the rise and fall of dinosaurs steve brusatte

rex, not rodents.īut Steve Brusatte of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World fame does not think so. Normally when I think paleontology I think T. Yeah, they lucked out and inherited the earth while poor dinosaurs got relegated to chirping in the trees angiosperms - but mammals are boring. Mammals, on the other hand, seem to be getting the short shrift fascination-wise. Those colossal creatures ruling prehistoric planet, cut down in their prime by an apocalypse from space. “It was the Age of Dinosaurs, but in the smaller and hidden niches, it was already the Age of Mammals.”There’s something fascinatingly majestic about dinosaurs. Entwined in this story is the detective work he and other scientists have done to piece together our understanding using fossil clues and cutting-edge technology.Ī sterling example of scientific storytelling by one of our finest young researchers, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals illustrates how this incredible history laid the foundation for today's world, for us, and our future.

Brusatte also brings alive the lost worlds mammals inhabited through time, from ice ages to volcanic catastrophes. Now, picking up the narrative in the ashes of the extinction event that doomed T-rex and its kind, Brusatte explores the remarkable story of the family of animals that inherited the Earth-mammals- and brilliantly reveals that their story is every bit as fascinating and complex as that of the dinosaurs.īeginning with the earliest days of our lineage some 325 million years ago, Brusatte charts how mammals survived the asteroid that claimed the dinosaurs and made the world their own, becoming the astonishingly diverse range of animals that dominate today's Earth. In his acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, American paleontologist Steve Brusatte enchanted readers with his definitive his - tory of the dinosaurs. Indeed humankind and many of the beloved fellow mammals we share the planet with today-lions, whales, dogs-represent only the few survivors of a sprawling and astonishing family tree that has been pruned by time and mass extinctions. Our lineage includes saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, armadillos the size of a car, cave bears three times the weight of a grizzly, clever scurriers that outlasted Tyrannosaurus rex, and even other types of humans, like Neanderthals. Though humans claim to rule the Earth, we are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals. A sweeping and revelatory new history of mammals, illuminating the lost story of the extraordinary family tree that led to us

The rise and fall of dinosaurs steve brusatte