Dinosaurs Rediscovered The Scientific Revolution in Paleontology

Dinosaur research once sat nearer to natural history than to hard science. In the last twenty years that has shifted, and Michael J. Benton, who heads the Palaeobiology Research Group at the University of Bristol, sets out to show how the field became an experimental discipline.

The book is built on recent finds: giant sauropods from Patagonia, feathered dinosaurs from China, and a dinosaur tail trapped in Burmese amber. Alongside these sit new analytical tools, which Benton uses to explain how researchers now work out an animal's colour, bite force, speed, growth rate and behaviour.

The chapters run in order, from the Triassic origins of dinosaurs to the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. Each one is a piece of popular science aimed at general readers, written clearly and with the method in view.

The question it keeps returning to is how anyone can know such things about animals that died out so long ago. Benton answers by setting each claim beside the evidence and the technique behind it.