The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

  EPILOGUE: AFTER THE DINOSAURS

  I told a small sliver of the New Mexico story in my Scientific American article on the rise of mammals (June 2016, 313: 28–35), coauthored with Zhe-Xi Luo. Luo is one of the world’s experts on the early evolution of mammals. More important, he’s a very generous and lovely guy. Like Walter Alvarez, Luo was on the receiving end of one of my brazen teenage requests. In the spring of 1999, when I was just turning fifteen, my family and I were set to take an Easter vacation to the Pittsburgh area. I wanted to visit the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, but not content with seeing only the exhibits, I desperately wanted a behind-the-scenes tour. I had read about Luo’s discoveries of early mammals in the newspaper, then saw his contact details on the museum’s website, so I got in touch. For an hour, he led my family and me on a tour of the bowels of the museum storehouse, and he still asks about my parents and brothers every time I see him.

  My dear friend, colleague, and mentor Tom Williamson has made a career out of studying the Paleocene mammals of New Mexico, as well as the early evolution of placental mammals more generally. His magnum opus—which resulted from his PhD work—is his 1996 monograph on the anatomy, ages, and evolution of Paleocene mammals from New Mexico (Bulletin of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 8: 1–141). Over the last few years, Tom has been leading me deeper into the dark side of mammalian paleontology. We’ve done joint fieldwork since 2011 and have started to publish some papers together, including a genealogy of primitive marsupials (Williamson et al., Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 2012, 10: 625–51) and the description of a new species of beaver-size plant-eating mammal called Kimbetopsalis (the Primeval Beaver, as we cheekily call it), which lived just a few hundred thousand years after the dinosaurs died (Williamson et al., Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2016, 177: 183–208). Tom and I currently co-supervise a PhD student who works on the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction and the rise of mammals afterward: Sarah Shelley. Look out for her.

  Index

  The pagination of this digital edition does not match the print edition from which the index was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your ebook reader’s search tools.

  Page numbers in italics refer to images.

