This book completes the four-volume cycle of stories about animals. The first part is invertebrates. They live everywhere: they permeate both the air and the earth and the waters of the planet—from the surface down to the deepest depths. What is an octopus’s structure and behavior like? Can a giant squid sink a ship? Is it a myth or a fact that a scorpion surrounded by a ring of red-hot coals kills itself? The book tells you about all this.
In “Fossil Animals,” the evolution of some representatives of the animal world—including humans—is discussed. How can we explain that a Devonian fish, the coelacanth, has survived to our day, while the giant reptiles of the Mesozoic became extinct? The complex and mysterious path of animal evolution is examined in the context of the origin and development of life on Earth.