Dinosaurs. A concise natural history / Динозавры Краткая естественная история

Non-bird dinosaurs (“dinosaurs”) are very much in the news these days: dinosaurs had feathers; dinosaurs were warm-blooded; dinosaurs were snuffed out in mere seconds; we’ve just discovered the largest dinosaur ever; we’ve just discovered the smallest dinosaur ever; here is Jurassic World, there is The Good Dinosaur. . . it’s a media blizzard. And why not? Ideas about dinosaurs have moved conceptually far beyond the twentieth century: a few weirdo reptiles that lived on this planet, but were too stupid to survive. Today dinosaurs are recognized as centerpieces of vertebrate evolution; they’re just a whole lot more interesting than they used to be!On the one hand, our book is written to help sort out who’s who and what’s what in this barrage of things dinosaurian; on the other hand, and more significantly, our book is written as an introduction to how scientists in general, and natural historians in particular, think about scientific problems.
So what has changed in this third edition? The answer is, a lot; most of it driven by the many exciting discoveries and ideas that have shaped an understanding of dinosaurs since the second edition was published. Even the very number of dinosaurs known has almost trebled just since we began our careers in paleontology, and with things moving forward so quickly, we must keep up.