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The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs Second Edition

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The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs Second Edition © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. INTRODUCTION For general queries, contact [email protected] 01 Dinosaurs intro pp1-67.indd 7 25/05/2016 17:45 © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. The spectacular plated dinosaur Stegosaurus For general queries, contact [email protected] 01 Dinosaurs intro pp1-67.indd 8 25/05/2016 17:45 © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. HISTORY OF DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH HISTORY OF DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH Dinosaur remains have been found by humans for millennia the Eastern Seaboard. But matters really got moving when it was and probably helped form the basis for belief in mythical beasts realized that the forest-free tracts of the West offered hunting including dragons. A few dinosaur bones were illustrated in old grounds that were the best yet for the fossils of extinct titans. European publications without their true nature being realized. This quickly led to the “bone wars” of the 1870s and 1880s in In the West the claim in the Genesis creation story that the which Edward Cope and Charles Marsh, having taken a dislike planet and all life were formed just two thousand years before for one another that was as petty as it was intense, engaged in the pyramids were built hindered the scientific study of fossils. a bitter and productive competition for dinosaur fossils that At the beginning of the 1800s the numerous three-toed track- would produce an array of complete skeletons. For the first time ways found in New England were attributed to big birds. By it became possible to appreciate the form of classic Late Jurassic the early 1800s the growing geological evidence that Earth’s his- Morrison dinosaurs such as agile predatory Allosaurus and Cera- tory was much more complex and extended back into deep time tosaurus, along with Apatosaurus, Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, and began to free researchers to consider the possibility that long- Camarasaurus—which were really elephantine quadrupeds—the extinct and exotic animals once walked the globe. protoiguanodont Camptosaurus, and the bizarre plated Stegosau- Modern dinosaur paleontology began in the 1820s in Eng- rus. Popular interest in the marvelous beasts was further boosted. land. Teeth were found, and a few bones of the predatory Mega- By the turn of the century, discoveries shifted to younger de- losaurus and herbivorous Iguanodon were published and named. posits such as the Lance and Hell Creek, which produced classic For a few decades it was thought that the bones coming out dinosaurs from the end of the dinosaur era including duck-billed of ancient sediments were the remains of oversized versions of Edmontosaurus, armored Ankylosaurus, horned Triceratops, and the modern reptiles. In 1842 Richard Owen recognized that many great Tyrannosaurus. As paleontologists moved north into Can- of the fossils were not standard reptiles, and he coined the term ada in the early decades of the twentieth century, they uncovered “Dinosauria” to accommodate them. Owen had pre-evolution- a rich collection of slightly older Late Cretaceous dinosaurs in- ary concepts of the development of life, and he envisioned dino- cluding Albertosaurus, horned Centrosaurus, spiked Styracosaurus, saurs as elephantine versions of reptiles, so they were restored as and the crested duckbills Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus. heavy-limbed quadrupeds. This led to the first full-size dinosaur Inspired in part by the American discoveries, paleontologists sculptures for the grounds of the Crystal Palace in the 1850s, in other parts of the world looked for new dinosaurs. Back in which helped initiate the first wave of dinomania as they excited Europe abundant skeletons of German Plateosaurus opened a the public. A banquet was actually held within one of the un- window into the evolution of early dinosaurs in the Late Trias- completed figures. These marvelous examples of early dinosaur sic. In southeastern Africa the colonial Germans uncovered at art still exist. exotic Tendaguru the supersauropod Giraffatitan (was Brachio- The first complete dinosaur skeletons, uncovered in Europe saurus) and spiny Kentrosaurus. In the 1920s Henry Osborn at shortly before the American Civil War, were those of small the American Museum in New York dispatched Roy Andrews examples, the armored Scelidosaurus and the birdlike Compsog- to Mongolia in a misguided search for early humans that fortu- nathus. The modest size of these fossils limited the excitement itously led to the recovery of small Late Cretaceous dinosaurs, they generated among the public. Found shortly afterward in parrot-beaked Protoceratops, the “egg-stealing” Oviraptor, and