The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The Biology of the Tyrant Dinosaurs

by David Hone

Overview

Tyrannosaurs are, by some margin, the most famous dinosaurs in the world. Popular among children and adults alike, it is the only dinosaur many people can name. The Tyrannosaurus was an impressive beast, it topped ten tons, was more than forty feet (fifteen meters) long, and had the largest head and most powerful bite of any land animal, ever. The Tyrannosaurus and other tyrannosaurs are fascinating animals and perhaps the best-studied of all dinosaur groups. They started small, just a couple of yards long, and over the course of 70 million years evolved into giant, meat-slicing bone crushers.

New types of tyrannosaurs were discovered every year between 2010 and 2014, greatly revising what we know about how they lived, bred, fed, and died. The Tyrannosaur Chronicles tracks the rise of these dinosaurs, and presents the latest research into their biology, showing off more than just their impressive statistics—tyrannosaurs had feathers, may have hunted in groups, and fought and even ate one another. Indeed, David Hone tells the evolutionary story of the group through their anatomy, ecology, and behavior, exploring how they came to be the dominant terrestrial predators of the Mesozoic—and more recently, one of the great icons of biology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472911285
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	06/20/2017
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	655,247
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

David Hone is a dinosaur expert who has published more than fifty academic papers on dinosaur biology and behavior, with a particular focus on tyrannosaurs. His fieldwork has included time spent working on the famous feathered dinosaur deposits of China. He is based at Queen Mary University of London and his writing credits include the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and articles in New Scientist and the New York Times. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Preface 7

Note From The Illustrator 9

The Game of The Name 11

A Brief Primer on Tyrannosaur Bony Anatomy 17

Part 1 Introduction

Chapter 1 Introducing the Dinosaurs 23

Chapter 2 What is a Tyrannosaur? 35

Chapter 3 Tyrannosaur Species 51

Chapter 4 Tyrannosaur Relationships 63

Chapter 5 Tyrants in Time and Space 73

Part 2 Morphology

Chapter 6 Skull 87

Chapter 7 Body 99

Chapter 8 Limbs 111

Chapter 9 Outside 123

Chapter 10 Physiology 133

Chapter 11 Changes 147

Part 3 Ecology

Chapter 12 Reproduction and Growth 161

Chapter 13 Prey 177

Chapter 14 Competitors 199

Chapter 15 Obtaining Food 219

Chapter 16 Behaviour and Ecology 237

Part 4 Moving Forwards

Chapter 17 Tyrannosaurus Fact and Fiction 251

Chapter 18 The Future 261

Chapter 19 Conclusions 273

References 281

Further Reading 290

Museums and Online Sources 296

Acknowledgements 299

Index 300

Editorial Reviews

"For readers who got hooked on tyrannosaurs as 5-year-olds, and want to know more at 15 or 50, this book is a useful introduction to some of the most wonderfully terrifying animals ever to walk the Earth." - The Wall Street Journal

"THE TYRANNOSAUR CHRONICLES will engage the casual dinosaur enthusiast and the reader desiring in-depth explanations and bibliographic detail. Hone’s careful speculation, his clear prose and his occasional whimsy . . . make this an illuminating and enjoyable guide to the lifestyle of everyone’s favorite theropod." - The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"If most of what you know about Tyrannosaurs is based on old Japanese movies or the Jurassic Park franchise, there will be many surprises . . . a welcome touchstone volume for lovers of the terrible lizards." - Natural History Magazine

"Hone, a lecturer in ecology at Queen Mary University of London, lets his dinosaur-obsessed inner child run wild in this well-organized, up-to-date fact book about Tyrannosaurus rex and its 25 or so near relatives . . . Hone provides a solid meal to feed the popular fascination with these tyrant lizards, easily digestible but made from ingredients that, at least in paleontological terms, are quite fresh." - Publishers Weekly

"Our fascination with Tyrannosaurus rex, the aptly named king of the dinosaurs, has been fed by Jurassic Park and other films, but the reality is equally entrancing . . . Hone successfully integrates two equally fascinating stories: how our knowledge of these fabulous creatures was pieced together over time and what we can infer about them." - Kirkus Reviews

"Hone’s book is an in-depth portrait that treats the entire [Tyrannosaurus rex] group in four sections focused on, respectively, the definition, morphology, ecology, and future study of these “king” theropods (i.e., “wild-foots—carnivorous dinosaurs) . . . He happily asserts his continuing fascination with tyrannosaurs and mightily piques ours." - Booklist

"This volume is the go-to for tyrant dinosaurs." - Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/02/2016
Hone, a lecturer in ecology at Queen Mary University of London, lets his dinosaur-obsessed inner child run wild in this well-organized, up-to-date fact book about Tyrannosaurus rex and its 25 or so near relatives. He first offers necessary background, such as information about modern changes in naming and organizing conventions, as well as brief explanations of cladistics, morphology, and phylogenetics. Next he dives into the physical evidence, dividing the material into the kind of topics any children would recognize while giving the level of detail an adult reader requires. Hone runs through what bones and tracks tell researchers about how tyrannosauroid bodies looked, moved, grew, and functioned; how tyrannosaurs hunted their prey; and which other large carnivores existed alongside them in their Mesozoic environment. He uses current research but conservatively keeps his narrative clear by focusing on ideas that match established consensus. Similarly, illustrator Scott Hartman meticulously renders a traditional view of bones covered in skin rather than the scales and feathers described by some recent analyses. Hone provides a solid meal to feed the popular fascination with these tyrant lizards, easily digestible but made from ingredients that, at least in paleontological terms, are quite fresh. Illus. (July)

Publishers Weekly

06/01/2016
Hone (zoology, Queen Mary Univ., London; Lost Worlds Revisited blog, the Guardian) resurrects tyrant dinosaurs, describing them as warm-blooded, unimaginably large yet fleet-footed, and possibly feathered. In smooth, serviceable prose, the author recounts how scientists visualize soft tissue from bone attachments and casts, find taxonomic relationships with algorithms, and deduce information about dinosaurs' ecology from bite marks, stomach contents, and comparisons with living species. This work features a snout-to-tail tour of tyrannosaur anatomy with minimal jargon. Most important, the author admits when evidence is missing or science lacks clear answers. Alas, Hone muddles tyrannosaur locations. His Mesozoic maps lack detail, and he dispenses with ancient continent names and fails to make clear whether a fossil's location is in the present or past. Because most of Mexico, sections of North Africa, and all of Florida were underwater during part of the Cretaceous period, readers may be confused. However, there are no other current books on tyrannosaurs for the nonscientist—though The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs and The Complete Dinosaur cover dinosaur biology with readable prose and clear illustrations—making this a strong selection, despite some flaws. VERDICT Readers must look elsewhere for maps, but this volume is the go-to for tyrant dinosaurs.—Eileen H. Kramer, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston

Library Journal

2016-04-20
Our fascination with Tyrannosaurus rex, the aptly named king of the dinosaurs, has been fed by Jurassic Park and other films, but the reality is equally entrancing.The story of the tyrannosaurs, writes Hone (Ecology/Queen Mary Univ. of London), "covers more than 100 million years of paleontological history, and over a century of scientific research." The author, an internationally recognized authority on dinosaurs whose own research has focused on tyrannosaurs, describes them as "icons of evolution and of the dinosaurs as a whole," and he believes that the focus of research on them has been encouraged by "its overexposure in the public eye (and in some scientific circles as well)." Hone chronicles the series of discoveries over the past 100 years since a dinosaur jaw and teeth were found in Britain. These bones have allowed scientists, including the author, to piece together the dinosaurs' history and aspects of their behavior. While correctly surmising that tyrannosaurs and other dinosaurs were carnivores, scientists erroneously assumed that they were some kind of previously unknown "giant land reptile." Subsequent fossil discoveries in polar regions ruled out this possibility since coldblooded reptiles could not survive such extreme cold weather. For 100 million years, these "largest terrestrial carnivores of all time, with giant heads and huge teeth," dominated the Earth. Teeth and other fossil evidence point to the likelihood that they were carnivorous hunters rather than scavengers, as does the placement of their eye sockets, which indicates binocular vision. The fossil record reveals "a massive change in the make-up of life on earth," likely due to a disastrous climate change that occurred some 66 million years ago—a series of events that precipitated a relatively short (in geological terms) extinction event "lasting perhaps just a few tens of thousands of years." Hone successfully integrates two equally fascinating stories: how our knowledge of these fabulous creatures was pieced together over time and what we can infer about them.

Kirkus Reviews