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Dinosaurs - The Grand Tour: Everything Worth Knowing about Dinosaurs from Aardonyx to Zuniceratops
A visual trove of more than 300 dinosaurs, with key anatomy, geology, history, and theory at a glance
We live in a golden age of paleontological discovery—the perfect time to dig in to the spectacular world of dinosaurs. From Aardonyx, a lumbering beast that formed a link between two- and four-legged dinosaurs, to Zuniceratops, who boasted a deadly pair of horns, Dinosaurs—The Grand Tour details everything worth knowing about more than 300 dinosaurs. The important discoveries and gory details touch on topics from geology, anatomy, and evolution to astronomy and even Native American and Chinese myth. Fascinating facts abound:
Giganotosaurus was longer, two tons heavier, and had bigger jaws than T. Rex.
The poison-spitting Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park wasn’t actually venomous at all.??
Because of its bizarre single-clawed hands, scientists now believe Mononykus was a prehistoric predecessor of the anteater!
Illustrations on virtually every page, true to the latest findings, bring these prehistoric creatures to life in all their razor-sharp, long-necked, spiny, scaly glory.
We live in a golden age of paleontological discovery—the perfect time to dig in to the spectacular world of dinosaurs. From Aardonyx, a lumbering beast that formed a link between two- and four-legged dinosaurs, to Zuniceratops, who boasted a deadly pair of horns, Dinosaurs—The Grand Tour details everything worth knowing about more than 300 dinosaurs. The important discoveries and gory details touch on topics from geology, anatomy, and evolution to astronomy and even Native American and Chinese myth. Fascinating facts abound:
Giganotosaurus was longer, two tons heavier, and had bigger jaws than T. Rex.
The poison-spitting Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park wasn’t actually venomous at all.??
Because of its bizarre single-clawed hands, scientists now believe Mononykus was a prehistoric predecessor of the anteater!
Illustrations on virtually every page, true to the latest findings, bring these prehistoric creatures to life in all their razor-sharp, long-necked, spiny, scaly glory.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published October 7, 2014
378 people are currently reading
970 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
October 27, 2015
I'VE BEEN READING THIS SINCE FEBRUARY OFF AND ON AND I FINALLY FINISHED AND I JUST LOVE DINOSAURS SO MUCH YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!
December 7, 2017
There is nothing I love more than a good list style book with information, and images about different species of things. This one was fantastic. The author manages, on each dinosaur to give you the facts you need and to make it interesting, at least in some small way. The little asides and one or two page interludes on Dino-adjacent facts were nice touches that broke up the listing style of the narration. The artwork is also fantastic, I loved the full color spreads we got occasionally throughout.
This particular style of book is not one most people try to read cover to cover, but if you are the oddball that enjoys that or have a teen or kid that loves dinosaurs this is a fantastic read. Even if you want to have a handy reference for dinosaurs I think it's worth checking out.
This particular style of book is not one most people try to read cover to cover, but if you are the oddball that enjoys that or have a teen or kid that loves dinosaurs this is a fantastic read. Even if you want to have a handy reference for dinosaurs I think it's worth checking out.
May 23, 2024
Some interesting tidbits. The first edition came out a decade ago, so it's not surprising that it sometimes feels dated. I couldn't get over the illustrations. While some of them are bold, they are very often outrageous, I mean, look at those 80s/70s fantasy book cover dragons:
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August 18, 2022
Read this one while I was waiting in the decompression chamber. I had agreed to take my nasty nephews to the beach, but of course almost as soon as we get there they are complaining about the hot sand and getting pinched by crabs and the water being salty and how they want to go home but then when we get back to the car I realize I must have been swimming with my keys in my pocket and dropped them to the bottom of the seafloor and I have to rent this whole expensive submarine and scuba apparatus to go find and get the keys. Meanwhile, while I'm at the bottom of the ocean hanging out with those scary lightbulb head fish, one of my nephews pissed in the cooler and some of the piss got in the Tupperware with the leftover lasagna I brought. No beach lasagna, no fun, terrible beach day. This book was good.
