An overview of significant evolutionary transitions in the 4 billion-year history of life.

Twenty-four lectures/30 minutes per lecture. "Course no. 1518"--Disc labels.

Disc 1. Macroevolution and major transitions ; Paleontology and geologic time ; Single, celled life, prokaryotes to eukaryotes ; Metazoans, the earliest multicellular animals ; The development of skeletons ; The rise of vertebrates -- disc 2. Colonization of the land ; Origins of insects and of powered flight ; Seed plants and the first forests ; From fish to 4-limbed animals ; The egg came first, early reptile evolution ; The origins and successes of the dinosaurs -- disc 3. Marine and flying reptiles ; Birds, the dinosaurs among us ; The first flowers and pollinator coevolution ; Egg to placenta, early mammal evolution ; From land to sea, the evolution of whales ; Moving on up, the first primates -- disc 4. Apes, swinging down from the trees ; From 4 legs to 2, the hominin radiation ; First humans, toolmakers and hunter, gatherers ; From homo to sapiens, talking and thinking ; Our accelerating evolution ; Reflections on major transitions.