United States
£ GBP
If you have ever wondered how it was possible for some bizarre (and, in many cases, huge) creatures from millennia ago, to reproduce – without injuring either themselves or each other – Michael Brookfield's research goes a long way to providing the answers. As a means to an end, the author draws on a wealth of fascinating information regarding the sexual activity of living animals – reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals – comparing the various ways that different species have developed their mating rituals.
By learning about how animals of all shapes and sizes have overcome a number of physical impediments and difficulties, in terms of achieving the sexual act, we can speculate as to the way in which the dinosaur species would have coped with this, too. This informative and entertaining book brings together the results of wide-ranging research to discuss an area of an animal behavioural study on which the academic world has, until now, remained rather quiet.
Michael Brookfield taught introductory geology, stratigraphy and palaeobiology among other things at the Department of Land Resource Science, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, for 38 years, before taking early retirement in January 2008. he is now a visiting professor at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. His main interests are in desert and glacial environments, the tectonic evolution of the Himalayan, Karakoram and Pamir mountains, and the end Permian extinctions. For the last 30 years, he has done fieldwork in the Sahara and other deserts, and the ranges of the Himalaya and Central Asia, usually travelling alone and staying with the local inhabitants. He is a member of the Explorers Club of New York, USA.
