interested" in protecting its host. Due to these retroviruses we all have adaptive immunity, but sharks have the best one, and shark oil is marketed as an immune booster.
Not everyone liked this new thing - deep sea anglerfish got rid of the adaptive immunity in order to practice sexual parasitism (male basically fuses with female after conception).

• Some tens of millions of years ago the Earth was very hot. THEN a type of water fern called azolla made it colder. The fern had a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria, allowing them to convert carbon dioxide into nutrients and quickly covered the whoooole arctic region up to Britain, making it a nice swamp and shifting earth's climate. Yay, fern!

• Why are so many bugs so small and have folding wings? Maybe they evolved to crawl into little crevices and hide from an extremely agressive ancient predator with 360 degree vision and the size of an eagle - a big-ass dragonfly!

• Also, oaks are comparable to coral reefs with respect to the amount of species they give shelter / food to. They can also reproduce across species and lace their acorns with tannin, thus encouraging squirrels to hide some of them and not eat all at once (large doses of tannin can be poisonous).

It's a well-structured book, perhaps even TOO well-structured: there are chapters corresponding both to the evolution of life and to certain topics "On Agriculture", "On Biodiversity", "On Sea Life", then 5 - 10 essays in each chapter about the selected species, then the ranking of the species according to their influence on the history of the world. You can read 5 or so essays in one sitting, but reading more requires some effort. The writing style is very appealing, but maybe the structured and fragmentary nature of the book prevents "getting lost in it". Good quality paper makes the illustrations stand out, but also makes to book heavy to carry around.

Despite all that I loved it. I've learned so much and it inspires so much love for the nature that I kinda want to translate it to Lithuanian. Maybe I should?

[Ashok Krishna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somebody give me a medal, please!

For, the very act of reading through this book and finishing it demands a lot of attention and feels like an achievement by itself. Not that it is boring or poorly written. It is just that amount of facts contained in this book, the unbelievable amount of research that would have taken to compile them all, are both factors that can make one go limp with astonishment.

In this book, the famed world history author Christopher Lloyd tries to reproduce the magic of his other renowned work ‘What On Earth Happened’ and has succeeded in his quest to a large extent. Identifying 100 species out of the millions of creatures, listing them one by one in the order of importance - in terms of their contribution to the evolution of our planet – Lloyd has done a stupendous job. From ‘lowly’ life-forms like viruses and bacteria – only in terms of size – to the now-extinct species of dinosaurs, from the species that we can reconstruct in our mind’s eye only with the help of fossils to the pleasingly beautiful roses and lotuses, this book deals with a wide array of species.

With the book being divided into a hundred chapters, one per species, this book can be used as a reference material or a relaxed read. If you’re a person interested in evolution, history of the planet, the plant/animal lives or, simply in general science, then this is a book that you must have in your shelf. Amazing work!

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s pretty much what it says on the tin. To a biologist, the choices of species aren’t particularly surprising, though I might perhaps have included fewer animals and more bacteria and plants. Even though this is a cut-down version of the full book, it’s still pretty exhaustive (and at times a bit exhausting). It’s full of interesting titbits, but nothing at great length, and a large portion of the back is taken up by charts attempting to put things into some sort of ranking as to how much it has affected the world. The focus is very much with Lloyd’s subtitle, “100 Species That Have Changed the World”.

Easy enough to read, though perhaps one you might prefer to dip in and out of than just read straight through.

Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly laid out and effortlessly well written. For those with an interest in science, history, and evolution (of organisms/species as well as human society), this is a wonderful read. Each species is laid out into quick bites, layered into major themes throughout the book that create a functional flow. The book is also not too inundated with scientific jargon, making it a very inclusive read. Highly recommend this to anyone curious about how we all got here 🌍

[Laila El · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the concept behind it, but felt it wasn't executed in the best way.
Each segment is incredibly simplistic, and reads like a basic version of wikipedia.
I only got through the first 3rd of it, so it may have picked up at a later date.

[Jack Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

It just tells what life is in the first two paragraphs. You know just casual.

