Archosauria: A New Look at the Old Dinosaur

by John C. McLoughlin

Japanese edition. All text in Japanese, otherwise identical to Viking 1979 edition.

Genres: Dinosaurs, Science, Palaeontology, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published May 30, 1979

Reviews

[Trout Replica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many (now) archaisms (as expected from a book of this age on the particular subject) don't detract from this wonderfully written piece from the heydays of the Dinosaur Renaissance. A real cultural artefact of an age where public view of the dinosaurs (and other prehistoric archosaurs, as the book's tittle implies) was just starting to scratch the surface of the freshest scientific findings from the field. And in many cases, the science was catching itself up as well.
Strangely prescient at times such as one of the first (if not the first) descriptions and illustrations of (appropriately) covered, or feathered, dinosaurs along the suggestion that such coating or plumage was a basal trait in dinosaurs and pterosaurs. On some other issues, such as strange suggestions of ceratopsian frills as giant tethering surfaces for bizarrely massive jaw muscles, the book was not as vindicated.
Overall, while not as well known as Bakker's later "Dinosaur Heresies" still a warmly recommended read for anybody interested in the 'vintage' material from that time in history when our modern (and much like the prehistoric and contemporary archosaurs, ever dynamic) understanding of these bygone animals was beginning to form.