What Bugged the Dinosaurs?
Subtitle: Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: January 3, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 296
ISBN-13: 9780691124315
Subjects: Palaeozoology; Paleoecology; Paleontology (General); Nature; Science; Nature/Ecology; Paleontology; Archaeology and Ancient History; Biological Sciences; Birds and Natural History; Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures; Life Sciences - Biology - General; Cenozoic; Dinosaurs; Diseases
Description: This book reveals that T. rex was not the only killer in the Cretaceous: insects--from biting sand flies to disease-causing parasites--dominated life on the planet and played a significant role in the life and death of the dinosaurs. Analyzing exotic insects fossilized in Cretaceous amber at three major deposits in Lebanon, Burma, and Canada, the authors reconstruct the complex ecology of a hostile prehistoric world inhabited by voracious swarms of insects. They draw upon tantalizing new evidence from their discoveries of disease-producing vertebrate pathogens in Cretaceous blood-sucking flies, as well as intestinal worms and protozoa found in fossilized dinosaur excrement, to provide a unique view of how insects infected with malaria, leishmania, and other pathogens, together with intestinal parasites, could have devastated dinosaur populations.--From publisher description.