The ceratopista or horn-faced dinosaurs are exquisite creatures. They include large, exotic dinosaurs, the ceratopsids, with wondrous ornaments on their heads, including dazzling combinations of horns over the nose and eyes and lengthy frills behind the skull, often enhanced with rococo tracery and detailing. The ceratopsids are found only in western North America, although perhaps someday soon they will be found in Asia as well. Ceratopsians also include small, lithe protoceratopsids, shared equally between Asia and western North America. Protoceratopsids, which tend to be more tasteful and restrained in their adornments than ceratopsids, presumably include the ancestors of the ceratopsids. Recently admitted into the ceratopsian clan is the small Psittacosaurus from Asia, which is so generalized in its structure that it has neither horns nor a frill. <...>

It all started very suddenly, in the spring of 1955. I was reading magazines in my grandfather's house in New Jersey, and I found that magical Life cover story—"Dinosaurs." Fold-out, full-color pictures of heroic creatures. Allosaurus, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex. I discovered an entire world, far, far away in time, that I could visit, whenever I wanted, via the creative labors
of the paleontologists. And I made up my mind then and there that I would devote my life to the dinosaurs. Since I was in the fourth grade, my parents weren't alarmed at my vow.

The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses 45 permanent exhibition halls, including those in the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. It is home to the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, New York State’s official memorial to its 33rd governor and the nation’s 26th president, and a tribute to Roosevelt’s enduring legacy of conservation.

Reptiles are one of the most diverse groups of present- day vertebrates, with more than 
,


described species of crocodylians, lepidosaurs, and turtles. If one adds birds (which are a clade of derived dinosaurs), this number more than doubles. Reptiles also have a rich and varied fossil rec ord spanning more than 

million years. They include the largest land animals of all time, and they repeatedly and successfully invaded the sea and took ¡ight.

Paleontology is the study of prehistoric life. It combines several fields, including geology (study of rocks), biology (study of living things), and chemistry (study of the basic building blocks of matter), to help piece together the evidence collected from fossils and the surrounding rocks. This evidence is usually incomplete because many important details are not preserved during the fossilization process. To make up for these gaps in information, paleontologists study fossils of similar species, as well as modern-day animals, to help them build a picture of prehistoric creatures and understand how they might have lived.

Прогуляйтесь по доисторическому миру с помощью нашей книги, и вы встретите удивительных монстров — тираннозавра, трицератопса, брахиозавра, птеранодона и многих других фантастических ящеров. Вы узнаете об образе жизни динозавров, их истинных размерах, самых интересных фактах. Увидите воочию, как они выглядели, на иллюстрациях, воссоздающих внешний вид динозавров.

It was a time of huge “thunder lizards” roaming steamy fern jungles; of “mammal-reptiles” walking the land of Laurasia; of continental movements, mountain building, and massive volcanoes; and a time of the most horrific, earth-shattering extinctions that ever occurred on this planet. It was the middle times of what is called the Phanerozoic Eon, a geologic interval lasting almost a half billion years. It was the time of the dinosaurs…and much, much more. We call this time the Mesozoic Era. <...>

The encyclopedia of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life begins with an introductory section that provides an overview to understanding fossils, evolution, and prehistoric life. This is followed by the four main sections of the book, which cover the major groups of prehistoric animals – Fish and Invertebrates, Amphibians and Reptiles, Dinosaurs and Birds, and Mammals and their Ancestors. Each entry in these four sections covers a particular prehistoric animal or a group of such animals. An extensive reference section at the back of the book contains a fossil timeline, details of how paleontologists find and study fossils, and biographies of noted researchers. <...>

This book got its start about seven years ago when Robert Bakker-the progressive dinosaurologist I studied with for many years-suggested that I draw up illustrations of some predatory dinosaur skeletons. About the same time, I started looking into the problem of bird origins, which I believed was tied to dinosaurs. One thing led to another and after a while I realized I had enough material available to put together a book on the dinosaurian meat eaters.

The Lost World was a work of fiction by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but it was based on the newly made discovery of actual isolated plateaus in the  Amazonian jungles of South America inhabited by unique creatures unknown to science. Not even Doyle could have imagined the extinct gigantic creatures that really did exist in the prehistoric past of South America. <...>