What Bugged the Dinosaurs? : : Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous / / George Poinar, Roberta Poinar.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Poinar, George,; Poinar, Roberta,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2010]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.) :; 61 color illus. 39 line illus.

Millions of years ago in the Cretaceous period, the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex--with its dagger-like teeth for tearing its prey to ribbons--was undoubtedly the fiercest carnivore to roam the Earth. Yet as What Bugged the Dinosaurs? reveals, T. rex was not the only killer. George and Roberta Poinar show how insects--from biting sand flies to disease-causing parasites--dominated life on the planet and played a significant role in the life and death of the dinosaurs. The Poinars bring the age of the dinosaurs marvelously to life. Analyzing exotic insects fossilized in Cretaceous amber at three major deposits in Lebanon, Burma, and Canada, they reconstruct the complex ecology of a hostile prehistoric world inhabited by voracious swarms of insects. The Poinars draw upon tantalizing new evidence from their amazing discoveries of disease-producing vertebrate pathogens in Cretaceous blood-sucking flies, as well as intestinal worms and protozoa found in fossilized dinosaur excrement, to provide a unique view of how insects infected with malaria, leishmania, and other pathogens, together with intestinal parasites, could have devastated dinosaur populations. A scientific adventure story from the authors whose research inspired Jurassic Park, What Bugged the Dinosaurs?? offers compelling evidence of how insects directly and indirectly contributed to the dinosaurs' demise.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Fossils: A Time Capsule -- 2. The Cretaceous: A Time of Change -- 3. Herbivory -- 4. Dinosaurs Competing with Insects -- 5. Did Dinosaurs or Insects "Invent" Flowering Plants? -- 6. Pollination -- 7. Blights and Diseases of Cretaceous Plants -- 8. The Cretaceous: Age of Chimeras and Other Oddities -- 9. Sanitary Engineers of the Cretaceous -- 10. The Case for Entomophagy among Dinosaurs -- 11. Gorging on Dinosaurs -- 12. Biting Midges -- 13. Sand Flies -- 14. Mosquitoes -- 15. Blackflies -- 16. Horseflies and Deerflies -- 17. Fleas and Lice -- 18. Ticks and Mites -- 19. Parasitic Worms -- 20. The Discovery of Cretaceous Diseases -- 21. Diseases and the Evolution of Pathogens -- 22. Insects: The Ultimate Survivors -- 23. Extinctions and the K/T Boundary -- Appendix A: Cretaceous Hexapoda -- Appendix B: Key Factors Contributing to the Survival of Terrestrial Animals -- Appendix C: Problems with Evaluating the Fossil Record and Extinctions -- References -- Index