August 29, 2020
It’s good to dust off the ol’ dino noggin’ now and again and learn about all the new discoveries made in the last decade. I learned a lot of cool and new stuff from this book.
This is nit picky but why was there no mention of Yi qi???
Also the paleoart feels like it’s from 2010 - which is kinda weird post-All Yesterday’s. Why are all the carnivores so vicious? Why aren’t they depicted as just animals?
This was still a cool book though and I’d recommend it to any dino-lover.
This is nit picky but why was there no mention of Yi qi???
Also the paleoart feels like it’s from 2010 - which is kinda weird post-All Yesterday’s. Why are all the carnivores so vicious? Why aren’t they depicted as just animals?
This was still a cool book though and I’d recommend it to any dino-lover.
January 1, 2019
An excellent introduction to the world of dinosaurs, written in a way that is accessible and not condescending.
October 22, 2018
Rawwwrrrrrr!
From the “Good Mother lizard” (Maiasaura) to the Tyrant Lizard (T-Rex) these monsters have descriptive names. Many ancient monster myths probably arose from the existence of large animals that had been witnessed only in the form of bones that surfaced in desert, sand, and mud. These people who told stories of dragons, Griffiths, and Quetzalcoatl’s were struggling to provide a framework to explain the beasts they saw evidence of from a long forgotten era.
Quoted from Dinosaurs, taken originally from Through the Looking Glass as the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll Charles Dodgson/ Lewis Carroll originally meant the borogoves as nonsense creatures, and now the Borogovia, a carnivorous dinosaur bears the name.
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.
On a recent paleontological trip to Barnes & Noble in Rome, Georgia, I found this awesome book of dinosaurs. While sipping a cup of coffee and glancing at the many drawings and illustrations after our purchase, my husband came over to where I sat in the coffee shop with a surprise. He’d discovered an equally prolific book of dinosaurs displayed near the registers after buying this one. So, he’d bought it too. It was just $12.00, where this book had been $30.00. So, I set out reading the two of them together, in hopes of comparing the quality.
This book does not have a table of contents, so I ended up making my own, and cross-referencing the dinos in both books on a spread sheet. 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 had some 200 dinosaurs, and another 20 prehistoric animals that were not dinos, but equally important to most dinosaur lovers. The other book, Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, has a few more than that. It has approximately 211 total dinosaurs and 59 prehistoric non-dinosaur animals. 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.
Both books are very high quality works. This book was first published under another name in Great Britain in 2013. The ‘other book’ was published in 2018, and has a table of contents listing the page numbers for each dino, and the format is much better. That one is about twice the size (L&W) as this book. With the cheaper price; the huge pictures and more dinos make it a better buy. This book labels each dinosaur by its scientific double name, where the bigger one 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.
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. This one 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. But, it is more of 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. But, the other book gives descriptions for every name.
My recommendation would be the other 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!
From the “Good Mother lizard” (Maiasaura) to the Tyrant Lizard (T-Rex) these monsters have descriptive names. Many ancient monster myths probably arose from the existence of large animals that had been witnessed only in the form of bones that surfaced in desert, sand, and mud. These people who told stories of dragons, Griffiths, and Quetzalcoatl’s were struggling to provide a framework to explain the beasts they saw evidence of from a long forgotten era.
”Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
Quoted from Dinosaurs, taken originally from Through the Looking Glass as the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll Charles Dodgson/ Lewis Carroll originally meant the borogoves as nonsense creatures, and now the Borogovia, a carnivorous dinosaur bears the name.
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.
On a recent paleontological trip to Barnes & Noble in Rome, Georgia, I found this awesome book of dinosaurs. While sipping a cup of coffee and glancing at the many drawings and illustrations after our purchase, my husband came over to where I sat in the coffee shop with a surprise. He’d discovered an equally prolific book of dinosaurs displayed near the registers after buying this one. So, he’d bought it too. It was just $12.00, where this book had been $30.00. So, I set out reading the two of them together, in hopes of comparing the quality.
