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

What color was the ichthyosaur? How many calories did the megalodon require per day? Is it possible to fly on abdominal ribs (and what even are those)? What did snakes with legs, turtles without shells, or amphibians with fins 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 even ask. Using the example of 27 very different animals, renowned Russian biologist and science popularizer Andrei Zhuravlev tells us what we can learn from paleontological finds. Like the living, the most diverse creatures come before the reader - from tiny organisms that resemble worms and swam in the seas over half a billion years ago, to gigantic lizards whose steps shook the ground just over 40,000 years ago, and terrifying mega-sharks.