The Story of Birds by Steve Brusatte 

The Story of Birds by Steve Brusatte — an instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller from the author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs.

Birds are dinosaurs. They are the living legacy of a lineage that began among small carnivorous dinosaurs more than 150 million years ago and now includes more than 10,000 species sharing the planet with us.

Palaeontologist Steve Brusatte tells that story with the energy and clarity that made his dinosaur and mammal books bestsellers. He traces how feathers, wings, beaks, warm blood, song, and flight appeared one by one — and why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the asteroid impact 66 million years ago.

Along the way he introduces astonishing extinct species: elephant birds as tall as a basketball hoop, laying eggs the size of watermelons; “demon ducks” heavier than cows; seabirds with wingspans like a small aircraft; predatory penguins the size of gorillas. He also makes the living world newly strange: penguins that fly underwater, parrots that mimic speech, crows that make tools.

Lively, majestic, and full of wonder, The Story of Birds will change how you look at the pigeons on the pavement and the hawks in the sky.

From the bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs