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How can palaeontologists know what a living dinosaur was like more than a hundred million years ago, particularly when only partial skeletons remain? Focusing on one large carnivorous dinosaur, Acrocanthosaurus (high-spined lizard), palaeontologist Kenneth Carpenter explains the process, pairing scholarly findings with more than 75 colour illustrations to reconstruct Acro before readers eyes. In Acrocanthosaurus Inside and Out, he offers the most complete portrait possible of this fascinating dinosaur's appearance, biology, and behaviour.
Acrocanthosaurus similar in size to its later cousin Tyrannosaurus rex, but studded with large spines roamed what is now the south-central United States 110 to 115 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous. Carpenter worked on the most complete of the Acrocanthosaurus skeletons (nicknamed Fran) that has been found. Here he describes the techniques that tell us about Acro's biological makeup, movements, and habits. Studies of joints reveal the range of possible motion, while bumps, ridges, and scars on the bones show where muscles, ligaments, and tendons attached. CT scans allow us to peer into the braincase, while microscopes afford a cross-sectional view of bones. These findings in turn offer an idea of how Acro stalked and ate its prey.
Scientific evidence beyond the fossils provides avenues for further inquiry: What does the sedimentary rock encasing Fran's bones tell us about Acro's environment? What does our knowledge of Acro's distant relatives, such as crocodilians and birds, imply about its heart and other soft tissues? Can our understanding of other animals explain Acro's huge spines?
Carpenter distills all this information into a clear, accessible, engaging account that will appeal to general readers and scholars alike. As the first book-length work on Acrocanthosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus Inside and Out introduces a prehistoric giant that once stalked Texas and Oklahoma and offers a rare, firsthand glimpse into the trials and triumphs of paleontology.
Kenneth Carpenter is the Director and Curator of the Prehistoric Museum of Utah State University–Eastern. He received a PhD in geology from the University of Colorado in 1996. From 1989 until 2010, he worked at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He has written hundreds of both scholarly and popular articles and encyclopedia entries on dinosaurs. Among other books, he is the author of Eggs, Nests, and Baby Dinosaurs: A Look at Dinosaur Reproduction.
"Long before Tyrannosaurus rex terrorized the world near the end of the Age of Reptiles, another giant meat-eating dinosaur Acrocanthosaurus atokensis dominated North American ecosystems. Known from multiple specimens, the biology of Acrocanthosaurus is almost as well understood by scientists as that of its famous cousin. A fascinating story of detective work, Acrocanthosaurus Inside and Out reveals how old bones tell us about the life and death of an animal that lived more than a hundred million years ago."
– Philip J. Currie, coeditor of Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs
"In Acrocanthosaurus Inside and Out, Kenneth Carpenter presents the story of the apex predator of the Early Cretaceous period. With an engaging, easy-to-read style, he introduces the reader to the thought processes of paleontologists confronting new data and details the procedures they use to analyze and draw conclusions, applying them to Acro. This book the most thorough and updated description yet of this magnificent dinosaur is a welcome addition to references available to educators, budding paleontologists, and interested laypeople."
– Henry Moy, Quintus H. Herron Director, Museum of the Red River, Idabel, Oklahoma
