Book Description

From China to Patagonia, award-winning science writer Wayne Grady accompanies a team of paleontologists on several digs. Following the work of Phil Currie, a leading vertebrate paleontologist, the author traces the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. Living in tents and experiencing fieldwork as well as the thrill of discovery firsthand, Grady recounts his journey with a storyteller's sense of narrative. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The logical connection: birds and dionosaurs
As its subtitle suggests, this book is a travelogue, its theme an exploration of the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and birds; but it would be a mistake to consider it an addition to the scientific literature. Like most modern travel stories, too much of this book is taken up by Grady's fleeting impressions and details, such as what kind of sandwiches he ate in Argentina. While trying to follow the paleontological thread of the adventure, readers are led into long digressions on Tarzan, cars named after animals, the tango, and other decidedly nonscientific topics. The science can be mildly interesting when it appears, but even it is handicapped by errors such as identifying Dimetrodon as a dinosaur and trilobites as crustaceans, and Haeckel's Law (stages in an organism's embryonic development and differentiation correspond to stages of evolutionary development characteristics of the species) taken too seriously. There are several gratuitous stabs at the "Victorian mind" and its alleged inability to fully comprehend evolution or sex, forgetting that this is the society that produced and nurtured Darwin and Huxley. The one explicit conclusion here is that if birds and dinosaurs can be evolutionarily linked, somehow the "comforting picture" of creation once provided by religion can be reassembled. Not for academic audiences.

Is there life after a species becomes extinct?
How are modern birds related to dinosaurs, and is there life after a species becomes extinct? Grady reveals the work and perspectives of paleontologist Phil Currie, who is the leading proponent of the bird-dinosaur theory. Grady does more than review theory: he traveled with Currie in China and experienced the drudgery of fieldwork first hand. An excellent set of insights is presented.

A flight of bones
Taking us from Argentina through Alberta to Africa, Grady's admirably mixes his keen sense of observation with vivid descriptive skills. He doesn't simply interview the field workers, but joins the digs, suffering the dust, storms, bugs and labour alongside the scientists. He maintains his sense of humour, however. The result is a highly readable book on the paleontologist's work.

The idea that the dinosaurs escaped extinction 65 million years ago, surviving in the form of birds has been a major point of discussion among scientists during the past few years. We follow Grady on his journey from Patagonia through China to the Alberta badlands in revealing much of the new evidence touching on that question. In the course of that trek he introduces us to a gallery of field researchers dealing with that and other uestions about life in the remote past. Grady's focal point is Canadian paleontologist Phil Currie. Currie, a man who long ago might have escaped the rigors of field research for a quiet laboratory, remains captivated by digs, with their constant surprises and revelations. Grady is gratified to see Currie stay Canadian, increasing attention to the high level of this science being done here. Canada's fossil record has been handled poorly, from indifference by Ottawa to being scavenged by the Americans. We've lost too many good researchers, as Grady points out. His book goes a long way to restoring Canada's place in paleontology.

Grady's account of the work of a field paleontologist is a very human tale. Given that he's a writer rather than a professional bone hunter, this is no mean feat. We are shown the ordeals and triumphs fieldwork provides. It's hard, demanding work, requiring some special skills. Beyond the question of endurance is the ability to focus your mind on what you seek in order that your eyes will isolate it from the surrounding rock. It isn't just luck that turns up fossils.

If there's a shortcoming to this book, it's the lack of further presentation on the issue of dinosaurs becoming birds. While it's gratifying that Grady emphasizes Canadian scientists, he completely overlooks the contribution to the evolutionary links of dinosaurs and birds made by Robert Bakker. Bakker's mentor, John Ostrom, receives a scattering of passing mention, but Bakker's studies are far too important to ignore. Even a footnote would have redeemed this issue. Still, the book is a fine start to understanding the dinosaur-bird issue. ... Read more

Book Description

In this illustrated work, Kurtén offers a vivid panorama of vertebrate animal life as it unfolded during the more than three million years before humans came to the New World. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

One of the better books on Ice Age animals
Dr. Kurten's status as the pre-eminent expert on Ice Age megafauna is unchallenged. One of the most fortunate facets of this professor's expertise is his ability to transmit the fruits of that vast knowledge to his readers in a lively, interesting, easily readable, and well-organized fashion. This book is an apt example. Without overwhelming the reader by overuse of taxonomic names, statistics, or anatomical terms, Dr. Kurten offers a novel view of the Ice Age animals that dominated North America before the coming of man.

Rather than preceding along anatomical or taxonomic lines, Dr. Kurten moves forward through time, beginning in the Pliocene epoch that immediately preceded the Quaternary period. Dr. Kurten divides the time period by use of the Blancan, Irvingtonian and Rancho LaBrean periods, rather than through more traditional European time periods. By use of these American-based dividing lines, he is enabled to discuss not only individual North American species, but how the American animal community evolved and prospered into one like the world has never seen.

The reader is not only treated to discussions about familiar animals such as the sabertoothed cat, and the mammoth, but can be exposed to and learn about such creatures as the scimitar cat, the Florida cave bear, the American camel, zebra and lion,
and giant extinct condors, among many others. You will learn about the evolution of bison, and about the many animals that migrated to the Americas from Eurasia over the exposed Bering Straits during the height of the Ice Age.

The book is unendingly fascinating, and one wishes he or she could be transported in time back to the day when these now-departed creatures made the American plains and forests teem with life. I recommend this book very highly to all, especially high schoolers with a little scientific background.

Evokes a sense of North America's (recently) lost Serengeti
Kurten at al have described the wonderful variety of large mammals that lived in North America for millions of years, until as recently as 13,000 years ago. Saber- and scimitar-toothed cats, camels, sloths, mastodons, lions, cheetahs and other animals combined to make North America a teeming home to large game more diverse than Africa now has. Many fine illustrations accompany the text.

The book is well-written, easily accessible to the interested lay person and does not require college level understanding of morphological bone analysis. Having been to southern Africa in 1997, I now cannot drive or hike through rural North America without imaging mammoths, tapirs, bear-sized beavers, one-ton running bears, and glyptodonts coming to the watering holes and browsing and grazing their way across the landscape.

For a comprehensive college-level treatment, see "Quaternary Extinctions," Paul Martin and Richard Klein, editors. ... Read more

Book Description

Uncover the intriguing world beneath our feet

Rocks and Fossils reveal the state of the planet now and what the future may bring, including clues about the shifting, changing nature of the continents, mountain ranges, oceans, and islands.

Rocks and Fossils is a beautifully illustrated book that brings life to the seemingly timeless landscape. It explains geological concepts in relevant and familiar terms. Lively illustrations reveal a vast, hidden world via cross-sections and cutaways with explanatory captions.

The book explores the internal engine of our planet -- the liquid iron core unique among terrestrial planets, which is the catalyst for the creation and destruction of land, mountain, and oceans.