[Dimitris Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you know that every bamboo in the world flowers simultaneously once every few years? Had you ever imagined that if you pulverised a sponge the cells would gather together again to form the initial form in a perfect reconstruction? Had it ever occurred to you that, unlike other species like dogs, horses or chickens, people keep cats for no practical reason? Have you ever thought about the relevant speciesist implications? Did you know that elephants mourn their dead and visit elephant graveyards (yes like the ones in The Lion King) to pay their respects? Would you imagine that about 20% of the world's oxygen comes from a kind of oceanic bacteria? Did you know that smallpox hasn't really been eradicated -- in fact, if unleashed today, it would eradicate a great percentage of the human population? Would you have ever known that most wheat -- the basis for a great lot of our food today -- cannot even reproduce naturally anymore because humans have bred it to have seeds so large they cannot even leave the ear and thus must be manually assisted?

"What on Earth Evolved?" and its 400-page insight into humanity's and Earth's organic history is full of such facts that are definitely going to stick with you. Just ask any of my friends or other people in my social circle if I haven't been annoying them with jaw-dropping factoids about any of the one hundred species involved in this book, 50 that made their impact before humanity emerged and 50 that affected, and were affected by, us self-proclaimed owners of the Earth throughout our history. This unlikely menagerie has it all: from chickens to the supposed HIV virus, from roses to dragonflies, from cannabis to sharks, from dogs to eucalyptus trees, from ants to bats and from chilli peppers to trilobites.

Just like "What on Earth Happened?", the sequel promises to change your perspective on things. Humanity's "special privileges", our relationship with the rest of the world, the holistic importance of everything there is and all that is no more but once reigned supreme. This book will make you think, it'll make you look around through a different eye. This is the stuff children would learn at school in a perfect world (the artistic design in fact, would be deceptively compatible with such a science class at school: minimalism meets cute drawings? Yes!).

This is "On the Origins of Species" on cultural steroids, it's Darwin for Dummies and I could not mean that in a better way.

[Japorized · Rating 5 out of 5]

History may be the past and most of the contents from between these covers might have been dead.
But with words, Lloyd gave them life and they're all playing their time as if they are happening right in front of us now.
As written in one of its testimonials, "A re-telling of the greatest story ever told."

[Elvyra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suprasdama kuo kiekviena, net ir smulkiausia gyvybės forma yra ypatinga bei kaip prisideda prie planetos bei žmonių gerovės ir kokią įtaką daro ekosistemai, galiu jausti dėkingumą visai mus supančiai aplinkai. Keli (mano akimis) įdomūs faktai iš knygos:

Man-made objects are generally designed around the needs of humans, not nature, so plasticis durable, not degradable. All the plastic ever created by humans still exists - somewhere.

Earthworm's constant burrowing fertilizes the soil.

As a final gesture of goodwill, the parents plants of some species automatically die off after flowering so as not to compete with their fast-growing seedlings for water, light and space.

Elephants burying the bones of their dead in branches, leaves and sand and grief for the loss of loved ones is expressed by standing mournfully over graves and returning to visit ancient burial sites.

Rats: potencial output from a single female of more than 100 offspring per year.
Vietnam, Ghana depends on rats as a rich source of protein in their diet, so they are both farmed and hunted for their meat.

Potato: nutritionally rich that when eaten in sufficient quantities they could provide all the nutrients needed for human wellbeing and survival.

Silk: one of the toughest naturally  occurring substances in the world (in1800s in USA silk bullet-proof vest protected agains black-powder handguns).
After thousands of years of human selection these silk moths even as adults (when hatch out of their cocoons in order to lay eggs) cannot fly or feed without human assistance. Meanwhile the wast majority are killed before thry are allowed to mature in order to protect their 1000 metre-long thread.

Eucaliptus just as a phoemix rises from their ashes (literally).

Grapes: 70% are pressed and fermented into wine.

Drugs in western hemisphere are mostly stimulants (nicotine, cocaine) while in eastern hemisphere dominate depressants (heroin, morphine, poppy). Note how characteristic of drugs matches with traditional cultures of West and East. Violent western consumerism and urge for physical and commercial conquest contrast with eastern desire for self-sufficiency and spiritualism.

