of Dixon’s Africa have been replaced by 
various species of meat-eating monkeys 
(“raboons”), which have “increased 
their speed by taking to their hindlimbs 
and adopting a totally bipedal locomo- 
tion.” Anyone who thinks that bipedal 
primates are speedier than quadrupeds 
might find it instructive to try chasing an 
alley cat. On page 92, Dixon solemnly 
informs us that his “zarander” (a pig 
practicing to be an elephant) “like other 
mammals of the forest floor . . . has little 
sense of smell.” This suggests that Dixon 
has never watched a coati or an opos- 
sum — or, for that matter, a pig. Even 
when Dixon has a good idea, he gener- 
ally manages to spoil it with a mistaken 
pontification or an anatomical gaffe. For 
example, take a look at the drawing of 
the “falanx” reproduced on the follow- 
ing page. The incisors of this rat in 
wolf ’s clothing are an inspired invention; 
they wrap up the stabbing canines and 
shearing premolars of a real carnivore 
into a single neat dental mechanism. But 
the drawing of the skull is an anatomical 
joke. It’s obviously the skull of a herbi- 
vore, with a hopelessly addled jaw joint 
and ear region. My guess is that it was 
copied from a picture of a deer skull by 
an artist who didn’t understand what he 
was looking at. This isn’t Dixon’s doing 
(his own drawings of the falanx, repro- 
duced at the beginning of the book, are 
much better), but it’s his fault for not 
fixing it. 
I could go on for a dozen pages poking 
holes in Dixon’s fabrications — espe- 
cially if I let myself get started on his 
eyeless marsupial sloth that traps bugs 
by drooling into flowers — but that 
would give the wrong impression. Many 
of Dixon’s evolutionary inventions are 
excellent, and the ones that are silly are 
generally silly enough or scary enough 
to be fun. As a piece of prediction. After 
Man is a nonstarter, but it’s still an 
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