Fossil History

Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species. Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four legs—a locomotion known as bipedalism. We strive to...

In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia--a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and...

Buried secrets. An ancient fossil. And one woman's determination to unravel a nineteenth-century mystery. Australia, 1847. The last thing Mellie Vale remembers before the fever takes her is sprinting through the bush with a monster at her heels—but no one believes her. In a bid to curb...

“This in-depth, beautifully illustrated biography of Mary Anning sings with the passion and perseverance of the woman herself, who from girlhood on scoured the shifting cliffs of her native Dorset to dig out prehistoric mysteries and make sense of them—altering forever our view of the past...

Learn how fossils teach us about dinosaurs.

Raptors like Velociraptors were small, deadly dinosaurs. These carnivores and omnivores may have looked like birds, but they couldn't get off the ground. Go back to a time when these deadly hunters walked the earth.

Ankylosaurus and other armored dinosaurs were the tanks of the prehistoric world. Sharp spikes and rock-hard plates protected these plant eaters from dangerous predators.

Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives were fearsome meat eaters and deadly predators. Their strong teeth and jaws could crush bone. Go back to a time when these mighty carnivores walked the earth.

Dinosaurs like Stegosaurus had stiff plates on their bodies. Some used their plates to heat themselves up or cool themselves off. This book takes listeners back to a time when these scaly herbivores walked the earth.

Dinosaurs such as Triceratops had deadly horns, bony frills, and sharp beaks. Some of these powerful plant eaters were so strong, they could knock down trees.

Long-necked dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus looked down on the earth from above the treetops. These mighty plant eaters had long tails, necks, and bodies.

Odd meat-eaters like Carnotaurus were quick and deadly hunters. They had sharp teeth, good eyesight, and could run on two strong legs.

Allosaurus and its relatives were fierce and dangerous predators. Dinosaurs in this group had deadly claws and razor-sharp teeth.

Spectacular fossil finds make today's headlines; new technology unlocks secrets of skeletons unearthed 100 years ago. Still, evolution is often poorly represented by the media and misunderstood by the public. A potent antidote to pseudoscience, Written in Stone is an engrossing history of evolutionary discovery for anyone who has marveled at the variety and richness of life.

Could griffins have been real? When Adrienne Mayor carefully read the ancient Greek and Roman descriptions, this mythic hybrid of a lion and an eagle sounded like something people had actually seen. What could explain that evidence? After a decade of hunting through myths, poring over old maps, and tracing the discoveries of modern dinosaur hunters, she found the answer: awesome dinosaur fossils observed by ancient gold hunters in the Gobi desert.

Experience the greatest breakthroughs in science, with the DK Science Stories series. In 1870s America, two brilliant scientists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Marsh, are locked in a ruthless competition. They're not fighting over gold, but something much more incredible: dinosaur bones. This...

This book takes an innovative look at the circle of life including animals, dinosaurs, stars, volcanoes, and even YOU. Shoot back in time 4.5 billion years to see how planet Earth was formed and then leap into the future to see what happens when stars die. Everything has a beginning and an end...

By 1979, we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change—including how to stop it. Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. Losing Earth is their story, and ours.

A fascinating, comprehensive, accessible account of conodont fossils—one of paleontology's greatest mysteries. Simon J. Knell takes the listener on a journey through 150 years of scientific thinking, imagining, and arguing. Slowly the animal begins to reveal traces of itself: its lifestyle, its remarkable evolution, its witnessing of great catastrophes, its movements over the surface of the planet, and finally its anatomy. Today the conodont animal remains perhaps the most disputed creature in the zoological world.

Fifty thousand years ago - merely a blip in evolutionary time - our Homo sapiens ancestors were competing for existence with several other human species, just as their precursors had done for millions of years. Yet something about our species distinguished it from the pack, and ultimately led to its survival while the rest became extinct. Just what was it that allowed Homo sapiens to become masters of the planet? Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us deep into the fossil record to uncover what made humans so special.