The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs [Hardcover]

This is a comprehensive 2005 book is simply the best textbook on dinosaurs available.This is a comprehensive student textbook on dinosaurs that non-specialists will also find fascinating. It is the only comprehensive text that takes an explicitly phylogenetic approach to dinosaurs. The geological context of dinosaurs, however, is also stressed, and dinosaurs are presented in the context of contemporary plate tectonic and climatic settings. All of the discussion is couched in lively and accessible language, and the book is lavishly illustrated by specially commissioned line drawings.This is a comprehensive student textbook on dinosaurs that non-specialists will also find fascinating. It is the only comprehensive text that takes an explicitly phylogenetic approach to dinosaurs. The geological context of dinosaurs, however, is also stressed, and dinosaurs are presented in the context of contemporary plate tectonic and climatic settings. All of the discussion is couched in lively and accessible language, and the book is lavishly illustrated by specially commissioned line drawings.Written for non-specialists, this detailed survey of dinosaur origins, diversity, and extinction is designed as a series of successive essays covering important and timely topics in dinosaur paleobiology, such as warm-bloodedness, birds as living dinosaurs, the new, non-flying feathered dinosaurs, dinosaur functional morphology, and cladistic methods in systematics. Its explicitly phylogenetic approach to the group is that taken by dinosaur specialists. The book is not an edited compilation of the works of many individuals, but a unique, cohesive perspective on Dinosauria. Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of new, specially commissioned illustrations by John Sibbick, world-famous illustrator of dinosaurs, the volume includes multi-page drawings as well as sketches and diagrams. First edition Hb (1996): 0-521-44496-9 David E. Fastovsky is Professor of Geosciences at the University of RhodlCÏ