Rocks and Fossils is organized in six main sections: - The Dynamic Earth: the ever-changing nature of the world - Ancient Worlds: life from the Precambrian era to the age of humans - Key Features: how rocks and fossils form - Rocks and Fossils in the Landscape: where to find fossils - Minerals: How they form and why some are precious - Fossils: signs of life from single-cell organisms to dinosaurs.

Rocks and Fossils explains the fossil record to show how prehistoric lifeforms are linked to plants and animals still on Earth. Why did some species survive and others perish? What does the future hold? ... Read more

Book Description

This is a comprehensive treatment of dinosaurs designed to be used mainly as a textbook for students in first or second year undergraduate courses, although non-specialists are also sure to find the book of great interest. Nonetheless, it is unique in that it truly portrays dinosaurs from a specialist viewpoint. It is the only comprehensive text that takes an explicitly phylogenetic approach to this group. The geological context of dinosaurs is also stressed, and dinosaurs are presented in the context of contemporary plate tectonic and climatic settings. The authors also cover topics of interest in dinosaur palaeobiology, 'hot-blooded' dinosaurs, aspects of dinosaur functional morphology and the relationships of dinosaurs to birds. All of the discussion is couched in lively and accessible language, and the book is lavishly illustrated by specially commissioned line drawings and colour plates that show dinosaurs in a variety of natural settings. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs
The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs written by David E. Fastovsky and David B. Weishampel is primarily designed as a textbook. Although very readable this text can be used as a resource, the chapters build sequentially reflecting the nature our the science.

The idea within this text is simple: to use dinosaurs as an attractive vehicle to understand aspects of natural history. The dinosaurs are presented here in a phylogenetic context. The prose of phylogenetic systematics, however, can be rather vexing. For this reason, chapters in which the great groups of dinosaurs are discussed individually -in particular, Chapters 6 through 12- are organized in consistant fashion, making it easier for skimming the descriptions and systematic paleontology by going to the "Paleobiology and Paleoecology sections in the above chapters.

This text presents dinosaurs as professionals understand them... the study of dinosaurs has much to do with the history of life and of the earth, with the nature of nature, and with who we are. There are several photographs provided by museums and institutions giving the book greatly needed illustration.

Because dinosaurs have been known since 1818, a good deal is understood; by the same token, a 20-year-old revolution in methods of studying them has only in the last 10 really begun to overturn long-held ideas about them and their 160-million-year history on earth.

This textbook is divided into four parts where each part has subsequent chapters and is very well organized. The parts are:

Part 1: Setting the Stage... here we have five chapters, The introduction; The Mesozoic Era: Back to the Past; Discovering Order in the Natural World; Interrelationships of the Vertebrates; and The Origin of Dinosauria.

Part 2: Ornithischia... here we have five chapters, Stegosauria: Hot Plates; Ankylosauria: Mass and Gas;
Pachycephalosauria: Head-To-Head, with malice aforethought; Ceratopsia: Horns, Frills, and Slice-And-Dice; Ornithopoda: The Tuskers, Antelopes, and the Mightly Ducks of the Mesozoic

Part 3: Saurischia... here we have three chapters, Sauropodomorpha: The Big, The Bizarre, and The Majestic; Theropoda I: Nature Red in Tooth and Claw; and Theropoda II: The Origins of Birds.

Part 4: Endothermy, Environments, and Extinction where there are four chapters, Dinosaur Endothermy: Some Like it Hot; Dinosaurs in Space and Time; Reconstructing Extinctions: The Art of Science; and The Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction: The Frill is Gone.

There is an extensive glossary, taxonomic index of genera, and subject index helping to reader along and for further information. If you treat this book as a textbook you can use the information found in this book to further your knowledge in the realm of dinosauria.

This is a solid 4 star book filled with information. It may read dryly at times but the information contained within its pages is invaluable.

While a Good Book, I Agree It Is Unnecessarily Dry
After reading this book---not for a class---as well as all the reviews below, I also agree with the reviewer from Albuquerque that this text could have been better written. Mr. Brackett, in his criticisms of this reviewer's comments seems to assume much about the reviewer's character and comments based upon the reviewer's status as a student, without really addressing the reviewer's comments. This book DOES err in overly emphasizing the technical at the expense of descriptive or a vivid reconstruction of a natural history of dinosaurs, and cladisitic studies, while necessary and appropriate, do dominate the text. While this is perhaps to be expected, based upon the context, subject and background of the authors, there is little question that a work such as this could offer far more if it were written with a broader emphasis upon a recreation of its subject, while at the same time including the technical data necessary for a full comprehension of the subject. Technical and academic writers often tend to write to their own peer group, without considering or being aware of the extent of their potential audience. Mr Brackett's blithe dismissal of a "student's" criticism of the text based entirely upon his or her status as a student reflects at best an attitude more exclusionary than inclusive, and does not meaningfully respond to the student's criticisms of this text. While this book remains the benchmark of texts upon the subject, there is little question that it could be written with greater verve and expression of the interest that the subject should inherently generate. After all, an introductory text should reach out to stimulate interest in its subject to a wide audience, and the study of dinosaurs certainly possesses no dearth of potential interest. I feel that this can be accomplished with the commensurate amount of technical detail without becoming the artifact of Pop culture Mr. Brackett seems so afraid of.

Best Book Out There About Dinosaurs For Educated Dino-Fans
I cannot say enough good things about this text! It covers the bulk of the dinosaur research up to the time that writing of the book ended and does so in a fairly unjudgmental fashion. It makes a point to show the multiple views of the arguments found within its covers. The authors' writing is also in a style that encourages the reader to continue reading, and is quite lively in places which gives new "spring" to the reader's "steps" as they journey through.

This book starts by introducing the reader to fossils and their collecting. It then sets the stage of "when" the book is speaking of so as to aid the reader's understanding of the subject. In setting this "when" the book discusses subjects like plate tectonics, stratigraphy and climatology. It then explains about how paleontology classifies creatures and a bit about organic evolution. After this the book talks of the relationships between the various animals out in the world which have backbones, collectively called vertebrates. This is the first four chapters and 94 pages setting the stage for the reader. Some may describe this as "boring" but it is necessary for a greater understanding of the dinosaur section of the text. In chapter five we are introduced to the origin of dinosaurs both as animals in the Mesozoic Time and in modern science in the 19th Century. This ends Part I of the text.

Parts II & III, 8 chapters and 216 pages, are where all the dinosaur lovers want to be - the parts that actually discuss the various types of dinosaurs. Part II talks of Ornithischia or "bird-hipped" dinosaurs while Part III is about Saurischia or "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs. What is absolutely inspired is the structure of each of the dinosaur chapters. Each chapter starts speaking of the history of the discoveries of that type of dinosaur's fossils. It then defines that general type of dinosaur and proceeds with talking about the diversity of that type and its evolutionary path. After that the book takes the reader into the Paleobiology and Paleoecology on that dinosaur type - the FUN STUFF! Why is it the FUN STUFF? Because most of these sections of each of these chapters is educated dreaming or speculation. The authors speak on a variety of matters such as the feeding, reproductive and social habits of these animals and they do so credibly without resorting to uncontrolled flights of fancy.

