Book Cover
E-book
Author Pickrell, John, author

Title Weird dinosaurs / John Pickrell
Published New York : Columbia University Press, [2016]

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xv, 242 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates)
Contents Monster from the Cretaceous lagoon : the Sahara, Egypt -- All hail the dino-bat : Hebei Province, China -- Dwarf dinosaurs and trailblazing aristocrats : Transylvania, Romania -- Horny ornaments and sexy ceratopsians : Alberta, Canada -- The "unusual terrible hands" : Gobi Desert, Mongolia -- Scandalous behaviour and enfluffled vegetarians : Siberia, Russia -- Cretaceous creatures of the frozen north : Alaska, United States -- The hidden treasures down under : Lightning Ridge, Australia -- Record-breaking titans : Patagonia, Argentina -- Southern killers set adrift : Mahajanga Basin, Madagascar -- Polar pioneers and the frozen crested lizard : Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica
Summary "From the outback of Australia to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and the savanna of Madagascar, the award-winning science writer and dinosaur enthusiast John Pickrell embarks on a world tour of new finds, meeting the fossil hunters who work at the frontier of discovery. He reveals the dwarf dinosaurs unearthed by an eccentric Transylvanian baron; an aquatic, crocodile-snouted carnivore bigger than T. rex that once lurked in North African waterways; a Chinese dinosaur with wings like a bat; and a Patagonian sauropod so enormous it weighed more than two commercial jet airliners. Other surprising discoveries hail from Alaska, Siberia, Canada, Burma, and South Africa. Why did dinosaurs grow so huge? How did they spread across the world? Did they all have feathers? What do sauropods have in common with 1950s vacuum cleaners? The stuff of adventure movies and scientific revolutions, Weird Dinosaurs examines the latest breakthroughs and new technologies that are radically transforming our understanding of the distant past. Pickrell opens a vivid portal to a brand-new age of fossil discovery, in which fossil hunters are routinely redefining what we know and how we think about prehistory's most iconic and fascinating creatures."--Jacket
Notes "First published in Australia by NewSouth, an imprint of UNSW Press Ltd."--Title page verso
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on September 08, 2017)
Subject Dinosaurs.
Animals, Fossil.
Paleontology.
Paleontological excavations.
Dinosaurs
Paleontology
Dinosauria (extinct superorder)
paleontology.
NATURE -- Fossils.
Animals, Fossil
Dinosaurs
Paleontological excavations
Paleontology
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2016059780
ISBN 9780231543392
0231543395