A best-selling book according to the *New York Times*
From \\renowned paleontologist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs, a comprehensive evolutionary history of birds, from their dinosaurian origins to the more than 10,000 extraordinary species that exist today.\\Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishing and diverse array of species found almost everywhere humans inhabit them, and in many places where we do not. With their magnificent plumage, joyful melodies at dawn, and exceptional aerial skills, birds have captured the human imagination for thousands of years. Undoubtedly delicate creatures, with hollow bones and thin skin protected by soft feathers, how did these apparently fragile species break the shackles of the earth and begin to fly? How did it survive for thousands of years? How does her legacy impact our world?Hated by National Geographic as “one of the stars of modern paleontology,” Steve Brusatte now tells an extraordinary story about the living legacy of dinosaurs: birds. It begins by exploring how dinosaurs gradually developed the hallmarks of birds one by one—feathers, wings, beaks, large brains, keen senses, and warm-blooded metabolisms. It examines why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive a catastrophic asteroid impact 66 million years ago, and chronicles howThese surviving birds multiplied rapidly to produce the enormous diversity of bird species we know today.
Along the way, we meet a variety of fascinating - now extinct - species:
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\ Terror birds 10 feet tall, with beaks that cut through flesh -\ Elephant birds that lived in Madagascar and laid eggs the size of an American football -\ Seabirds of the pelagornithid family with wingspans up to 20 feet long -\ A ferocious Jamaican ibis that uses its wings as sticks to attack rivals.However, Brusatte also urges us to appreciate the wonder of birds that exist today – penguins that literally fly underwater, parrots that can imitate human speech, and crows that can make tools and are smarter than most mammals.
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The book “The Story of Birds” presents a fascinating scientific history that reveals the origins of birds and establishes the living legacy of this wonderful species.
- One of the best books of 2026 according to *The New Yorker magazine!*
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