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Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets > Dinosaurs & the prehistoric world
66 million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth. Today, Dr. Steve Brusatte, one of the leading scientists of a new generation of dinosaur hunters, armed with cutting edge technology, is piecing together the complete story of how the dinosaurs ruled the earth for 150 million years. The world of the dinosaurs has fascinated on book and screen for decades – from early science fiction classics like The Lost World, to Godzilla terrorizing the streets of Tokyo, and the monsters of Jurassic Park. But what if we got it wrong? In The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, top dinosaur expert Brusatte, tells the real story of how dinosaurs rose to dominate the planet. Using the fossil clues that have been gathered using state of the art technology, Brusatte follows these magnificent creatures from their beginnings in the Early Triassic period, through the Jurassic period to their final days in the Cretaceous and the legacy that they left behind. Along the way, Brusatte introduces us to modern day dinosaur hunters and gives an insight into what it’s like to be a paleontologist. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is full of thrilling accounts of some of his personal discoveries, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs, monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex, and feathered raptor dinosaurs preserved in lava from China. At a time when Homo sapiens has existed for less than 200,000 years and we are already talking about planetary extinction, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a timely reminder of what humans can learn from the magnificent creatures who ruled the earth before us.
This is the story of the dinosaurs, uniquely retold through 50 of the most significant findings from the fossil record. Each entry is illustrated with special photography of original specimens that illustrate both the history of dinosaur discovery and key evolutionary events. Palaeontologist Paul M. Barrett explains the importance of each fossil and how it marks a crucial inflection point in an evolutionary dynasty that ruled the Earth for more than 150 million years. The book is divided into themed sections, beginning with dinosaur ancestors before introducing all the major dinosaur groups and moving on to the distinctive aspects of their biology such as feeding, distribution, locomotion and behaviour. The final section focuses on the first fossil birds including the legendary Archaeopteryx, the feathered dinosaur that is widely considered to be the first bird species.
WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2022 'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer, juggling humour, precision, polemic and poetry to enrich his impossibly telescoped account . . . [making] clear sense out of very complex narratives' - The Times 'Henry Gee makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? - Everybody!' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee's words - colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.
a comic about dinosaurs finding meaning, together from the international bestselling team behind dinosaur therapy, @dinosandcomics including exclusive, never-before-seen bonus comics posing questions such as 'do I exist?', 'how should I live?', 'what is beauty?' in each comic, dinosaur characters explore how to exist in the modern world and meditate on what it means to 'live well'. suitable for grown-ups.
**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER** a comic about dinosaurs navigating the complexities of life, together including exclusive, never-seen-before, bonus comics a wistful, honest and highly relatable account of modern life. dinosaur therapy is a book of cartoons for grown-ups from the very successful web comic @dinosandcomics. in each comic, dinosaur characters grapple with questions around the meaning of life and mental health, trying to make sense of the world and cope with their own place in it.
This is the past as we've never seen it before. Otherlands is an epic, exhilarating journey into deep time, showing us the Earth as it used to exist, and the worlds that were here before ours. Award-winning young palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday immerses us in a series of ancient landscapes, from the mammoth steppe in Ice Age Alaska to the lush rainforests of Eocene Antarctica, with its colonies of giant penguins, to Ediacaran Australia, where the moon is far brighter than ours today. We visit the birthplace of humanity; we hear the crashing of the highest waterfall the Earth has ever known; and we watch as life emerges again after the asteroid hits, and the age of the mammal dawns. Otherlands is a staggering imaginative feat: an emotional narrative that underscores the tenacity of life - yet also the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, including our own. To read it is to see the last 500 million years not as an endless expanse of unfathomable time, but as a series of worlds, simultaneously fabulous and familiar.
Basil Mathew's excellent stories about several of the most famous and revered Christian missionaries form a lively and engaging history of missionary work. This book is written as a set of tales with characters from all around the world. Missionaries preaching the Christian doctrines are depicted in the midst of their adventures, convincing indigenous peoples of the one, true God. Dialogue and captivating descriptions of the local cultures confer a vibrant, vivid and captivating essence to the text. This book is a colorful history of Christian missionary activities in far-flung places. The text is divided into four principle parts, each of which focus on a particular locale where missionary activity was frequent over the centuries.
A super fun sing-along board book from the number 1 kids channel in the world! JJ and his friends are all dressed up and ready to learn about dinosaurs! Stomp and stomp and ROAR! JJ and his friends are at school singing all about Triceratops, T.rex and Pterosaurs! Join in at home naming your favourite dinosaurs. Singing along to The Dinosaur Song is a great way to share a first learning experience with young children.
