《征程(從魚到人的生命之旅)(精)》是一部由舒 柯文、王原、楚步瀾這三位來自不同國度的古生物學 家還原與重建的中國古脊椎動物演化的歷史，不僅回 答了“我們從哪裡來”，還讓我們看到生命演化歷程 中充滿的驚奇、偶然與不可思議。作者把這縱橫5億 年的歷史講得生動有趣，恢弘而不失其細節，充滿了 形像的比喻和深刻的思考。本書特別聚焦了“從魚到 人”演化中的九個精彩轉折，也值得讀者悉心地品味 。 這段史詩般的歷程藉由15個有代表性的中國古生 物群以及數萬塊珍貴的化石為憑證。一些我國特有的 綻放著幾億年生命之美的高清晰化石圖片和結構復原 圖繫首次精心呈現，引領化石愛好者踏上遠古生命的 探秘之旅。同時，認知生命演化歷程中的這些記錄， 正是古生物學的魅力所在。

舒柯文，加拿大維多利亞大學本科畢業，多倫多大學獲得碩士，美國哈佛大學的博士畢業生。現為中國科學院古脊椎動物與古人類研究所副研究員，兼任學術刊物《古脊椎動物學報》的英文編輯。經常在中國和他的故鄉加拿大進行野外古生物考察。不忙野外的時候會在研究所做恐龍和其他中生代脊椎動物的研究，或者努力學習漢語。這本書是他對古生物科普的首次主要嘗試。

前言：遙遠和奇異的地球生命史
從這裡開始：脊椎動物、地史時期和化石
第一篇 古生代
冷血與鱗片的時代
第1章 澄江生物群：脊椎動物的出現
大事件壹——脊梁骨的起源
第2章 瀟湘動物群：“釣出”真正的答案
大事件貳——有頜的感覺真好
第3章 中寧動物群：脊椎動物的新類型
大事件參——即將離開水的魚
第4章 大山口動物群：獸與蜥的世界
大事件肆——先有雞還是先有蛋
第二篇 中生代
恐龍的帝國
第5章 關嶺生物群：與搖曳的海百合伴生的生命
大事件伍——重返海洋
第6章 祿豐動物群：中國*古老的恐龍
大事件陸——哺乳動物的悄然興起
第7章 沙溪廟動物群：地球上的巨龍
第8章 道虎溝生物群：地層中的華麗霓裳
大事件柒——飛上藍天
第9章 熱河生物群：帶羽毛的恐龍!
大事件捌——美羽不怕多
**0章 王氏動物群：巨大的恐龍墓場
第三篇 新生代
哺乳動物的大捷
**1章 潛山動物群：劫難後的新生
**2章 沙拉木倫動物群：各種各樣的蹄子和角
**3章 山旺生物群：往昔如今
**4章 和政生物群：馬、豬和鬣狗們
**5章 周口店古人類遺址：*早的“北京人”
大事件玖——人類的黎明
結語：演化在“*林彈雨中”繼續
後記
延展閱讀
附錄一：中國主要的脊椎動物(含人類)化石產地
附錄二：中國含古生物展陳的博物館名錄
本書使用的生物屬名索引

Key Transition 2: To Jaw-Jaw is Always Better 脊椎動物演化關鍵事件（之二）：有頜的感覺真好 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the most quotable English-speaking politician of the twentieth century, once opined that “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.” Churchill was using the word “jaw” to refer to the endless chatter of diplomatic negotiation, but the original function of vertebrate jaws undoubtedly had more to do with feeding than communication. Predators had no interest in negotiating with their prey in the Palaeozoic seas. 作為20世紀中名言被引用得*多的政治家，英國前首相溫斯頓?丘吉爾曾經說道：“動動下巴總好過動手”。他用“下巴”這個詞表達的是無休止的外交談判中的鬥嘴，但脊椎動物的“下巴”的*初功能無疑*多地是用來進食而不是交流。當然了，在古生代的海洋中，獵食者可沒有興趣與它們的獵物進行談判。
Jaws probably did not appear in the march of vertebrate evolution until sometime in the Silurian Period. Until that time all vertebrates were jawless, and several lineages of jawless fishes survived into the Devonian. Two jawless groups, the hagfish and lampreys, are still with us today. Hagfish are scavengers that tear into carrion with a protrusible tongue that bears teeth made of keratin, the protein that forms human hair and fingernails. Some lampreys do not feed as adults, but others use a similar tongue to feed on the flesh or blood of other fishes, to which they cling with a sucker-like mouth containing more keratinous teeth. Experiments on hagfish have shown that the protrusible tongue is surprisingly powerful, and effective at removing pieces of food and transporting them into and through the mouth cavity. Some fossil jawless fishes had either a fringe of small bony plates along one edge of the mouth, acting to scoop detritus from the sea floor or filter it from the water, or tooth-like mineralised structures inside the mouth or throat. A diverse range of successful feeding mechanisms has clearly existed among jawless fishes, past and present. 