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Dinosaurus: The Complete Guide to Dinosaurs
An encyclopedic and vividly illustrated reference. Gone but never forgotten -- no other life form has captured our imagination and attention like dinosaurs. Dinosaurus is organized into the major dinosaur families and identifies 500 species -- creature by creature, from the voracious flesh-eaters to the egg-stealers to the vegetarians. What they looked like. What they ate. How they fought, lived, and died. A dramatic full-color illustration of each dinosaur is accompanied by a concise explanation of their traits and habits. At-a-glance Fact Files
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
9 people are currently reading
135 people want to read
About the author
Steve Parker
1,335 books86 followersSteve Parker is a British science writer of children's and adult's books. He has written more than 300 titles and contributed to or edited another 150.
Born in Warrington, Lancashire, in 1952, Parker attended Strodes College, Egham and gained a BSc First Class Honours in Zoology at the University of Wales, Bangor. He worked as an exhibition scientist at the Natural History Museum, and as editor and managing editor at Dorling Kindersley Publishers, and commissioning editor at medical periodical GP, before becoming a freelance writer in the late 1980s. He is a Senior Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. Parker is based in Suffolk with his family.
Parker's writing career began with 10 early titles in Dorling Kindersley's multi-award-winning Eyewitness series, from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. He has since worked for more than a dozen children's book publishers and been shortlisted for, among others, the Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, Times Educational Information Book of the Year, and Blue Peter Book Award.
Born in Warrington, Lancashire, in 1952, Parker attended Strodes College, Egham and gained a BSc First Class Honours in Zoology at the University of Wales, Bangor. He worked as an exhibition scientist at the Natural History Museum, and as editor and managing editor at Dorling Kindersley Publishers, and commissioning editor at medical periodical GP, before becoming a freelance writer in the late 1980s. He is a Senior Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. Parker is based in Suffolk with his family.
Parker's writing career began with 10 early titles in Dorling Kindersley's multi-award-winning Eyewitness series, from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. He has since worked for more than a dozen children's book publishers and been shortlisted for, among others, the Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, Times Educational Information Book of the Year, and Blue Peter Book Award.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 20, 2025
This book has taught me so many things, yet it’s still not a 5 star, and here’s why:
-On page 75, the author uses the term ‘poison’ instead of venom.
“…arch their poison stings over their heads…”Venom. Scorpions have venom in their stinger, not poison.
-On some pages, a one of a kind fossil is mentioned, but no photo of said fossil is provided. Also, some pages include information on two different dinosaurs, while others only have one. Due to this, some dinosaurs have less facts about them and have no photo.
-There is a spelling mistake on page 169. Alxasaurus is spelled ‘Alaxasaurus.’
-There is another spelling mistake on page 317. Ankylosaurs is spelt ‘anyklosaurs.’
Some extra information:
-the terrestrial isopod pictured on page 48 is an Armadillidium vulgare, most likely a female due to the dull colouration.
-the other three species of Limulus that inhabit the shallow coastal seas around Southeast Asia are: Tachypleus Gigas, carcinoscorpius rotundicauda, tachypleus tridentatus.
-hagfish are eel-shaped jawless fish, sometimes called slime fish. They are the only known animal to have a skull but no vertebral column, although they do have rudimentary vertebrae. They defend themselves by releasing copious amounts of slime from mucous glands in their skin.
-the adult lamprey is characterised by a toothed, funnel/like sucking mouth. Lampreys spend majority of their life I. The juvenile ‘ammocoete’ stage, where they burrow into the sediment of filter feed.
-The lufengpithecus probably wright around 50kg. There are three known species: L. Lufengensis, L.hudiensis, L.keiyuanensis. They have heavy molars and large canine teeth. The lower third premolars sometimes have a slight second cusp, denoting a shift from their principle role as cutting teeth in other species. They have a broad interorbital distance, an ‘African’ subnasal morphology, and frontal sinuses. Basicranial and postcranial remains indicate adaptations for a significant degree of bipedalism. The supraorbital ridge of females is squarer. The male lower canines taper sharply toward the apex and are relatively very high crowned.
-Alxasaurus loved about 113-100.5 million years ago. Maximum length up to 4 meters and mass up to 400kg
-beipiasaurus had brownish in feather, and measured 2.2 meters and weighed about 27kg.
-Lepidotes belong to Ginglymodi, a Clare of fish whose only living representives are the gars. Inhabited both freshwater and shallow seas. 30cm long. One of the earliest fish in which the upper jawbones were no longer attacked to the jugal bone. Species include: 1-L.elfensis. 2-L.gigas. 3-L.semiserratus. 4-L.buerowianus.
-On page 75, the author uses the term ‘poison’ instead of venom.
“…arch their poison stings over their heads…”Venom. Scorpions have venom in their stinger, not poison.
-On some pages, a one of a kind fossil is mentioned, but no photo of said fossil is provided. Also, some pages include information on two different dinosaurs, while others only have one. Due to this, some dinosaurs have less facts about them and have no photo.
-There is a spelling mistake on page 169. Alxasaurus is spelled ‘Alaxasaurus.’
-There is another spelling mistake on page 317. Ankylosaurs is spelt ‘anyklosaurs.’
Some extra information:
-the terrestrial isopod pictured on page 48 is an Armadillidium vulgare, most likely a female due to the dull colouration.
-the other three species of Limulus that inhabit the shallow coastal seas around Southeast Asia are: Tachypleus Gigas, carcinoscorpius rotundicauda, tachypleus tridentatus.
-hagfish are eel-shaped jawless fish, sometimes called slime fish. They are the only known animal to have a skull but no vertebral column, although they do have rudimentary vertebrae. They defend themselves by releasing copious amounts of slime from mucous glands in their skin.
-the adult lamprey is characterised by a toothed, funnel/like sucking mouth. Lampreys spend majority of their life I. The juvenile ‘ammocoete’ stage, where they burrow into the sediment of filter feed.
-The lufengpithecus probably wright around 50kg. There are three known species: L. Lufengensis, L.hudiensis, L.keiyuanensis. They have heavy molars and large canine teeth. The lower third premolars sometimes have a slight second cusp, denoting a shift from their principle role as cutting teeth in other species. They have a broad interorbital distance, an ‘African’ subnasal morphology, and frontal sinuses. Basicranial and postcranial remains indicate adaptations for a significant degree of bipedalism. The supraorbital ridge of females is squarer. The male lower canines taper sharply toward the apex and are relatively very high crowned.
-Alxasaurus loved about 113-100.5 million years ago. Maximum length up to 4 meters and mass up to 400kg
-beipiasaurus had brownish in feather, and measured 2.2 meters and weighed about 27kg.
-Lepidotes belong to Ginglymodi, a Clare of fish whose only living representives are the gars. Inhabited both freshwater and shallow seas. 30cm long. One of the earliest fish in which the upper jawbones were no longer attacked to the jugal bone. Species include: 1-L.elfensis. 2-L.gigas. 3-L.semiserratus. 4-L.buerowianus.
January 15, 2017
Wonderful book with great illustrations! Although some of the narrative was too advanced for my quite young children, they nevertheless spent hours with this volume.
July 20, 2025
Each dino entry was short and concise, but the book is SO DENSE. And some of the dinosaur species are pretty repetitive. But overall a neat book.
January 17, 2026
really informative, pictures were beautiful
December 18, 2014
A big book with pictures of dinosaurs can't possibly be *bad.* But it was a little disappointing. The tone was a little condescending, holier-than-thou, more set on debunking "misconceptions" (did you know there's no such thing as a brontosaurus? that's cuz it's technically called something else! you're welcome! also, dinosaurs never chased down and ate elephants, because apparently some people think that that sort of thing happened! don't you feel almost as smart as me now?!) than on engaging with the reader about the possible implications of actual facts (like, that birds are dinosaurs).
To be fair, I only really read bits of the beginning and a few random pages. But this is a coffeetable-type book, something that readers are expected to peruse at random. It's mostly page upon page of fact sheets about different species, with a nifty little diagram that shows how big the dinosaurs were (in relation to humans, how homo-centric...). A bit of a problem with the diagrams, though: given the range of dinosaur sizes, the scale for the diagrams changes from page to page, so it's not a good way to imagine the dinosaurs relative to one another, only relative to a human being...which isn't particularly realistic.
