"Miocene Plains Mammals," painting by Charles R. Knight, reproduced here courtesy of The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago

When it comes to fossils, dinosaurs and the great reptiles of the Mesozoic get most of the popular press. Our own relatives, the mammals of days long ago, aren't nearly as well known. Which is a pity, because in some ways the story of mammals over the ages is nearly as interesting as that of the dinosaurs. I have a variety of books about fossil mammals. A few focus on individual groups, like the horses, but most are just about mammals in general.