Part IV carries the learning experience on through some final serious issues concerning dinosaurs. Were they endothermic or "warm-blooded"? How were they distributed through the Mesozoic Era? What is an extinction? Lastly, what is and caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction where dinosaurs disappeared? What is commendable is that the authors describe all of the possible theories for the dinosaurs' extinction.

Some prior reviewers have made disparaging comments on the illustrations and diagrams found herein. I, too, wish there were more illustrations and diagrams, especially artwork and illustrations from some of the leading artisans in the PaleoArt field. BUT I have purchased enough textbooks in my college career to realize that the authors have made some financial considerations for those who would be buying this book. If they had acquired what could be considered a dreamy-level of quality illustrations for this book, my experience dictates that this volume would have been as much as 75% more expensive, thereby being almost useless to its main target audience, "Intro to Paleo" students. Why? Because no college faculty member would expect ones students to spend such an outrageous amount on an intro text. Simply, lots of high quality art is nice, but is extremely expensive because the artists and their work are worth a goodly sum.

In closing, I must comment on a prior reviewer's review. The reviewer had several complaints. Too much cladistics, too many chronologies, too much on evolutionary relationships, laughable illustrations and poor writing to only name a few of them. I feel that the reviewer should not have reviewed this book. Why? Because all the reviewer is doing is whining about how this book (and most likely the reviewer's Intro-to-Paleo professor) did not spoon-feed the reviewer enough. The reviewer wanted an introductory hard science class to be of the hand-feeding sort that a documentary for general-public consumption can be, and that expectation is unreasonable, but unfortunately typical in this day and age. I am not saying that "Walking With Dinosaurs" was a documentary series with poor science in it. I am saying that anyone who has the expectation that a hard science book and class, even an introductory one, is going to be written like "pop" TV needs to have another look at reality. If someone wants a dinosaur book of the entertainment-only variety, I would direct them to any of the quality children's-level volumes from DK publishing. If those are still not entertaining enough, then the only stop left of any quality would be The Magic Schoolbus series for elementary/primary school children. Otherwise, if you, the reader, can handle some science and like dinosaurs, this book by Fastovsky and Weishampel is the book to springboard you into the exciting and challenging area called Dinosaur Vertebrate Paleontology!

Dry and Overly Devoted to Cladistic Studies
This was the required text for a class I recently attended. Despite earlier reviewers' accolades, I found this work exceedingly dry, with pages upon pages devoted to morphology, philogeny and cladograms, in some cases the bulk of individual chapters. While all of this is obviously important, little is present descriptively in terms of what individual species may have looked like, beyond their bone structure, the environments they inhabited, or the natural history of their lives. Instead, pages upon pages are devoted to chronologies of when individual species were first discovered and where, as well as cladograms diagramming where evolutionarily each species and family exists. The former, when occupying much of the book, is tiresome, and the latter, while helpful, without further descriptive and narrative substance exists only as a sterile evolutionary chronology. And, I agree, the illustrations are rather laughable in terms of skill of rendering.

If this is the best that is available, as some reviewers have asserted, then the state of paleontological writing is very poor indeed. Someone who can actually write, beyond the technical, needs desperately to be found who can infuse some descriptive life into these reading. While the actual subjects may long be dead, there is no reason for the readings to be, as is evidenced in the recent and largely excellent, if at times speculative, Discovery series "Walking with Dinosaurs." And teachers need to be aware that while they may salivate over the technical details of their particular subject or area of interest, the average student will hardly find such dry detail by itself particularly captivating.

outstanding
As an avid dinosaur buff, this undergraduate level textbook is a mandatory part of one's collection. The text is very readable yet complete, filling a void between child-oriented dinosaur books and books written for professional paleontologists. I must confess I could not put the book down. Although it is several hundred pages in length, I read the book in less than a week. Topics range from basic dinosaur paleontology to special subjects such as the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and birds. If you are a dino-phile, this textbook is a must-read.

Brett J. Guinn, MD ... Read more

Book Description

Rocks, Fossils and Dinosaurs is part of a four-book series, The Nature Companions; practical guides to observing and appreciating the wonders of the natural world. This spectacular series provides readers with a thorough understanding of topics such as skywatching, birding, natural habitat gardening, and rocks and fossils.Written in clear, accessible text by acclaimed scientists and specialists in each field, each book contains a wealth of images by the world's foremost photographers and detailed, specially commissioned illustrations. Designed for enthusiasts of all ages, The Nature Companions series is a comprehensive source of reference that belongs in the personal library of all those who are curious to learn more about the world around them. ... Read more

Book Description

Other than seeing them in popular movies such as Jurassic Park, how do people today know what dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals looked like? Only their fossils remain, but thanks to paleoartists most people have a good idea of what these creatures looked like.

The world of paleoart and its artists are the subject of this richly illustrated work. It explores themes in the depiction of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, paleoart’s history and speculative nature and its effect on scientists’ impressions of prehistoric animals. Also explored are such topics as the careers of several paleoartists, including Georges Cuvier, Gideon Mantell, John Martin, Neave Parker, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Charles R. Knight, the depiction of scientific ideas about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals on canvas and in sculpture, the purpose and process of restoring them in museums, the significance of certain restorations and images, and the development of paleoart in America. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Wonderful Book
This is truely a great and informative book. The artwork in it is very well done and I've learned so much more than I thought I would from it. I recommend this to anybody with an interest in dinosaurs or evolution. It's totally worth it!

Exceptional account of 'paleoart' history!
Loved it! 'Paleoimagery' conveys many original & somewhat personalized insights concerning the genre of paleoart (without emphasis on dinosaur movies), capturing the topical & historical essence of the genre. Numerous figures illustrate key points within the text. A 'must' for anyone who enjoys the art of prehistoric wildlife.

Don't let the cover fool you....
Don't let the cover fool you. When I saw this book about Paleo-art, I was expecting beautful color illustrations. Not so! Everything in the book is black and white, and the printing quality is terrible. The text may be good, but as an art book-no; also, it cost almost fifty-dollars. Save your money. I 've seen cheaper books on the same theme. Thanks ... Read more

Book Description

The spellbinding story of the search for the first conclusive evidence of human evolution

Men killed for them, stole for them, and died for them. "Dragon bones," coveted throughout China for their medicinal powers, are in reality animal fossils, ground down and sold through back-street Chinese apothecaries. Yet at one time these "dragon bones" proved more valuable than anyone had imagined, for they led to the unearthing of one of the most famous hominid fossils of all time-Peking Man. The Peking Man fossils were the first convincing evidence that humans arose from apelike hominids.

