Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 141
How far we have come on life's journey! For most of the Earth's history, a Dar-
winian tourist visiting the seashore would have been greeted with a scene like this colony of
stromatolites, layered concretions of bacteria and algae that live in the warm salty waters of
western Australia's Shark Bay. Compared with those simple days, we live in a time of unparal-
leled biological complexity and diversity. But if we are to preserve this diversity and survive as
a species, we must learn to understand our true place and true role in evolutionary history.
