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Book Review of The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms

reviewed on + 177 more book reviews


If you're into ecological anachronisms, this is the book for you. The concept is straightforward, and reasonably easy to accept--that trees that produce large fruit that no one eats today (e.g. osage orange) evolved with a megafaunal dispersal partner who is now extinct. However, even after finishing reading this book, it's hard to believe she managed to work this premise into a book-length treatise. Her writing style is easy to read and occasionally even chuckle-worthy, and I did learn a few tidbits, but she does seem to be stretching to reach a word-count quota.