The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs
Author | : David E. Fastovsky |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 504 |
Release | : 2005-02-07 |
ISBN-10 | : 0521811724 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780521811729 |
Rating | : 4/5 (24 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: 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.