Michael J. Benton

My interests include the diversification of life through time, quality of the fossil record, shapes of phylogenies, age-clade congruence, mass extinctions, Triassic ecosystem evolution, basal diapsid phylogeny, basal archosaurs and the origin of the dinosaurs.

Current research projects focus on the end-Permian mass extinction, the greatest mass extinction of all time, and especially its effects on terrestrial organisms. This involves fieldwork in Russia and China. I am also working on large-scale aspects of dating the tree of life, the use of phylogenetic means to assess the quality of the rock and fossil records, and studying macroevolution using comparative phylogenetics approaches.

I am an enthusiastic book writer, and my latest include 'Dinosaurs: New Visions of a Lost World' (Thames & Hudson, London and New York, 2021), with stunning illustrations by Bob Nicholls. The first dinosaur book with reconstructions based on palaeontological knowledge of colour and pattern, and all fully explained. Also 'Dinosaur Behavior' (Princeton, 2025) showing the new evidence-based palaeontological approaches. New for 2027 is 'The Art of Making Dinosaurs: How Science and Imagination Bring Them to Life' (Vicky Coules & Mike Benton; Princeton) in which we track the interplay between science and the media in palaeontology for two centuries.