Jean Guex, Professor Emeritus, University of Lausanne (email: Jean.Guex@unil.ch)

“This book is about fossils, and, thus, the images of various creatures of the Past dominate the book's pages. The readers will praise the author for his care of them: the informative abstract, the clear conclusion, the lengthy list of references, and the detailed index of fossil names facilitate understanding of GUEX'S ideas and simplify reading of his marvelous book. GUEX'S book is must read to all modern palaeontologists and stratigraphers. Many biologists and geologists will also find it useful” (Dmitry a. ruban, Zentralblatt für Geologie und Paläontologie, iss. 5 - 6, 2016)

• Introduction to retrograde evolutionary changes during major environmental crises.- Evolution of planctonic foraminifera.- Evolution of Radiolarians.- Evolution of ammonoids and Nautiloids.- Evolution of corals.- Evolution of conodonts.- Evolution of silicoflagellates as an example of unique lab experiment.