Edition Notes: Second Edition
Author Statement: Steve Parker
Audience: Trade
Specs: 400 full color photographs and illustrations, fact files, glossary, index
Pages: 320
Trim Size: 9" X 11" X 13/16"
Language code 1: eng
Publication Date: 20160927
Copyright Year: 2016
Dinosaurus: The Complete Guide to Dinosaurs
"Magnificent in its breadth and illustration."
-- Booklist
Dinosaurus was published in 2003 and went on to sell 15,000 in hardcover and more in paperback. Now 13 years have passed during which there have been dozens of discoveries. At the same price and fully revised, this edition of Dinosaurus is simply too exceptional a value to pass up.
Many incredible discoveries made 2015 a banner year. For example:
- Yi qi ("ee chee", "strange wing"), the earliest known flying non-avian dinosaur
- The "Chicken from Hell," a bird-like beaked, clawed and feathered dinosaur that roamed the Dakotas
- Zhenyuanlong suni, a cousin of Velociraptor, suggests that this family has been inaccurately depicted. The new 5-foot-long dino more resembles a feathered poodle than the brute of Jurassic Park.
- "Superduck," at 5 tons and with a mate-attracting head crest it is thought to be a missing link between two other known duck-billed head-crested dinosaur species.
Perhaps most exciting is that in 2016 the American Museum of Natural History opened a new exhibition featuring the astonishing, newly discovered 122-foot-long titanosaur, yet to be named. The plant-eating colossus is the largest dinosaur ever found -- it weighed around 77 tons--as much as 14 or 15 African elephants!
No other life-form captures the imagination like dinosaurs. Organized by the major dinosaur families, Dinosaurus identifies 500 species. It describes in detail and stunning illustrations what they looked like, what they ate and how they fought, lived and died.
The features include:
- Concise explanations of species' traits and habits
- Vivid full-color illustrations representing life among the dinosaurs
- Stunning color photographs of dinosaur discoveries
- Latin name, translation and pronunciation
- Height specifics and comparison to humans
- Diet and habitat
- Global distribution.
Brimming with research from digs in North America, Mongolia, Europe, China and elsewhere, Dinosaurus is an encyclopedic and vividly illustrated reference for all ages.
| Bio: | Steve Parker is a scientific fellow of the Zoological Society and is the author of The Encyclopedia of Sharks. |
| Excerpt: | Giganotosaurus "The king is dead: long live the king!" For almost 90 years, Tyrannosaurus rex reigned in the existing fossil record as the largest land predator the world had seen. But in 1994, Ruben Carolini, a car mechanic and part-time fossil enthusiast, was hunting in Patagonia, a region of southern Argentina, and came upon what proved to be a two-thirds complete skeleton of an even greater predator. A team from the increasingly well-known Carmen Funes Museum in Neuquén, Argentina, led by Rodolfo Coria with his colleague Leonardo Salgado, excavated the fossils. They were named in 1995. (See also Carcharodontosaurus, page 122.) Giganotosaurus was a meter or two (3 to 6 feet) bigger and a ton or two heavier than Tyrannosaurus. Length estimates vary from 13 to 15-plus meters (43 to 49-plus feet). Dated at 100-90 million years old, Giganotosaurus was separated by a continent and 25 million years from its "king of the dinosaurs" rival, Tyrannosaurus. Giganotosaurus had a brain that was smaller than that of Tyrannosaurus, but its skull was bigger, at 1.8 meters (6 feet) - it alone was as long as a tall adult human being. The teeth were shaped not so much like daggers as like arrowheads, serrated along their edges, and over 20 centimeters (8 inches) long. The small forelimbs had three clawed digits, and the massive back legs each carried a few tons' weight as Giganotosaurus pounded along in search of food. Few additional specimens of this monster have been found, but in time, new discoveries may allow more speculation as to its behavior and probable prey. It may have eaten herbivorous dinosaurs, which are known to have been plentiful in the region, since fossils from over 20 species, including one of the biggest of all sauropods, Argentinosaurus, were found there and dated from roughly the same time.
DINO FACTFILE |
| TOC: | Contents
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Glossary |