Penny van Oosterzee has written a riveting historical account of the discovery of Peking Man, from the excavation of one small fossilized molar to the mysterious disappearance of the fossils at the beginning of the Second World War. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Good social background, poor science
As a science writer and paleoanthropologist, I was excited to see a new treatment of the Peking Man fossil discoveries, which are intriguing, important, and wonderfully mysterious. The author does a nice job of recounting the many familiar old stories about Peking Man and its tragic loss during the Japanese invasion of China, though I had hoped for new material or insights. She provides some useful background about political and social movements in China. Where she strikes out completely is in presenting the factual content of what we know about human evolution. Her account of the evolution of the human lineage from an apelike ancestor is not simply eccentric, it is downright fictional. She actually invents and names new groups of human ancestors (without evidence) that I have never heard ANY anthropologist discuss. I am horrified that anyone would think this a good introduction to human evolution.

An excellent general introduction to anthropology!
Penny Van Oosterzee's, 'Dragon Bones : The Story of Peking Man' is one of the best books that I have read regarding this subject. 'Dragon Bones' is presented in an unpretentious and non-academic style that will appeal to a wide range of readers. Van Oosterzee also puts forth an interesting scenario for the missing bones of the Peking Man. So if you love adventure, mystery, or anthropology then I would highly recommend reading 'Dragon Bones'. This book would also make an excellent general introduction text for undergraduates taking their first anthropology class in college.

Fascinating Story of Linking Humans to Apes
This is the story of how human perspective shifted from the perspective of a literal reading of the Bible to pursuing the implications of Darwin's work in search of human origins. Darwin speculated that there would be a link between humans and apes. How was that link to be investigated?

Before Darwin, fossils were a curiosity rather than a source of scientific study. This wonderful book focuses on the activities that led to locating an important set of fossils (Peking Man) in China.

Unlike most such books, the perspective is quite varied. The author talks about how uneducated Chinese perceived fossils, how apothecaries used them to make medicines, what life as a human precursor might have been like in China, the task of finding the fossil sources, convincing scholars that this was significant, and the battle to save the fossils (unsuccessfully). The story-telling style is wonderful, so this reads more like an adventure novel (almost like Indiana Jones) rather than dry scientific history. The photographs are very helpful in expanding the reader's understanding of the subject.

The backdrop of a rapidly modernizing China going through foreign interference and civil wars is a powerful context for a fascinating pursuit of human knowledge. Overcome your disbelief stall that scholarship moves quickly and surely to accurate conclusions. The pathway is much more like two steps forward, one step backward, three steps sidewise, and then two steps diagonally. You will also enjoy the perspective of the other key prehuman fossils, their discovery, and what was learned from each.

Even if you have no interest in evolution or anthropology, you will find this book a great read.

Innovative and Gripping
Dragon Bones is an exciting historical account of the discovery of Peking Man and the mysterious disappearance of the fossil during World War Two. The author, Penny van Oosterzee explores the discovery of the important anthropological fossil from many different perspectives, and sets it against the background of the Chinese civil war. She skilfully explores the importance of the find.

The story is convincingly told with authoritative descriptions of the political and social climate of the time. She captures the obsessive determination of the anthropologists who laboured on, oblivious to the political and social vortex in which China found herself throughout the Boxer Revolution. I am not a science reader however the author has balanced the science and factual content with an innovative and gripping story which captivates the reader. This is a read that I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend.

Dragon Bones - the big story
Brilliant, I really enjoyed it. Written for easy reading and the story flows well. Not just the story of the paleantology but the personalities too. The story of the discovery of our past ond origins in the same league as Dava Sobel's Latitude and Micheal Allin's Zarafa.

Especially liked the final message which confirmed a suspicion which I've been harbouring for some years - what was the difference between H. erectus and H. sapiens? I was pleased to hear Penny suggest they are one and the same. It gets around the impossibility of how the whole species evolved planet wide in so brief a time.

What's next? ... Read more

Book Description

How did the larger dinosaurs run? How and why did they fight? The author applies laws of physics, mechanical engineering and aerodynamics to answer these and other questions. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Dinosaurs seen as engineering problems
A lot of things about dinosaurs (and other extinct large animals) we will never know. And a lot of questions are out there. Questions like "Could Tyrannosaurus rex run?", "What was their top speed?", "Did sauropods hold their neck horizontally or vertically?" or "Could large quadrupedal dinosaurs rear up on their hind legs?"

This book treats the animals that these questions are about as "nothing more" than engineering projects, similar to large buildings, bridges or mechanical machines.

Using realistic values for things like compressability and tensile stress properties of substances like bones, cartilage, tendons, etc. and using laws of physics and formulas from structural engineering Alexander tries to answer some of these questions.

The results are very interesting. If you're interesting in dinosaurs and how they really could have been in real life, this is a book you should not miss. ... Read more

Book Description

The date is January 11, 1911. A young German paleontologist, accompanied only by a guide, a cook, four camels, and a couple of camel drivers, reaches the lip of the vast Bahariya Depression after a long trek across the bleak plateau of the western desert of Egypt. The scientist, Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach, hopes to find fossil evidence of early mammals. In this, he will be disappointed, for the rocks here will prove to be much older than he thinks. They are nearly a hundred million years old. Stromer is about to learn that he has walked into the age of the dinosaurs.

At the bottom of the Bahariya Depression, Stromer will find the remains of four immense and entirely new dinosaurs, along with dozens of other unique specimens. But there will be reversals—shipments delayed for years by war, fossils shattered in transit, stunning personal and professional setbacks. Then, in a single cataclysmic night, all of his work will be destroyed and Ernst Stromer will slip into history and be forgotten.

The date is January 11, 2000—eighty-nine years to the day after Stromer descended into Bahariya. Another young paleontologist, Ameri-can graduate student Josh Smith, has brought a team of fellow scientists to Egypt to find Stromer’s dinosaur graveyard and resurrect the German pioneer’s legacy. After weeks of digging, often under appalling conditions, they fail utterly at rediscovering any of Stromer’s dinosaur species.

Then, just when they are about to declare defeat, Smith’s team discovers a dinosaur of such staggering immensity that it will stun the world of paleontology and make headlines around the globe.

Masterfully weaving together history, science, and human drama, The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt is the gripping account of not one but two of the twentieth century’s great expeditions of discovery. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

a very nice journey into field paleontology
This book is absolutely great reading. What it makes the book very interesting is the dual story. There is always a very good alternation of passages which describe Ernst Stromers expedition in 1912-14 to the Baharia Oasis (Egypt) on the one hand and the recent expedition of Josh Smith on the other hand.
Apart from this it is told a piece of paleontology which has been nearly "forgotten" although Baharia has been the origin of very unique predatory dinosaur species. In the years of 1912-14 Stromer excavated bones of three big theropods: Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and Bahariyasaurus. As a continuation of this story which has been sleeping for so many years we get to know how Josh Smiths team has solved the riddle Stromer left: the discovery of a huge plant-eating new dinosaur species: Paralititan. For everybody who is interested in an entertaining story on straight field paleontology I can recommend this book.

The book additionally contains 2 very fine passages with b/w photos. The first one shows photos and the well known monographs from Stromer while the second one shows impressions from Josh Smiths expedition. The second passage also contains two very fine life restorations and skeletal reconstructions of Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus as well as of the new discovered Paralititan.

Twice-Lost Dinosaurs
"The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt" is the fascinating account of the rediscovery of the work of a German paleontologist in Egypt.Just prior to First World War, Ernst Stromer, a Bavarian aristocrat, made a remarkable discovery in a particularly inhospitable region of Egypt: the fossil remains of three different huge carnivorous dinosaurs.Painstakingly reassembled in Munich, they were destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in 1944.In 2000, a group of young American scientists returned to the area where Stromer had worked, unvisited by paleontologists in the intervening nine decades, and there discovered bones of what is believed to be the second-largest dinosaur ever, an 80 ton plant-eating behemoth.

The book juxtaposes these two stories in an entertaining and informative way.Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach of Nuremberg arrived in Egypt and headed off to his dig with four boxes of water, a handful of camels, a Bohemian assistant who was not feeling very well but knew about collecting bones, an Egyptian in charge of the camels and their drivers and a cook.Stromer was looking for evidence of early mammals but instead stumbled onto an unknown and important dinosaur graveyard.He was correct and precise and meticulous and quite brilliant.With his little band he made amazing discoveries but the coming war overshadowed everything.The Bohemian assistant died and the cases of fossils, damaged by inept handling, did not reach the now-impoverished Stromer until 1922.For the next twelve years he wrote up wonderful monographs on his Egyptian dinosaurs.One of them, Spinosaurus, looked like a giant T-Rex with a sail on its back.But only the monographs survived the bombing raid.Stromer was a respected man of science but did not suffer fools.It appears that his opposition to the Nazi regime came with a heavy price as two of his three sons died in the war, and the third son was a Russian POW for six years.He himself was twice threatened with deportation to a concentration camp for urging the removal of the natural history collection in Munich to a safer location.After his death in 1952, he and the wonderful dinosaurs seem to have been forgotten.

The time, but not the scene, switches and we enjoy reading about the antics of a group of enthusiastic young Americans, paleontologists and geologists, who decided to mount an expedition to the same Bahariya Depression where Stromer went.But this is a an expedition in a different century, and the group travelled with Land Rovers and GPS equipment and a film crew and actually stayed in a rustic hotel near the dig rather than in a ready-to-blow-away tent that served for Stromer.But besides their somewhat better equipment-it still seems to come down to picks and shovels and hard physical labour-the group brought an interdisciplinary approach and the advantages of nine decades of additional science and understanding.Part of the interest in the newer story is the importance that the group places in trying to understand what kind of environment the dinosaurs of the time faced.

The book conveys the excitement of an expedition very well.First there is the hassle of fund-raising and then the irritation of all the paperwork and the physical discomforts and the fruitless searching.But then there are breakthroughs, sometimes lucky, and then there is the ultimate detective work of adding up all the little shards and scraps and a 5 foot long humerus and some rock profiles and coming up with an answer to what this all means.

One of the great riddles posed by Stromer's finds was how three large types of carnivores could co-exist.This discovery of the huge herbivore answered this question nicely.But the book also makes the important point that very little is really known about dinosaurs since the fossil record is so incomplete.I was astonished to learn that fewer than 500 species of dinosaur have been definitively identified, amazingly few for the millions of years they existed on earth.As a comparison, there are about 330 known species of in the parrot family alone!

The authors do not mention that fact that the number of field paleontologists is minute and that the startling discoveries of the last decades have been the result of dedicated work by only a handful of people around the world."The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt" tells an exciting story while recognizing the accomplishments of the past and would be a fine addition to the library of any student considering a career in this field.

To digress, this is not a book for specialists but that is not to condemn it in any way."Popular science" is a genre that is often sniffed at but there is a huge demand to be filled.At a time when 18 percent of Americans 18-24 years of age cannot even identify where the United States is on a map, anything that arouses intellectual curiosity should be welcomed.That this book is simply-written and provides a summary of the history of paleontolgy is a good thing; that it was filmed and turned into a television documentary even better.

It is to the credit of the team of Americans that they have recognized the achievements of their predecessor in the desert in a particularly apt way.The prepared bones of the giant herbivore will return to Egypt, where they will be displayed with the creature's newly-assigned name: Paralititan stromeri.

Good popular science for a teenager
This book does a very good job of telling the story of a very minor piece of scientific research, the discovery of yet another species of large dinosaur (of which there are many) and the geological context in which it may have lived.Thus, as science, it is small potatoes.It does, however, cast the tale in the midst of a good review of elementary geology and paleontology, and consequently, should be accessible even to those who the read the book starting in complete ignorance of those fields.It fails to credit the Alvarezes (a physicist and a geologist) by name for finding out what happened to the dinosaurs, but that may only be the paleonotologist's resentment at having their best puzzle stolen from them by a physicist who didn't dug up so much as a single fossilized bone.

Overall, this is a book for fifteen year olds, but it is a good one.

A Tale of Two Expeditions
If you pick up a copy of _The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt_ (Random House), you will find, quite appropriately, that it bears a photograph of a desert setting on which a skeletal outline of a dinosaur is superimposed.But if you open it up and start reading, there seems as if there is something wrong: "Wing Commander G. Leonard Cheshire arrived at the Royal Air Force's aerodrome at Woodhall Spa on the morning of April 24, 1944 ..."It is a surprising start to an amazing story, written by William Nothdurft, with a co-author credit to Josh Smith, the leader of the most recent expedition to find the Egyptian dinosaurs.That expedition repeated the hunt in the area in 1911 by Ernst Stromer, a German physician who had caught the paleontology bug.Throughout the book, Stromer's story is interwoven with Smith's, in a narrative that is more exciting than that about fossil hunting has any right to be.

Stromer's makeshift expedition was heroic.He traveled to the Bahariya Oasis in the Saharan desert, specifically looking for fossils of ancient mammals, and was unprepared to send back the monstrous bone specimens he found.He got back to Munich, but it was only after years of delay (the Great War didn't help) that he got all his specimens.Eventually, as a result of British bombing raids in 1944, and because no one would heed his warnings that his fossils needed special protection, the specimens were lost when their museum was bombed.No paleontologists returned to the uninviting Bahariya for decades, until Josh Smith, a graduate student, got the idea of going.The book has an excellent account of the trip, the politicking for funds, the dangers of the field, and the excitement of making a scientific difference.

Besides being a history, and a personal account, however, _The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt_ tells how paleontology has been done in the past and is done now.The bizarre roles of good luck and bad run through both Smith's and Stromer's endeavors.Smith's expedition verified Stromer's findings and made their own, including the second most massive dinosaur known, _Paralititan stromeri_ (note the tribute in the species name).It also shows the importance of the expedition to paleontology overall.Smith and his fellow explorers were able to answer Stromer's riddle of how the huge meat-eating dinosaurs of the area found anything to eat; Stromer described mostly predators.There were discoveries, too, about the ecosystem that is now desert; the geologists on the team (one of them Smith's wife) discovered that the best explanation for the varieties of dinosaur they found in the desert is that millions of years ago, it was not desert at all, but a coastal mangrove swamp.There are plenty of surprises here, with an attractive cast of eager young paleontologists who take on the roles of fools rushing in where experts fear to tread.

WELL DONE AND WELL WORTH THE READ
This is absolutely a delightful book. Not only is it a good adventure book, it actually teaches.Being a nonscientist and more or less semi-ignorant of such things and old bones, geology, and leaping lizard type creatures, I found it to be quite informative without overloading me with massive doses of Greek and Latin vocabulary (of which I forgot all I knew shortly after high school). It put human faces on the professional crew who took part in this scientific adventure.After reading the bios on the participants, I certainly would like to read more of their travels and work.Thank you Mr Nothdurft, Drs. Smiths, et al. ... Read more

Book Description

“A superb introduction to paleontology as it really is and how it is done, from fish to dinosaur, bird, and mammal.” —Edward O. Wilson

Michael Novacek, a renowned paleontologist who has discovered important fossils on virtually every continent, is an authority on patterns of evolution and on the relationships among extinct and extant organisms. Time Traveler is his captivating account of how his boyhood enthusiasm for dinosaurs became a lifelong commitment to vanguard science. Novacek writes of the alluring perils of fieldwork with affection and discernment, and he illuminates the most exciting issues in paleontology today.
... Read more

Reviews (14)

The travels began in childhood
And so does Novacek's book. So right away we know that TIME TRAVELER is not merely a recounting of paleontological studies. They certainly remain as one of the main topics of discussion and the trips to Mongolia, Yemen, and Chile read like adventures rather than scientific expeditions. Interwoven throughout is Novacek's personal story and recollections. There was nothing to indicate that the ten year old who was "more of a Beaver Cleaver type than a young Indiana Jones" would eventually go on to become one of our foremost paleontologists. Novacek recounts a fairly normal, middle-class life, growing up in suburban Los Angeles. His admission that he "liked crawling around in the dirt and mud, turning over rocks, and looking at things through binoculars and microscopes" is however insufficient evidence of a budding scientist. Didn't we all do the same? The difference perhaps is that when the opportunity arose to loose himself in the world of girls and music, Novacek remained enthused with the fossilized world.

His enthusiasm is still there and it's captivating. The thrill he gets from discovery, the joy of the outdoors, and the sense of adventure are all reminiscent of our own simple childhood pleasures. Novacek's willingness to share these feelings with us and the writing style which enhances it, makes this a very refreshing reading experience. It's not all fun and enjoyment however. He tells of illness and infections, insect bites and stings, and injury. Deadly places and dangerous people provided their own challenges.

Science remains the serious subject connecting all the personal stories and travel adventures. As such Novacek delves into current topics in paleontology such as extinctions and loss of biodiversity, continental drift, and dinosaur and mammalian evolution. In the debate about the origins of birds he comes down firmly on the side of a dinosaurian origin. He adds his own support to the view that dinosaurs are not extinct by saying "the survivors were of course birds." On another subject where the majority of recent writers are in agreement (Bjorn Lomborg excepted), Novacek agrees that the loss of biodiversity is a critical issue. Near the end he offers a view that is far from cheerful and refreshing and as such jangles with the joie de vivre which characterized so much of the book. His statement that "paleontology should not be the only biological science in the future - the science of a dead planet" is no doubt informed by a life spent in realities of science.

Time Traveler
Time Traveler: In Search of Dinosaurs and Ancient Mammals from Montana to Mongolia writter by Michael Novacek is a book very much like an autobiography in nature. But, the nature we're talking about here is past history... that of dinosaurs and early mammals... those of the fossil record.

The author has a very easy going writting style that grips you and you are engaged till the end. This story is very much like a travel log of a dedicated paleontologist discovering fossils where ever he seems to travel. The author started early out in life looking for fossils in Los Angeles, not too far from the La Brea Tar Pits, when just a child. But the dinosaur fever never left his veins as he is now a world-renowned paleontologist and has found fossils on every continent.

This book is a study in the Natural History of fossil hunting, having illustrations where needed gives the reader a sense of perspective as to what the author is talking about. In fact the illustrations pop-up right when you need them, reinforcing the reader. Some of the most current and exciting issues in paleontology today are dinosaur and mammal evolution, continent drift, and mass extinctions. This book helps in the clarification of these questions making the reader understand the ancient enviornments and the geological times scale.

From the past to our future this book ties the two together. Making the reader understand the past and how it can be applied to the future so we do not make the same mistakes, that is a global ecosystem. This book is a fast and easy read as the narrative flows freely keeping your interest. If you like adventure, with some travel to different locations throughout the world, this is your book. From California, to Baja Mexico, high up in the Andes Mountains in Chile, to the volcanic mountains of Yemem, to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia you are taken on a travel log of a very special nature... one of a fossil hunting paleontologist.

A life in the field...
Michael Novacek must be a very interesting person, judging from "Time Traveller," which he describes as "a book not about a life, but about a life in the field." Starting from his childhood in California, he relates the story of his start as a young paleontologist (moving from a background as an indifferent student and an unsuccessful rock musician) working in the American West and Baja California. Most of the digs take place in unpleasant locations, fraught with heat, scorpions and dreadful food. As he moves up the academic ladder, the digs become much more exotic and he heads out to Patagonia (where it is cold and windy instead of hot and accidents with horses can happen, but the food is still of varying quality), then to Yemen (where there are not even any interesting fossils to make up for the sheer awfulness of the place), Mongolia and Argentina. It appears that extreme physical fitness is a prerequisite for those wishing to enter this profession.

The major fault of the book is that it appears to be written backwards. The last chapters, focussing on the extremely important discoveries made in the 1990s in Mongolia, are fascinating and move quickly. They appear to come from another, and better, book. When he writes of the importance of palaeontology and the fossil record, his prose is powerful and almost poetic. But the earlier chapters seem to meander, a collection of anecdotes about his childhood, working in the field, a bit of this and a bit of that. One has the impression that Dr. Novacek is a bit of a scatterbrain, unable to focus his attention--Looky! Old rocks! Insectivore jaws! Bikini babes! Look! Fossil fish! Ancient teeth! Yemeni bandits! Look! Picturesque Chileans! That Roy Chapman Andrews-what a guy! Hey, look! We've been in Mongolia for ten years!

The chapter on Yemen is particularly odd. It describes in great detail all the problems involved in working in this near-medieval country, the dangers and the heat, but the only scientific finding is that there is really not much there to interest a paleontologist. Nonetheless, in the next chapter he writes about possibly putting together another expedition to go back, until he is distracted by Mongolia. Is this a thirst for derring-do, in the style of Andrews?