This book does not have a table of contents, so I ended up making my own, and cross-referencing the dinos in both books on a spread sheet. 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 had some 200 dinosaurs, and another 20 prehistoric animals that were not dinos, but equally important to most dinosaur lovers. The other book, Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, has a few more than that. It has approximately 211 total dinosaurs and 59 prehistoric non-dinosaur animals. 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.
Both books are very high quality works. This book was first published under another name in Great Britain in 2013. The ‘other book’ was published in 2018, and has a table of contents listing the page numbers for each dino, and the format is much better. That one is about twice the size (L&W) as this book. With the cheaper price; the huge pictures and more dinos make it a better buy. This book labels each dinosaur by its scientific double name, where the bigger one 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.
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. This one 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. But, it is more of 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. But, the other book gives descriptions for every name.
My recommendation would be the other 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!
August 12, 2020
Beautifully illustrated, informative, and highly enjoyable. Ended up reading it from cover to cover. Dinosaurs are awesome.
Glad I chose this book over some others I was contemplating reading, I feel like this was the perfect jumping off point to learning more about dinosaurs. The layout was clear and not overcomplicated.
Glad I chose this book over some others I was contemplating reading, I feel like this was the perfect jumping off point to learning more about dinosaurs. The layout was clear and not overcomplicated.
February 7, 2017
this was the most informative and intelligent novel about dinosaurs I've read, one finally marketed to adults, instead of the usual child.
August 14, 2019
This book is amazing. I love popular science and try to keep up with all the new discoveries and theories, but the amount of new-to-me information in this book really surprised me.
February 7, 2018
I got this for my neices birthday, ahes a dinosur nut and I think she will love it!
This is a gorgeous, well designed book thats very thorough.
Each page is dedicated to a different dinosaur, there are keys on each page which gives a snap shot of its life style - whether it was a carnivore, omnivore, insectavore, piscasaurous, high grazer, low grazer etc. Height, weight, era it lived in and what area of the globe it inhabited.
Theres a few paragraphs of info on each dinosaur, and an artists interpretation is almost always included, or at least a siloutte of what it would look like if there are no artists drawings.
The book is divided into Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods - and they are all color coded so its easy to flip to the era you want. Its also aesthetically pleasing.
The page/ paper quality is fantastic, it will be durable for kids. There are quizzes that accompany each era to make it more engaging. There are small sections dedicated to important scientists in this field and their contributions,small anatomy lessons, diagrams on how the continents shifted through the eras, a few pages dedicated to North American dinosaurs - as well as sites open to the public for people who want to visit fossil sites and dinosaur tracks. Theres also a section at the end on the extinction of the dinosaurs.
If you have a kid that loves dinosaurs this would be a great gift.
This is a gorgeous, well designed book thats very thorough.
Each page is dedicated to a different dinosaur, there are keys on each page which gives a snap shot of its life style - whether it was a carnivore, omnivore, insectavore, piscasaurous, high grazer, low grazer etc. Height, weight, era it lived in and what area of the globe it inhabited.
Theres a few paragraphs of info on each dinosaur, and an artists interpretation is almost always included, or at least a siloutte of what it would look like if there are no artists drawings.
The book is divided into Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods - and they are all color coded so its easy to flip to the era you want. Its also aesthetically pleasing.
The page/ paper quality is fantastic, it will be durable for kids. There are quizzes that accompany each era to make it more engaging. There are small sections dedicated to important scientists in this field and their contributions,small anatomy lessons, diagrams on how the continents shifted through the eras, a few pages dedicated to North American dinosaurs - as well as sites open to the public for people who want to visit fossil sites and dinosaur tracks. Theres also a section at the end on the extinction of the dinosaurs.
If you have a kid that loves dinosaurs this would be a great gift.
July 28, 2018
This book is a great primer for the contemporary state of our understanding of dinosaurs - at least up to 2015. It's a field that develops fast so it'd be nice to see them do an updated edition, soon. In buying this I suspected I'd use it more as a spot reference source, but I ended up reading it cover to cover and quite enjoyed the ride.
The bulk of the book looks at a huge sample of dinosaurs, listed in order of their evolutionary appearance. For each dino, the book lists the period it lived, the size, the diet, a name pronunciation guide, and delivers an overview of the critical characteristics as discussing the history of the fossil's discovery. The book provides illustrations, but not for every dino entry.
At random points between clusters of dino spec entries, the book digresses with short treatments on related subjects.... like the value of fossilized dino poo, the famous 19th "Bone Wars", the process of discovering the Chicxulub crater, how we're coming to get a grip on dino colors, and more. The diversions are a welcome break in the books primary m.o. and are quite engaging.
I'd definitely say this book is novice level, but its not a book for kids - but rather for the adult with some interest in the subject and a basic science background.
The bulk of the book looks at a huge sample of dinosaurs, listed in order of their evolutionary appearance. For each dino, the book lists the period it lived, the size, the diet, a name pronunciation guide, and delivers an overview of the critical characteristics as discussing the history of the fossil's discovery. The book provides illustrations, but not for every dino entry.
At random points between clusters of dino spec entries, the book digresses with short treatments on related subjects.... like the value of fossilized dino poo, the famous 19th "Bone Wars", the process of discovering the Chicxulub crater, how we're coming to get a grip on dino colors, and more. The diversions are a welcome break in the books primary m.o. and are quite engaging.
I'd definitely say this book is novice level, but its not a book for kids - but rather for the adult with some interest in the subject and a basic science background.
March 26, 2020
4.5
Loved the way the information in this was set out. It was so easy on the eyes- the 'adult textbook' style is much nicer than walls of text and there was still a lot of detail on each page. It also had quizzes!
I'm sure the second edition will be 5 stars as it seems to have even better artwork, judging by other reviews, so I will be checking that out at some point.
Very cool that the author isnt an expert, but a very passionate dinosaur enthusiast and that he says if he had known that he would publish a book about dinosaurs 30 years after his first visit to The Natural History Museum at four years old, it would have 'blown his tiny mind'. Congratulations and awesome book!
Loved the way the information in this was set out. It was so easy on the eyes- the 'adult textbook' style is much nicer than walls of text and there was still a lot of detail on each page. It also had quizzes!
I'm sure the second edition will be 5 stars as it seems to have even better artwork, judging by other reviews, so I will be checking that out at some point.
Very cool that the author isnt an expert, but a very passionate dinosaur enthusiast and that he says if he had known that he would publish a book about dinosaurs 30 years after his first visit to The Natural History Museum at four years old, it would have 'blown his tiny mind'. Congratulations and awesome book!
June 19, 2020
While I like the organization of this book, its content leaves something to be desired. It illustrates Appalachiosaurus with three-fingered hands (while it should most definitely have two), features pronated hands (palms facing down) in other illustrations which would be impossible without breaking the dinosaur's wrists, and has an outdated illustration of Tsintaosaurus reflecting the original "unicorn hadrosaur" interpretation. Even at the time of this book's (recent) publication, these issues were understood. As far as I know, each of these problems persists in the second edition of the book.
August 10, 2018
A solid, clear, educational look at both well-known and obscure dinosaurs. This is clearly written by someone with a large body of knowledge about the field with an eye toward a lay audience, but it also doesn't talk down to the reader or otherwise oversimplify; I came away feeling like I definitely knew more and had been let in to the world of paleontology a little bit more, which is exactly what I should feel from a book about dinosaurs. If you want to know more about the subject, this is highly recommended.
August 23, 2020
The thing that I will always remember about this book is showing it and reading it with my grandchildren. As I turned a page, both my grandson and granddaughter would tell me the name of the dinosaur (without even having to read it) and tell me everything they knew about it. It was really impressive, especially since my granddaughter is not as interested in them as my grandson is, but he makes her watch the TV with him whenever they come on.
There are things in this book that should interest readers of any age.
There are things in this book that should interest readers of any age.
August 13, 2025
This is one of my childhood books. It took so much searching to figure out which one it was so that I could read it again, and it was very much worth it. It's incredibly informative in a well formatted and presented way, and is not written in a boring, dull tone. The range of Dinosaurs and other animals presented is impressive, and the information within is fascinating. This is perhaps the best Dinosaur book out there, and a great pick for anyone with an interest in prehistory and paleontology. Reading this again after so many years was immensely satisfying. Absolutely worth the cost.
May 5, 2019
The description of 'illustrations on nearly every page' is actually a bit misleading, although there are a fair few illustrations so it isn't too far off the mark, and it basically is every page if you count silhouettes. I don't, but others might. It's possible that there might also be a difference in illustration-to-page count in the actual physical book version, as the e-book at least blows up the words a bit by default.
March 25, 2023
this is a coffee table book. if the illustration budget had been a little more evenly distributed it might be more worth it, but as it is, this book is barely worth it to flip through for pictures. the silhouette drawings that fill most of the pages vary in clarity wildly.
It's a very eurocentric intro to the study of dinosaurs. there are allusions to the work of Chinese archaeologists, but they go mostly unnamed and unexplored in favor of white guys.
It's a very eurocentric intro to the study of dinosaurs. there are allusions to the work of Chinese archaeologists, but they go mostly unnamed and unexplored in favor of white guys.
July 24, 2023
Absolutely wonderful read. There are so many more fascinating dinosaurs than the ones that are portrayed in popular media, and this book gives a wonderful introduction to those. As I just finished some volunteer paleontological field work, it was also really cool to see the names of paleontologists that I was able to meet and learn from! My one critique of the book is that the images of many dinosaurs are only given as a silhouette, some of which are difficult to gain an appreciation for.
September 4, 2018
If you want a dinosaur-themed coffee-table book, this is the dinosaur-themed coffee-table book to buy! I bought it for my wife for Christmas a few years ago (as the classic "present for your spouse that's not-so-secretly also a present for yourself"), and my entire extended family enjoyed flipping through it.
June 30, 2021
An excellent dinosaur book with lots of species and other little dinosaur tidbits. I read the second edition that was published in 2019. My only complaint is that we didn't get images for every featured species as a large were just silhouettes. Otherwise a great book for dinosaur lovers to thumb through.
April 26, 2023
Beautiful artwork but overall targeted more towards children despite being dense and advertised for adults. Also I personally am not a fan of Horner scientifically and morally. A lot of his science opinions don't have proper peer reviews to back them up. Or if they do he just cites himself. Horner scientists are basically a cult, but you didn't hear it from me.
May 1, 2023
I randomly decided to learn more about dinosaurs/fossils and for anyone who wants a run down this is the book for you. I learned so much and it really blew my mind on what paleontologists know about dinosaurs today. From being able to suggest colorations to behavioral patterns and displays is rather incredible.
September 13, 2024
A not-so-grand tour ( www.amazon.com/review/R7A87XAX2YWOW/r... ): 2/5
Pim's "Dinosaurs―The Grand Tour" (henceforth Tour) was originally published in 2013 as "The Bumper Book of Dinosaurs". I hadn't read the whole thing then, but based on what I had read, I interpreted it as being like the NHM's "Dino Directory" in book form (I.e. Lots of good info, but also lots of outdated paleoart). Now that I've read the whole 2nd edition of Tour, I see that I gave it too much credit. In this review, I list the 2 main reasons why that is.
1) There's a lot of weird text (1) & writing (2) throughout Tour. This is especially apparent in the Pim quote:
-1) I'm specifically referring to Pangaea (which had already split into Laurasia & Gondwana in the Jurassic), "the first spikey-skulled ceratopsians" (which had already evolved in the Jurassic), carcharodontosaurs (which were already roaming South America in the Jurassic), & maybe the part about tyrannosaurs.*
-2) I'm specifically referring to the missing commas ("In western North America tyrannosaurs[...]and on land the first flowers[...]"), the oddly-structured sentences ("The warm seas teemed with ammonites, gigantic pterosaurs flapped through the skies,[...]"), the hyperbole ("monstrous carcharodontosaurs[...]the most almighty bang..."), & maybe the part about tyrannosaurs.*
2) There's a lot of non-paleoart (1) & bad paleoart (2) throughout Tour:
-1) Less than half of the profiled dinos (I.e. 83 out of 195) are reconstructed.
