Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons

Christopher McGowan is Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and Professor of Zoology at the University of Toronto.

• Acknowledgments Prologue Material Things Primary Data How the Vertebrate Skeleton Works Reading a Dinosaur Skeleton A Matter of Scale What's Hot and What's Not Brains and Intellect Not Wholly a Fish The Mechanics of Swimming The Sea Dragons The Winged Phantom Out with a Whimper or a Bang? Epilogue Notes References Credits Index

The net effect of [this] book is to make one extremely jealous of anyone lucky enough to take Professor McGowan’s class in evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto… The problem with the several dinosaur controversies is that merely to argue about them requires an appreciation of many aspects of Newtonian physics, aero- and thermodynamics, and both applied and theoretical geophysics. Since one wishes to be read by more than the world’s half-dozen genuine polymaths, one must explain everything along the way, and that is the stunning success of this book. It is a text that can be read with profit by a teenager willing to learn a few new words and by a professional in the field of paleontology.