Dinosaur Odyssey Fossil Threads in the Web of Life

About this book

This book offers a holistic, up-to-date overview of dinosaurs and their world for a wide audience of readers. Situating these fascinating animals in a broad ecological and evolutionary context, the author expands on the exhilarating discoveries of the past twenty-five years, the most active period in the history of dinosaur paleontology, during which more new species were named than in all prior history.

With these discoveries - and the most recent controversies - in mind, Sampson reconstructs the odyssey of the dinosaurs from their humble origins on the supercontinent Pangaea, to their reign as the largest animals the planet has ever known, and finally to their abrupt demise. The book places dinosaurs in an expansive web of relationships with other organisms and demonstrates how they provide a powerful lens through which to observe the entire natural world.

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Biography

Scott D. Sampson is a dinosaur paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and educator. He serves as Research Curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he continues dinosaur research and actively pursues writing and consulting projects surrounding education reform and sustainability.