The ancestor's tale : a pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution / Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong.

"Mariner Books, an Eamon Dolan book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 710-736) and index.

All humankind -- Chimpanzees -- Gorillas -- Orang utans -- Gibbons -- Old world monkey's -- New world monkey's -- Tarsiers -- Lemurs, bushbabies and their kin -- The great creataceous catatrophe & 10 colugos and tree shrews -- Rodents and rabbitkind -- Laurasiatheres -- Xenartharans and afrotheres -- Marsupials -- Monotremes -- Sauropsids -- Amphibians -- Lungfish -- Coelacanths -- Ray finned fish -- Sharks and their kin -- Lampreys and hagfish -- Sea squirts -- Lancelets -- Ambulacrarians -- Protostomes -- Acoelomorph -- Flatworms -- Cnidarians -- Ctenophores -- Placozoans -- Sponges -- Choanoflagellates -- Drips -- Fungi -- Uncetain -- Amoebozoans -- Light harvesters and their kin -- Archaea -- Eubacteria.

The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism.