When Dinosaurs Conquered the Skies: The incredible story of bird evolution

by Jingmai O'Connor, Maria Brzozowska (Illustrator)

Overview

When Dinosaurs Conquered the Skies is an exquisitely illustrated exploration of how dinosaurs evolved flight and eventually became the birds we live with today.

What are birds, and where did they come from? Discover fascinating facts about bird evolution, including:
 

• How the oldest bird fossils are about 150 million years old.
• That birds evolved from a group of meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods. That’s the same group that Tyrannosaurus Rex belonged to, although birds evolved from small theropods. 
• How these ancient birds looked quite a lot like small, feathered dinosaurs and they had much in common. Their mouths still contained sharp teeth.
• That over time, birds lost their teeth and evolved beaks.

And more! The story of bird evolution is fascinating, and When Dinosaurs Conquered the Skies explores this incredible history in a digestible, accessible way. This book from the successful Incredible Evolution series proves that fact can definitely be stranger and more exciting than fiction! Can you imagine coming face-to-face with a toothy pigeon?!

Through digestible information and absorbing illustrations, young readers will be given an insight into how dinosaurs evolved flight and conquered the skies.

This book is from the Incredible Evolution series, a fascinating, informative collection of books which examine the development of life on earth. Other titles available include: When Plants Took Over the Planet, When We Became Humans, and When the Whales Walked.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780711275140
Publisher:	words & pictures
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Series:	Incredible Evolution
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	987,614
File size:	79 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jingmai O’Connor is the Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Jingmai grew up in Pasadena, CA. She is first generation Chinese and second generation Irish. Jingmai’s research explores the repeated evolution (and parallel refinement) of flight in the Dinosauria, the dinosaur-bird transition, and the biology of stem-avians, not through any one aspect but exploring Paraves through the evolution of feathers and complex plumages, aerodynamics, reproduction, respiration, trophics, systematics, ontogeny, and taxonomy. Taking advantage of the exceptional soft tissue preservation of the Jehol Biota, Jingmai seeks to go beyond skeletal anatomy, to understand the biology of stem birds and their closest relatives and trace the evolution of modern avian features.

Maria Brzozowska was born in 1992 in Poland but spent most of her childhood growing up in Turkey. In 2010 she graduated from Leeds Arts University with a BA in Visual Communication. In 2016 she completed her MFA in Media and Design. She is a visual storyteller who enjoys taking a poetic approach to her art creating new, unknown lands. She uses traditional painting techniques aided by digital methods. She also works with children’s storybook publishers and loves illustrating magical and poetic stories.

Jingmai O'Connor is the Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Jingmai grew up in Pasadena, CA. She is first generation Chinese and second generation Irish. Jingmai's research explores the repeated evolution (and parallel refinement) of flight in the Dinosauria, the dinosaur-bird transition, and the biology of stem-avians, not through any one aspect but exploring Paraves through the evolution of feathers and complex plumages, aerodynamics, reproduction, respiration, trophics, systematics, ontogeny, and taxonomy. Taking advantage of the exceptional soft tissue preservation of the Jehol Biota, Jingmai seeks to go beyond skeletal anatomy, to understand the biology of stem birds and their closest relatives and trace the evolution of modern avian features.
Maria Brzozowska was born in 1992 in Poland but spent most of her childhood growing up in Turkey. In 2010 she graduated from Leeds Arts University with a BA in Visual Communication. In 2016 she completed her MFA in Media and Design. She is a visual storyteller who enjoys taking a poetic approach to her art creating new, unknown lands. She uses traditional painting techniques aided by digital methods. She also works with children's storybook publishers and loves illustrating magical and poetic stories.

Table of Contents

Fascinating Birds
Fossils and Geological Time
First Fossils:
A Discovery of Dinosaurs
The Dinosaur Family Tree
Young Darwin
Darwin’s Big Idea
Where are the Fossil Birds?
Archaeopteryx
Feathered Dinosaurs from China
How Feathers Evolved
Dinosaurs in Color
First Wings
The Incredible Jehol Biota
Rulers of the Cretaceous Skies
Other Flying Dinosaurs
Creatures of Las Hoyas
Birds from Changma
What Did the First Birds Eat?
Baby Birds
A Tale of Tails
The Evolution of Flight
Birds Grow Fast!
Bird Mummies
Birds of the Late Cretaceous
The Rise of Modern Birds
Mass Extinctions
The Evolution of Today’s Birds
The Birds that Didn’t Make It
Birds Today
The Sixth Mass Extinction
Index
 

Editorial Reviews

“Step back in time to discover how dinosaurs evolved into the birds we know today and learn how changes in ancient species led to wings, tail feathers, flight and many other adaptations seen in modern avian creatures. Part of the Incredible Evolution series.”—The Bookseller

From the Publisher