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Understanding body shapes of animals : shapes as mechanical constructions and systems moving on minimal energy level / Holger Preuschoft.

9783030276683 (electronic bk.)
3030276686 (electronic bk.)
3030276678
9783030276676

Cham, Switzerland : Springer, 2022.

English

1 online resource

10.1007/978-3-030-27668-3 doi

QP303

573.7/9343

This book discusses how and why animals evolved into particular shapes. The book identifies the physical laws which decide over the evolutionary (selective) value of body shape and morphological characters. Comparing the mechanical necessities with morphological details, the author attempts to understand how evolution works, and which sorts of limitations are set by selection. The book explains morphological traits in more biomechanical detail without getting lost in physics, or in methods. Most emphasis is placed on the proximate question, namely the identification of the mechanical stresses which must be sustained by the respective body parts, when they move the body or its parts against resistance. In the first part of the book the focus is on primitive animals and later on the emphasis shifts to highly specialized mammals. Readers will learn more about living and fossil animals. A section of the book is dedicated to human evolution but not to produce another evolutionary tree, nor to refine a former one, but to contribute to answering the question: WHY early humans have developed their particular body shape".

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed July 14, 2022).

Print version: 9783030276676

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