直到志留紀之前，脊椎動物的演化過程中還沒有出現“頜”這一屬性。在這之前，所有脊椎動物都是無頜的，有幾個無頜魚類的譜繫存活到了泥盆紀。其中的兩個類群——七鰓鰻和盲鰻，一直延續到了**。盲鰻是食腐動物，它們用自己突出的、帶角質齒的舌鑽挖進腐肉中覓食，這種角質與構成人類頭發以及指甲的物質是同一種蛋白質。一些七鰓鰻的成體並不進食，其他的則使用和盲鰻類似的齒舌取食其他魚類的血肉。它們吸盤一樣的嘴裡長有*多的角質齒，能把自己固定在獵物身上。對盲鰻的實驗發現它們突出的舌十分強壯有力，能夠有效地扯下食物碎片送入口腔。一些無頜魚化石的口緣長著細小的骨片，可以用來在海床上鏟起碎片或從水中過濾碎渣；另外一些則在口腔內部或喉內長著經過礦化的齒狀結構。顯然無論在現生還是化石無頜類中，都已擁有了多種多樣的、成功的進食機制。
Fig1. The funnel-like mouth of a modern lamprey, jawless but armed with small keratinous teeth for rasping through the skin of other fishes. 一條現生的七鰓鰻的口部，它沒有上下頜，但有很多細小的角質齒，用於咬穿其他魚的皮膚 However, jaws were an important innovation that opened up new functional possibilities and, in particular, must have ushered in a new age of successful predation by early gnathostomes. In jawed vertebrates the lower jaw, called the mandible, acts like a lever made of bone or cartilage. The mandible is connected by a hinge to the back end of the upper jaw, which in some fishes is itself mobile relative to the skull proper, and muscles can be used to rapidly raise or lower the mandible to close or open the mouth. Lowering the mandible quickly can draw in a sizeable volume of water along with any small prey that it may contain, the key manoeuvre in the “suction feeding” of many aquatic vertebrates, whereas raising the mandible quickly can trap prey in the mouth and forcefully drive teeth into the prey’s body. 然而頜的出現依然一個重要的創新，也開啟了全新的功能，特別是開闢了早期有頜類動物成功捕食的新紀元。有頜脊椎動物的頜的下半部分稱為下頜（或下顎），它由硬骨或軟骨構成，像杠杆一樣通過鉸鏈結構與上頜的後端連在一起。在某些魚類中，上頜與頭蓋骨的連接是可活動的。肌肉能夠使下頜快速張合以控制口的開閉。迅速減低下頜能夠將大量的水和其中的小型獵物吸入口中，而另一方面，對於很多水生脊椎動物來說，“吸入式進食”的關鍵策略，是快速抬升下頜將獵物困在嘴裡，並把自己的牙齒用力地插入獵物的身體。
In evolution, new structures are commonly built by modifying pre-existing ones. In the case of jaws, anatomists long ago noticed a basic similarity to the gill arches of fishes, vertical bars of bone or cartilage that separate successive gill slits and support the gills themselves. Gnathostome gill arches are made up of multiple segments, and it is tempting to interpret the upper jaw and mandible as the two surviving segments of a highly modified gill arch. In the traditional account of the origin of jaws, the gill arches were all similar to each other in the jawless ancestors of gnathostomes, and the first arch in the series was transformed into the jaws. 在進化過程中，新的結構一般都是通過改造舊結構而產生的。在頜的演化問題上，解剖學家很久以前就意識到了它和魚類鰓弓之間的基本相似之處。鰓弓是由硬骨或軟骨構成的垂直的棒狀結構，它分割連續的鰓裂並為魚鰓提供結構性支撐。有頜類的鰓弓由多節構成，於是人們很容易假設上頜和下頜應該是高度衍變的鰓弓中保留下來的兩節。對於頜的起源，傳統觀點認為在有頜脊椎動物的無頜祖先中，每一對鰓弓都十分相似，而其中的**對鰓弓演化成了頜。