  Africa

  formation of, 93, 143, 145, 152, 230

  Sereno expeditions, 149–157

  Age of Dinosaurs, 99, 315

  The Age of Reptiles (Zallinger mural), 122–125, 123

  Albertosaurus, 172, 215–216, 222

  Alioramus, 164, 165

  Allosaurus, ix, 136–139, 144, 156, 185

  Morrison Formation, 129, 131, 134, 135, 141

  Alvarez, Walter, 319–327, 322

  angiosperms, 245

  ankylosaurs, ix, 100, 116, 141, 147, 246

  Apatosaurus, 131, 140, 142

  Archaeopteryx, 267, 274–275, 276, 279, 303

  archosaurs

  bird line, 30, 73, 285

  crocodile line, 30, 72–76, 75

  upright posture, 28, 30, 31, 72

  Argentina, 37–43, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61

  Argentinosaurus, 112, 146

  asteroid strike, 309–319, 316, 349

  Alvarez research, 319–327, 322

  as cause of extinction, 328–339

  mammal emergence, 343–349, 345, 346

  avemetatarsalians, 30, 73

  Averianov, Alexander, 173–176, 188

  bacteria, 19, 20

  Bakker, Robert, 76–77, 276–281

  Balanoff, Amy, 218

  Balaur bondoc, 260–261, 263–265, 264

  Barosaurus, 135, 140, 142

  size estimation, 110–117, 111

  Barrett, Paul, 330

  basins (rift basins), 92–99

  Bates, Karl, 110, 111

  Batrachotomus, 75

  Benton, Mike, 351–352

  Bever, Gabe, 218

  birds

  archosaur origins, 30, 73, 285

  colors of feathers, 296–297

  Cretaceous asteroid, 309, 312, 314–315, 336, 338

  digitigrade tracks, 31

  as dinosaurs, 8, 269–272, 275–281, 286, 339

  evolution of, ix, 281–286, 283, 289–305, 304

  lung efficiencies, 115, 212–213

  nests, 288, 289, 300

  theropod origins, 40, 65, 282–284, 283, 285

  body fossils, 19

  body weight estimation, 109–117, 111

  Bone Wars, 64–65, 130–134, 131, 132, 133, 136

  Brachiosaurus, ix, 100, 112, 129, 139, 142, 146, 252

  Brazil, 59, 60, 94, 246–254, 249

  Brontosaurus, ix, 100, 146, 252

  Morrison Formation, 129, 131, 139, 142

  size of, 111, 112, 113

  Brown, Barnum, 134–135, 168–171, 169, 172, 215, 233

  Burch, Sara, 127, 214–215

  Butler, Ian, 217, 218

  Butler, Richard, 23, 24, 27–28, 53–59, 57, 329–335

  Camarasaurus, 139, 140, 142

  Cambrian Period, 20–21

  Camptosaurus, 135, 141

  Candeiro, Roberto, 247–254, 249

  carbon dioxide, 17, 50, 71, 94, 187, 314

  Carcharodontosaurus, 150, 151–153, 154–157, 187–188, 189, 250

  Carr, Thomas, 224–225, 241

  CAT scans, 6, 173, 188, 207, 209, 211, 216–220, 217

  Cenozoic Era, viii

  ceratopsians, 132, 238–239, 242. See also Triceratops

  Ceratosaurus, 131, 141, 187

  Challands, Tom, 102, 105, 106

  China

  fossil abundance, 143, 161

  Liaoning birds, 303–305, 304

  Liaoning feathered dinosaurs, 280–284, 283, 291–292

  Sinosauropteryx, 279–280

  Zhenyuanlong, 1, 3–6, 7

  See also tyrannosaurs; Xu, Xing

  Chinle Formation (US), 62–68

  cladistic analysis, 156

  clathrates, 94–95

  Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry (Utah), 134

  climate

  Permian volcanoes, 15–18

  Triassic desert-living dinosaurs, 61–71

  Triassic dinosaur sauna, 50–52

  Triassic humid dinosaur zone, 59–61, 81

  Triassic hyperseasonality, 71, 81

  Triassic megamonsoons, 51–52, 81, 95

  Triassic Pangea splitting, 87, 94–95

  Jurassic Pangea splitting, 97–98

  Cretaceous, 145, 187, 229, 328

  Cretaceous asteroid, 314, 318

  Coelophysis, ix, 47, 65–66, 67, 74

  Colbert, Edwin, 65, 76

  comet strike. See asteroid strike

  convergence, 72–77

  Cope, Edward Drinker, 64–65, 130–133, 131, 132

  coprolites, 20, 126, 202, 204

  Cretaceous Period, viii

  Brazil basin, 246–254, 249

  carnivores, 187–188, 189

  continents, 190–191, 229–232

  dinosaur diversity, 231–232, 245–246, 334–335, 343, 349

