Why Dinosaurs Matter is a new TED book by paleontologist Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, who is mainly known for discovering the remains of the titanic sauropod Dreadnoughtus. In the book, he explores the world and time of the dinosaurs and what it can teach us about our own present and future.

He argues that, contrary to popular belief, dinosaurs were not slow, lumbering brutes who went extinct simply because they were incapable of adapting to the Earth's changing climate following some calamitous meteorite impact. Rather, he shows that dinosaurs were in fact quite intelligent and staggeringly efficient at every level of the food chain on every continent, and only met their demise due to large-scale circumstances they could never have foreseen or prevented.

My favorite description of the book so far comes from this Amazon review:

The father of geology, James Hutton, observed that the past is the key to the future. Much like a modern-day Hutton, Dr. Ken Lacovara takes us on a journey to the ancient past when dinosaurs ruled the land to understand the valuable lessons their evolution and their almost complete extinction can teach about mitigating the Sixth Extinction toward which we are blindly hurtling. Dr. Lacovara writes with clarity, passion and humor to engage us in the exciting path geologists and paleontologists travel to unearth and understand the reign and demise of these rulers of the Mesozoic.

Get Why Dinosaurs Matter in these formats:

• Kindle ($8)
• iBooks ($8)
• Hardcover ($12)
• Audible audiobook ($16)