Dinosaur Palaeontology

Sixty-six million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth. Today a new generation of dinosaur hunters, armed with cutting-edge technology, is piecing together the complete story of how the dinosaurs created a hugely successful empire that lasted for around 150 million years.

Ever since we first started discovering dinosaurs in the early 1800s, our obsession for uncovering everything about these creatures has been insatiable. Each generation has made huge strides in trying to better our understanding of these animals, and in the past 20 years, we have made more discoveries than in the previous 200. There have been extraordinary advances in palaeontological methods, and ever more dinosaur fossils promise a landslide of new data and huge leaps forward in our understanding of these incredible animals.

Dr Dean Lomax brings these prehistoric creatures to life in 10 bite-sized essays, perfect for people short on time but not curiosity. Making big ideas simple, Dean takes listeners on a journey to uncover what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur, what dinosaurs ate, how they evolved, what caused them to go extinct and more!

Written by one of the world's leading dinosaur experts, Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior is a foundational work on the subject and an invaluable reference for anyone interested in these amazing creatures.

The fascinating group of animals called dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago (except for their feathered descendants). In their place evolved an enormous variety of land creatures, especially mammals, which in their way were every bit as remarkable as their Mesozoic cousins. The Age of Mammals, the Cenozoic Era, has never had its Jurassic Park, but it was an amazing time in earth's history, populated by a wonderful assortment of bizarre animals. The rapid evolution of thousands of species of mammals brought forth many incredible creatures—including our own ancestors.

Dinosaurs. No other class of animals captures the hearts of both children and adults alike. Paleontologist Armin Schmitt brings us a firsthand account of the latest research on dinosaurs and their lives millions of years ago, including his spectacular global excavations and fascinating discoveries in the field. With the help of cutting-edge technology and unbelievable new finds, the age-old tale of the dinosaurs is now revitalized for the very first time, complete with astonishing illustrations by Ben Rennen that help us imagine dinosaurs like never before.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, David Norman discusses how dinosaurs were first discovered and interpreted and how our understanding of them has changed over the past 200 years. He looks at some of the amazing discoveries that have enabled us to gain new and unexpected insights into dinosaurs as animals with natural histories and behaviors and considers some of the biggest questions in dinosaur biology, such as the implications of them having warm blood.

In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks listeners through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It's a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away.

Griffins, cyclopes, monsters, and giants - these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? Through careful research and meticulous documentation, Adrienne Mayor convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact - in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

Palaeontologist Steve Brusatte weaves together the history and evolution of our mammal forebears with stories of the scientists whose fieldwork and discoveries underlie our knowledge, both of iconic mammals like the mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers of which we have all heard, and of fascinating species that few of us are aware of. For what we see today is but a very limited range of the mammals that have existed; in this fascinating and groundbreaking book, Steve Brusatte tells their—and our—story.

Mary Anning was only 12 years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton - of an ichthyosaur - while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct.

Masterfully tying together history, science, and human drama, The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt is the gripping account of two of the 20th century's great expeditions of discovery. In 1911 a German paleontologist found the remains of four entirely new dinosaurs in the Egyptian desert, but in a single night, all of his work was destroyed. Eighty-nine years later, an American grad student leads an expedition to unearth Stromer's dinosaur graveyard, and in doing so, he stuns the scientific world.

Riley Black brings listeners back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides listeners along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.

Impossible Monsters reveals the central role of dinosaurs and their discovery in toppling traditional religious authority, and in changing perceptions about the Bible, history, and mankind's place in the world.

Dinosaurs, with their awe-inspiring size, terrifying claws and teeth, and otherworldly abilities, occupy a sacred place in our childhoods. They loom over museum halls, thunder through movies, and are a fundamental part of our collective imagination. In My Beloved Brontosaurus, the dinosaur fanatic Brian Switek enriches the childlike sense of wonder these amazing creatures instill in us. Investigating the latest discoveries in paleontology, he breathes new life into old bones.

Blending fiction with fact, 50 Dinosaur Tales imagines the way 50 newly described dinosaurs from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous lived in their natural habitats. Also included is a list of fun facts for each dinosaur story and facts about 108 additional dinosaurs.

In 1811, while exploring the cliffs near Lyme Regis, England, 12-year-old Mary Anning made the find of a lifetime. There in the rocks was the skeleton of a strange creature. Mary's find was later named Ichthyosaurus, a reptile that lived more than 250 million years ago. Anning went on to have a long career finding and identifying dinosaur fossils. However, her work often went unrecognized by male scientists of the time, and she received little credit until long after her death. Learn about Mary Anning's perseverance and her important discoveries in paleontology.

Mary Anning grew up on the south coast of England in a region rich in fossils. As teenagers, she and her brother Joseph discovered England’s first complete ichthyosaur. Poor and uneducated, Anning would become one of the most celebrated paleontologists ever, though in her time she supported herself selling by fossils and received little formal recognition. Her findings helped shape scientific thinking about extinction and prehistoric life long before Darwin published his famous work on evolution.

Although dinosaur fossils were first found in England, a series of dramatic discoveries during the late 1800s turned North America into a world center for vertebrate paleontology. At the same time, the United States emerged as the world’s largest industrial economy, and creatures like tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus, and triceratops became emblems of American capitalism. Large, fierce, and spectacular, American dinosaurs dominated the popular imagination, making front-page headlines and appearing in feature films.

In the history of life on this planet, 99.9 percent of all species have gone extinct. But a few have survived almost unchanged. Author Rebecca E. Hirsch introduces listeners to six living fossils, including the chambered nautilus, the horseshoe crab with its sticky blue blood, and venomous platypuses that sting, as well as a comprehensive explanation of evolution and extinction for listeners who may not be familiar with the terms yet.