Leon Vlieger at The Inquisitive Biologist:
If this book has one take-home message, it is that birds are, quite literally, dinosaurs. The Story of Birds sees Brusatte, by now comfortable in his science communication skills, combining captivating episodes of evolution with accessible explanations, while giving plenty of attention to the people behind the findings.
Until I started this book, I had a large gap in my understanding of bird evolution. Sure, I was familiar with the ongoing discussion as to which group of theropod dinosaurs was the ancestor of birds: dromaeosaurs, troodontids, or yet another group? I had admired first-hand the famous Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx, a genus that has become, through sheer history, “a conceptual anchor point for discussing bird origins” (p. 91). And I knew that this was followed by something–something–evolution and, oh look, now we have more than ten thousand bird species. But what happened in between?
More here.
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