This 3rd story in the River Ape series,
following on from "Lucy Wades through the Lake,"
describes how three different types of walking ape came to live
in East Africa more than two and a half million years ago.We learn how the descendants of Lucy spread along the Great Rift Valley in two directions. Living, as they did, on top of one of the major faults in the Earth's crust, disaster was never far away.
We discover how a great earthquake caused havoc to thousands of river apes and changed the lives of two in particular: Swaima and Ollie.
As apes marooned off the coast on tropical islands gradually became the Seaside Apes. Ollie's descendants became a type of ape known today as the Megadonts - huge, hairy apes with massive jaws and teeth. Meanwhile Swaima's tribe settle in a river delta and inhabit mangrove forests where the forces of natural selection made them more buoyant by building up a thick layer of fat under their skin.
