Bernissart Dinosaurs and Early Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems

Bernissart Dinosaurs and Early Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems
Author: Pascal Godefroit
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 648
Release: 2012-07-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0253005701

In 1878, the first complete dinosaur skeleton was discovered in a coal mine in Bernissart, Belgium. Iguanodon, first described by Gideon Mantell on the basis of fragments discovered in England in 1824, was initially reconstructed as an iguana-like reptile or a heavily built, horned quadruped. However, the Bernissart skeleton changed all that. The animal was displayed in an upright posture similar to a kangaroo, and later with its tail off the ground like the dinosaur we know of today. Focusing on the Bernissant discoveries, this book presents the latest research on Iguanodon and other denizens of the Cretaceous ecosystems of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Pascal Godefroit and contributors consider the Bernissart locality itself and the new research programs that are underway there. The book also presents a systematic revision of Iguanodon; new material from Spain, Romania, China, and Kazakhstan; studies of other Early Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems; and examinations of Cretaceous vertebrate faunas.

Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs
Author: Spencer G. Lucas
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 509
Release: 2022-08-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0231556276

Geared toward a broad variety of students, Dinosaurs: The Textbook offers a concise and lucid presentation of the core biological and geological concepts of dinosaur science. Revised throughout to reflect recent fossil discoveries and the current scientific consensus, this seventh edition details the evolution, phylogeny, and classification of various dinosaur species while modeling the best approach for navigating new and existing research. Spencer G. Lucas takes readers through the major taxonomic groups, including theropods, sauropodomorphs, ornithopods, ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, stegosaurs, and ankylosaurs. He also examines the behavior and extinction of the dinosaurs, their biological relationship to birds, and their representation (or misrepresentation) in art, literature, film, and other forms of popular culture. This seventh edition of the leading text for introductory courses on dinosaurs incorporates comprehensive updates based on the latest research. Lucas highlights how dinosaur science is rapidly evolving, exploring how new discoveries, methods, and ideas are expanding the frontiers of knowledge. The book features cutting-edge and scientifically rigorous illustrations by leading paleoartists. It also includes extensive and reader-friendly end-of-chapter summary tools, review questions, a detailed glossary, a dinosaur dictionary, and a comprehensive index.

Hadrosaurs

Hadrosaurs
Author: David A. Eberth
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2014-11-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0253013909

A comprehensive study of the Late Cretaceous, duck-billed dinosaur, featuring insights on its origins, anatomy, and more. 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 from hadrosaurs than we have from any other group. In recent years, hadrosaurs have been in the spotlight. Researchers around the world have been studying new specimens and new taxa seeking to expand and clarify our knowledge of these marvelous beasts. This volume presents the results of an international symposium on hadrosaurs, sponsored by the Royal Tyrrell Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum, where scientists and students gathered to share their research and their passion for duck-billed dinosaurs. A uniquely comprehensive treatment of hadrosaurs, the book encompasses not only the well-known hadrosaurids proper, but also Hadrosaouroidea, allowing the former group to be evaluated in a broader perspective. The 36 chapters are divided into six sections—an overview, new insights into hadrosaur origins, hadrosaurid anatomy and variation, biogeography and biostratigraphy, function and growth, and preservation, tracks, and traces—followed by an afterword by Jack Horner. “Well designed, handsome and fantastically well edited (credit there to Patricia Ralrick), congratulations are deserved to the editors for pulling together a vast amount of content, and doing it well. The book contains a huge quantity of information on these dinosaurs.” —Darren Naish, co-author of Tetrapod Zoology, Scientific American “Hadrosaurs have not had the wide publicity of their flesh-eating cousins, the theropods, but this remarkable dinosaur group offers unique opportunities to explore aspects of palaeobiology such as growth and sexual dimorphism. In a comprehensive collection of papers, all the hadrosaur experts of the world present their latest work, exploring topics as diverse as taxonomy and stratigraphy, locomotion and skin colour.” —Michael Benton, University of Bristol

Fossil Record 4

Fossil Record 4
Author: Robert M. Sullivan
Publisher: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2015
Genre: Fossils
ISBN:

Dinosaurs of Darkness

Dinosaurs of Darkness
Author: Thomas H. Rich
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0253047404