I also didn't particularly like the style of the dinosaur illustrations. There's a bit in the front about how we can't know for sure what colors they were, and that all artist approximations are educated guesses. SO WHY ARE NONE OF THEM FUSCIA? IT'S NOT A GOOD SIGN FOR YOUR READERS WHEN EVEN THE DINOSAURS LOOK BORED.
To be fair, I only really read bits of the beginning and a few random pages. But this is a coffeetable-type book, something that readers are expected to peruse at random. It's mostly page upon page of fact sheets about different species, with a nifty little diagram that shows how big the dinosaurs were (in relation to humans, how homo-centric...). A bit of a problem with the diagrams, though: given the range of dinosaur sizes, the scale for the diagrams changes from page to page, so it's not a good way to imagine the dinosaurs relative to one another, only relative to a human being...which isn't particularly realistic.
I also didn't particularly like the style of the dinosaur illustrations. There's a bit in the front about how we can't know for sure what colors they were, and that all artist approximations are educated guesses. SO WHY ARE NONE OF THEM FUSCIA? IT'S NOT A GOOD SIGN FOR YOUR READERS WHEN EVEN THE DINOSAURS LOOK BORED.
October 17, 2016
This book is a really well set out guide about dinosaurs. Each entry has a picture of the dinosaur they're talking about accompanied by a short synopsis of the dinosaur's history together with a factfile. The factfile contains interesting information such as the meaning of the dinosaur's name, how the name is pronounced, when it was around, and various other little bits of information. The quality of the images is very high and appealing to the eye.
I would be very interested in purchasing this book for myself so I could have a pretty comprehensive guide to the many dinosaurs that were around in that period. We tend to only hear about a select few dinosaurs and when one reads this book it becomes clear as to why this is - there are way too many dinosaurs to cover them all in amovie, documentary or other such media.
I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a good, easy to read guide on these now extinct ancient animals.
I would be very interested in purchasing this book for myself so I could have a pretty comprehensive guide to the many dinosaurs that were around in that period. We tend to only hear about a select few dinosaurs and when one reads this book it becomes clear as to why this is - there are way too many dinosaurs to cover them all in amovie, documentary or other such media.
I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a good, easy to read guide on these now extinct ancient animals.
November 4, 2009
I picked this book up a few years ago, and still reference it whenever I have a question about some dinosaur or other (which is more often then you would think!)
A well laid-out format takes you through the various ages and introduces you not only to the major life-forms of that time, but also to how they are different from earlier ones, why those changes likely occurred, and what it meant for future changes down the road.
A brilliant timeline at the front of the book does the best job I've ever seen of making time look big and man-kind look small in relation to it.
I recommend this book to any dinosaur enthusiast, be they 13 or 33.
A well laid-out format takes you through the various ages and introduces you not only to the major life-forms of that time, but also to how they are different from earlier ones, why those changes likely occurred, and what it meant for future changes down the road.
A brilliant timeline at the front of the book does the best job I've ever seen of making time look big and man-kind look small in relation to it.
I recommend this book to any dinosaur enthusiast, be they 13 or 33.
June 16, 2016
The sections on early life are organized by era, but the ones on dinosaurs are still organized by type of dinosaur rather than by era. Because I'm looking for one that explains which dinosaurs evolved first, and how the family tree branched out, how pterosaurs and marine reptiles are related, and when dinosaurs started to get truly huge, this book didn't really meet my needs.
June 1, 2015
Dinosaurs is a great book full of a lot of informative details of the reptiles of many different sizes that used to rom this world. I truly loved to learn about all the different types of dinosaurs described in this book. I would recommend this book to any young dinosaur lover and fanatic.
February 11, 2021
An excellent dinosaur book with a wide selection of species including pre-dinosaur species, post-dinosaur species and dinosaur adjacent species (pterosaurs, sea creatures and mesozoic mammals). Also has a lot of good illustrations.
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December 12, 2012
Great book on the subject. Plenty of info at your fingertips.
January 19, 2016
A great dinosaur encyclopedia for any paleontology lover's collection.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews