Your Inner Fish

Paleo-biologist Neil Shubin takes a new look at human evolution. Using fossils, embryos and genes, he reveals how our bodies are the legacy of ancient fish, reptiles and primates — the ancestors you never knew were in your family tree.

Your Inner Reptile traces our hair, skin, teeth, jaws and sense of hearing back to reptilian ancestors — from ferocious beasts that ruled the Earth to a little shrew-like animal that lived 195m years ago.

Your Inner Monkey tracks our hands, feet, colour vision, spine and upright gait to our primate and hominid progenitors, who also passed on perhaps the most important legacy of all: a path to the human brain.