His attempt to write "popular science" often feels clumsy but cannot hide the fact that many of his discoveries are significant and have contributed to many serious scientific debates. I particularly liked his writing about how the Mongolian dinosaurs may have died. Originally accepting the idea that they were buried in soft sand, he carefully describes recent work by geologists that suggests instead that heavy rains resulted in mudslides that caught the animals in the gullies where they lived. It is clearly and elegantly expressed and ultimately helps make this book worth reading. It probably would be a better book with less rock-smashing and more such thoughtful analysis.

"A personal attachment to rocks and bones"
Novacek's "attachment" for lithics and fossil evidence has led him to remote places. Raised in the urban sprawl of Los Angeles, he was introduced to the wild, quickly finding excuses to return. Paleontology is easily the best excuse available for travel and exploration. He invites us to join him as he tours the North American West - into mountains, canyons and plateaus where fossils have emerged before. From this familiar territory he goes on to more exotic sites. His explorations reach from Andean highlands through Arabia deserts to the mysterious Mongolian plateaus. It was the latter that gave Novacek the greatest rewards and kept him occupied for more than a decade. This autobiography of a professional paleontologist provides interesting insights into the researchers depicting the prehistoric realm.

Before the rewards came the trials. The first was the decision to take up paleontology when a music career dangled enticing rewards. His father was a competent guitarist. A chance to learn field work offered new opportunities and challenges. Fresh creek water proved polluted leading to "highly volatile" digestive tracts. In the Andes, Novecek's horse bolted with one boot caught in a stirrup. Walking was impossible and riding little better. Desert scorpions and rattlesnakes were added threats. In Yemen, it was overzealous military staff. The hazards of scrambling over cliff faces seeking fossil or fording rain-swollen rivers recede as serious threats and become part of daily expedition fare.

All these mishaps failed to quell his desire to travel. The travel wasn't entertainment, but his quest for fossils. The search wasn't always rewarding, but the promise or the need kept him going. His misadventure in the Andes was off-set by a string of rewarding finds. Glorious to behold and thrilling to experience, the Andes are now considered the fastest rising mountains in the world. Fossils that had no business being at the altitudes Novacek's team encountered show how rapidly the mountains have been constructed by plate tectonics.

This mix of life experiences and scientific endeavour is richly enhanced by the graphics sprinkled through the text. Some of the most interesting are diagrams of fossil assemblages as found in situ. These provide a good indication of the complexities of retrieval and reassembly. His maps are a bit spare, but give the general location of campsites and fossil finds. Security, an issue of increasing concern in Mongolia, demands no more detail than necessary. Some photos of the campsites themselves might have personalised the account. His bibliography verges on the bizarre, being a mix of scholastic papers and general accounts. Some of these are worth pursuing. The knowledgeable will applaud his inclusion of John McPhee [although one volume is inexplicably omitted]. Novacek is forthright in his account of the tribulations of this career, but depicts as vividly the many rewards paleontology has to offer. As he concludes in this fine account: "there's still so much to know". [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A magnificent memoir from a revered scientist.
This book is a must-read for any aspiring paleontologist. Novacek's clarity is unparalled in science narrative. He tells his stories in the same lively manner that you would expect to hear from an old friend around a camp fire. You feel as if you are on expedition with Novacek himself.

Unlike many accomplished scientists who are not professors (Novacek is with the American Museum of Natural History, not a university), he is able to pontificate in a relevant manner for the scientist and the lay-person alike.

This book is less about dinosaurs and more about being a dinosaur hunter. If this perspective interests you, you can't beat this book.

Most shocking, is the fluid and crisp prose with which you are engaged. Career writers and authors should envy Novacek's writing abilities. I recently finished _Prey_, a novel by Michael Crichton, and its writing was inferior to Novacek's. This alone should earn him a nomination for one of the yearly science-writing awards. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Artistic Genius
The text is average but the pictures are outstanding! Most paleo-artists prefer to envision land animals or birds as opposed to sea life.
I am totally in awe of paleo-sea life and addicted to thumbing through this book!

Discovering Fossil Fishes
Discovering Fossil Fishes written by John G. Maisey is a book covering fish fossilization through out history. Spanning more the one-half billion years fishes are older than dinosaurs and have links to the tetrapods on land.

This book is highly illustrated with art work one nearly half of the pages with the dialog on the other half of the book. Fishes have a unique evolutionary history that stretches back in time, they are incredibly ancient and include the ancestors of all the limbed vertebrates living on the land.

I found the book to be highly readable and easy to follow as this book could be read and understood by those twelve years old or older. There are color illustrations along with fossilized pictures comparing both. This gives the reader a good approximation as to what the fossil would look like in life.

From their ancient ancestors, the craniates, fishes evolved not once, in a single lineage, but multiple times, filling countless biological niches. Given their long evolutionary history, itis not surprising that so many species of fishes exist today; one new fish species evolving every 18,000 years, or about 55.5 species evolving per one million years. The sum total of fishy diversity through time is far greater than now, and the evolutionary history of fishes is a vast and comples subject.

But, the author wrote this book with the layreader in mind and the prose are simple but very effective. as more fossil fishes are uncovered we will know better what the ancient world looked like and come to discover more of our own ancestors.

A masterpiece for serious students
I came across this book while finishing my MSc at Guelph. The book soon made its rounds among all the ichthyology students and faculty. It is well written, lavishly illustrated and nicely designed. Seeing this volume going for so cheap surprises me. I paid 5 times more for mine. Any student involved with fish taxonomy, evolution and general biology MUST get this book. I found the lateral views a bit goofy but the paintings of creatures in motion in their habitat are superb. People who are interested in early life on our planet should also consider having a look at this one. BRAVO Dr. Maisey!

Fossils galore!
Maisey is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. With this work he has brought the evolution of the fishes to the popular science reader. My only major complaint about this book is in format. I would like to have seen it arranged by geological period as apposed to taxonomic group. I also think that a more visual group of cladograms arranging all the fishes would have been in order. Many cladograms are included but they only show small snippets of the relationships between fishes and you have to piece a larger picture together throughout the book. The illustrations are excellent and you will have a hard time finding so many images of fossil fish, if you are just interested in seeing images of fossils then this will be great for you. I also liked how he discussed the development of major morphological features. While a person of specialized interest might be aware of these, having them all in one place is convenient.

If you have a developing interest in fishes or in vertebrate paleontology than this book would be good to have. It would also be a nice compliment to any library including material on natural history.

