Tracking Dinosaurs: A New Look at an Ancient World

by Martin Lockley

• ISBN13: 9780521425988
• ISBN10: 0521425980
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-09-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Tracking Dinosaurs is the first non-technical, popular science book on dinosaur footprints and what they reveal about dinosaurs and their habitats. Billions of dinosaur tracks have been found in recent years and through careful examination of these prehistoric clues, dinosaur trackers have discovered much about how and where dinosaurs lived. This book deals with this landslide of new information that has accumulated in recent decades, demonstrating that fossil footprints are neither rare nor insignificant as previously supposed. A complete guide to dinosaur tracking, the book begins with a discussion of the meaning of tracks, how tracks provide information about dinosaur locomotion, behaviour, ecology and environmental impact. Next, the author describes how dinosaur trackers find and preserve these fossil footprints. This is followed by a detailed description of where to find dinosaur tracks. Popular myths and misconceptions are reviewed and in many cases dispelled, leading to a new perspective on how tracks improve our understanding of dinosaurs. Did brontosaurs really swim? Did dinosaurs travel in structured herds? These questions and many more are discussed in an easy and straightforward style. Dinosaur enthusiasts will be fascinated by what is revealed in these pages, as will geologists and biologists with an interest in paleontology. The accessible writing style and numerous illustrations, including eight pages of colour photogtraphs, make this book appropriate for all people with a general interest in science and natural history.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Track facts: what, where, and when

2. The meaning of tracks

3. Understanding track preservation

4. Discovery and documentation

5. Classification: a field guide to dinosaur tracks

6. Individual behavior

7. Social behavior

8. Ancient ecology

9. Evolution

10. Dinosaur tracks and ancient environments

11. Trampled underfoot

12. Megatracksites: a new era in tracking

13. Myths and misconceptions

14. The dinosaur trackers

15. Epilogue: Trail to the twenty-first century

Appendix A. Where to visit dinosaur tracksites

Appendix B. Glossary

Notes

Index.