Jingmai O’Connor is the Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Jingmai grew up in Pasadena, CA. She is first generation Chinese and second generation Irish. Jingmai’s research explores the repeated evolution (and parallel refinement) of flight in the Dinosauria, the dinosaur-bird transition, and the biology of stem-avians, not through any one aspect but exploring Paraves through the evolution of feathers and complex plumages, aerodynamics, reproduction, respiration, trophics, systematics, ontogeny, and taxonomy. Taking advantage of the exceptional soft tissue preservation of the Jehol Biota, Jingmai seeks to go beyond skeletal anatomy, to understand the biology of stem birds and their closest relatives and trace the evolution of modern avian features.

CONTENTS

Fascinating Birds
Fossils and Geological Time
First Fossils: A Discovery of Dinosaurs
The Dinosaur Family Tree
Young Darwin
Darwin’s Big Idea
Where are the Fossil Birds?
Archaeopteryx
Feathered Dinosaurs from China
How Feathers Evolved
Dinosaurs in Colour
First Wings
The Incredible Jehol Biota
Rulers of the Cretaceous Skies
Other Flying Dinosaurs
Creatures of Las Hoyas
Birds from Changma
What Did the First Birds Eat?
Baby Birds
A Tale of Tails
The Evolution of Flight
Birds Grow Fast!
Bird Mummies
Birds of the Late Cretaceous
The Rise of Modern Birds
Mass Extinctions
The Evolution of Today’s Birds
The Birds that Didn’t Make It
Birds Today
The Sixth Mass Extinction

Index