Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide

✍ Scribed by Michael J. Benton

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 225
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A stunningly illustrated guide to these extraordinary creatures from a world-renowned paleontologist

Paleobiology has advanced from a speculative subject to a cutting-edge science. Today, researchers are applying the latest forensic technologies to the fossil record, revealing startling new insights into the lives of dinosaurs. This illustrated guide explores the behavior, evolution, physiology, and extinction of dinosaurs, taking readers inside the mysterious world of these marvelous animals. With specially commissioned illustrations by Bob Nicholls, Dinosaur Behavior explains how the dinosaurs lived and courted, fought and fed, signaled and interacted with each other, and much more.

• Features a wealth of breathtaking illustrations throughout
• Offers new perspectives on the prehistoric world inhabited by dinosaurs
• Sheds light on how dinosaurs actually looked, how they moved, and how fast they ran
• Explains the feeding habits of carnivores, herbivores, scavengers, and solitary hunters
• Discusses sight, hearing, smell, spatial orientation, and intelligence
• Brings to life the social behavior of dinosaurs, from mating and parenting to herd dynamics and migration
• Takes readers behind the scenes of the latest, most thrilling discoveries

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Contents
Introduction
1. Dinosaurs in Perspective
Why are Dinosaurs Important?
Geological Time
Ancient Geographies
Ancient Reptiles in the Sea and Air
Knowing About the Past
FORENSICS: Managing the Dig Site
Origins of Dinosaurs
The Three Main Dinosaur Groups
Birds as a Branch of Theropods
2. Physiology
Visualizing Dinosaurs
FORENSICS: Putting Flesh on the Bones
Modern Reptiles and Birds
A Special Kind of Warm-Bloodedness
Feathers
Breathing
Food Budgets
FORENSICS: Making a Dinosaur Food Web
3. Locomotion
Posture and Gait
FORENSICS: Modeling Locomotion
Two Legs or Four?
Trackways
FORENSICS: Tippy-Toes Take-Off
Calculating Running Speed
FORENSICS: Dinosaur Walking Kinematics
Giant Size and Support
FORENSICS: How to be a Giant
Origins of Flight
4. Senses and Intelligence
Dinosaur Brains
FORENSICS: Studying Ancient Brains
Brains of Modern Reptiles and Birds
Evolving Intelligence
Sense of Smell
Sight
Hearing
Spatial Orientation
5. Feeding
Dinosaur Diets
Teeth and Jaws
FORENSICS: Finite Element Analysis of Jaws
Evidence of Dinosaur Diets
FORENSICS: Isotopes and Diet
Dinosaur Herbivory
Dinosaur Carnivory (and Other Diets)
6. Social Behavior
Communication and Interaction
Sexual Selection and Feather Color
FORENSICS: Telling the Color of Fossil Feathers
Courtship and Mating Behavior
Eggs and Parental Care
Growing Up
FORENSICS: Measuring Growth Rate
Communication and Living in Herds
FORENSICS: Sounds of the Hadrosaurs
7. Dinosaurs and Humans
Extinction
FORENSICS: A Whimper or a Bang?
Survivors and the Modern World
Opportunities
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments