Bøger af George Poinar

While much attention has been given to animal life in amber, the remains of a variety of plants, including angiosperm flowers, also exist in fossilized resin.  Presented here is a pictorial synopsis of 94 flowers that occur in four major amber deposits around the world.  These deposits are from Burma (Myanmar), the Baltic area, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, and range in age from the mid-Cretaceous to the mid-Tertiary.  The basic features of these flowers are presented and their relationship with existing plant lineages discussed.  This work will be of interest to amber enthusiasts, plant taxonomists, plant morphologists, plant ecologists, plant evolutionists and plant paleontologists. 

Millions of years ago in the Cretaceous period, the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex--with its dagger-like teeth for tearing its prey to ribbons--was undoubtedly the fiercest carnivore to roam the Earth. Yet as What Bugged the Dinosaurs? reveals, T. rex was not the only killer. George and Roberta Poinar show how insects--from biting sand flies to disease-causing parasites--dominated life on the planet and played a significant role in the life and death of the dinosaurs. The Poinars bring the age of the dinosaurs marvelously to life. Analyzing exotic insects fossilized in Cretaceous amber at three major deposits in Lebanon, Burma, and Canada, they reconstruct the complex ecology of a hostile prehistoric world inhabited by voracious swarms of insects. The Poinars draw upon tantalizing new evidence from their amazing discoveries of disease-producing vertebrate pathogens in Cretaceous blood-sucking flies, as well as intestinal worms and protozoa found in fossilized dinosaur excrement, to provide a unique view of how insects infected with malaria, leishmania, and other pathogens, together with intestinal parasites, could have devastated dinosaur populations. A scientific adventure story from the authors whose research inspired Jurassic Park, What Bugged the Dinosaurs?? offers compelling evidence of how insects directly and indirectly contributed to the dinosaurs' demise.

"George Poinar began collecting amber specimins over thirty years ago, but it was only recently that he, Roberta Poinar, and the rest of his research team astounded the scientific community with the ne"