Why Dinosaurs Matter

By Kenneth Lacovara

What can long-dead dinosaurs teach us about our future? Plenty, according to world-renowned paleontologist and recent star of BBC show The Day the Dinosaurs Died Dr Kenneth Lacovara, who has discovered some of the largest creatures to ever walk the Earth, including the super-massive Dreadnoughtus. 

'Majestic, awe-inspiring and deeply humbling. Kenneth Lacovara reveals how dinosaurs have changed how we understand time, the world and ourselves' DR ALICE ROBERTS, anatomist and anthropologist, television presenter, author and professor 

‘This is a dinosaur book with a difference. In lyrical prose Kenneth Lacovara shows how an understanding of the past helps to understand the present. The dinosaurs played no role in the great extinction that ended their era: we, on the other hand, are playing a major part in the extinction that is taking place today. And unless we change our ways, if we continue destroying the natural world, this will lead inevitably to our own extinction. But unlike the dinosaurs we have the power to turn things around.’ DR JANE GOODALL, DBE, conservationist, founder of the Jane Goodaal Institute and UN Messenger of Peace
 
 ‘Kenneth Lacovara LOVES Dinosaurs, LOVES science and truly LOVES telling you about it. Few non-fiction writers wield words with more poetic and potent affection for their subject. Ken’s deep scholarship and clear enjoyment of his subject always makes ME feel smarter. A man obsessed not just with his subject matter, but with showing us how looking into our deep past can illuminate our future.’ ADAM SAVAGE of THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL

 
By tapping into the wonder that dinosaurs inspire, Dr Lacovara weaves together the stories of our geological awakening, of humanity’s epic struggle to understand the nature of deep time, the meaning of fossils, and our own place on the vast and bountiful tree of life.
 
Go on a journey, back to when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, to discover how dinosaurs achieved feats unparalleled by any other group of animals. Learn the secrets of how paleontologists find fossils, and explore quirky, but fascinating questions, such as: Is a penguin a dinosaur? How are the tiny arms of T. rex the key to its power and ferocity?
 
In this revealing book, Dr Lacovara offers the latest ideas about the shocking and calamitous death of the dinosaurs and ties their vulnerabilities to our own.

Why Dinosaurs Matter is compelling and engaging - a reminder that our place on this planet is both precarious and potentially fleeting. As we move into an uncertain environmental future, it has never been more important to understand the past.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Sep 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781471164446

Kenneth Lacovara

Dr. Kenneth Lacovara has unearthed some of the largest dinosaurs ever to walk our planet, including the super-massive Dreadnoughtus, which at sixty-five tons weighs more than seven T. rex. Through his work, blending exploration with the latest techniques from medicine and engineering, Lacovara portrays dinosaurs as vigorous, competent creatures—the adaptable champions of an age. Lacovara is sought around the world for his ability to bring the wonders of science and the thrill of discovery to a wide range of audiences. “He’s got a way of illuminating the bigger picture, of somehow turning ‘why’ into wonder. It’s not just that he’s speaking about what happened way back when, but what it might mean for us today.” Says Chris Anderson, Curator of TED. He has appeared in many television documentaries and his discoveries have landed him three times in Discover magazine’s 100 Top Science Stories of the year and in Time’s Top Stories of 2014. Lacovara was named by Men’s Journal as one of “The Next Generation of Explorers” and he is an elected fellow of the prestigious Explorers Club in New York. Kenneth Lacovara is the founder and director of the Edelman Fossil Park of Rowan University in New Jersey. Why Dinosaurs Matter is his first book.

Reviews for Why Dinosaurs Matter

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Why Dinosaurs Matter Kenneth Lacovara has an infectious boyish enthusiasm combined with veteran professional knowledge. One wonders how he got so late in his career without becoming, well, a dinosaur as so often happens with age. In this book he addresses someone who maybe hasn't thought much about dinosaurs lately and tells us some new cool things that make dinosaurs seem fresh and new again. He also communicates big concepts like geological time which requires a nimble imagination and guide to really appreciate - try as I might I still have trouble with holistically understanding anything beyond a few thousand years.Some things I learned include most if not all of the dinosaurs have been discovered in lowland areas since that is where sedimentary rock settled, a requirement for fossil creation. Thus alpine dinosaurs are completely unknown but which surely existed. One of the most common types was the duck-billed dinosaurs, a grazing herbivore with teeth able to grind any vegetation into pulp, it was everywhere. That dinosaurs are differentiated from other lizard-like animals (crocodiles, turtles) by their ability to rapidly propel themselves forward due to anatomical features - thus birds are dinosaurs that can quickly take flight or run like the Ostrich.

[undermyappletree · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

People love dinosaurs. We are fascinated by them. The more we learn about them the more we realize that dinosaurs achieved feats unparalleled by any other group of animals. They were adaptable and fascinating creatures that deserve a lot more respect than we give them. They did not die out because they were too slow or stupid to adapt, but instead were wiped out by a calamitous event that left them little time to adjust and recover.This was especially interesting to me because it delves into the subject of why birds are dinosaurs, and that dinosaurs are not truly extinct – they live on as birds. The author explains how birds are descended from the theropod group, also known as avian dinosaurs, the ones that had feathers.This is a well written and interesting book by an author who is passionate about the subject. So why do dinosaurs matter? The lesson here is that no species lasts forever. Humans take for granted that we are invincible when in reality our time on this planet could be just as fleeting; we are far more fragile than the dinosaur. And in the end, an asteroid took down a mighty species.Audio production . . .This was read with enthusiasm by the author – maybe a little too much at times! It was a quick, enjoyable listen, read in a manner that the entire family will enjoy listening to.

[davidwineberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We are the asteroidKenneth Lacovara is a storyteller. In Why Dinosaurs Matter, he has woven together the importance of dinosaurs in the census of species, as well as stringing together the story of their discovery and popularization, beginning less than 200 years ago. It is a fast, easy read, and should turn any bored teenager into a thrill-seeking paleontologist – like Kenneth Lacovara.Lacovara is no slouch in the field. He discovered the Dreadnoughtus, currently the largest dinosaur ever found, at 85 feet in length and 130,000 pounds in heft. They are his life’s work and passion.Because most dinosaur bones and fossils are found in sedimentary formations near ancient lowlands and seashores, we know nothing about highland dinosaurs, those adapted to the hills, forests and mountains. The closest we’ve come are the wooly mammoths of Siberia, hardly dinosaur class. Like every other being, then, now and forever, dinosaurs were perfectly adapted to their specific environment. They were not trapped, diseased, or too inflexible to survive. Stuff happened, and species turnover is constant. Lacovara spends a lot of (too much) time batting away the pejorative adjective dinosaur in our culture.This little book is purely top line – all the accomplishments and milestones without the frustrations, fighting, wrong turns and failures. That helps it move quickly and positively. Unusually for a TED talk, there is a climax, a very dramatic one. Lacovara describes in fine detail the repercussions of the asteroid hitting the earth – that doomed the dinosaurs after 165 million years. He shows how interconnected everything is, such that every aspect of the aftermath affected a far greater number of things elsewhere. From the heat blast (three minutes in a pizza oven) to the tsunamis that pushed into North America in the complete darkness of the suddenly permanent night, and the consequent lack of phytoplankton that starved nearly every aquatic creature in the chain, it made for a nearly instantaneous fifth extinction.As I read, I kept thinking this is the wrong format, and the thought got more and more pronounced as I read. This is clearly a case for a graphic novel format. It is so visual, with fossils, sedimentary layers, uplifted cliffs, dinosaur bones, dinosaurs themselves, and all the scientists who brought them into mainstream thought (including historically critical paintings and sculptures) – that words alone are a wasted opportunity. That there are no photographs at all in this book is aggravating – though there is the occasional drawing of a stylized dreadnoughtus here and there. As it stands, you will absolutely need a computer and a search engine set to Images to see what he’s talking about. Dinosaurs you never heard of, for example (we now discover new ones weekly!). Lacovara’s message, almost inevitably, is that we have only just discovered the immensity of what we don’t know, yet we’re plowing ahead full throttle into the sixth extinction. Now knowing what the fifth was like, we really don’t want to do that.David Wineberg

[jeangabrielle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dinosaurs, long considered to belong to childhood fantasy, finally get their due consideration in this delightful book. Lacovara describes our relationship with these adaptable creatures throughout history with humor, knowledge, and deft word play. Written for an adult audience, the book explores our continuing fascination with dinosaurs and how much we have to learn from them. Although commonly misunderstood as dull, lumbering failures of evolutionary history, Lacovara convinces us of their vitality, adaptability, and global domination over millions of years of earth’s history and shows us how our fate might be linked to that of these wondrous creatures.