  dinosaur extinction, 18, 187, 202, 272, 309–319, 316, 349

  flowering plants, 245

  fossils lacking, 186, 187

  Jurassic transition, 144–148, 156, 180, 229

  Paleogene after, 321, 322, 323–327, 334, 344

  Sahara Desert fossils, 149–157

  sauropods, 145–147, 246, 252–253

  See also asteroid strike; Hell Creek Formation; tyrannosaurs

  crocodiles

  archosaur origins, 30, 72–76, 75

  Cretaceous asteroid, 312, 314, 336, 337

  Cretaceous Brazil, 253

  dinosaur convergence, 69, 72–77, 75, 98–99

  dinosaur morphological disparity, 78–81

  outnumbering dinosaurs, 60, 77, 96–97

  researchers of, 63

  Triassic species, 73–74, 339

  Csiki-Sava, Zoltán, 261, 333

  Currie, Phil, 215–216, 279–280

  Darwin,
Charles, 272–275

  Deinonychus, 123, 278–280, 284, 300

  desert-living dinosaurs, 61–71

  dicynodonts, 14–15, 16, 25, 38, 60, 61, 98

  digitigrade tracks, 31

  Dilong, 178, 179, 180, 183–184, 201

  Dinosaur National Monument (US), 134

  dinosauromorphs, 31–35, 36, 49, 69, 85, 115

  dinosaurs, ix

  Age of the Dinosaurs, 99, 315

  archosaur origins, 30, 72–73

  archosaur upright posture, 28, 30, 31, 72

  Cambrian ancestors, 21

  Cretaceous diversity, 231–232, 245–246, 334–335, 343

  Cretaceous extinction, 18, 187, 202, 272, 309–319, 316, 349

  crocodile convergence, 69, 72–77, 75, 98–99

  crocodile morphological disparity, 78–81

  digitigrade tracks, 31

  eggs and nests, 221, 288, 337

  global uniformity of Jurassic, 143–144

  Great Hall of Dinosaurs, 121–125, 123

  growth of, 221–223

  largest, 146, 197

  Mesozoic Era, 20, 330

  oceans unconquered, 231

  Pangean split survival, 98–100

  size estimation, 109–113, 111

  size explanations, 113–117, 206–208

  stereotypes wrong, 5, 8

  timeline, viii, 20

  true dinosaur definition, 32

  true dinosaurs, 33–35, 36, 37–43, 52, 85

  weekly discoveries, 5–6, 174

  Diplodocus, 100, 146, 252

  Morrison Formation, 131, 135, 139, 140, 142

  distance matrix, 79–80

  Earth, x

  Jurassic into Cretaceous, 144–148, 229

  Cretaceous asteroid, 309–319, 316, 336–338

  Cretaceous continents, 190–191, 229–232

  life evolutionary history, 20–21

  Pangea, 49–52. See also Pangea

  rift basins, 92–99

  timeline of geological history, viii, 20

  See also climate

  Edmontosaurus, ix, 100, 116, 243–245, 307

  Effigia okeeffeae (pseudosuchian), 74–77

  encephalization quotient (EQ), 219

  Eocarcharia, 152, 155

  Eodromaeus, 41, 42

  Eoraptor, 40–41, 42, 44, 49, 52, 56

  Eotyrannus, 180, 185

  Erickson, Greg, 205–206, 221–223

  extinction. See mass extinction

  Ezcurra, Martín, 69–70

  Falkingham, Peter, 110, 111

  family tree of dinosaurs, ix, 45

  building, 63, 153–157

  dinosauromorphs, 31–32

  feathers

  Archaeopteryx, 267, 274, 276, 279

  colors of, 296–297

  Dilong, 183–184, 201

  evolution of, 291–300

  Liaoning feathered dinosaurs, 280–284, 283, 291–292

  ornithomimosaurs, 293–295

  Psittacosaurus, 185, 292

  Sinornithosaurus, 283

  Sinosauropteryx, 279–280, 292

  T. rex, 184, 193, 195, 200–201

  Yutyrannus, 183–184, 201

  Zhenyuanlong, 1, 4–6, 7

  finite element analysis (FEA), 207–208

  geological timeline, viii, 20

  Giganotosaurus, 152, 155, 157, 198

  Giraffatitan, 111

  Gobi Desert (Mongolia), 286–290, 287, 288

  Gondwana, 143, 145, 152, 230

  gorgonopsians, 15, 16, 18, 25

  Gorgosaurus, 172, 182, 222

  greenhouse effect, 17, 50, 71, 94, 187, 314

  grid map, 240, 241

  Guanlong, 176–178, 179, 185

  hadrosaurs, 146–147, 243–245, 330, 334–335. See also Edmontosaurus

  Hayden Quarry (New Mexico), 66–68, 67, 70–71, 73–74

  Hell Creek Formation (Montana)

  Burpee Museum expedition, 235–237, 239–246, 240, 244

  Cretaceous asteroid, 309–319, 316, 331–332, 334

  Cretaceous fossils, 232–234, 250

  Henderson, Mike, 234–246

  Herrerasaurus, 39–40, 42, 43, 44, 49, 52, 79

  Horner, Jack, 138

  Howe Quarry (Wyoming), 128–129, 134–139

  humid dinosaur zone, 59–61, 81

  Hutchinson, John, 210–212

  Huxley, Thomas Henry, 275

  hyperseasonality of Triassic, 71, 81

  ice ages, 20

  Iguanodon, ix, 32, 108, 146

  India, 59, 60, 230–231, 313, 318, 328

  invertebrate paleontology, 78

  Irmis, Randy, 63–68

  Ischigualasto (Argentina), 37–43, 52, 58, 59, 60, 100–101

  island dwarfism, 257–258

  island predator weirdness, 261, 263–265, 264

  Isle of Skye (Scotland), 101–107, 104, 105

  Jurassic Period, viii

  Age of the Dinosaurs, 99

  Archaeopteryx, 267, 274–275, 276, 284, 303

  Cretaceous transition, 144–148, 156, 180, 229

  fossil abundance, 125, 143

  global uniformity, 143–144

  Isle of Skye sauropods, 101–102, 105, 106–107

  Newark Basin, 92–99

  Pangea rift volcanoes, 97–100

  Pangea split slow, 143–144, 180

  tracks at Holy Cross Mountains, 24

  tracks at Isle of Skye, 105, 106–107

  tracks at Watchung Mountains, 89–92, 96–99

  Triassic transition, 91–92, 96

  tyrannosaur emergence, 166, 175

  Zallinger mural, 121–125, 123

  See also Morrison Formation

  Kileskus, 172–176, 177

  Laurasia, 143

  Lloyd, Graeme, 301–302

  Lü, Junchang, 3–5, 7, 163–164

  lung efficiency, 115–116, 212–213, 290

  mammals, 341

  Triassic ancestors, 58, 61, 81

  Cretaceous asteroid, 309, 310–311, 312, 314, 336–337, 338

  Cretaceous asteroid survivors, 343–349, 345, 346

  proto-mammal synapsids, 25, 26

  mantle, 15–18

  map of prehistoric Earth, x

  Mapusaurus, 152, 157

  Marsh, Othniel Charles, 64–65, 130, 133, 136

  Marshosaurus, 141

  Martínez, Ricardo, 40–43, 70

  mass extinction

  Permian volcanoes, 15–18, 26, 52, 57, 87, 338–339

  Triassic Pangea splitting, 87, 91, 95, 99, 339

  Cretaceous asteroid, 309–315, 336, 344, 349

  Cretaceous asteroid evidence, 328–335

  Cretaceous dinosaurs, 18, 187, 202, 272, 315, 334, 336–339

  Cretaceous into Paleogene, 321, 322, 323–324, 334

  tracks at Holy Cross Mountains, 24, 26

  upright posture and, 30

  Mateus, Octávio, 54–59, 57

  Megalosaurus, 32, 108

  megamonsoons, 51–52, 81, 95

  melanosomes, 296–297

  Mesozoic Era, viii

  as dinosaur era, 20, 99, 336, 344, 347

  dinosaur species census, 330

  mammal emergence, 346–349

  meteor strike. See asteroid strike

  Metoposaurus (amphibian), 56–57, 58

  Microraptor, 280, 293, 297, 298, 299, 305

  Morocco, 59, 94–95

  morphological disparity, 78–81, 329–335

  morphospace, 80

  Morrison Formation (US), 125, 127, 128–130

  Bone Wars, 130–134, 131, 132, 133

  Howe Quarry, 128–129, 134–139

  predators, 141

  sauropods, 127, 139–140, 141–143

  museums

  American Museum of Natural History, 167, 168, 170–171, 261, 286–288, 287

  Burpee Museum of Natural History, 163, 234–237, 239 –246, 240, 244

  Instituto y Museo de Ciencias Naturales, 42–43, 70

  Museu d
a Lourinhã, 54

  Museum of the Rockies, 138

  Natural History Museum (London), 133

  Peabody Museum, 121–125, 123

  Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, 294–295

  Saurier Museum, 136

  Staffin Museum, 103–104

  natural selection, 272–275

  Nesbitt, Sterling, 63–68, 74–76

  Newark Basin (New Jersey), 92, 93–99

  niche partitioning, 142–143

  Niedźwiedzki, Grzegorz, 13, 22–28, 29, 260

  Niger expeditions, 150, 151–152, 157

  Nigersaurus, 150–151

  Nopcsa, Franz, 254–259, 265

  Norell, Mark, 236, 261, 287, 291, 351–352

  Gobi Desert, 286–290, 287, 288

  North America

  arid sectors, 59, 62–71

  carcharodontosaurs, 152, 187–188, 189

  Cretaceous asteroid, 309–319, 316, 334

  Cretaceous sea level, 191, 229–230, 233

  dinosaur graveyards, 134–135

  dinosauromorphs, 69–70

  feathered dinosaurs, 293–295

  Pangea split, 86, 88–89, 92, 93–94, 143

  rift basins, 92–99

  sauropod absence, 246, 252

  Tyrannosaurus rex, 162, 185, 186, 190–191, 201, 202, 215, 229, 230, 231

  oceans

  acidity, 17, 95

  Atlantic formation, 86

  clathrates melting, 94–95

  Cretaceous asteroid, 313, 314, 318, 336

  Cretaceous climate, 187, 229

  Cretaceous sea level, 191, 229–230, 328, 331, 332

  Panthalassa, 49, 50

  reptiles not dinosaurs, 231

  O’Connor, Jingmai, 302–305, 304

  Olsen, Paul, 89–92, 96–99

  Origin of Species (Darwin), 272, 274

  ornithischians

  Triassic Pangea, 81

  Jurassic after Pangean rift, 97, 100

  Cretaceous proliferation, 146–147

  as ancestral, ix, 43, 59, 96, 100, 244

  lungs and size, 116

  Morrison Formation, 141

  Ornitholestes, 141, 144

  ornithomimosaurs, 246, 293–295, 297

  Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 167–170, 169, 278

  Ostrom, John, 276–281

  oviraptors, 243, 246, 288

  Pachycephalosaurus, ix, 243, 244

  Paleogene Period, viii

  Cretaceous asteroid, 321, 322, 323–327, 334, 344

  mammal emergence, 343–349, 345, 346

  paleomagnetism, 323

  Paleozoic Era, viii

  Palisades (New Jersey), 88–89