An essential introduction to the paleobiology of animal body size, locomotion, and feeding. Paleobiology is the branch of evolutionary biology involved in the reconstruction of the life histories of extinct organisms. It answers the questions, How do we use fossils to reconstruct the size of prehistoric animals, and How did they move and feed? ......
Despite their fame and reputation, dinosaurs represent only half the story of the Mesozoic Era. In Beast Companions: The Unsung Animals of the Dinosaurs' World, paleontologist John Foster explores the often-overlooked animals that coexisted with them. These ancient species, often equally remarkable as their dinosaur neighbors, can provide valuable ......
How can paleontologists know what a living dinosaur was like more than a hundred million years ago, particularly when only partial skeletons remain? Focusing on one large carnivorous dinosaur, Acrocanthosaurus ("high-spined lizard"), paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter explains the process, pairing scholarly findings with more than 75 color ......
In 1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century later, Russell's great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor's forgotten ......
Extinct Mammals and the Archaeology of the Ice Age Great Basin
As the Ice Age came to an end, North America lost a stunning variety of animals. Mammoths, mastodons, ground-dwelling sloths the size of elephants, beavers the size of bears, pronghorn antelope the size of poodles, llamas, and carnivores to chase them-sabertooth cats, dire wolves, American lions and cheetahs; these and many more were gone by ......
The St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm
In February 2000, while excavating his property in St. George, Utah, Sheldon Johnson turned over a piece of ground and discovered a fully preserved dinosaur footprint. That track was the first of many fossils to be uncovered. Five years later, the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site (SGDS) at Johnson Farm was established to preserve one of the ......
Hadrosaurs-also known as duck-billed dinosaurs-are abundant in the fossil record. With their unique complex jaws and teeth perfectly suited to shred and chew plants, they flourished on Earth in remarkable diversity during the Late Cretaceous. So ubiquitous are their remains that we have learned more about dinosaurian paleobiology and paleoecology ......
Since the late 1800s, when professional fossil hunters vied with each other to bring the largest and most complete specimens to the museum market, Utah has been one of the most fertile grounds for dinosaur discovery. Because rock from the Mesozoic era covers more than 25,000 square miles in Utah, the state is a natural museum of the great age of ......
