What Bugged the Dinosaurs?: Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous (Hardcover)

~ George Poinar Jr. (Author), Roberta Poinar (Author) "It was not long after the predators finished feasting on the corpse of the diseased ornithopod that the first raindrops of an approaching storm began..." (more)
Key Phrases: tuberculate scales, amber site, amber forests, Late Cretaceous, North America, Early Cretaceous (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Horseflies, mosquitos, blackflies-they certainly bug people, but is it possible they caused the death of the dinosaurs through factors like "the cumulative, cascading effects of many diseases"? The Poinars, both research scientists, follow up their study of organisms preserved in amber (1999's The Amber Forest: A Reconstruction of a Vanished World) with a detailed study of insects' role in the life and extinction of Cretaceous plants and animals. In scientific but straightforward language, the Poinars advance convincingly the thesis that insects acted as vectors for pathogens, spreading bacteria, fungi and viruses to plants as well as dinosaurs, who then passed it on to others. Amazingly, evidence of these pathogens can be found within amber-entombed insects, providing "a picture of life 145.5 to 65.5 million years ago when insects and dinosaurs competed... and suffered from parasites and newly evolving diseases." Using current examples like Dutch elm disease, speculative scenarios of Cretaceous life and plenty of research data, the authors add an intriguing new dimension to the dinosaur apocalypse narrative: "periods of temperature change, marine regression, volcanic eruptions, and one or more meteor impacts.... a perfect setting for the spread of diseases." Color and line illus.
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Review

"Readers who love paleontology will feel the same way about this remarkable book." -- Fred Bortz, The Philadelphia Inquirer

"The scientific and, at times, technical, subject of this book is complemented by an often colorful narrative style." -- Aaron Brooks, ForeWord Magazine

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; illustrated edition edition (December 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691124310
• ISBN-13: 978-0691124315
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #626,167 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Darker Side of Jurassic Park, January 22, 2008

By	P. G. Wickberg "faceless bureaucrat" (Washington, DC, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Most dinosaur lovers will find this an interesting read, although a few of the reconstructions are not for the squeamish. In considering the heyday of the dinosaurs, books don't often mention that just like modern animals, they were tormented by the biting flies, mosquitoes and midges we find in amber today, weakened by parasites and fungus, and infected by lethal diseases carried by ticks, fleas and nematodes, some of which could have whittled down individual dinosaur populations beyond the point of recovery. Most people know that dragonflies and cockroaches have been around since before the dinosaurs, but the fact that the modern world's two deadliest infectious diseases, malaria and Leishmaniasis, were also around and may have killed off whole dinosaur herds was new to me. The Poinars don't carry their thesis quite to the point of claiming that parasites and disease were what ended the Age of the Dinosaurs, but they certainly present an alternate candidate worth thinking about.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Where were the editors?, December 23, 2008

By	James E. McVoy (Coatesville, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I agree with the reviewer who pointed out that the book is too long for the amount of information in it. At least sixty percent of the book is unscientific speculation and/or irrelevant drivel. The other annoying facet of the book is the frequency of grammatical errors - use of "than" for "then" to mention just one that occurs several times. One would think that Princeton could produce better than this. There is a kernal of interesting information and some wonderful photographs. It feels like there was material worthy of an article in a professional journal and someone suggested padding it into a book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thin skins, June 5, 2008

By	Harry Eagar (Maui) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I never consciously thought about it, but I guess I assumed that dinosaurs had thick, tough hides, like a rhinoceros. Apparently not.
George and Roberta Poinar, whose research interest is what fossil amber can reveal about ancient insects, say dino skin "was surprisingly thin and reptilian." This makes a difference, because the point of "What Bugged the Dinosaurs?" is that "biting insects were the top predators in the food chain" during the Cretaceous, not T. rex.
Conveniently, amber deposits, with engulfed insects, exist at 20-million-year intervals from the Age of Terrible Lizards, er, Terrible Insects. The oldest is from Lebanon, the middle deposit from Burma and the youngest (still 75 million years old) from Canada.
The authors discuss how amber works, consider such questions as "did dinosaurs or insects 'invent' flowering plants?" and then illustrate different kinds of insects well-preserved in amber: biting midges, sand flies, mosquitoes, blackflies, horseflies and deerflies, fleas and lice, ticks and mites (not insects) and parasitic worms (also not insects).
They consider what diseases these insects could have transmitted to dinosaurs and, in the grand finale, make an argument that insects could have been big players in one or more mass extinctions, including the end of the dinosaurs.
They don't dismiss the idea of a killer giant meteor, but they ask, "Since insect species represent the majority of animal diversity, why haven't they ever been mentioned in most discussions of mass extinctions?"
And they conclude, "We believe that disease played a significant role in dinosaur extinction during the terminal Cretaceous."
The book is well-illustrated with large scale color pictures of insects (and nematodes and other assorted critters) in amber.