Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History

by David E. Fastovsky , David B. Weishampel , Illustrated by John Sibbick

• ISBN13: 9780521282376
• ISBN10: 0521282373
• Additional ISBN(s): 9781316501153
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Why a natural history of dinosaurs?

Reaching Back in Time

To catch a dinosaur

Dinosaur days

Who's related to whom - and how do we know?

Who are the dinosaurs?

Ornithischia: Armored, Horned, and Duckbilled Dinosaurs

Thyreophorans: the armor-bearers

Marginocephalia: bumps, bosses, and beaks

Ornithopoda: the tuskers, antelopes and 'mighty ducks' of the Mesozoic

Saurischia: Meat, Might, and Magnitude

Sauropodomorpha: the big, the bizarre, and the majestic

Theropoda I: nature red in tooth and claw

Theropoda II: the origin of birds

Theropoda III: early birds

Endothermy, Endemism, and Extinction

Dinosaur thermoregulation: some like it hot

The flowering of the Mesozoic

A history of paleontology through ideas

Dinosaurs: in the beginning

The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction: the frill is gone

Glossary

Index of subjects

Index of genera

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.