the the same Late Jurassic Solnhofen sediments as the latter was the advanced, near-bird theropod Velociraptor. Dinosaur eggs and “first bird,” Archaeopteryx, complete with teeth and feathers. The entire nests were found, only to be errantly assigned to Proto- remarkable mixture of avian and reptilian features preserved ceratops rather than the oviraptorid that had actually laid and in this little dinobird did generate widespread interest, all the incubated them. As it happened, the Mongolian expeditions more so because the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of were somewhat misdirected. Had paleontologists also headed evolution at about the same time allowed researchers to put northeast of Beijing, they might have made even more fantastic these dinosaurs in a more proper scientific context. The enthu- discoveries that would have dramatically altered our view and siastic advocate of biological evolution Thomas Huxley argued understanding of dinosaurs, birds, and their evolution, but that that the close similarities between Compsognathus and Archaeop- event would have to wait another three-quarters of a century. teryx indicated a close link between the two groups. In the late The mistake of the American Museum expeditions in head- 1870s Belgian coal miners came across the complete skeletons ing northeast contributed to a set of problems that seriously of iguanodonts that confirmed that they were three-toed semi- damaged dinosaur paleontology as a science between the twen- bipeds, not full quadrupeds. tieth-century world wars. Dinosaurology became rather ossified, At this time, the action was shifting to the United States. with the extinct beasts widely portrayed as sluggish, dim-witted Before the Civil War, incomplete remains had been found on evolutionary dead ends doomed to extinction, an example of 9 For general queries, contact [email protected] 01 Dinosaurs intro pp1-67.indd 9 25/05/2016 17:45 © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. HISTORY OF DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH the “racial senescence” theory that was widely held among re- Realizing that the consensus dating back to their original dis- searchers who preferred a progressive concept of evolution at covery that dinosaurs were an expression of the reptilian pat- odds with more random Darwinian natural selection. It did tern was flawed, Robert Bakker in the 1960s and 1970s issued not help matters when artist/paleontologist Gerhard Heilmann a series of papers contending that dinosaurs and their feathered published a seminal work that concluded that birds were not descendants constituted a distinct group of archosaurs whose close relatives of dinosaurs, in part because he thought dino- biology and energetics were more avian than reptilian. Eventu- saurs lacked a wishbone furcula that had just been found, but ally, in the article “Dinosaur Renaissance” in a 1975 Scientific misidentified, in Oviraptor. The advent of the Depression, fol- American, Bakker proposed that some small dinosaurs them- lowed by the trauma of World War II—which led to the loss selves were feathered. In the late 1970s, Montana native John of some important specimens on the continent as a result of Horner found baby hadrosaurs and their nests, providing the Allied and Axis bombing—brought major dinosaur research to first look at how some dinosaurs reproduced. At the same time, a near halt. researchers from outside paleontology stepped into the field and Even so, public interest in dinosaurs remained high. The built up the evidence that the impact of an asteroid over six paleoart of Charles Knight made him famous. The Star Wars– miles in diameter was the long-sought great dinosaur killer. This Jurassic Park of its time, RKO’s King Kong of 1933 amazed audi- extremely controversial and contentious idea turned into the ences with its dinosaurs seemingly brought to life. Two major modern paradigm on the finding of a state-sized meteorite crater film comedies, 1938’s Bringing Up Baby, starring Cary Grant and in southeastern Mexico dating to the end of the dinosaur era. Katherine Hepburn, and 1949’s On the Town, featuring Gene These radical and controversial concepts greatly boosted Kelly and Frank Sinatra, involved climactic scenes in which sau- popular attention on dinosaurs, culminating in the Jurassic Park ropod skeletons at a semifictional New York museum collapsed novels and films that sent dinomania to unprecedented heights. because of the hijinks of the lead characters. Unfortunately, the The elevated public awareness was combined with digital tech- very popularity of dinosaurs gave them a circus air that con- nology in the form of touring exhibits of robotic dinosaurs. This vinced many scientists that they were beneath their scientific time the interest of paleontologists was elevated as well, inspir- dignity and attention. ing the second and ongoing golden age of dinosaur discovery Despite the problems, discoveries continued.
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