Spectacular, mysterious, elegant or grotesque, the skeletons of vertebrates peopling the Earth today carry within them the traces of an evolution spanning several billion years. This book chronicles the history of our era, a history recorded in these bones. 

The theory of evolution set forth by Charles Darwin in the xix^th century has for the most part been confirmed and enriched by the discovery of genes and advances in life sciences, paleontology and embryology. This work takes stock of this scientific reality. It offers a broad panorama of the realm of vertebrates, the zoological group which we ourselves belong to. The relationship becomes obvious once we observe the inner structure of animals, and helps us understand the mechanisms of evolution and its various aspects.

Most contemporary vertebrates presented in this book come from the collections of the comparative anatomy gallery at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. They have been restored, occasionally rebuilt and freed from their metallic structures.  

This book, co-published by the National Museum of Natural History, was created with the help of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, the Museum of Natural History in Marseille, the Museum of Natural History in Toulouse, the Fragonard Museum and the National Veterinary School of Alfort.