FOREWORD

A new edition of The Dinosauria should be more than just an update of the first edition, especially given the unprecedented developments in dinosaurian research over the past decade. To reflect this growth, we have fully reorganized the book to reflect the monumental increase in dinosaurian diversity that comes from new discoveries in the field (and museums) and the taxonomic revisions of this material but more especially the pro-found impact that phylogenetic analysis has made on Dinosauria as a whole. This latter research has substantially influenced how we interpret not only the contents and features of taxa but also their biogeography, paleoecology, functional morphology, and evolutionary dynamics. Our challenge as editors and authors, especially of the taxonomic chapters, has been to place these “terribly great lizards” in their phylogenetic context. As a result, all taxonomic chapters are provided, in some cases for the first time, with numerical cladistic analyses, with character descriptions and character-taxon matrices available on the World Wide Web. Although we are aware that these analyses will very likely be superseded by more detailed or robust investigations—indeed, this is inevitable in any vibrant systematic research—we consider this aspect of our revision to be the most fundamental change in this new edition of The Dinosauria.

The issue of birds as dinosaurs was hinted at in the first edition of The Dinosauria. Yet so much has happened over the past few decades—a veritable explosion of diversity among Mesozoic birds from Spain, Argentina, Uzbekistan, China, and Mongolia, as well as the discovery of feathered dromaeosaurids, oviraptorosaurs, and maybe other theropod taxa—that it is now clear that dinosaurs begat birds. Consequently, we have included a chapter on this evolutionary nexus in this new revision (chapter 11).

Thanks to e-mail and the Internet, efforts to organize this edition, communicate with authors anywhere in the world, obtain manuscripts, and deliver them to the publisher were light-years beyond our prior effort. For this edition we did not have to send communications and chapters through diplomatic pouch or to rely on colleagues to hand carry them “between the West and the East.” Thanks to support from the University of California Press, we met twice in Philadelphia, where we enjoyed the hospitality of Dawn Dodson. At our first meeting, in November 2001, we evaluated the manuscripts and their outside reviews and made recommendations to authors. At the second meeting, in October 2002, we met to evaluate and integrate the final chapter drafts. The final revision of The Dinosauria was submitted to the University of California Press in May 2003.

An edited volume such as this is nothing without the authors’ willingness, insight, knowledge, and patience. Of these we had plenty, so it is a pleasure to thank all of our authors for participating in the creation of this book.

We also want to extend special thanks to the following for acting as chapter reviewers: Paul Barrett, Kay Behrensmeyer, Don Brinkman, Matt Carrano, Luis Chiappe, Brenda Chinnery, Kristi Curry Rogers, Bill Gallagher, Peter Galton, Jacques Gauthier, Mark Goodwin, Jerry Harris, Jason Head, Tom Holtz, Matt Lamanna, Jean Le Loeuff, Teresa Maryaska, Ralph Molnar, Paul Penkalski, Xabier Pereda-Suberbiola, Robin Reid, Armand de Ricqlés, Dale Russell, Michael Ryan, Hans Sues, François Therrien, Dave Varricchio, Jeff Wilson, Larry Witmer, and Darla Zelenitsky.

The editors and authors happily acknowledge the help of the following people in preparing their chapters: Ronan Allain, Andrea Arcucci, Alexander Averianov, Yoichi Azuma, Paul Barrett, Rinchen Barsbold, Mike Benton, Bill Blows, José Bonaparte, Niels Bonde, Brent Breithaupt, Don Brinkman, Angela Buscalioni, José Calvo, José Ignacio Canudo, Ken Carpenter, Matt Carrano, Judd Case, Dan Chaney, Sankar Chatterjee, Luis Chiappe, Karen Chin, Brenda Chinnery, Dan Chure, Jim Clark, Julia Clarke, Julio Company, Clive Coy, Gloria Cuenca Bescós, Phil Currie, Kristi Curry Rogers, Fabio Dalla Vecchia, Kyle Davies, Tom Deméré, Dong Zhiming, Jeff Eaton, Dave Eberth, Naoko Egi, Pat Embree, Bob Farrar, Dave Fastovsky, Tracy Ford, Cathy Forster, Roland Gangloff, Pascal Godefroit, Mark Goodwin, Merrilee Guenther, Joel Hammond, Jerry Harris, Hiroshi Hayakawa, Andy Heckert, Dick Hilton, Tom Holtz, Jack Horner, Jorn Hurum, John Hutchinson, José Iriarte, Tom Jerzykiewicz, Patricia Kane-Vanni, James Kitching, Jim Knight, Dave Krause, Martin Kundrát, Sergei Kurzanov, Antoni Lacasa-Ruiz, Matt Lamanna, James Lamb, Wann Langston, Guy Leahy, Tom Lehman, Tom Lipka, Martin Lockley, Raminder Loyal, Spencer Lucas, Jim Madsen, Makoto Manabe, Ruben Martínez, Niall Mateer, Octavio Mateus, Des Maxwell, Bob McCord, Jack McIntosh, Mason Meers, Christian Meyer, Juan Pablo Milana, Angela Milner, Ralph Molnar, Joachin Moratalla, Darren Naish, Dave Norman, Fernando Novas, George Olshevsky, Francisco Ortega, Jim Parham, Tonya Penkrot, Altangerel Perle, Albert Prieto-Marquez, Oliver Rauhut, Tom Rich, Ruben Rodriguez de la Rosa, Tim Rowe, Bruce Rubidge, David Rubilar, Dale Russell, Michael Ryan, Sven Sachs, Rudyard Sadleir, Steve Salisbury, José Sanz, Anne Schulp, Paul Sereno, Mike Simms, Josh Smith, Tonya Sosa, Ray Stanford, Tom Stidham, John Storer, Hans Sues, Bob Sullivan, Daisuke Suzuki, Masahiro Tanimoto, Darren Tanke, Philippe Taquet, François Therrien, Tony Thulborn, Tim Tokaryk, Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar, Allison Tumarkin-Deratzian, Paul Up-church, Frank Varriale, Matt Vickaryous, Pat Vickers-Rich, Mahito Watabe, Amy Weishampel, Jim Westgate, Rupert Wild, Mike Williams, Jeff Wilson, Raymund Windolf, Larry Witmer, Xu Xing, You Hailu, Shawn Zack, and Darla Zelenitsky.

Special thanks go to Jerry Harris, the Wunderkind of dinosaur bibliophily, for taking on the daunting task of editing the bibliography.

For all their diligence, keen eyes, and forthright adherence to deadlines during the editing, typesetting, proofreading, and indexing stages, we thank Peter Strupp and the staff of Princeton Editorial Associates. Theirs was the heart and soul of the final push in producing this ponderous volume—we certainly would not have succeeded without them.

Last, we are grateful to the publishing staff of the University of California Press, particularly to Howard Boyer, Doris Kretschmer, and Blake Edgar, for their enthusiastic support and encouragement on this revised edition of The Dinosauria.

David B. Weishampel
Peter Dodson
Halszka Osmólska
   Philadelphia