Table Of Content
Copyright © 1986 by Robert T Bakker
Illustrations copyright © 1986 by Robert T, Bakker
All rights reserved. No part ot this book may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the Publisher Inquiries
should be addressed to Permissions Department, William Morrow and
Company, Inc., 105 Madison Ave.. New York NY 10016.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bakker. Robert T
The dinosaur heresies
Includes index
1. Dinosaurs. I. Title.
QE862.D5B35 1986 5679'1 86-12643
ISBN 0-688-04287-2
Printed in the United States of America
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
BOOK DESIGN BY ANN GOLD
To a dear friend, Professor Bernhard Kummel of Harvard Uni
versity. Bernie grabbed me by the lapels back in 1974 and said,
"Kid, you can't go on being an enfant terrible forever. You gotta
write a book." So Bernie, here's your book.
PREFACE
I
t all started very suddenly, in the spring of 1955. I was reading
magazines in my grandfather's house in New Jersey, and I found
that magical Life cover story—"Dinosaurs." Fold-out, full-color
pictures of heroic creatures. Allosaurus, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus,
Tyrannosaurus rex. I discovered an entire world, far, far away in
time, that I could visit, whenever I wanted, via the creative labors
of the paleontologists. And I made up my mind then and there
that I would devote my life to the dinosaurs. Since I was in the
fourth grade, my parents weren't alarmed at my vow. Surely, they
thought, it's just a phase that he'll grow out of. Lots of kids my
age got hooked on dinosaurs for a while—it was a childhood dis
ease, like mumps or chicken pox, and if left alone, most kids re
covered and then had a lifetime immunity to dinosaurmania. But
I was that rare exception, a terminal, chronic case. And my mother
was patient enough to take me twice a year over the George
Washington Bridge to the American Museum of Natural History
in New York, where the best dinosaur show in the world played
every day of the week on the fourth floor. My family valued
scholarship, even if they couldn't quite understand the reverence
I had for the study of fossils.
I owe a great deal to a few fine friends at Harvard. Bernie
Kummel always encouraged me, even though we seemed to rep
resent opposite extremes of college society—he a member of the
Old Guard, I one of the sixties radicals. But we both loved fossils.
Bryan Patterson taught me about rodents and giant ground sloths
PREFACE I 9
and elephants, and, most especially, how wonderfully complex the
fossil history of life was. Steve Gould was always stimulating, and
challenging, and fiercely protective when occasion demanded. I
would not have survived Harvard without these three.
I must tip my well-worn cowboy hat to Ms. Kate Francis, of
the Johns Hopkins University. Kate was a loyal friend, invaluable
critic of my prose, and superb manuscript manipulator all through
the first three drafts of this book. Maxine Mote was a soul mate
at Hopkins, too, and helped with some key chapters. Many a time
I sat for hours in the hallway at Hopkins discussing dinosaurs and
evolution with my old friend from Yale, Steve Stanley, now a pro
fessor of paleontology at Hopkins. Steve is a clam-paleontologist
at heart, but his mind roves far afield, wherever the fossil record
of life leads to neat discoveries about how evolution works. Thank
God for the WATS line—we can still have these long rambling
talks long distance.
And a fond thank-you to all the Hopkins pre-meds who helped
to dig at Como—-Jan Koppelman, Robert Beck, Conrad Foley, Sue
Reiss, and especially Julius Goepp. They're all doctors now, or
almost.
To my editor, Maria Guarnaschelli, I owe an enormous debt
for her patience, encouragement, and extraordinary creative en
ergy. She is passionate about making good books, and she suc
ceeds.
Constance Areson Clark loves dogs, old books, and the Bad
lands as much as I do, and most of my ideas about how evolution
works have been explored during our walks in the rain in Balti
more or lingering breakfasts in Greybull, Wyoming. Constance,
Wyoming, and I were destined to come together, and stay to
gether.
And, finally, I must acknowledge my debt to hundreds of
people I have never met. The fieldmen who dug dinosaurs in the
1880's. The skilled preparators who chiseled bones out of the rock
in countless basement laboratories. The exhibit craftsmen who bent
the ironwork to mount the skeletons. All the people who have kept
the great museums going for the last century. I love museums more
than any other institution the human race has invented. Museum
people are always overworked and underpaid, and they all deserve
sainthood, every one.
10 | PREFACE
Preface 9
PART I
THE CONQUERING COLD-BLOODS:
A CONUNDRUM
1 Brontosaurus in the Great Hall
at Yale 15
2 Wyoming Reverie: Meditation on
the Geological Text 29
3 Mesozoic Class Warfare:
Cold-Bloods versus the Fabulous Furballs 48
4 Dinosaurs Score
Where Komodo Dragons Fail 75
PART II
THE HABITAT OF THE DINOSAURS
5 The Case of the Brontosaurus:
Finding the Body 105
6 Gizzard Stones and Brontosaur Menus 125
7 The Case of the Duckbill's Hand 146
8 Dinosaurs at Table 160
9 When Dinosaurs Invented Flowers 179
PART III
DEFENSE, LOCOMOTION, AND THE CASE
FOR WARM-BLOODED DINOSAURS
10 The Teutonic Diplodocus:
A Lesson in Gait and Carriage 201
11 Mesozoic Arms Race 226
12 Defense Without Armor 255
13 Dinosaurs Take to the Air 273
14 Archaeopteryx Paternity Suit:
The Dinosaur-Bird Connection 298
PART IV
THE WARM-BLOODED METRONOME
OF EVOLUTION
15 Sex and Intimidation:
the Body Language of Dinosaurs 325
16 The Warm-Blooded Tempo of
the Dinosaurs' Growth 347
17 Strong Hearts, Stout Lungs,
and Big Brains 361
18 Eaters and Eaten as the Test of
Warm-Bloodedness 375
•
PART V
DYNASTIC FRAILTY AND THE PULSES
OF ANIMAL HISTORY
19 Punctuated Equilibrium:
the Evolutionary Timekeeper 395
20 The Kazanian Revolution:
Setting the Stage for the Dinosauria 406
21 The Twilight of the Dinosaurs 425
22 Dinosaurs Have Class 445
Notes and References 463
Index 473
A Note About the Author 482
