T. Rex: Hunter or Scavenger? (Jurassic World Step into Reading Book Series)

T. Rex: Hunter or Scavenger? (Jurassic World Step into Reading Book Series)

T. Rex: Hunter or Scavenger? (Jurassic World Step into Reading Book Series)

T. Rex: Hunter or Scavenger? (Jurassic World Step into Reading Book Series)

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Overview

Jurassic World is the long-awaited next installment of the groundbreaking Jurassic Park series. T. rex’s, velociraptors, triceratops--as well as some all-new dinosaurs--will roar across the screen in this epic action-adventure directed by Colin Trevorrow starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson! Was Tyrannosaurus rex a speedy and savage hunter, or was it a slow-moving scavenger, surviving on scraps left from other dinosaurs? World-renowned tyrannosaur expert Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. shares the evidence on both sides of the argument in this easy-to-read, easy-to-understand Step into Reading book that young dinosaur enthusiasts will heartily devour.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780553536966
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Publication date: 05/05/2015
Series: Step into Reading Book Series: A Step 5 Book
Sold by: Random House
Format: eBook
Pages: 48
File size: 26 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range: 7 - 9 Years

About the Author

Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., is recognized as one of the world’s leading dinosaur phylogeneticists (specialist in reconstructing dinosaur family trees), and experts on tyrannosaurs. In addition to his many scientific papers, he has been involved as a consultant and on-air talent for documentaries in the US, UK, Canada, and Japan, including the award-winning Walking with Dinosaurs and When Dinosaurs Roamed America for the BBC and the Discovery Channel. He is the creator and director of the Earth, Life, and Time Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he received the Outstanding Faculty Award from the University Honors Program in 1997, and the 2003 Celebrating Teachers Award from the Center for Teaching Excellence, and is a widely quoted news source for international science journalism.

Established in July 2013 in a merger between Penguin and Random House, Penguin Random House, with nearly 250 independent imprints and brands on five continents, more than 15,000 new titles published each year, and close to 800 million print, audio, and eBooks sold annually, is the world’s leading trade book publisher. Like its predecessor companies, Penguin Random House is committed to publishing adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction print editions and is a pioneer in digital publishing. Its publishing lists include more than 60 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read authors.

What People are Saying About This

Dino Russ (R.J. Jacobson)

Another in the series of Step into Reading (ready for chapters, Step 5). In this book the author takes the reader into the world of Tyrannosaurus rex and first imagines two scenes, one where T. rex finds a rotten corpse of Anatotitan and proceeds to scavenge it, then another where a T. rex kills a live Anatotitan and proceeds to eat it. Then having set the stage Dr. Holtz discusses modern meat eaters which kill their prey and those which scavenge and then begins his analysis of T. rex to see if it is possible to surmise which T. rex did (kill or scavenge). In light of recent discussion on how T. rex got its prey this book brings the young reader into the exciting world of paleontology and some of the current issues in the field of dinosaur paleontology.

Dr. Holtz then proceeds to show how good science (not feelings about a very popular dinosaur) may help us determine the answer to this current question about how T. rex obtained prey. He first sets up the popular argument that T. rex was a scavenger based on: 1) "small" eyes -- so it could not see well, 2) had a large smelling area in brain --- so it probably sniffed for carrion, like a vulture, 3) Its arms were too tiny to catch food, 4) Its teeth were built for crushing bones and not for slicing meat, 5) Its legs were too short for it to have run fast. He then proceeds to examine these conclusions and see if the fossil evidence really supports these conclusions or not....

Then Dr. Holtz proceeds to show that T. Rex 's skeleton gives us plenty of evidence that it was not a "scavenger only" by showing the reader that:

  • The eyes of T. rex only look beady, but instead were actually quite large.
  • The large "smelling" area of T. rex's brain was also useful to a hunter, not just a scavenger
  • The small arms of T. rex were likely useless but many living hungers use only their jaws to capture and kill food.
  • The teeth of T. rex were not good for slicing but did do a good job in biting huge chunks of meat out of their struggling victims (often leading to their death and then allowing T. rex to feed).
  • The legs of T. rex were better built for running than those of any of its contemporary plant-eating prey.
He then concludes by pointing out that many carnivores today are both scavengers and hunters, and will take prey by which ever means is available to them. And then finally that he concludes T. rex also did both and that the evidence from the bones supports such a reasonable inference.

I can definitely recommend this book for the young reader which will get them into the exciting world of the science of dinosaur paleontology and one of the hottest topics in the field -- was T. rex a scavenger or hunter? (Dino Russ's Lair)

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