As with almost all adventures with the Prehistoric in my life, this one also began at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
It happened, naturally, while I was passing through the fourth floor paleontology rooms. They are a place (in their pre-updated form, along with the Bronx Zoo) where I was practically raised, because my parents were awesome. I remember running up the stairs as a wee lad every time we went to that floor. I still do that, but it is a much slower run...more of a speed-clamber.
Passing through the Lila Acheson Wallace wing of Mammals and Their Extinct Relatives, (as one does) I was thinking: although I clearly have too many dinosaur books, but did not have any tomes about the evolution and habits of these forbearers of us and our milk producing, furry relatives.
I glanced through the gift shop, did some online searching, and given that I have been several PILES behind in my reading for a while, put the selected book on my Wish List.
It showed up for the next holiday, and frankly it looked so cool, I placed it on top of one of those piles. That is how I was introduced to Doctor Steve Brusatte's writing in the pages of The Rise and Reign of Mammals.
The writer is the paleontologist consultant for the Jurassic World films. He definitely tried really hard, and we can thank him for whatever accuracies we did get.
His style of attacking the subject matter in this book led me to putting his Dinosaur book (which I instantly realized one can never have clearly too many of) onto my wish list within the first two chapters of the mammal book.
He presents the history of life on Earth divided into three sections (in varying orders) for each bit of information.
A) Explanations of the animals themselves: biology, possible behavior, relationships, evolutionary path, the whole picture of them as successful animals, not as failed monsters.
B) The various new technologies available, in radiography, data analysis, and other technical tools that allow more detailed knowledge of these long gone animals than ever before. Its a frequently used joke that every answer about what we know about dinosaurs (and other extinct creatures) is "from the bones." However, it turns out with all this technology, since bones make up the main structure of an animal and have all kinds of attachment points, and protection cavities, they can provide a HUGE amount of information. Growth rates, correlations to all sorts of behaviors (speed for example), organ size and location and a whole mess of other stuff can be figured out "from the bones."
C) The lives and lifestyles of the scientists who did the digging, identifying, analyzing and reviewing of the fossil record. They are an over the top, amazingly entertaining and eccentric group of massively learned individuals, with many cool side hobbies, throughout history that provided all this knowledge through application of their expertise.
There was absolutely no way I could resist a Dinosaur book written by this man.
The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs skipped my "not read yet" piles completely when I received it. It was presented using the same three sections as the mammal book. It also did something else. (Technically the mammal book did this too, but given my history, I noticed it more quickly here.)
When previously discussing my Dinosaur Journey, I mentioned how (with information always coming later to public discourse than scientific journals) Dinosaurs went from being completely awesome when I first learned about them as a kid, to seeing them categorized as slow, lumbering, failed, monsters that went extinct as I read my earliest books.
Honestly, the fact that "they're extinct so they failed" shows how insanely powerful human hubris is. We (depending on how "we" is defined) have lived on this world less than five million years with the true "WE" being less than half a million years tops. Dinosaurs were the dominant life form for 180 million years, and now, considering there are at are at least 11 million bird species totaling a minimum of 50 billion birds on the planet (or six birds for every human) and possibly up to eight times that many, you can tack another 66 million years onto the dinosaur count.
The Dinosaur Renaissance with Doctors Robert Bakker, Jack Horner, Phil Currie and others then treated dinosaurs as the highly successful animals the were, whose descendants became birds that are still with us. (There were also some suggestions that the big meteor/ comet impact may not have been the main reason for the end of Cretaceous extinction. However, if Doctor Brusatte's evidence based and horrifying description is anywhere close to accurate... it was most likely the impact. But that's how science works. As more evidence is found, some of the "maybes" go away.)
Well, the advances in technology have shown much more about dinosaurs, and confirmed that it is 100% accurate to say that birds ARE dinosaurs. Birds are not a distant branch either. A Tyrannosaurus Rex is much closer chronologically and genetically to a chicken than it is a Stegosaurus. Yes, dinosaurs were around for such an extended period the earlier ones were already fossils by the time the later ones came on the scene.
Not only that but birds are really cool, having a bunch of very specific (often very weird) evolutionary biological traits unique to them. Well, actually... those traits are unique to many of the dinosaurs. Velociraptors had full bird like feathers, but Tyrannosaurs had some small fuzz like ones, and ceratopsians had quill like ones. Birds have multiple evolutionary aspects that let them have high metabolisms, fast growth rates, and very light strong bones. Many of these were also key in dinosaurs evolving to be the dominant group of species on our planet for over 100 million years. Not only that, but thanks to being able to identify pigmentation cells in fossilized skin and feathers, they know what colors some dinosaurs were!!! They were even more awesome than I thought.
The further we get from our species centric view of evolution as a directed path with the "peak destination" of humanity, and more as the way of selecting not necessarily "the fittest" (whatever the heck that means) but the traits which work at that time in that environment, the more interesting and closer together all life on earth can be seen to be. (And the better understanding we have of all the weird stuff that happens on islands.) Viewing evolution in that way, makes it clearer how various species showed up and thrived. Powered flight is a huge advantage, so much so that four different groups of animals evolved it separately using different anatomical elements for wings.
(In no particular order: Reptiles- pterosaurs and their one finger wing, Mammals- bats and their hand wings, Dinosaurs- birds and their arm wings, and Insects- a boatload of them growing an additional set or two of limbs on top of their already existing six, 'cause who needs an internal skeleton anyway?!")
Meanwhile, the same anatomical elements can lead to evolution progressing in vastly different directions, depending on the ecological niche. Having much more efficient lungs than we mammals do (pulling oxygen on both inhalation and exhalation) and having honeycombed like bone interiors gave birds the high metabolism and lighter and stronger skeleton required for life on the wing.
But those very same adaptations allowed one of their relatives, the sauropods (apatosaurus, brachiosaurus, diplodocus, brontosaurus, etc) to evolve into the largest land animals to ever walk this planet in a dazzling variety of shapes and sizes when the environment was receptive to it.
HOW COOL IS THAT!?!?!?!
It doesn't take much, but I truly love when I can get excited about dinosaurs again!!!
Dr. Steve Brusatte has a book coming out next year about the evolution of birds, which we now now is really a dinosaur book, detailing from their origins to how they reached the current state they are in the world we we share with them. WOO!
I don't think I'll be able to wait for that one on the wish list at all. Kinda bummed I didn't get the Dinosaur book in hardcover so they'll all match.
He also has a textbook on Dinosaur Paleobiology. Because of the nature of textbooks, it's a bit overpriced, meaning I didn't run out and grab it as soon as I knew it existed. I'm not sure how long I can resist though...
Just imagine HOW MUCH MORE I WOULD KNOW ABOUT DINOSAURS!!!!
MWA HA HA HA HA!!!!
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