A new, expanded book – Introducing Palaeontology: a guide to ancient life – by Patrick Wyse Jackson, Associate Professor and Head of Trinity College Dublin’s School of Natural Sciences, provides a timely reminder of how the fossil record can inform critical conservation decisions of the future as Earth faces the sixth mass extinction of its time.

The book, recently published by Dunedin Academic Press, Edinburgh, is liberally illustrated with photographs, including many of the wonderful fossil specimens from Trinity’s Geological Museum.

Adopted by universities in Ireland, Britain and the United States – but sure to also be of great interest to fossil enthusiasts and those interested in biodiversity and the history of life on Earth – the book is divided into two sections: