The science of palaeontology (the study of fossil animals) is developing at an exciting speed. New discoveries are being made so quickly, that before this book is on the bookshelves there will have been an overwhelming number of new finds and developments in the understanding of the subject. Each week there is something new to report, whether it be a skeleton that constitutes an entirely new branch of the evolutionary tree, or some indication of life gleaned through new finds of footprints or feeding traces. Microscopic analysis of fossilized dung provides ancient information about diet eaten by prehistoric creatures. Footprints tell us about the lifestyles of extinct animals.

Popular interest in dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles began during the third decade of the 19th century,and has increased continually since that time. In 1841, the name Dinosauria (‘terrible lizards’) was proposed by Richard Owen at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Plymouth; it first appeared in print the following year. During subsequent decades, both scientific and popular interest were extended to pterosaurs, mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.Mesozoic reptiles, especially dinosaurs, likewise earned their place in science fiction, films and comic strips. It is no coincidence that both my wife and I were thrilled especially by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912) whilst at school. Anne even read it by the flickering light of a coal firewhilst in the sanatoriumquarantined for chickenpox! Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan, and numerous other authors wrote stories about dinosaurs during the first part of the 20th Century, whilst they appeared in many early films, notably The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933). <...>

The monster bears down on the fleeing jeep, the earth shaking as its feet come down with thunderous steps; it snatches up an outhouse in its jaws, grabs the nervous lawyer and swallows him down in one gulp. So we meet Tyrannosaurus rex in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993). It is a truly terrifying sight: all shining, scaly skin, talons and teeth. This image of the dinosaur is so widespread we often don’t ask how we know they looked like that. In fact, we now know that they didn’t look much like that at all. <...>

Melanosomes are the tiny hollows inside hairs or feathers that contain melanin. Melanin is a pigment that gives the black, brown, grey, and ginger colours to hairs and feathers. We were the first ever – or at least the first on record – to have seen evidence of melanosomes in dinosaurs. If we had got it right, this was evidence of the original colour of their feathers. We could say that for the first time we had discovered for sure the colour of a dinosaur.

To write about our continuing exploration of the Gobi Desert—an adventure that is still unfolding—is rather odd, as if my reflection on the serendipity behind various events and discoveries had anything to do with predicting the future of our efforts. Nonetheless, enough has been experienced to justify my recollection. I also felt the sheer panic of loosing vivid feelings and images before I could flesh them out in any form beyond random notes in my field journals. As a result, I had the sheer pleasure of revisiting these experiences in a small room of an old eastern Atlantic Victorian house, about as far away from the land of camels, sand dunes, and
dinosaur graveyards as one can imagine. <...>

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!

A SPONTANEOUS BARRAGE OF EXPLETIVES rang through the air, bringing my coworkers scrambling over the hill. Madagascar’s sweltering midday heat no longer mattered. There before me, beneath a clod of freshly dislodged sediment, were four shining teeth, exposed to the light of day for the first time in more than 65 million years. Most kids could have confirmed that these sharp, recurved, chocolate brown objects, each topped with fine serrations, once lined the mouth of a meat-eating dinosaur, a theropod. Best of all, these teeth were still attached to a jawbone. Further digging revealed a complete and undistorted jaw, with every tooth in place. Over the next couple of days we found more bones of the same, exceptionally preserved skull—part of the eye socket, another jaw with teeth, a gnarly bone from the nose region. Soon it became clear that most of the skull was buried here, although the individual bones had fallen apart and now lay strewn over several square meters. We could barely contain our excitement. Field paleontology relies as much on serendipity as on know-how and hard work, and the fates had smiled down upon us. Yet, as more and more bones of the ancient predator were unearthed, we began to get nervous. A key portion of the skull remained missing, leaving a mystery unsolved. <...>

Which dinosaur was the largest? What about the smallest? The oldest? These are questions that most children and quite a few adults have asked themselves. Answering such questions has never been easy, and doing so nowadays is even more troublesome. The science of paleontology is evolving at unprecedented speed. Constant discoveries are making many of our previously held beliefs outdated. Preventing one’s knowledge from becoming obsolete requires constant attention. New technology and the vast number of studies published each year suggest that a real revolution in dinosaur paleontology (dinosaurology) is occurring—so much so, that buying a book on dinosaurs published in 1995 is as useful to us today as having a look at a catalog of mobile phones from the year 2005.

In the first volume of this series, on theropod dinosaurs, readers were able to appreciate the surprising variety of forms and sizes in which this group of animals developed, from just a few grams to heavier than an African elephant. Some species are believed to have run very fast, some had incredibly powerful bite forces, and across all species there was extreme diversity in diet (most were carnivores, although others were phytophagous, pescivorous, insectivorous, or omnivorous) as well as modes of locomotion (on land, in water, and even in the air). And as we now know, dinosaurs are still among us; modern-day birds are the direct descendants of non-avian theropods.
This new volume is perhaps even more astounding, as it allows us to admire the largest land animals ever to walk the Earth. Some of them were almost as heavy as the largest whales in our oceans today, and a few were almost four times as tall as a giraffe. Even the most primitive of this group of dinosaurs, sauropodomorphs, were genuine record-breakers. <...>

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to Bob Makela, a best friend for 20 years. He always managed to invent a way carefully to pry loose from the rocks the specimens or data I needed, and he was devoted to finding new ways to disseminate scientific information to children of all ages. Bob died in 1987 while working in the field, but his encouragement to others and his determination won't be forgotten. He was a truly exceptional man, and his memory remains with everyone who knew him. <...>