Beast Companions
The Unsung Animals of the Dinosaurs' World
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Indiana University Press
Published:8th Jul '24
£35.00
Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.
Despite their fame and reputation, dinosaurs represent only half the story of the Mesozoic Era. In Beast Companions: The Unsung Animals of the Dinosaurs' World, paleontologist John Foster explores the often-overlooked animals that coexisted with them. These ancient species, often equally remarkable as their dinosaur neighbors, can provide valuable insights into the biotic history of our planet. In some cases, these animals reveal just as much, if not more, about the extinct ecosystems of the time as the dinosaurs themselves.
By drawing on a wealth of current and past discoveries, Foster embarks on a sweeping journey across 164 million years to visit the beast companions of the dinosaurs. Along the way, he examines fish, insects, the first frogs and salamanders, turtles, snakes and lizards, marine reptiles, crocodiles, pterosaurs, birds, mammals, and other animals of the Mesozoic Era.
Beast Companions is a groundbreaking exploration of the story of these contemporaries of the dinosaurs that set the modern world in motion more than 200 million years ago
"Beast Companions does a tremendous service to paleontology now and in the future by collecting pertinent information about all of the animals that inhabited the Mesozoic Era alongside the dinosaurs. Many books are written about different groups of animals that lived during the Mesozoic, but few provide the reader with a comprehensive treatment of all the animals that coexisted across the globe. The book will be an important reference not only to paleontologists but to evolutionary biologists and more broadly to anyone interested in global ecosystems over time."—Matthew Bonnan, Stockton University
"Despite countless popular and technical books on dinosaurs, Foster finds a story that surprisingly has never been relayed to a wider audience, explaining in vivid detail the biological importance of the non-dinosaurian Mesozoic fauna and how their diversity in form and behavior rivaled (and in some cases exceeded) that of their charismatic reptile overlords. . . . It is a compact yet engrossing safari ride through the Mesozoic age of reptiles."—Adam Huttenlocker, University of Southern California
ISBN: 9780253069405
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 885g
258 pages