An essential introduction to the age of dinosaurs in Africa.
Once Africa was referred to as the "Lost World of the dinosaur era", so poorly known were its ancient flora and fauna. Worse still, many priceless fossil specimens from the Sahara Desert were destroyed during the Second World War. Fortunately, in the twentieth-first century, more researchers are now working in north Africa than ever before and making fascinating discoveries such as the dinosaur Spinosaurus. Based on a decade of study, The Desert Bones brings the world of African dinosaurs fully into the light. Jamale Ijouiher skillfully draws on the latest research and knowledge about paleoecology to paint a compelling and comprehensive portrait of the mid-Cretaceous in North Africa.
Acknowledgments
Preface
Museum Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Palaeoenvironments and Stratigraphy of North Africa
2. The Flora of North Africa
3. The Fauna of North Africa: Invertebrates
4. The Fauna of North Africa: Vertebrates (fish)
5. The Fauna of North Africa: Vertebrates (tetrapods)
6. North African Ecology
7. The March of the Oysters
8. The Cenomanian Mass Extinction
Appendix
Literature Cited
A graduate of Liverpool John Moores University with a degree in Palaeobiology and Evolution, Jamale Ijouiher is an expert on Mesozoic African biota. Ijouiher has participated in fieldwork in Britain and Morocco.
"All too often, our concept of dinosaurs and deep time are based on fossils from Europe and North America. In this richly illustrated and readable volume, Jamale Ijouiher chronicles the Cretaceous fossil record of North Africa, one of the most exciting frontiers in paleontology research today. You'll learn all about African dinosaurs and the worlds they inhabited – the plants, the insects, the fish, and the other reptiles they lived with. This book goes to show that it's not just all about T. rex and Triceratops fighting in the jungles of ancient America; there were fascinating and fantastic dinosaurs that lived all over the world, and some of the most stunning new fossils are coming from Africa."
– Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
"Jamale Ijouiher has brought together information from a wide variety of primary literature on the flora and fauna of this part of Gondwana during Cenomanian and early Turonian time. This information can give a very detailed picture of the medial Cretaceous evolution of an area which has a great deal of biogeographic significance. The Desert Bones will be of particular interest to anyone studying fossil communities and how ecosystems evolved over time"
– Barbara Smith Grandstaff, University of Pennsylvania