Search results for ""Author Thom Holmes""

Dawn of the Dinosaur Age presents the first act in the drama that would become the Mesozoic Era, the Age of Reptiles. The rise of the first dinosaurs is the story of opportunity and evolutionary innovation. The first dinosaurs, after living in the shadows of larger, more dominant reptilian kin, took advantage of major mass extinctions at the end of the Triassic Period to take over niches once occupied by their predecessors. In the course of doing so, dinosaurs quickly radiated to widespread geographic ranges and began an evolutionary course that led to the development of two major groups of dinosaurs, the Saurischia and Ornithischia.The Late Triassic and Early Jurassic Periods were a time of experimentation in dinosaur evolution as the earliest herbivorous and predaceous dinosaurs adapted increasingly specialized body forms and lifestyles. ""Dawn of the Dinosaur Age"" explores the roots of the dinosaur family tree and the lifestyle and radiation of the first carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaurs.

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The first bursts of life found in the fossil record were single-celled bacteria and algae, the foundation of life that led to the extraordinary cavalcade of organisms that have walked the stage of Earth ever since. From the initial signs of life in the Precambrian Period to the end of the Cambrian Period about 488 million years ago, ""Early Life"" explores the development of early life that culminated in one of the most extraordinary periods in the evolution of life on Earth. Characterized as a ""biological big bang,"" the Cambrian Period was a relatively short span of time during which nearly all basic forms of animal life that still exist first appear in the fossil record of the ancient oceans. Alien-looking marine creatures developed in the oceans, and the first predators began hunting down other species in a biological ""arms race"" that pitted elegant strategies for defense against increasingly efficient means of attack.

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