Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms Quotes

“I confess that the idea of taking off one's boots in a howling squall to safeguard fossils that had survived since the Precambrian had its funny side.”
― Richard Fortey, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind

“Emus are little more than feathered stomachs borne on mighty legs and ruled by a tiny brain. If an emu wants one of your sandwiches, he will get it, and then run away. He cannot help you with your sudoku.”
― Richard Fortey, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind

“The only other inhabitants of the pool are very large black water beetles, and they come to the surface regularly to refresh the air bubbles that allow them to dive for up to three minutes at a time. These beetles are predators, and it was soon clear what happens to any dead tadpoles lying on the bottom of the pool – they are fought over by hungry beetles. Carcasses are tussled over and bitten to bits.”
― Richard Fortey, Survivors: The Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind

“The fossil bird Archaeopteryx is late Jurassic in age (146 million years old) so a thread of descent must connect the tinamou”
― Richard Fortey, Survivors: The Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind

“Tinamous are almost certainly the most primitive living birds.”
― Richard Fortey, Survivors: The Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind

“Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn Jr”
― Richard Fortey, Survivors: The Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind

“Thus with a swipe of flesh on stone we carry our vertebrate pedigree back 525 million years ... A silvery sliver of a thing took us away from trilobites and snail onto our own special path: one which led to land, to Tyrannosaurus Rex, and The New York Times.”
― Richard Fortey, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind