The Carnivorous Dinosaurs

About this book

The meat-eating dinosaurs, or Theropoda, include some of the fiercest predators that ever lived. Some of the group's members survive to this day-as birds. The theropod/bird connection has been explored in several recent works, but this book presents 17 papers on a variety of other topics. It is organized into three parts. Part I explores morphological details that are important for understanding theropod systematics. Part II focuses on specific regions of theropod anatomy and biomechanics. Part III examines various lines of evidence that reveal something about theropods as living creatures.

Contents

Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction

I. Theropods Old and New
1. Tibiae of Small Theropod Dinosaurs from Southern England: From the Middle Jurassic of Stonesfield near Oxford and the Lower Cretaceous of the Isle of Wight Peter M. Galton and Ralph E. Molnar
2. New Small Theropod from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming Kenneth Carpenter, Clifford Miles, and Karen Cloward
3. Redescription of the Small Maniraptoran Theropods Ornitholestes and Coelurus from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming Kenneth Carpenter, Clifford Miles, John H. Ostrom, and Karen Cloward
4. The Enigmatic Theropod Dinosaur Erectopus superbus (Sauvage 1882) from the Lower Albian of Louppy-le-Château (Meuse, France) Ronan Allain
5. Holotype Braincase of Nothronychus mckinleyi Kirkland and Wolfe 2001 (Theropoda; Therizinosauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous (Turonian) of West-Central New Mexico James I. Kirkland, David K. Smith, and Douglas G. Wolfe
6. Anatomy of Harpymimus okladnikovi Barsbold and Perle 1984 (Dinosauria; Theropoda) of Mongolia Yoshitsugu Kobayashi and Rinchen Barsbold
7. Theropod Teeth from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian), Big Bend National Park, Texas Julia T. Sankey, Barbara R. Standhardt, and Judith A. Schiebout
8. Last Patagonian Non-Avian Theropods Rodolfo A. Coria and Leonardo Salgado

II. Theropod Working Parts
9. Enamel Microstructure Variation within the Theropoda Kathy Stokosa
10. Bite Me: Biomechanical Models of Theropod Mandibles and Implications for Feeding Behavior François Therrien, Donald M. Henderson, and Christopher B. Ruff
11. Body and Tail Posture in Theropod Dinosaurs Gregory S. Paul
12. Furcula of Tyrannosaurus rex Peter Larson and J. Keith Rigby Jr.
13. The Pectoral Girdle and the Forelimb of Heyuannia (Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria) Junchang Lü, Dong Huang, and Licheng Qiu

III. Theropods as Living Animals
14. Sexual Dimorphism in the Early Jurassic Theropod Dinosaur Dilophosaurus and a Comparison with Other Related Forms Robert Gay
15. Sexual Selection and Sexual Dimorphism in Theropods Ralph E. Molnar
16. An Unusual Multi-Individual Tyrannosaurid Bonebed in the Two Medicine Formation (Late Cretaceous, Campanian) of Montana (USA) Philip J. Currie, David Trexler, Eva B. Koppelhus, Kelly Wicks, and Nate Murphy
17. Evidence for Predator-Prey Relationships: Examples for Allosaurus and Stegosaurus Kenneth Carpenter, Frank Sanders, Lorrie A. McWhinney, and Lowell Wood
18. Theropod Paleopathology: State-of-the-Art Review Bruce Rothschild and Darren H. Tanke

Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Kenneth Carpenter is the dinosaur paleontologist for the Denver Museum of Natural History. He is author of Eggs, Nests, and Baby Dinosaurs (IUP, 2000), editor of The Armored Dinosaurs (IUP, 2001), and co-editor of Mesozoic Vertebrate Life (with Darren H. Tanke, IUP, 2001). He is also co-editor of Dinosaur Systematics; Dinosaur Eggs and Babies; and The Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation.

The contributors are:
- Ronan Allain
- Rinchen Barsbold
- Kenneth Carpenter
- Karen Cloward
- Rodolfo A. Coria
- Philip J. Currie
- Peter M. Galton
- Robert Gay
- Donald M. Henderson
- Dong Huang
- James I. Kirkland
- Yoshitsugu Kobayashi
- Eva B. Koppelhus
- Peter Larson
- Junchang Lü
- Lorrie A. McWhinney
- Clifford Miles
- Ralph E. Molnar
- N. Murphy
- John H. Ostrom
- Gregory S. Paul
- Licheng Qiu
- J. Keith Rigby, Jr.
- Bruce Rothschild
- Christopher B. Ruff
- Leonardo Salgado
- Frank Sanders
- Julia T. Sankey
- Judith A. Schiebout
- David K. Smith
- Barbara R. Standhardt
- Kathy Stokosa
- Darren H. Tanke
- François Therrien
- David Trexler
- Kelly Wicks
- Douglas G. Wolfe
- Lowell Wood