Something fishy.
One of my areas of interest is geology, in which I am a few credits shy of a bachelor's degree, and my particular area of concentration was paleontology. I have to admit that my favorites are the invertebrates, but I thought that a book on fossil fish might improve my appreciation for them. In this I was a little disappointed. Although I enjoyed the material on the origin of various structures, ie) calcified bones, the jaws, etc. much of it was already familiar to me from other sources. I have to agree with the other reviewers, the book is splendidly illustrated, both with the fossel specimen themselves and with artistic interpretation of them. But although it is a "pretty" book, it is probably a little too detailed for the casual reader on paleontology and a little to general for a specialist. The former might easily get bogged down in the details of the fish lineages, while the former might prefer an encyclopedia of fossel fish types to use as a source for identification of field specimen. On the whole just a so-so book. ... Read more

Book Description

The horned dinosaurs, a group of rhinoceros-like creatures that lived 100 to 65 million years ago, included one of the greatest and most popular dinosaurs studied today: Triceratops. Noted for his flamboyant appearance--marked by a striking array of horns over the nose and eyes, a long bony frill at the back of the head, and an assortment of lumps and bumps for attracting females--this herbivore displayed remarkable strength in its ability to fight off Tyrannosaurus rex. It was also among the last dinosaurs to walk the earth. In telling us about Triceratops and its relatives, the Ceratopsia, Peter Dodson here re-creates the sense of adventure enjoyed by so many scientists who have studied them since their discovery in the mid-nineteenth century. From the badlands of the Red Deer River in Alberta to the Gobi Desert, Dodson pieces together fossil evidence to describe the ceratopsians themselves--their anatomy, biology, and geography--and he evokes the human dimension of their discovery and interpretation. An authoritative survey filled with many original illustrations, this book is the first comprehensive presentation of horned dinosaurs for the general reader.

Dodson explains first the fascinating ways in which the ceratopsians dealt with their dangerous environment. There follows a lesson on ceratopsian bone structure, which enables the reader quickly to grasp the questions that still puzzle scientists, concerning features such as posture, gait, footprints, and diet. Dodson evenhandedly discusses controversies that continue, for example, over sexual dimorphism and the causes of the dinosaurs' disappearance. Throughout his narrative, we are reminded that dinosaur study is a human enterprise. We meet the scientists who charmed New York high society into financing expeditions to Mongolia, home of Triceratops' predecessors, as well as those who used their poker winnings to sustain paleontology expeditions. Rich in fossil lore and in tales of adventure, the world of the Ceratopsia is presented here for specialists and general readers alike. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

The Horned Dinosaurs
The Horned Dinosaurs written by Peter Dodsonis a book that concerns itself strictly to a group of dinosauria known as the Ceratopsia of which Triceatops is but one of many.

The book is comprehensive in nature and has many illustrations scattered throughout to help the reader, as the author pieces together the fossil evidence. As a child many of us dreamed of dinosaurs and even had toys fashioned after dinosaurs, but the author has actually found and is studing the dinosaurs for real.

Triceratops was one of my favorites as a child. It could take on a T.rex and win with its three long horns, one on the nose and two horns on the brow and a crown of bone like a halo arond the head. Well, after reading this book, there are many different horn combinations and number of horns in the group of dinosaurs names Ceratopsia. Five horns, long and short horns, different crown arrangements, all were dangerous. Following the book you'll find out that the environment was dangerous and the Ceratopsia evolved with the level of dangers so did the bone structure.

Puzzles present themselves as fossil remains of a once very proud group of dinosaurs. The author explains some of them as posture, gait and compares them with the fossil record, footprints, but I'm not convinced that the author is correct. This book takes us all over the world where dinosaur digs are found, Mongolia, Alberta, Canada. The adventure in this book is trying to figure out after the discovery what these animals were like.

Clues range from not only the impressive armor in the skulls, but the actual deconstruction of the skeletal remains to nests/eggs and diet and tooth structure. All in all, this book is presented for general readers and specialists, but with the easy going narrative its not hard to be engrossed in this book.

A good book, but needs some work.
Ceratopsians, or horned dinosaurs, have always been of particular interest to me. This book is a wealth of info about the group. It breaks the group into two distinct sub-groups: centrosaurs and chasmosaurs. These groups were informally called short-frilled and long-frilled ceratopsians. Centrosaurs are characterized by large nasal horns and small or nonexistant brow horns while chasmosaurs are characterized by short nasal horns and longer brow horns. This means that Triceratops, which I can remember being classified in the short-frilled group correctly belongs in the chasmosaur group. The book also explains work being done on statistical analysis of the known finds with an eye to determining which species are valid and which are just individual variation. However, in many instances I was left uncertain about which species were kept and which were incorporated into the remaining species.
In addition to the physiological and evolutionary material, the author includes a good deal of information on how and when the species were discovered. He uses this to set the stage for the analysis work which is the meat of his book.
There was one major problem I had with the book. That is the conclusion he draws that ceratopsians had front legs that were splayed out to the side, much like an alligator's. This is a debate that has gone on for some time. In my opinion, an animal that has splayed out front legs and fully erect rear legs could not exist. One only has to look at living animals to see that there is no animal with legs like that and no other animal in the fossil record has legs like this either. The only animals I know of that have limbs that are set up for different methods of locomotion are birds. And no one is suggesting that ceratopsians flew.
All in all a solid book, but his conclusions could have been more clearly stated.

Wonderful things with horns!
Dodson's prose is a delight. One rarely finds a scientist who is also a good writer, capable of conveying the complex ideas of geology and biology (as well as history) in a manner that is both informative and exquisitely entertaining. No dry text here. THE HORNED DINOSAURS provides an up-to-date survey of the known ceratopsians, from familiar taxa like Triceratops and Chasmosaurus, to newer, less well-known forms such as Udanoceratops and Einiosaurus. Wayne D. Barlowe provides a series of beautiful color plates. It's a shame similar volumes are not available for other groups of dinosaurs, such as hadrosaurs and ankylosaurs, books useful to both laymen and paleontologists.

Triceratops and family, with wonderful color plates.
Triceratops and family, as related by Penn paleontologist Peter Dodson, who is a clear and engaging writer. Have a look at the cover-scan at Amazon -- a preview of Wayne Barlowe's wonderful color plates. I bogged down in the anatomy lessons -- the occipital condyle dimensions seem important, but MEGO. The interior art is very nice. And I really like such tidbits as learning that William Buckland, who wrote the first formal dinosaur fossil-description in 1824, kept a pet bear in his house at Oxford. So there may be more here about old horned-face than you want to know, but you owe it to yourself, at least, to look at the wonderful Barlowe plates and read about the fieldwork. For a dino-dilettante like myself, the highlights of dino-books are the color plates, and I would certainly buy a nice, big "best-of" color dino-book. My nominations for artists would include Wayne Barlowe, Carel van Kampen (Dinosaurs of Utah), Doug Henderson (Dawn of the Dinosaurs), and others. If such a book exists, I haven't seen it. Have you? Publishers, take note....

Peter Dodson Soars Again
Peter Dodson has always been known as an influential paleontologist. In paleontology circles, not many are more respected than Dodson. In his many books Dodson has shown his knowledge and expertise, and this one soars above the rest. Five stars to the All American Paleontologist Peter Dodson. And, the cover of this work has even been transformed to be my wallpaper on my PC. Bravo!! ... Read more