Georg Glaeser & Hannes F. Paulus 
The Evolution of Flight [PDF ebook] 

This book will take you on an exciting journey made up of texts and images. Spectacular, large-scale photographs printed on double pages and accompanied by explanatory texts will arouse the reader’s curiosity about evolution’s accomplishments in the world of flying: from the botanical air fleet (pollen grains, flying seeds…), over flying snakes and fish, to penguins flying underwater and humans rising into the air.






Mathematician and passionate animal photographer Georg Glaser has joined forces with the experienced evolutionary biologist Hannes Paulus and the exercise physiologist and flight biophysicist Werner Nachtigall in order to approach this topic with words and pictures in a way that is both generally comprehensible and scientifically sound.






Double-page by double-page, the book can be read in any order. Cross-references allow to jump easily from one double-page to another. Aside from the detailed introduction to each chapter, the text passages are usually independent from one another, and they discuss crucial moments in the evolutionary process. The double-pages provide additional information on bibliographical references and references to informative websites.

Table of Content

Chapter 1: 400 Million Years of Flight Evolution.- Chapter 2: Photographs of animals in flight.- Chapter 3: From the perspective of the biophysicist.- Chapter 4: Criteria of evolution.- Chapter 5: Insects: The first flying animals.- Chapter 6: Birds: The “classics” among flying animals.- Chapter 7: Bats: Flying mammals.- Chapter 8: The fascination remains.

About the author

Georg Glaeser is Professor of Mathematics and Geometry at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. At the same time, he has passionately dedicated himself to being an animal photographer.






Hannes F. Paulus was, up to his retirement as professor emeritus, Head of the Department of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Vienna. Now he works at the University of Vienna’s Department of Integrative Zoology.





Werner Nachtigall was, up to his retirement as professor emeritus, Head of the Department of Zoology of the University of Saarland. Amongst other things, he has done extensive research on physiology and biomechanics.