When Dinosaurs and the Expanding Earth was first published it proposed a startling idea to explain the long-standing puzzle of the dinosaurs' gigantic size. Stephen Hurrell presented scientific evidence that dinosaurs lived in a reduced gravity and this allowed them to grow to gigantic proportions. The Reduced Gravity Earth theory explains why all land-based life has shifted towards a larger scale on the ancient Earth. This includes gigantic dinosaurs, plants and insects. It is also a key piece of evidence that provides additional support for an Expanding Earth, something a few leading geologists have been suggesting for decades. Since its initial unveiling, the Reduced Gravity Earth theory has been widely discussed and debated. Individuals from laymen to professors are now arguing that gravity was lower on the ancient Earth. You can analyse the evidence for believing the controversial Reduced Gravity Earth theory and its implications for the Expanding Earth in this third edition of Dinosaurs and the Expanding Earth. Praise for previous editions of Dinosaurs and the Expanding Earth 'something completely different ... an original work rather than a re-presentation of existing knowledge ... well presented.' GEOLOGY TODAY - Blackwell Science Ltd. 'Engineers (Hurrell) have shown that dinosaurs' bones could not have borne their weight ... much reduced surface gravity is essential for dinosaurs to have existed.' Professor S. Warren Carey, University of Tasmania. '... written in a plain straightforward style and its target is a wide public not interested in specialist treatises. Its clear and lively descriptions lead the reader straight to the core of the arguments. ... could well be the topics of joint scientific collaboration between engineers and paleontologists.' ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS
The ideal textbook for non-science majors, this lively and engaging introduction encourages students to ask questions, assess data critically and think like a scientist. Building on the success of previous editions, Dinosaurs has been thoroughly updated to include new discoveries in the field, such as the toothed bird specimens found in China and recent discoveries of dinosaur soft anatomy. Illustrations by leading paleontological illustrator John Sibbick and new, carefully-chosen photographs, clearly show how dinosaurs looked, lived and their role in Earth history. Making science accessible and relevant through clear explanations and extensive illustrations, the text guides students through the dinosaur groups, emphasizing scientific concepts rather than presenting endless facts. Grounded in the common language of modern evolutionary biology - phylogenetic systematics - students learn to think about dinosaurs the way that professional paleontologists do.
'A dazzling, beguiling story . . . told at an exhilarating pace' Literary Review 'Henry Gee makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? - Everybody!' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee's lyrical prose - colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.
Titus Lucretius Carus was probably born in the early first century B.C., and died in the year 55. Little is known of his life, although two tantalizing bits of gossip were passed on by St. Jerome: that he was poisoned by a madness-inducing aphrodisiac given him by his wife, and that his great poem "On the Nature of Things" was posthumously edited by Cicero. For the latter assertion, writes Anthony Esolen in his introduction to the present volume, there is little evidence, and none whatsoever for the former. What does survive is a masterful poetic work that stands as the greatest exposition of Epicurean philosophy. Writing in the waning days of the Roman Republic--as Rome's politics grew individualistic and treacherous, its high-life wanton, its piety introspective and morbid--Lucretius sets forth a rational and materialistic view of the world which offers a retreat into a quiet community of wisdom and friendship. Even to modern readers, the sweep of Lucretius's observations is remarkable. A careful observer of nature, he writes with an innocent curiosity into how things are put together--from the oceans, lands, and stars to a mound of poppy seeds, from the "applause" of a rooster's wings to the human mind and soul. Yet Lucretius is no romantic. Nature is what it is--fascinating, purposeless, beautiful, deadly. Once we understand this, we free ourselves of superstitious fears, becoming as human and as godlike as we can be. The poem, then, is about the universe and how human beings ought to live in it. Epicurean physics and morality converge. Until now, there has been no adequate English verse translation of Lucretius's work. Anthony Esolen fills that gap with a version that reproduces--with remarkable faithfulness--the meaning, pace, and tone of the original Latin. Here is a book that will introduce a new generation of readers to a thinker whose powers of observation and depth of insight remain fresh to the present day. "Esolen has the rare gift of being both a fine poet and a lover of languages. His diction is poetic and natural; he has a fine ear for sound, and the translation benefits greatly from being read aloud--as Latin poetry was meant to be. This translation is clear and forceful. It can, and will, be read."--Kenneth J. Reckford, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Dive into an unprecedented survey of millions of years of life on planet Earth. Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life is a beautifully crafted encyclopedia of prehistoric species that the whole family can enjoy. Featuring an incredible mix of 3D reconstructions, extraordinary skeletons, and amazingly intricate fossils, it uses the latest scientific research to recreate a wealth of ancient species, from the earliest primitive life forms to great dinosaurs, early mammals, and even the first humans. This richly illustrated catalogue starts with the first Precambrian microbes and traces the evolution of life through mass extinctions and ice ages. As well as dinosaurs, it features extinct plants, invertebrates, amphibians, fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals, conjuring up a series of past worlds. The book also explores geological time and examines how fossils preserve the story of evolution. In the pages of this unique book of natural history, you'll find: - A detailed catalogue of over 500 animals, plants, fungi and microbes with illustrations and fact files unmatched by any other book on the market. - A tour of some of the most fascinating fossils and skeletons. - Clear CGI reconstructions give a new life to some of the oldest identified species, allowing you to visualise them as they would have existed on Earth. - Richly annotated artworks displaying geological processes including how Earth formed and how fossils are preserved in rock Combining stunning visuals and clear text, Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life is not only packed with fascinating prehistoric facts and species, it's beautifully foiled cover will take pride of place on your coffee table! The ideal gift for dinosaur enthusiasts and naturalists of all ages that will be treasured for years to come.