Fig2. The front part of a shark skeleton in side view. Each of the gill arches, structures made of cartilage that support the gills, has upper and lower portions. This is also true of the hyoid arch, which lies in front of the gill arches and helps to support the jaws. The jaws themselves look as though they might just have evolved from yet another "arch" at the very front of this series, the upper and lower jaws corresponding to the upper and lower parts of a gill arch or the hyoid arch. 鯊魚的頭骨前部，側面觀。每一個鰓弓（即支持魚鰓的軟骨結構）由上下兩部分構成。鰓弓前面的用於支持頜骨的舌弓也是如此。從這張圖看，頜骨似乎是從*前面的一個“弓”演化出來的：上頜骨和下頜骨似乎分別對應著一個鰓弓（或舌弓）的上部和下部。
However, studies of gene expression in the embryonic development of lampreys and gnathostomes fail to support this elegant scenario, suggesting instead that much of the gnathostome jaw apparatus is equivalent to structures surrounding the mouth of the lamprey rather than to the first gill arch. A major reconfiguration of the internal structure of the head clearly occurred in early gnathostomes and their close relatives among jawless fishes, but how jaws appeared as part of this reconfiguration remains a topic of extremely active research. 不過對七鰓鰻和有頜類的胚胎發育的基因表達的研究並不支持這一簡單而精妙的方案，而是認為有頜類大部分的頜部器官應該與七鰓鰻的口周而非**對鰓弓的結構相對應。頭骨內部結構的一次重要重建明顯發生在早期有頜類和它們的無頜魚近親中，但是頜的出現在這一重建中扮演什麼角色依然是熱議的話題。
Whatever their exact evolutionary origin, jaws have played an important part in the march of vertebrate life ever since their first appearance. Vertebrates of different types use their jaws to crush the throats of prey animals, slice and grind their way through tough vegetation, and filter plankton out of seawater. The utility of jaws, however, goes beyond feeding. Animals may use their biting ability to fend off attacking predators or do battle with rivals of the same species, and Winston Churchill was entirely correct to draw attention to the usefulness of jaws in oral communication. Ultimately, prime ministers and diplomats owe their ability to jaw-jaw to an anatomical innovation that appeared more than 400 million years ago. 不論頜的具體來源如何，它們自出現之日起，一直都在脊椎動物演化的進程上扮演著重要的角色。不同的脊椎動物用不同的方式使用它們的頜，有些用來咬破獵物的喉嚨，有些切碎研磨植物，又或者從海水中過濾藻類。然而頜的作用遠不止進食，動物可以用它們的啃咬技能反抗捕食者，或者和同種的競爭者搏鬥，而溫斯頓?丘吉爾對於頜在語言交流方面的看法肯定也毋庸置疑。*重要的是，4億年多前的一次身體結構創新纔使得現在的首相們和外交官們有了“動動下巴”的本領。