Egot - a parasitic fungus (-->acid, lsd effect). Eating egot infected rye, barley or wheat could be connected with Salem witch trials and thousands of people dancing for months and screaming wildly for no apparent reason (till death from exhaustion and heart attack).

Cats: in Egipt in 450 BC when cat died it's owner would shave off their eyebrows to signify the loss/grief. In Japan sign of good fortune. Domestic cats have recently eclipsed even dogs in term of population. Unlike other animal cats are self domesticated. Domestic cats can't taste/detect sweetness and are obligate carnivores. They hunt for pleasure just like people. Due to their solitary habits and night-time hunting they were associated with gypsies and witchcraft.

Rose - water accounts about 90% of a mass of cut flower. Will water poor African farmers continue to cultivate them and water rich European consumers continue to purchase them despite of ecological consequences?

Apple. An apple per day keeps the doctor away. Out of 7500 known cultivars, almost all of 55 mln.t. apples grown worldwide per year are derived from 6 varieties specially selected for their looks, shape and sweetness.

Vanilla - beans of an exotic species off orchid. Only 10% of vanilla- flavoured products today are from genuine, naturally cured vanilla beans, the rest is produced artificially.

Lotus leaves design which ensures that droplets of water fall off inspired dirt repellent self-cleaning materials.

Chilli pepper - stimulating same receptors in a mammal's mouth as those that respond to hot temperatures or tissue damage triggering a sensation of heat and pain which result is increased heart rate and sweat. But when seeds are eaten by birds their digestive tract stays unharmed. Bell-shaped peppers beed bred to contain little or no pain-producing elements.

Grass - satellite images reveal that there is 3 times more acres of grass lawns in the USA than corn/maize. 900l of fresh drinking-quality water are needed per person per day to keep Americas lawns looking fresh.

Orange - berry. Citrus fruits (vitamin C) are neccessary for people to avoid illness called curvy.

Banana - tallest family of herbs and the most poppular tropical fruit which now faces mass extinction due to lack of genetic diversity. In 1900 no self-respecting lady could possibly eat banana in public without first cutting it into pieces using a knife and fork.

Deer - one of nature's most poverful long-distance runners capable of speeds exceeding 89km/h and reaching 2m in hight.

Crows manufacture tools like humans and some primates. Compared to their body size has one of the biggest brain in size (almost as chimpanzee).

Fruit flies - ideal for studying genetics. Fly larvae - maggots- kill bacteria by secreting their own antibiotic juice. Placed on infected open wounds would clean it by feeding solely on dead tissue.

Tick - female lays up to 10,00 eggs.

Lactobacilus - turns milk into cheese breaking down the sugars in milk (lactase) into digestible lactic acid which protects against less beneficial bacteria on microbial pathogens (viruses, protozoa or fungi).

[Rafi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A breeze through read on some of the most amazing species from an evolutionary and impact on human civilization perspectives. learnt about horses potatoes to algae and potty virus. An enriching experience.

[Janice Sheufelt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, very well written. Provides excellent context for issues such as climate change and the 6th extinction.

[Nola · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great! There are so many things in it I didn’t know, from species that were dominant world-wide for hundreds of millions of years to tiny details. The concept is one that I have never seen before. This book is ordered very roughly chronologically, but within that by species, or maybe I should say life forms, that have had the most impact on the current environment of the earth. It is a long book, so there is a huge amount of information in it. It is broken up into sections on each species, which are mostly only 2-3 pages, so it is easy to read in these sections. There are some longer sections that details the major transitions the earth has gone through as an introduction to each group and these are a little longer and therefore take more concentration to get through. The Story of the World in 100 Species is a book I would like to have as a reference. It has way more material than I can remember now after reading it. The author seems to have a broad education that allows him to write with ease about a vast variety of things that are all pertinent to his point and he is able to explain processes and make seamless connections on, again, a wide variety of evolutionary and historical points. It does talk about western civilization to the exclusion of others, but the author obviously knows his history of western civilization and knows it way more than I ever will. Once you know that, it would be hard to unknow, and I feel it’s better to learn about what the author does know than for him to exclude it because he isn’t as conversant with other civilizations. This is a large book because there is so much in it, so it is physically a bit awkward holding it and avoid damaging it. The version I read was paperback, so it is lighter than a hardback would be, but more delicate. An e-reader might be a particularly. good option for this book.

