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The Ancestor's Tale

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The Ancestor's Tale

By: Richard Dawkins
Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
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About this listen

 The Ancestor's Tale is a pilgrimage back through time - a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about six million years in the past, gorillas at seven million years, orangutans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band.

The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way or glimpsed from afar: the Elephant Bird's Tale, the Marsupial Mole's Tale, the Lungfish's Tale. Together they give a deep understanding of the processes that have shaped life on Earth: convergent evolution, the isolation of populations, continental drift, and the great extinctions.

©2004 Richard Dawkins (P)2004 Orion Publishing Group Ltd Biological Sciences Biology Evolution Evolution & Genetics Genetics Science Natural History Paleontology Elephant

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Most relevant
OK got your attention.

This audiobook gives a wonderful overview of evolution and how we (and I mean you, me and everyone now alive) got here.

It makes a very special case of how lucky WE are to be here, experiencing this wonderful world.

RD comes for a lot of flack re his beliefs on religion, but he makes a very strong case for how special WE truely are.

So many things could have prevented me from writing this review, from a bus hitting me on the way to work, mum not meeting dad, Germany winning WW2, the Black Death not killing so many people in England, the last ice age lasting a bit longer, the KT asteroid missing earth, Jupiter not 'sucking' big rocks etc etc (Deep huh?).

The universe is really, really big. This planet has been going for a very, very, long time. RD tries to get us thinking how things change, why they change and more importantly sets these changes within a time frame - a very, very long timeframe.

I loved this audiobook; it was testing, hard work at times but ultimately life affirming. I'm pleased to be here and I really want to thank all my ancestors for their help in surviving and procreating (don't know what mum will make of this!!).

Apologies for using 'very' so much in this review.....but that really is where the creationists lose the plot - this planet is very, very, very, very old - science proves this - really, truely proves this and a lot can happen in this very, very, very long timeframe.

All this stuff happened way before 4004 BC - so come on everyone, get a grip on the scale of creation.

I just think its sad that some people can't see how special we really are!

Many thanks Richard for an educational read/listen (though I much prefer it when you stick to provable science and let the reader do the philosophical musings!!).

Heresy!!!

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The Ancestors Tale is a wonderfully enjoyable pilgramage to the beginnings of life on Earth. Dawkins voice is engaging and reminded me somewhat of that of the greatest story teller of the natural word, David Attenborough. Dawkins' charming wife Lala shares the naration, with the partitioning of the task making listening to a thick book, packed full of detail, feel effortless.

My favourite chapter was The Coelacanths Tale. Dawkins retelling of how in 1938 a 425 million year old living fossil was discovered really makes you feel as if you had been there at that magic moment yourself.

A brilliant and truly informative read (listen).

Dawkins doing what he does so well.

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Grateful that there are big brains around to help mine on it's way. I think a 'thank you' is appropriate. 'Live long and prosper' Richard and Lalla.

Awe inspiring (awesome!)

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This fascinating book takes us on a 4 billion year pilgrimage to the original origin of life of which all living things, plants, fungi and animals such as man are all related to a single descendent. Told in a similar manner to the Canterbury tales with a few diversions including tales of flightless birds, the book works its way back, starting with man and then through the tree of life and the branches that sprang up. So all homo sapiens and other uptight homo species (there have been at least 13 of which only Homo sapiens are still walking on this planet as well as bonobos and chimpanzees are all related to one common ancestor 7 million years previously. We know this as we can now identify these through genetic markings and extractions as well as fossil records and scientific enquiry. Evolution shows that we are ever evolving, following a timeline and descendant from all other animals and plant life until you get to a common single ancestor. This was probably a piece of ribosomal protein such as eukaryotes and archaea. How quick Can evolution take place?

The book tells the story of how one man tamed foxes in only 20 years through breeding and choosing the most friendly of the litter. And after 20 years, the foxes were more like dogs, both in temperament and an adaptation of physical features such as floppy ears. And their brains changed also. They moved from wild foxes to become more like domesticated pets. Who knows, perhaps with mankind the same thing will happen as we evolve and change. We have already shown changes in our DNA in our ability to tolerate lactose in milk when we become children and adults, no other mammal can do this and many humans on this planet can’t either, but some of us have developed the ability to tolerate lactose in milk as adults, perhaps something that occurred through famine. We also often have an overbite on her top teeth because we now use knives and forks and don’t rip food apart with our teeth. This story is almost told as numerous stories similar to those told in the Canterbury tales. And it’s fascinating.

Moving back in time, from mankind through to a common descendent that also gave rise to bonobos and chimpanzees. We humans are all part of the ape family, but then if you go further back in time, you can trace back to the lineage within rabbits and then mice and rats. Rodents are fantastic creatures of which there are more than there are all of the mammals put together. But one gift to this planet is that we managed to control is the rat population, because when we go they will take over. The authors then talk of the Dodo Bird, when birds no longer have predators, they lose their ability to fly. It takes up a lot of energy and is not needed until man arise, and their inquisitive nature of the dodo bird means they are wiped out to man the usual brutal behaviour.

The book also traces the story of Ratite birds, But the only birds who is common ancestor was also a flightless bird. And yet these birds, such as ostriches, can be found in a range of different places in continents. And yet they walked to all these places becoming different species when they were all on the single continent of Gondowar (this was part of Australia, India, parts of Africa and Antarctica). Wendy’s this single continent split up, the birds changed and evolved into different species. And yet they will all be connected, which we can now tell through DNA extraction and analysis. It’s a fascinating tale. I also found it fascinating that Antarctica was once warm and yet it has hardly moved, but it had warm currents similar to the South Atlantic drift that warms the UK. Plants are mainly green so they can produce photosynthesis, and parts of these records show even in animals. Man shares the same 33% of his DNA with a banana.

The hippopotamus is most similar, not to a horse or a pig but to a whale, which is that they were once creatures that moved on the land and their movement is more than 1 million like, they have to eat freshwater which they are take through Paignton and have to come up every two hours the air and yet they live under the water. And one mammal has even learnt to fly, the bat.

Natural evolution has produced eyes on at least 40 different occasions, some insects and animals have produced death by stings on at least 10 different evolution adaptations and yet language with syntax has evolved but once, in our own species. It’s difficult to know how, if evolution ever started again, it would take a completely different rate.

Man is to mammals as birds are to dinosaurs, they are part of the same family and we can still see dinosaurs in the world every time we look at a bird.

All living creatures, and this includes animals, plants and fungi are related. If you go back far enough you will find one common ancestor that gave birth to them all. It would’ve been a simple life form, but it evolved and adapted, becoming more complex but sharing one aspect, that of hereditary. We can tell this through fossils, and see how they evolved as well as genetic DNA extraction of biological genetic extraction of DNA and carbon dating can tell us when these events occurred. If you go back far enough, you will find that we will have ancestors that were once nothing more than fish. I loved this book.

We are all connected - the web of life

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With talent and style, R Dawkins leads us through the maze of ancestry, origins, confraternity between the species, and places all this information in the context of the universe, which he also explains with consumate care and seeming ease for those of us who are not scientists of any kind.
It is book to listen to time and again, whose depths mirror those of the very universe he helps us to envisage. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

an intelligible tale

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