Includes bibliographical references (p. [225]-252) and index.

Fossils : a time capsule -- The Cretaceous : a time of change -- Herbivory -- Dinosaurs competing with insects -- Did dinosaurs or insects "invent" flowering plants? -- Pollination -- Blights and diseases of Cretaceous plants -- The Cretaceous Age of chimeras and other oddities -- Sanitary engineers of the Cretaceous -- The case for entomophagy among dinosaurs -- Gorging on dinosaurs -- Biting midges -- Sand flies -- Mosquitoes -- Blackflies -- Horseflies and deerflies -- Fleas and lice -- Ticks and mites -- Parasitic worms -- The discovery of Cretaceous diseases -- Diseases and the evolution of pathogens -- Insects : the ultimate survivors -- Extinctions and the K/T boundary -- Appendix A. Cretaceous Hexapoda -- Appendix B. Key factors contributing to the survival of terrestrial animals -- Appendix C. Problems with evaluating the fossil record and extinctions.

This book reveals that T. rex was not the only killer in the Cretaceous: insects--from biting sand flies to disease-causing parasites--dominated life on the planet and played a significant role in the life and death of the dinosaurs. Analyzing exotic insects fossilized in Cretaceous amber at three major deposits in Lebanon, Burma, and Canada, the authors reconstruct the complex ecology of a hostile prehistoric world inhabited by voracious swarms of insects. They draw upon tantalizing new evidence from their discoveries of disease-producing vertebrate pathogens in Cretaceous blood-sucking flies, as well as intestinal worms and protozoa found in fossilized dinosaur excrement, to provide a unique view of how insects infected with malaria, leishmania, and other pathogens, together with intestinal parasites, could have devastated dinosaur populations.--From publisher description.