About this book
Fossils allow us to picture the forms of life that inhabited the earth aeons ago. But we long to know more: how did these animals actually behave? We are fascinated by the daily lives of our fellow creatures – how they reproduce and raise their young, how they hunt their prey or elude their predators, and more. What would it be like to see prehistoric animals as they lived and breathed?
From dinosaurs fighting to their deaths to elephant-sized burrowing ground sloths, this book takes readers on a global journey deep into the earth’s past. Locked in Time showcases fifty of the most astonishing fossils ever found, brought together in five fascinating chapters that offer an unprecedented glimpse at the real-life behaviours of prehistoric animals. Dean R. Lomax examines the extraordinary direct evidence of fossils captured in the midst of everyday action: dinosaurs sitting on their eggs like birds, Jurassic flies preserved while mating, a T. rex infected by parasites. Each fossil, he reveals, tells a unique story about prehistoric life. Many recall behaviours typical of animals familiar to us today, evoking the chain of evolution that links all living things to their distant ancestors. Locked in Time allows us to see that fossils are not just inanimate objects: they can record the life stories of creatures as fully alive as any today. Striking and scientifically rigorous illustrations by renowned palaeoartist Bob Nicholls bring these breathtaking moments to life.
Contents
Introduction: Unlocking the Prehistoric World
Ditching the “Dusty Old Fossils”
Understanding Behavior in Fossils
1. Sex
- Mother Fish and Sex as We Know It
- Dinosaur Sex Dance
- Life in Death: Live Birth in Pregnant “Fish-Lizards”
- Jurassic Sex: Captured Forever in the Act
- A Pregnant Plesiosaur
- When Whales Gave Birth on Land
- Sexing a Cretaceous Bird
- Shell-Shocked Mating Turtles
- Tiny Horses and Tiny Foals
2. Parental Care and Communities
- Brooding Dinosaurs
- Oldest Parental Care: Ancient Arthropods and Their Young
- Pterosaur Nesting Grounds
- Megalodon Nursery
- The Babysitter
- Dinosaur Death Trap
- A Prehistoric Pompeii: An Ecosystem Caught in Time
- Fish Trapped Inside Giant Clams
- Snowmastodon: A Refuge for Small Animals
- Giant Floating Ecosystem: A Jurassic Megaraft Crinoid Colony
3. Moving and Making Homes
- Mammal Movers: Tragedy at the River Crossing
- Follow the Leader: The Earliest Animal Migrations
- Sitting on the Jurassic Bay
- The Death March: The Final Steps of a Jurassic Horseshoe Crab
- Mass Moth Migration
- Dinosaur Death Pits
- Time to Grow When You Molt and Go
- Prehistoric Partners: The Odd Couple
- Devil’s Corkscrews
- The Dinosaur That Lived in a Burrow
- Giant Underground Sloths
4. Fighting, Biting, and Feeding
- Clash of the Mammoths
- The Fighting Dinosaurs
- Jurassic Drama: A Hunt Gone Wrong
- Terror Worm of the Primeval Sea
- Greedy Fish
- Cracking the Case of the Bone-Crushing Dogs
- To Catch a Killer: The Snake That Dined on Baby Dinosaurs
- A Dinosaur-Eating Mammal
- The Feeding Ground: “Something Interesting?”
- Hell Pig Meat Cache
- Prehistoric Dolls: Fossil Food Chains with a Twist
5. Unusual Happenings
- Parasite Rex
- Mass Mammal Strandings: An Epic Ancient Graveyard
- Soundly Sleeping Dragon
- Snap That! A Dramatic Jurassic Croc
- The Drama of a Drought?
- Eaten From the Inside Out
- Dinosaur Tumors
- Fossilized “Farts”
- Could It Be Dinosaur Pee
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Index
Customer Reviews
Biography
Dean R. Lomax is an internationally recognized palaeontologist, author, television presenter, and science communicator. He is currently a visiting scientist at the University of Manchester and is a leading authority on ichthyosaurs. His books include Dinosaurs of the British Isles (2014) and Prehistoric Pets (2020).
Bob Nicholls is a world-renowned natural history artist who specializes in the reconstruction of prehistoric animals, plants, and environments. His illustrations and models have been published in more than forty books and exhibited in over forty museums, universities, and visitor attractions around the world.
