The Leporello Book: Dinosaurs – their Rise and Decline

What did dinosaurs look like, how did they live, and what did they feed on? How did they evolve and why did the die out all of a sudden? In what ways are they differnt from other saurians and proto-mammals? This book contains all the answers, according to the latest findings of science.

The five-foot-wide concertina poster at the end of the book shows how the different life forms evolved from the late Palaeozoic to the end of the Mesozoic, i.e. from the end of the Devonian Age about 359.2 million years ago to the end of the Cretaceous Age 65.5 milion years ago. Giant ferns, and lycopods as tall as trees, gradually give way to coniferous plants, cycads and ginkgoes, and eventually the first flowering plants appear. A great variety of insects feed on terrestrial plants. As they pass over the surface of rivers and lakes fish snap at them, and some species of these fish will evolve into four-legged terrestrial vertebrates, gradually emancipating themselves from life under water. Saurians take over from these amphibians, becoming the most important terrestrial animals. Among the saurians dinosaurs come to dominate all other species. But towards the end of the Cretaceous Period they begin to die in huge numbers, eventually becoming extinct. Only the youngest class among them survives – the birds.

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By the same artist

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