[Sophie]

I got 128 pages into this beast. So far what I've read has been fascinating but I started this book 2 months ago & am struggling to stay focused when I (rarely) pick it up. It's more of a flick through coffee table book than a cover to cover read. I'll make an effort to read various sections over the next few weeks but I'm scrapping the bookmark. Some stand-out moments so far:

The worst affected victims of 'Spanish Flu' were young adults because H1N1 strain of influenza causes immune system to overreact and badly damage body tissues. Those with strongest immune system most at risk. (p17)
HIV is only 30 years old (at time of book's publication). (p18)
About 10% of European population are immune to HIV, a mutation in populations that survived bubonic plague. (p19)
The last Smallpox death was in 1978 (the virus escaped a lab through an air vent). In 1980 WHO declared Smallpox extinct in nature. The first, and so far only, disease to be eradicated by collective human endeavour. (p24)
Live samples of Smallpox do exist. People today are highly vulnerable to smallpox infection. Bio terrorism could be a thing. (p27)
About 12% of the US population are Irish-American thanks in part to people fleeing the Irish potato blight famine. (p52)
I love when I find out more about real world Minecraft blocks. In this case Mycelium (p87) & Elytra (p101).
Preventing forest fires is harmful for redwood trees. (p96)

[Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book at face value, especially for reading aloud to children. Therein lies my beef though: there is an embedded anthropocentric ideology in this book which basically determines the value of a life relative to its usefulness to human economy and expansion. I would have enjoyed this all the more had those assumptions been clearly noted and the numerical "ranking" system, which is generally baseless, tossed out.

[Dilys Cosemans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel emotionally attached to this book. I felt so inspired by it that I even wrote a song about it. I love all its short chapters about so many different interesting things.

[Ryan Fohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish more of my textbooks were written like this. I learned a lot of new concepts about evolutionary biology. The book can be picked up anywhere and read as a collection of magazine articles or read straight through. In my opinion things really pick up once humans enter the scene (but I may be biased.) This book can substitute for several micro histories while at the same time being a great science book. The ranking of the species is just a silly justification for reprinting this book, to cash in on the “100 things” trend. Contains the most interesting thing I have ever read about the, much touting economic tale of the “tulip bubble.”

What I learned: A forest of Bamboo will all flower at the same time, once every sixty to 130 years, and then automatically all die off after flowering. Bee hives have bee bouncers to keep drunk bees from returning to the hive. One attribute that separates humanity from the animals is our ability to kill effectively over large distances. There once was a North American llama living alongside five types of native North American horses. Sugar was discovered, cultivated, and spread by Polynesian people. Wild pigs in New Zealand will kill lambs! We still produce almost half the world’s rubber from natural latex. Ecstasy is derived from the dried root bark of sassafras trees? Oliver Cromwell died of malaria because he was so prejudiced against Catholics that he refused cinchona bark aka “Jesuit’s Bark.” Bulgaria has the world largest rose growing region. Exporting plants like roses and cotton is also a way of exporting a region’s finite water supply. Birds are not harmed by chili peppers.

[Steve Rangoussis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you think are the top 10 most successful and influential species of all time? You will be surprised. Information from this book provides with plenty of subjects to use as conversation starters. This is one of those books that expands on science knowledge you already have while providing some interesting facts that leaves you compelled to explore other subjects based on discussions in the book (I have around 30 notes on subjects I will likely be looking for articles on). Informative in a good way, not written like a text book, the reading style is enjoyable. You can't help but feel your intelligence has increased after reading this interesting work.

Now that I have finished this book, I am left thinking what it all means for us humans and our future. You will see what I mean when you read it. Enjoy!

