What do you think?
Rate this book
Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals
Dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago, long before humans were around. Scientists are still trying to piece together information gathered on these ancient creatures and as more fossils are unearthed, we discover more about these incredible animals that lived so many years ago.
This book profiles over 300 dinosaurs and prehistoric animals from Anomalocaris in the Cambria Era 540 million years ago, right through to Megaloceros deer in the Pleistocene Era 1.8 million years ago. All kinds of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals such as trilobites, ammonites and coelacanth are included. With a broad sweep from shark Cladoselache to flying Dimorphodon, from herbivores Psittacosaurus to carivorous Acrocanthosaurus, from duck-billed Anatotitan to enormous Nemegtosaurus, this book is a celebration of one of the most intriguing lifeforms to have lived on the planet.
Grouped chronologically, each entry includes highly informative, lively text explaining the anatomy, size, habitat, diet, breeding patterns and lifecycle of each dinosaur or prehistoric animal. In addition there is a fact box which includes measurements and weights, as well as the pronunciation and etymology of the dinosaur's name, a map showing each animal's distribution and a timeline placing it in an historical context. Each entry includes an annotated colour illustration, while the maps and timelines put each dinosaur into its global and historical context.
This book profiles over 300 dinosaurs and prehistoric animals from Anomalocaris in the Cambria Era 540 million years ago, right through to Megaloceros deer in the Pleistocene Era 1.8 million years ago. All kinds of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals such as trilobites, ammonites and coelacanth are included. With a broad sweep from shark Cladoselache to flying Dimorphodon, from herbivores Psittacosaurus to carivorous Acrocanthosaurus, from duck-billed Anatotitan to enormous Nemegtosaurus, this book is a celebration of one of the most intriguing lifeforms to have lived on the planet.
Grouped chronologically, each entry includes highly informative, lively text explaining the anatomy, size, habitat, diet, breeding patterns and lifecycle of each dinosaur or prehistoric animal. In addition there is a fact box which includes measurements and weights, as well as the pronunciation and etymology of the dinosaur's name, a map showing each animal's distribution and a timeline placing it in an historical context. Each entry includes an annotated colour illustration, while the maps and timelines put each dinosaur into its global and historical context.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 25, 2020
Well, it's good to know that whoever was responsible for the Mars Climate Orbiter's crash due to a unit mismatch between the metric and imperial systems was able to find work editing books about prehistoric animals.
October 22, 2018
Rawwwrrrrrr!
Meet Eoraptor the ‘dawn thief,’ Xiaosaurus the ‘dawn lizard,’ Eohippus the ‘Dawn horse,’ and Eogyrinus the ‘dawn frog.’ These four each take their name from the dawn of life on Earth in which their bones come to us from. We may be separated from these dinosaurs by a great distance of time, but with this book’s clear formatting it is easy to learn much about all of the dinosaurs; such as Maiasaura the “Good Mother lizard” whose bones were found watching over her eggs before she was buried with them in a sand storm. (Later an astronaut took some of her bones into space.) Avaceratops was named after her finder’s wife.
With this quote, the author then illustrates how the Dravidosaurus was drawn to be a walking beast much like a stegosaurus, until only recently when it was decided to most likely have been of the plesiosauria order, meaning that it was one of the swimmer beasts that looked very different. Ah, but that’s the nature of the beast, or may be the nature of a dinosaur, when you are dealing with speculations and guesswork.
When multiple animal bones are in the same pit, it can be a bit tedious deciding how many animals there were. Likewise, scientists and bone hunters alike struggle to reconstruct a dinosaur from sometimes as little as a tooth, to as much as 90% or more of a whole skeleton. They take the available bone or bones and draw a picture, filling in the unknowns from characteristics of what a beast with a tooth or bone that size would look like if it had features similar to supposed relatives. In this way, models and reconstructions are formed. But, some of them are more or less exact replicas of the internal bone structure.
Scientists mechanically blew air through the skull of a Parasaurolophus to see how they might have sounded with the mysterious long pipe on the top of their heads. You can hear it on Youtube. Dinosaur Sounds
I found another cute video about the Parasaurolophus while looking for that video too, which I will share here as well:
Dinosaur Cartoon
And, some game-play from Jurassic Park: Evolution the Game which has the parasaurolophus being released.
Jurassic Park Game Play
I would say I’m speechless, but it would be a lie. It’s not easy to quit talking about dinosaurs with so much ‘new’ information about these old dead bones. It’s not like I haven’t kept up since the ‘bone wars’ or anything like that. There was plenty known when I was in High School. And, ever since I’ve read what I could find. But, more bones are found all the time. And, more is learned almost on a yearly basis worldwide. Even in Antarctica. This book describes dinosaur footprint locations and egg finds, as well as the guesswork involved in trying to build a dinosaur from as little as a tooth in some cases, to as much as a fully preserved skeleton in other cases, and anywhere in between. It also shares info about the ‘notorious’ false claims, such as Albert Koch’s spurious ‘sea serpent.’
This book provides a big map in the back with the locations of major digs around the world. But, each dinosaur gives good info on the location it was found and the fossil record that currently exists on that animal. This seems more scientific to me than the other book, which is less clear on when a dinosaur is created from just a tooth for example. I enjoy imagining what these animals looked like, but I like to know when I’m dealing with imagination, as opposed to actual intact skeletal remains.
An intact Dacentrurus skeleton was destroyed at the end of WWII by the Brits and a few Canadians when they bombed the Le Havre Museum in liberating France. It seems the dinos were certainly ill fated. Regardless of how they disappeared, the skeletal remains of many have been destroyed in the last century. As Mrs. Incredible says, ‘This is why we can’t have nice things.” War destroys the past, present, and future.
On a recent paleontological trip to Barnes & Noble in Rome, Georgia, I found another awesome book of dinosaurs called Dinosaurs: The Grand Tour. While sipping a cup of coffee and glancing at the many drawings and illustrations in that book after our purchase, my husband came over to where I sat in the coffee shop with a surprise. He’d discovered this huge equally prolific book of dinosaurs displayed near the registers after buying that one. So, he’d bought it too. It was just $12.00, where that book had been $30.00. So, I set out reading the two of them together, in hopes of comparing the quality.
This book is excellently formatted and includes a table of contents, where the Grand Tour does not. I ended up making my own combined spreadsheet, to cross-reference the dinos in both books. Everyone knows there are a lot of dinosaurs out there, currently over 1200 I think. It matters how many dinos you are getting in the book, especially for any child who loves dinosaurs. This book has approximately 211 total dinosaurs and 59 prehistoric non-dinosaur animals. The other book, Dinosaurs: The Grand Tour, had some 200 dinosaurs, and another 20 prehistoric animals that were not dinos, but equally important to most dinosaur lovers. Of this count, there were about 88 dinos that made their star appearances in both books, along with 3 prehistoric animals equally as well loved. Having both books means I have almost a total of 400 different animals between them.
This book seems to have more in every way. Both books are very high quality works. This book is more up to date, since it was published this year. That book was first published under another name in Great Britain in 2013. This one is about twice the size (L&W) as that book. With the cheaper price; the huge pictures and more dinos make it a better buy. This bigger book gives the primary name, the one we all know them by, and then gives the full order/family/genus & species across the top, which helps assimilate the groupings of dinosaurs. The other book only gives the Genus and Phylum names.
Both books include chronological order, info about the Science, illustrations, and the geological eras, as well as a bit of theories. But, mostly they feature dinosaurs. Neither book goes into an introduction about the larger classification system, but instead makes it fun by giving you the prehistoric animals themselves. The other book only sometimes mention within a dinosaur’s details whether it is a Sauropod (herbivore,) Theropod (carnivore,) or a Cerapod like the Ceratops and Pachycephalosaurias, or a Thyreophod like the Stegosaurs and Ankylosaurs. They both use a bottom up approach to giving you the details first, then allowing you to form conclusions. Little is given about the meaning of most animals’ names in the other book. But this book does that consistently and avoids the ‘wall of text’ by neatly labeling each bit of info so you get all the important facts and stats at a glance without the TL/DR effect.
I highly recommend this book, if you are choosing one dinosaur book to start with for you or a child. But, both books are great and any child should be thrilled with either book. I’m sharing the review for both books, for those who are interested in comparing.
An example of an amazing fact: Usain Bolt today could outrun a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Lucky for him!
Meet Eoraptor the ‘dawn thief,’ Xiaosaurus the ‘dawn lizard,’ Eohippus the ‘Dawn horse,’ and Eogyrinus the ‘dawn frog.’ These four each take their name from the dawn of life on Earth in which their bones come to us from. We may be separated from these dinosaurs by a great distance of time, but with this book’s clear formatting it is easy to learn much about all of the dinosaurs; such as Maiasaura the “Good Mother lizard” whose bones were found watching over her eggs before she was buried with them in a sand storm. (Later an astronaut took some of her bones into space.) Avaceratops was named after her finder’s wife.
”The trouble with identifying animals from isolated bones is that it is easy to get misled and go in the wrong direction. A jumble of fossils found in India illustrates this dinosaur dilemma.”
With this quote, the author then illustrates how the Dravidosaurus was drawn to be a walking beast much like a stegosaurus, until only recently when it was decided to most likely have been of the plesiosauria order, meaning that it was one of the swimmer beasts that looked very different. Ah, but that’s the nature of the beast, or may be the nature of a dinosaur, when you are dealing with speculations and guesswork.
When multiple animal bones are in the same pit, it can be a bit tedious deciding how many animals there were. Likewise, scientists and bone hunters alike struggle to reconstruct a dinosaur from sometimes as little as a tooth, to as much as 90% or more of a whole skeleton. They take the available bone or bones and draw a picture, filling in the unknowns from characteristics of what a beast with a tooth or bone that size would look like if it had features similar to supposed relatives. In this way, models and reconstructions are formed. But, some of them are more or less exact replicas of the internal bone structure.
Scientists mechanically blew air through the skull of a Parasaurolophus to see how they might have sounded with the mysterious long pipe on the top of their heads. You can hear it on Youtube. Dinosaur Sounds
I found another cute video about the Parasaurolophus while looking for that video too, which I will share here as well:
Dinosaur Cartoon
And, some game-play from Jurassic Park: Evolution the Game which has the parasaurolophus being released.
Jurassic Park Game Play
I would say I’m speechless, but it would be a lie. It’s not easy to quit talking about dinosaurs with so much ‘new’ information about these old dead bones. It’s not like I haven’t kept up since the ‘bone wars’ or anything like that. There was plenty known when I was in High School. And, ever since I’ve read what I could find. But, more bones are found all the time. And, more is learned almost on a yearly basis worldwide. Even in Antarctica. This book describes dinosaur footprint locations and egg finds, as well as the guesswork involved in trying to build a dinosaur from as little as a tooth in some cases, to as much as a fully preserved skeleton in other cases, and anywhere in between. It also shares info about the ‘notorious’ false claims, such as Albert Koch’s spurious ‘sea serpent.’
This book provides a big map in the back with the locations of major digs around the world. But, each dinosaur gives good info on the location it was found and the fossil record that currently exists on that animal. This seems more scientific to me than the other book, which is less clear on when a dinosaur is created from just a tooth for example. I enjoy imagining what these animals looked like, but I like to know when I’m dealing with imagination, as opposed to actual intact skeletal remains.
An intact Dacentrurus skeleton was destroyed at the end of WWII by the Brits and a few Canadians when they bombed the Le Havre Museum in liberating France. It seems the dinos were certainly ill fated. Regardless of how they disappeared, the skeletal remains of many have been destroyed in the last century. As Mrs. Incredible says, ‘This is why we can’t have nice things.” War destroys the past, present, and future.
On a recent paleontological trip to Barnes & Noble in Rome, Georgia, I found another awesome book of dinosaurs called Dinosaurs: The Grand Tour. While sipping a cup of coffee and glancing at the many drawings and illustrations in that book after our purchase, my husband came over to where I sat in the coffee shop with a surprise. He’d discovered this huge equally prolific book of dinosaurs displayed near the registers after buying that one. So, he’d bought it too. It was just $12.00, where that book had been $30.00. So, I set out reading the two of them together, in hopes of comparing the quality.
This book is excellently formatted and includes a table of contents, where the Grand Tour does not. I ended up making my own combined spreadsheet, to cross-reference the dinos in both books. Everyone knows there are a lot of dinosaurs out there, currently over 1200 I think. It matters how many dinos you are getting in the book, especially for any child who loves dinosaurs. This book has approximately 211 total dinosaurs and 59 prehistoric non-dinosaur animals. The other book, Dinosaurs: The Grand Tour, had some 200 dinosaurs, and another 20 prehistoric animals that were not dinos, but equally important to most dinosaur lovers. Of this count, there were about 88 dinos that made their star appearances in both books, along with 3 prehistoric animals equally as well loved. Having both books means I have almost a total of 400 different animals between them.
This book seems to have more in every way. Both books are very high quality works. This book is more up to date, since it was published this year. That book was first published under another name in Great Britain in 2013. This one is about twice the size (L&W) as that book. With the cheaper price; the huge pictures and more dinos make it a better buy. This bigger book gives the primary name, the one we all know them by, and then gives the full order/family/genus & species across the top, which helps assimilate the groupings of dinosaurs. The other book only gives the Genus and Phylum names.
Both books include chronological order, info about the Science, illustrations, and the geological eras, as well as a bit of theories. But, mostly they feature dinosaurs. Neither book goes into an introduction about the larger classification system, but instead makes it fun by giving you the prehistoric animals themselves. The other book only sometimes mention within a dinosaur’s details whether it is a Sauropod (herbivore,) Theropod (carnivore,) or a Cerapod like the Ceratops and Pachycephalosaurias, or a Thyreophod like the Stegosaurs and Ankylosaurs. They both use a bottom up approach to giving you the details first, then allowing you to form conclusions. Little is given about the meaning of most animals’ names in the other book. But this book does that consistently and avoids the ‘wall of text’ by neatly labeling each bit of info so you get all the important facts and stats at a glance without the TL/DR effect.
I highly recommend this book, if you are choosing one dinosaur book to start with for you or a child. But, both books are great and any child should be thrilled with either book. I’m sharing the review for both books, for those who are interested in comparing.
An example of an amazing fact: Usain Bolt today could outrun a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Lucky for him!
February 21, 2021
I really enjoyed the fact that many lesser-known species and prehistoric mammals (so often neglected) were included in this book. That said, it was rife with inaccuracies, the timelines were inexact, the scaling of the animals was often incorrect, some of the illustrations were absolutely horrific (just check out the spread on Tyrannosaurus rex), Smilodon is depicted with a long tail lounging in a tree (had bobbed tails, unlikely to have been arboreal), dinosaurs are referred to as lizards in the glossary, and the book is stuck in the dark ages in terms of calling dinosaurs cold-blooded. They were almost certainly endothermic (the sauropods were possibly somewhere in between this). The features chosen to showcase on many of the animals were often lackluster, as they often completely missed discussing much more notable features (they even missed mentioning the fact that Megaloceros giganteus could have an antler spread of up to 12 feet!). If you're looking for accuracy, do not look here. There's a reason it was in the bargain section of Barnes & Noble!
December 27, 2019
This is the book where we pinpointed my son's encyclopedic (literally) interest in all things biological. We knew he loved dinosaurs, and he had just been to the Natural History museum, so I picked this up on a whim at the Park Slope Barnes and Noble. He immediately wanted to go through the 400-pages slowly, sometimes for more than an hour straight, reading names and asking basic questions about them (such as what other dinosaurs they are related to, what they eat, etc.) It soon became clear that he was memorizing the names, and then reciting them without prompt on later readings, using the visual cues of the reconstructed dinosaur images. This kind of reading, with this and other encyclopedic books, has become such a part of everyday routine now that it is easy to forget that it only began late this summer.
July 6, 2022
I love paleo-art. That being said, this particular book doesn't have my favorite style of art (it's brighter and somewhat less detailed here than the classic style of paleo-art), but it's still super fun. If you love dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures, this should be right up your alley.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews