Lowell Dingus

the man who discovered Tyrannosaurus rex

Barnum Brown

American Museum of National History

The Extraordinary Story of the Discovery of Prehistoric Life

Dinosaur Hunters

The Halls of Invertebrate Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History display the world's greatest fossil collection and have long been a treasured landmark in New York; they currently attract about 1.5 million visitors each year. Dinosaurs fascinate people of all ages. A look at the Museum's giant Barosaurus skeleton rising up on its hid legs to face a predator, or at the specimen of the fierce Tyrannosaurus rex, enables us to journey back in time to imagine even earlier animals that lived as long as hundreds of millions of years ago. Most fossils are not actual bones but mineralized replicas of an animal's hard parts, yet they enable us to see that vertebrate animals, including humans, share an evolutionary heritage that includes the smallest jawless fish who lived 500 million years ago as well as massive dinosaurs, and mammals of the Ice Age such as wooly mammoths and saber-toothed cats. All of these specimens and hundreds more are collected in the spectacular, newly renovated fossil halls at the Museum. This book, liberally illustrated with beautiful new color and archival photography, and artwork and graphics produced especially for the renovated exhibits, is an in-depth look at the evolution of vertebrate animals in the collection. In an incisive, behind-the-scenes text, paleontologist Lowell Dingus discusses the earliest specimens: fish, amphibians, and primitive reptiles that represent evolutionary starting points for major groups; the popular saurischian dinosaurs, including the seventeen-ton Apatosaurus (once called Brontosaurus) skeleton; and ornithischian dinosaurs such as the horned Triceratops. He concludes with the mammal halls, where animals as diverse as the finbacked Dimetrodon, mastodons, and, after primates, our closest "next of kin"-- bats-- are shown to be related by one hole in the skull behind the eye socket. This modification illustrates the contemporary approach to evolution that readers will learn about called cladistics, which establishes animal relationships based on unique shared anatomical changes that were inherited over the course of time. The Museum galleries are organized to reflect how this approach has been used to reconstruct the family tree of vertebrate evolution: walking along the main pathway through the fossil halls is like walking along the trunk of the vertebrate evolutionary tree. The first of the seven halls was opened in 1877 and featured ornate columns, ironworks, high ceilings, and large arched windows with spectacular views of Central Park. A ten-year restoration project has now returned the halls to their original grandeur and redesigned the fossil installations. This volume celebrates the dynamic fossil displays and the magnificent architecture of the American Museum of Natural History; it also introduces provocative questions about long-extinct species and the mysteries of life on Earth.

Great Fossils at the American Museum of Natural History

Next of Kin

Mark Norell

Eugene S. Gaffney

Explains the evolutionary relationship of dinosaurs, answers fifty specific questions about them, profiles forty-one specimens, and describes six expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History.

Evolution, Extinction, and the Lessons of Prehistory

Discovering Dinosaurs

"Lowell Dingus and Mark Norell have produced a highly readable, comprehensive account of the life and scientific work of Barnum Brown, arguably the most intrepid and successful collector of dinosaurs and other prehistoric vertebrates ever. Their story goes beyond the sensationalism of earlier accounts to flesh out Brown as not only an intrepid explorer but an important contributor to American science."--Kevin Padian, University of California, Berkeley "In Barnum Brown an engrossing narrative and a treasury of firsthand field notes and letters combine to form a true epic: the life of a great paleontologist and an all-too-human, and therefore fascinating, man. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in fossils and the people who hunt them."--Michael Novacek, author of Terra "'The greatest dinosaur hunter of all time, ' a fitting title for the man who shipped more than 1200 crates of fossilized bones to New York from far flung localities around the globe. In this superb, first-ever biography of Barnum Brown, Dingus and Norell paint a vivid portrait of an intrepid field worker, accomplished researcher, and popularizer of dinosaurs--a larger-than-life character who left a deep and indelible mark on the field of paleontology."--Scott D. Sampson, author of Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life "Without a doubt the most popular and well-known dinosaur in the world, Tyrannosaurus rex has inspired millions of people worldwide through fact and fiction. Similarly, just about every vertebrate palaeontologist has been affected by the amazing career of Barnum Brown. But there has never been a biography written by scientists . . . until now! Here at last is an intimate look at the man who discovered the beast and turned our imaginations loose."--Philip J. Currie, author of Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus Rex

Timothy Rowe

For centuries, science has been searching for clues to the disappearance of the dinosaurs without answering a critical question - Are all the dinosaurs really extinct? In The Mistaken Extinction: Dinosaur Evolution and the Origin of Birds, crackerjack paleontologists Lowell Dingus, President of Infoquest, a nonprofit education and research foundation, and former Director of the Fossil Hall Renovation at the American Museum of Natural History and Timothy Rowe, J. Nalle Gregory Regents Professor of Geology at the University of Texas, Austin, and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Texas Memorial Museum lead us on an adventurous tour through the history of our own planet Earth. And they force us to face a shocking truthThe answer to that critical question is no.

Dinosaur Evolution and the Origin of Birds

The Mistaken Extinction

Lowell Dingus

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