The Monkey's Voyage

Hardcover, 368 pages

English language

Published Jan. 7, 2014 by Basic Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-465-02051-5

(1 review)

Throughout the world, closely related species are found on landmasses separated by wide stretches of ocean. What explains these far-flung distributions? Why are such species found where they are across the Earth?

Since the discovery of plate tectonics, scientists have conjectured that plants and animals were scattered over the globe by riding pieces of ancient supercontinents as they broke up. In the past decade, however, that theory has foundered, as the genomic revolution has made reams of new data available. And the data has revealed an extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction story that has sparked a scientific upheaval.

In The Monkey’s Voyage, biologist Alan de Queiroz describes the radical new view of how fragmented distributions came into being: frogs and mammals rode on rafts and icebergs, tiny spiders drifted on storm winds, and plant seeds were carried in the plumage of sea-going birds to create the map of life we see today. In …

Throughout the world, closely related species are found on landmasses separated by wide stretches of ocean. What explains these far-flung distributions? Why are such species found where they are across the Earth?

Since the discovery of plate tectonics, scientists have conjectured that plants and animals were scattered over the globe by riding pieces of ancient supercontinents as they broke up. In the past decade, however, that theory has foundered, as the genomic revolution has made reams of new data available. And the data has revealed an extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction story that has sparked a scientific upheaval.

In The Monkey’s Voyage, biologist Alan de Queiroz describes the radical new view of how fragmented distributions came into being: frogs and mammals rode on rafts and icebergs, tiny spiders drifted on storm winds, and plant seeds were carried in the plumage of sea-going birds to create the map of life we see today. In other words, these organisms were not simply constrained by continental fate; they were the makers of their own geographic destiny. And as de Queiroz shows, the effects of oceanic dispersal have been crucial in generating the diversity of life on Earth, from monkeys and guinea pigs in South America to beech trees and kiwi birds in New Zealand. By toppling the idea that the slow process of continental drift is the main force behind the odd distributions of organisms, this theory highlights the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the history of life.

In the tradition of John McPhee’s Basin and Range, The Monkey’s Voyage is a beautifully told narrative that strikingly reveals the importance of contingency in history and the nature of scientific discovery.

1 edition

U de Recife reviewed The Monkey's Voyage by Alan de Queiroz

Review of "The Monkey's Voyage" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I have to confess I was pleasantly surprised with this book. Judging only by the title, I read it thinking I was about to learn more about the evolution of our genus, and thus enhance my understanding or our own evolution. By reading it, I was taken into a completely different journey, one that took me to the heart of the complexities of life’s dispersion, challenging my many assumptions on the subject. And this makes the book interesting in two ways.

First, if you, like me, are unaware of biogeography as a scientific endeavor, this book will not only show you the history of the discipline, but also map its controversies, its main characters, and the current state of the art as far the author goes.

The second may be implicit, and not immediately obvious, but it relates to the way we tend to think about evolution and the development …

I have to confess I was pleasantly surprised with this book. Judging only by the title, I read it thinking I was about to learn more about the evolution of our genus, and thus enhance my understanding or our own evolution. By reading it, I was taken into a completely different journey, one that took me to the heart of the complexities of life’s dispersion, challenging my many assumptions on the subject. And this makes the book interesting in two ways.

First, if you, like me, are unaware of biogeography as a scientific endeavor, this book will not only show you the history of the discipline, but also map its controversies, its main characters, and the current state of the art as far the author goes.

The second may be implicit, and not immediately obvious, but it relates to the way we tend to think about evolution and the development of life in general on our planet. Maybe it’s something unavoidable and that it relates to the way we humans tend to think in generic terms. We tend to prefer neat explanations, preferably simple and narratively compelling. However, that’s not how things happen or have happened to life. Deep is the deep history of time, and life, having been around such a long, long time throughout that history, makes what seems impossible at some point not only possible, but factual. Elaborate way to say that life, in all its complexities and long history, has managed to find innumerable ways to keep on going, to keep on striving, notwithstanding the many geological pressures it had to cope with.

So this book had the merit of making me rethink a lot of things I thought I understood, and many of my presuppositions about how life has spread about and occupied the whole of earth. If you, like me, have any interest in these topics, maybe you’ll find it as interesting as I did.