“A valuable volume detailing an underexplored region of the world of dinosaurs . . . essential reading for any dino-devotee.” —ForeWord Dinosaurs of Darkness opens a doorway to a fascinating former world, between 100 million and 120 million years ago, when Australia was far south of its present location and joined to Antarctica. Dinosaurs lived in this polar region. How were the polar dinosaurs discovered? What do we now know about them? Thomas H. Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich, who have played crucial roles in their discovery, describe how they and others collected the fossils indispensable to our knowledge of this realm and how painstaking laboratory work and analyses continue to unlock the secrets of the polar dinosaurs. This scientific adventure makes for a fascinating story: it begins with one destination in mind and ends at another, arrived at by a most roundabout route, down byways and back from dead ends. Dinosaurs of Darkness is a personal, absorbing account of the way scientific research is actually conducted and how hard—and rewarding—it is to mine the knowledge of this remarkable life of the past. The award-winning first edition has now been thoroughly updated with the latest discoveries and interpretations, along with over 100 new photographs and charts, many in color.

Dinosaurs of Eastern Iberia

Dinosaurs of Eastern Iberia
Author: Àngel Galobart
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2011-10-17
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0253356229

Written for the general reader, this book is both a colorful introduction to the history and study of dinosaurs and an eye-opening survey of dinosaur discoveries in Spain. At the time of the dinosaurs, Iberia was in the process of becoming a peninsula of Continental Europe and looked very different than it does today. Now an area only slightly larger than Vermont and New Hampshire, Eastern Iberia contains one of the richest fossil records of Mesozoic vertebrates in Europe. This record spans an 80-million-year period that includes key moments in Earth's history, such as the extinction events at the Jurassic-Cretaceous and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundaries. Dinosaurs of Eastern Iberia tells the story of Iberia's tumultuous geological history and presents a detailed synthesis of the region's dinosaur discoveries, with fact sheets and reconstructions of each species found there. This volume also describes the flora and fauna that made up the ancient ecosystems and explores the paleobiogeography of this dynamic region.

Noah's Ravens

Noah's Ravens
Author: James O. Farlow
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 961
Release: 2018-10-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 025303728X

How can the tracks of dinosaurs best be interpreted and used to reconstruct them? In many Mesozoic sedimentary rock formations, fossilized footprints of bipedal, three-toed (tridactyl) dinosaurs are preserved in huge numbers, often with few or no skeletons. Such tracks sometimes provide the only clues to the former presence of dinosaurs, but their interpretation can be challenging: How different in size and shape can footprints be and yet have been made by the same kind of dinosaur? How similar can they be and yet have been made by different kinds of dinosaurs? To what extent can tridactyl dinosaur footprints serve as proxies for the biodiversity of their makers? Profusely illustrated and meticulously researched, Noah's Ravens quantitatively explores a variety of approaches to interpreting the tracks, carefully examining within-species and across-species variability in foot and footprint shape in nonavian dinosaurs and their close living relatives. The results help decipher one of the world's most important assemblages of fossil dinosaur tracks, found in sedimentary rocks deposited in ancient rift valleys of eastern North America. Those often beautifully preserved tracks were among the first studied by paleontologists, and they were initially interpreted as having been made by big birds—one of which was jokingly identified as Noah's legendary raven.

Vertebrate Coprolites

Vertebrate Coprolites
Author: Adrian P. Hunt
Publisher: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2012
Genre: Coprolites
ISBN:

The Desert Bones

The Desert Bones
Author: Jamale Ijouiher
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2022-11-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0253063337

An essential introduction to the age of dinosaurs in Africa. Once Africa was referred to as the ''Lost World of the dinosaur era,'' so poorly known were its ancient flora and fauna. Worse still, many priceless fossil specimens from the Sahara Desert were destroyed during the Second World War. Fortunately, in the twentieth-first century, more researchers are now working in north Africa than ever before and making fascinating discoveries such as the dinosaur Spinosaurus. Based on a decade of study, The Desert Bones brings the world of African dinosaurs fully into the light. Jamale Ijouiher skillfully draws on the latest research and knowledge about paleoecology to paint a compelling and comprehensive portrait of the mid-Cretaceous in North Africa.