After the Dinosaurs, Donald R. Prothero
After the Dinosaurs, Donald R. Prothero
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

After the Dinosaurs
The Age of Mammals

Author: Donald R. Prothero

Narrator: Will Tulin

Unabridged: 10 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/21/2023

Synopsis

The fascinating group of animals called dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago (except for their feathered descendants). In their place evolved an enormous variety of land creatures, especially mammals, which in their way were every bit as remarkable as their Mesozoic cousins. The Age of Mammals, the Cenozoic Era, has never had its Jurassic Park, but it was an amazing time in earth's history, populated by a wonderful assortment of bizarre animals.

The rapid evolution of thousands of species of mammals brought forth many incredible creatures—including our own ancestors. Their story is part of a larger story of new life emerging from the greenhouse conditions of the Mesozoic, warming up dramatically about 55 million years ago, and then cooling rapidly so that 33 million years ago the glacial ice returned. The earth's vegetation went through equally dramatic changes, from tropical jungles in Montana and forests at the poles. Life in the sea underwent striking evolution reflecting global climate change, including the emergence of such creatures as giant sharks, seals, sea lions, dolphins, and whales.

Engaging and insightful, After the Dinosaurs is a book for everyone who has an abiding fascination with the remarkable life of the past.

About Donald R. Prothero

Donald R. Prothero is a research associate in vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He has taught college geology and paleontology for forty years at institutions such as Columbia University, Vassar College, Knox College, and Pierce College, and currently at Cal Poly Pomona. For twenty-seven years, he was professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles and lecturer in geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned his MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees in geological sciences from Columbia University. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers published in leading journals and over thirty titles in geology, paleontology, and evolutionary biology.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bill on October 07, 2022

A fabulous book on life on Earth since the K-T boundary. Much broader than just the mammals, Prothero looks at each epoch and shows how the climate, the ecosystems, the flora and fauna changed with time. While the author describes the trends at the family and order level, he also includes many descr......more

Goodreads review by William on October 22, 2022

The book could have used another round of editing; there were extraneous or missing words, misspelled words, sentences with confusing meaning. The author used biased and dismissive language towards the meteor impact hypothesis even though he said there's not enough evidence for any hypothesis. The w......more

Goodreads review by Roy on June 04, 2023

The content is ok, but it's just badly written.......more

Goodreads review by Jim on August 31, 2021

Mammalian history is amazingly rich, and the diversity of mammals is also amazing. The book did a good job of pointing this out. The book also serves to show that evolution isn't necessarily aiming at anything, and that mammals back then were not necessarily more primitive than those today. The book......more

Goodreads review by Shelby on December 30, 2024

I see what a previous reviewer said about some of it seeming like he’s just listing animals without much description, and that he seemed to be trying to disprove the asteroid theory… really tho, if extinct mammalia are a special interest for you, you’ll already know most of the animals. The real iss......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List