Tyrannosaurid paleobiology /

It is remarkable that so much information has been amassed about an iconic dinosaur that has been extinct for 65 million years and that was presumably at the apex of the Late Cretaceous terrestrial food web. But the wealth of tyrannosaur fossils, including nearly complete skeletons recently discovered, has made it possible not only to reconstruct the creature's basic anatomy but also to infer a fair amount about its ecology. This work, part of the outstanding "Life of the Past" series, is based on a 2005 symposium held at the Burpee Museum of Natural History (in celebration of its nearly complete juvenile tyrannosaur skeleton, "Jane"). The book's 15 chapters are divided into three parts: "Systematics and Descriptions," "Functional Morphology and Reconstruction," and "Paleopathology, Paleoecology, and Taphonomy." Much content is technical, requiring a strong knowledge of vertebrate anatomy. Likely the last section will be of most interest to general readers as it considers whether adult tyrannosaurs were primarily scavengers (as has often been suggested) or active predators. The evidence presented, including a wonderful analogy between "cow tipping" and "ceratopsian tipping" (how tyrannosaurs might have attacked these large dinosaurs), argues forcefully for viewing tyrannosaurs as just how they seemed: scary predators. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; informed general readers. J. C. Kricher Wheaton College (MA)