[Peja · Rating 1 out of 5]

While this non-fiction journey through the impact of species is comprehensive and interesting, the formatting isn't enough to mitigate the boredom that this book brings. Lacking infographics, interesting titles and facts, the plain text gets monotonous pretty fast and I genuinely fell asleep more than a few times while reading this. Maybe for those specifically interested in human history and biology, this could be exciting when read in small chunks or for those writing a research paper on this specific topic, but otherwise I would not recommend. It's also notable that there's a lot of borderline offensive takes on the culture of entire countries and there isn't a lot of in-depth analysis of the negative effects of colonialism (although the colonization of the "New World" is mentioned many times).

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.3 STARS

Purpose- To inform the readers of the amazing diversity of life on earth and the interactions between us and the planet while making links to evolution, history and the phylogenic tree. 100 species that have transformed life on earth are listed on categories of: Environmental impact, Longevity, Global reach and Evolutionary impact.

How well does it hit the bulls eye?

In a word- entirely.

I learnt about history, biology, diversity of life, relationships between organisms on the planet, and silent killers, mushrooms the size of four story buildings, things that can multiple by 25.6 billion ( and no not bacteria), dinosaurs (living and dead) and the impact of immoral domestication on the environment.

Get this book.

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did like this book a lot because it had a lot of factual information and interesting presentation. I did wonder about the editing of this book especially today when we are trying so hard to equalize gender.Although they were not numerous in the book the author dropped the terms humanity and humankind for gender biased terminology This was common practice when men were controlling everything but is now frowned upon as it leaves out 50 % of the world. There was also some amount of bias as to gender roles in certain time periods and some religious leanings that didn't seem to have a comfortable fit in this type of book. Getting past that while acknowledging it this was still a worthwhile read,

[Hilary Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been quite a wonderful journey with Christopher Lloyd across the world's evolutionary history! There are plentiful of latest scientific discoveries laced with amusing background stories about the 100 most influential species ever existed on Earth. The philosophies left by this list/book are many as well as inspiring. For example, influences induced often come big when the organism comes in smaller size or unimpressive outlook, like yeasts, viruses, or even earthworms!
This book is full of surprises and it will put you into a thirst for more scientific discoveries!

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of those trivia value judgement books. I liked it. A fair bit of conjecture as there has to be looking at history millions of years ago, but even whether Lucy in the Sky was long for LSD. The blurb at the beginning of each chapter can be more thought provoking than the actual species listed and although species are mentioned sometimes entire genus or even families are used as targets. (Eucalypts is not a specific species but the chapter treated them as such).

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 100 most influential species that have ever lived - including those cultivated or bred by humans.

The stories of these 100 shows an intriguing biographical history. Excellent for anyone interested in life on Earth, especially the human impact.

This fed my scientific curiosity, increasing my understanding of many species I thought I knew - along with others I'd never really thought about - and I recommend it to feed yours.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating. Mostly the 1st half, which helps put into perspective the evolution of complex life on Earth. The second half, which I felt dealt too much with history, deals with 50 species that have had a big impact since humans evolved. While I felt that the ranking novelty of the top 100 was unnecessary, I found that I would have been happy to read about the next 100.

[Adam Bowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty cool, interesting read. Although I'm not heavily into biology of any kind I am fascinated with evolution and different theory's of said subject. From viruses to dinosaurs this book explains the origins and impact they have had on us. If you're at all interested in animals, evolution, evolutionary theories, plants so on and so on then give it a read.

[Emily Littler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book pretty interesting to read, and I haven't read a good non-fiction book in a while. Despite being written in 2010, only some of the microbiology stuff is out-dated, so it's not a bad read. I picked it up thanks to New Scientist magazine recommending it, but I've only just gotten around to finishing it. I'd suggest it to anyone interested in evolution or general non-fiction!

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't finished reading this book yet, but it is thoroughly enjoyable, especially if you are a science nerd. Each little chapter is about one of the top 100 species that "changed the world," and is only 2-3 pages long. I read one almost every day with my lunch.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book combines science (mainly biology) with world history as it explains what nature has done to this world and to the animals (us included) that live here. Using a dry humor and exellent delivery Lloyd manages to create a masterpiece; complete with pictures!

[Ad Samad · Rating 4 out of 5]

i simply love this easy to read book on biology and also history. i think your 8 year old would enjoy reading it too. you will never look at earthworm the same again and will respect seaweed even more.