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Updated with the material that instructors want, Dinosaurs continues to make science exciting and understandable to non-science majors through its narrative of scientific concepts rather than endless facts. It now contains new material on pterosaurs, an expanded section on the evolution of the dinosaurs and new photographs to help students engage with geology, natural history and evolution. The authors ground the text in the language of modern evolutionary biology, phylogenetic systematics, and teach students to examine the paleontology of dinosaurs exactly as the professionals in the field do using these methods to reconstruct dinosaur relationships. Beautifully illustrated, lively and engaging, this edition continues to encourage students to ask questions and assess data critically, enabling them to think like a scientist.
This 2005 edition of The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs is a unique, comprehensive treatment of this fascinating group of organisms. It is a detailed survey of dinosaur origins, their diversity, and their eventual extinction. The book can easily be used as a teaching textbook for a class, but it is also written as a series of readable, entertaining essays covering important and timely topics appealing to non-specialists and all dinosaur enthusiasts: birds as 'living dinosaurs', the new feathered dinosaurs from China, 'warm-bloodedness'. Along the way, the reader learns about dinosaur functional morphology, physiology, and systematics using cladistic methodology - in short, how professional paleontologists and dinosaur experts go about their work, and why they find it so rewarding. The book is spectacularly illustrated by John Sibbick, a world-famous illustrator of dinosaurs, commissioned exclusively for this book.
The ideal textbook for non-science majors, this lively and engaging introduction encourages students to ask questions, assess data critically and think like a scientist. Building on the success of the previous editions, Dinosaurs has been reorganised and extensively rewritten in response to instructor and student feedback. It continues to make science accessible and relevant through its clear explanations and extensive illustrations. Updated to reflect recent fossil discoveries and to include new taxa, the text guides students through the dinosaur groups, emphasising scientific concepts rather than presenting endless facts. It is grounded in the common language of modern evolutionary biology - phylogenetic systematics - so that students examine dinosaurs as professional paleontologists do. The key emerging theme of feathered dinosaurs, and the many implications of feathers, have been integrated throughout the book, highlighted by the inclusion of stunning new photographs in this beautifully illustrated text, now in full colour throughout.
This second edition includes coverage of dinosaur systematics, reproduction, life history strategies, biogeography, taphonomy, paleoecology, thermoregulation & extinction.
"This volume atempts to explore and clarify the relationship among the geological records, the extinctions, and the causes of catastrophes for life in Earth's history. Most of the papers address the geological record and the extinctions across the Cretaceou-Teriary boundary, and the buried Chicxulub structure that is now consensually deemed to be of impact origin and to be intimately related to that boundary." (GSA website).
Explains how the cataclysmic-collision theory of dinosaur extinction came about and the scientific melee that ensued
The study of dinosaurs has been experiencing a remarkable renaissance over the past few decades. Scientific understanding of dinosaur anatomy, biology, and evolution has advanced to such a degree that paleontologists often know more about 100-million-year-old dinosaurs than many species of living organisms. This book provides a contemporary review of dinosaur science intended for students, researchers, and dinosaur enthusiasts. It reviews the latest knowledge on dinosaur anatomy and phylogeny, how dinosaurs functioned as living animals, and the grand narrative of dinosaur evolution across the Mesozoic. A particular focus is on the fossil evidence and explicit methods that allow paleontologis...
Sauropods, those huge plant-eating dinosaurs, possessed bodies that seem to defy every natural law. What were these creatures like as living animals and how could they reach such uniquely gigantic sizes? A dedicated group of researchers in Germany in disciplines ranging from engineering and materials science to animal nutrition and paleontology went in search of the answers to these questions. Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs reports on the latest results from this seemingly disparate group of research fields and integrates them into a coherent theory regarding sauropod gigantism. Covering nutrition, physiology, growth, and skeletal structure and body plans, this volume presents the most up-to-date knowledge about the biology of these enormous dinosaurs.
"In this book, palaeontologist and popular science author John Long unravels the mysteries of the origin of birds and the evolution of flight. He details the transition from small, feathered dinosaur to primitive flying bird - a shift that is now widely accepted as an anatomically seamless evolutionary event."--Jacket.
Fully illustrated and immersive guide to the latest research in these incredible animals. Discover the groundbreaking developments in dinosaur research with this state-of-the-art guide to dinosaur biology. Written by experts from a leading dinosaur research centre, this book begins by tracing the evolution of the dinosaur from 225 million years ago through to the end of the Cretaceous Period, exploring how they lived and what happened during the great extinction event. Research on these fantastic animals is proceeding at a faster pace than ever before. Dinosaurs explores the most recent global discoveries and the major role that new technologies play in revealing previously inaccessible and unknown details about how dinosaurs lived, such as the use of CT-scanning we can now look inside a dinosaur skull and gain new information on brains and sense organs. This engaging book reveals the latest findings about dinosaur anatomy and behaviour, evolution, diversity and lifestyle, and is lavishly illustrated with artwork, photographs and artistic reconstructions that bring these iconic creatures to life.