Like Living: Bipedal Snakes, Zombie Sharks, and Other Extinct Animals

What color was the ichthyosaur? How many calories did the megalodon need per day? Is it possible to fly on belly ribs (and what is that anyway)? What did legged snakes, shell-less turtles, or finned amphibians look like? Who ate whom, how did they move, and how did they breathe? Today, paleontology answers questions that just ten years ago no one would have dared to ask. Using examples of 27 very different animals, the renowned Russian biologist and science communicator Andrey Zhuravlev explains what we can learn from paleontological finds. Like living beings, the most diverse creatures come before the reader — from small organisms that resembled worms and swam in the seas more than half a billion years ago, to giant lizards whose steps shook the ground just over 40,000 years ago, and the terrifying mega sharks.