the rise and fall of the dinosaurs steve brusatte

He is currently a Reader in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh. He was educated at the University of Chicago for his BS degree, at the University of Bristol for his MSc on a Marshall Scholarship, and finally at the Columbia University for MPhil and PhD. Stephen Louis Brusatte (born April 24, 1984) is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, who specializes in the anatomy and evolution of dinosaurs. In addition to his scientific papers and technical monographs, his popular book Dinosaurs (2008) and the textbook Dinosaur Paleobiology (2012) earned him accolades, and he became the resident palaeontologist and scientific consultant for the BBC Earth and Author writes under the penname Stephen Brusatte as well.

Steve talks to Jim Al-Khalili about his life and work, including the recent discovery of an incredibly well-preserved Pterosaur on the Isle of Skye, a place he likes to call Scotland’s Jurassic Park.Author writes under the penname Stephen Brusatte as well.

Sabre-toothed flesh eaters, cow-sized plant guzzlers and a host of other warm blooded placental animals evolved alongside the badger sized burrowers. Within half a million years, mammals of all shapes and sizes had taken over on planet earth. All the big dinosaurs were wiped out and only the small ones with wings survived.

Steve studies how, when an asteroid collided with earth 66 million years ago, the mammals got lucky. More recently, however, he’s focussed on the long history of mammals.įor hundreds of millions of years, our mammalian ancestors remained small. rex, Triceratops and all the other dinosaur species developed when he was a teenager and continues to this day. Why did the dinosaurs die out and the mammals survive? How did dinosaurs evolve into birds? If you met a Velociraptor today you’d probably mistake it for a large flightless bird, says Steve. Steve Brusatte analyses the pace of evolutionary change and tries to answer big questions.

The rise and fall of the dinosaurs steve brusatte