David E. Fastovsky, David B. Weishampel

The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs

Illustrator: Sibbick, John

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

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.This is a comprehensive student textbook on dinosaurs that non-specialists will also find fascinating. It is the only comprehensive text that takes an explicitly phylogenetic approach to dinosaurs. The geological context of dinosaurs is also stressed, and dinosaurs are presented in the context of contemporary plate tectonic and climatic settings.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• 2., überarb. Aufl.
• Seitenzahl: 500
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Februar 2005
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 286mm x 221mm x 31mm
• Gewicht: 1232g
• ISBN-13: 9780521811729
• ISBN-10: 0521811724
• Artikelnr.: 12947294

Inhaltsangabe

Preface to the second edition; Part I. Setting the Stage: 1. Introduction; 2. Back to the past: the Mesozoic era; 3. Discovering order in the natural world; 4. Interrelationships of vertebrates; 5. The origin of Dinosauria; Part II. Ornithischia: Armored, Horned, and Duck-Billed Dinosaurs: 6. Stegosauria: hot plates; 7. Ankylosauria: mas and gas; 8. Pachycephalosauria: ramroads of the Cretaceous; 9. Ceratopsia: horns and all the frills; 10. Ornithopoda: the tuskers, antelopes, and 'mighty ducks' of the Mesozoic; Part III. Saurischia: Predators and Giants: 11. Sauropodomorpha: the big, the bizarre, and the majestic; 12. Theropoda I: nature red in tooth and claw; 13. Theropoda II: the origin of birds; 14. Theropoda III: the early evolution of birds; Part IV. Endothermy, Environments, and Extinction: 15. Dinosaur thermoregulation: some like it hot; 16. Patterns in dinosaur evolution; 17. Reconstructing extinctions: the art of science; 18. The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction: the frill is gone; Glossary; Subject index; Generic index; Author index.1. Introduction; 2. The Mesozoic era; 3. Discovering order; 4. Interrelationships; 5. Origin of Dinosauria; Saurischia; 6. Sauropoda; 7. Theropoda; 8. The origin of birds; 9. Mesozoic birds; Ornithischia; 10. Stegosauria; 11. Ankylosauria; 12. Pachycephalosauria; 13. Ceratopsia; 14. Ornithopoda; 15. Endothermy; 16. Dinosaur Paleoecology; 17. Reconstructing extinctions; 18. The Cretaceous/Tertiary extinction.

Rezensionen

From reviews of the previous edition: 'The book amply fulfils its objective of providing an authoritative, stimulating and lively introduction to dinosaurs. There are not many textbooks to which the epithets 'lively' and 'entertaining' apply, and that are friendly enough for a general reader ... I can also warmly recommend it to interested general readers as the best available and thoroughly accessible account of dinosaurs and how they fit in with current scientific thinking - with the bonus that it presents the facts in an exciting manner, while dispelling the hype.' Angela Milner, New Scientist