Revealing the incredible diversity of fossilised plants and animals preserved for millions of years, this book profiles 300 examples of the most common and fascinating fossils, using an entry by entry approach. By including examples from all of the major variety of fossilised life, from preserved trees and grasses to molluscs, trilobites, fish and dinosaurs, Fossils offers a truly comprehensive overview of fossils from every continent and gives a sense of the huge amount of natural history available to us in the fossil record. Each fossil is illustrated with a clear and informative colour photograph, accompanied by informed and accessible text. The fossilised plants and animals are grouped by order, then within each order by family (and, where necessary, within each family by subfamilies). For easy reference, each entry includes a table of information on scientific name, order and family, habitat, distribution, geological period and dimensions.
A historical review of the most important scientific controversies that have shaped our knowledge of dinosaurs since the discovery of important fossils in the 1820s. In The Great Dinosaur Controversy: A Guide to the Debates, the major scientific disputes that have contributed to the understanding of dinosaurs come to light. Each chapter presents a major controversy then ponders the lessons learned and their impact on the scientific field. Colorful characters such as "anti-evolutionist" Robert Owen, "Darwin's bulldog," T.H. Huxley, and "dinosaur heretic" Robert Bakker, enliven the debates, which range from the origin of dinosaurs and their posture to their evolution or retrogression and whether they were warm- or cold-blooded. Two of the most recent debates concern how dinosaurs became extinct and whether or not birds are their descendents. Introductory chapter on the role of controversy in science focusing on the contributions of scientists such as Edward Cope and T. H. Huxley Illustrations of the major figures involved in the debates
Nothing fills us with a sense of wonder like fossils. What looks at first like a simple rock is in fact a clue that reveals the staggering diversity of ancient environments, the winding pathways of evolution, and the majesty of a vanished earth. But as much as one might daydream of digging a hole in the backyard and finding a Tyrannosaurus, only a few places contain these buried treasures, and when a scientist comes across a remnant of prehistoric life, great care must be taken. What do budding paleontologists need to know before starting their search? In Fantastic Fossils, Donald R. Prothero offers an accessible, entertaining, and richly illustrated guide to the paleontologist's journey. He details the best places to look for fossils, the art of how to find them, and how to classify the major types. Prothero provides expert wisdom about typical fossils that an average person can hope to collect and how to hunt fossils responsibly and ethically. He also explores the lessons that both common and rarer discoveries offer about paleontology and its history, as well as what fossils can tell us about past climates and present climate change. Captivating illustrations by the paleoartist Mary Persis Williams bring to life hundreds of important specimens. Offering valuable lessons for armchair enthusiasts and paleontology students alike, Fantastic Fossils is an essential companion for all readers who have ever dreamed of going in search of traces of a lost world.
'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer, juggling humour, precision, polemic and poetry to enrich his impossibly telescoped account . . . [making] clear sense out of very complex narratives' - The Times 'Henry Gee makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? - Everybody!' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee's lyrical prose - colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.
The second book by the bestselling author of Extraordinary Insects Trees clean air and water; hoverflies and bees pollinate our crops; the kingfisher inspired the construction of high-speed trains. In Tapestries of Life, bestselling author Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson explains how closely we are all connected with the natural world, highlighting our indelible link with nature's finely knit system and our everyday lives. In the heart of natural world is a life-support system like no other, a collective term that describes all the goods and services we receive - food, fresh water, medicine, pollination, pollution control, carbon sequestration, erosion prevention, recreation, spiritual health and so much more. In this utterly captivating book, Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson sets out to explore these wonderful, supportive elements - taking the reader on a journey through the surprising characteristics of the natural world.
For 150 million years, dinosaurs were the undisputed rulers of the Earth. Today, these great lizards still fire our imaginations. Dinosaurs describes the creatures who lived during the great Age of Reptiles, the real-life giants and monsters such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus who once dominated our planet. This stunningly illustrated and accessible reference work features the most impressive and formidable dinosaurs to have been discovered. The entries are arranged by chronological period, running from the Triassic period through to the late Cretaceous, and each entry is illustrated throughout with full-colour annotated artworks. Each of the dinosaur features also includes information boxes containing key facts and figures. The text, using the latest palaeontological research, outlines how the dinosaurs lived and died. Readers will discover the fantastic, extraordinary and outlandish types of dinosaurs that once roamed the Earth - making Dinosaurs essential reading, not only for dinosaur enthusiasts, but for anyone intrigued by nature at its most majestic. |
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