-2) Many of Pastori's reconstructions are shameless rip-offs of more famous reconstructions, just plain outdated/abominable, or some combination of both. This is especially apparent in his Dromaeosaurus/Scipionyx/Deinonychus/Velociraptor (which 1st appear on the 1st inside flap & then on page 4: https://web.archive.org/web/202301280... ): For 1, they're shameless rip-offs of Klausmeyer's Deinonychus/McCreery's baby Velociraptor/multiple JP reconstructions/Rey's 90s Velociraptor, respectively;** For another, they have mostly scaly skin &/or bunny hands; For yet another, they have very misshapen & disproportionate body parts (which makes sense given that they're mostly based on the wrong genera). Yes, they're from 1999. However, even if you ignore the fact that other paleoartists were doing better work in 1999 & earlier, that wouldn't explain why his newer reconstructions also have the above problems. The most egregious example in Tour may be his Neuquenraptor from 2008, which shamelessly rips off Sibbick's "Deinonychus portrait, front" with the addition of colors & feathers.*** Not only is Sibbick's reconstruction very well-known (E.g. See Norman's "Dinosaur!"), but Neuquenraptor has been known to be an unenlagiine (& thus, very different looking from eudromaeosaurs like Deinonychus) since 2005.
*In reference to "maybe", is the problem more about text or writing?: On the 1 hand (in reference to text), Pim might mean that tyrannosaurs had both unrivaled brain-power & unrivaled bite-power; If so, that's not right (I.e. Maniraptoriformes had relatively larger brains & cerebrums); On the other hand (in reference to writing), he might mean that they had an unrivaled combination of brain-power & bite-power; If so, why not simply say that?
**By "multiple JP reconstructions", I mean the T. rex head, the Velociraptor body, & the Ultimasaurus colors/patterns.
***Speaking of colors, remember what I said about the Durantes's colors (See problem #3: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3877062213 )? The same goes for Pastori's (E.g. Compare the front cover T. rex to any of Rey's tyrannosaurids).
Quoting Pim: "No great extinction opens this epoch, only a geological trend that saw more chalk formed than in any other time within the last 500m years, which led a German geologist to name it the Kreidezeit or ‘chalk period’. This term was later Latinised into Cretaceous; the limestone-rich Greek island of Crete owes its name to the same derivation. And so while Pangaea dispersed further, with the southern landmass of Gondwana splitting into something approaching the arrangement we recognise from today’s atlas, the dinosaurs flourished, diversifying further into some of the most amazing forms to have inhabited Earth. The first spikey-skulled ceratopsians and bone-headed pachycephalosaurs evolved, while monstrous carcharodontosaurs roamed South America alongside the lithe and lethal abelisaurs and the immense herbivorous titanosaurs. In western North America tyrannosaurs became the most advanced meat-eaters known, blending a brain-power and bite-power both unrivalled among fellow land animals of their time. The warm seas teemed with ammonites, gigantic pterosaurs flapped through the skies, and on land the first flowers began to bloom. Mammals began their ascent, birds became established - and then it all ended with the most almighty bang... except that it didn’t end, for we remain surrounded by dinosaurs to this day. Those that survived joined the mammals, fish, reptiles, flowering plants and trees to form the template for our present array of flora and fauna. As the terrestrial dinosaurs’ world ended, the one that we recognise was just beginning."
Pim's "Dinosaurs―The Grand Tour" (henceforth Tour) was originally published in 2013 as "The Bumper Book of Dinosaurs". I hadn't read the whole thing then, but based on what I had read, I interpreted it as being like the NHM's "Dino Directory" in book form (I.e. Lots of good info, but also lots of outdated paleoart). Now that I've read the whole 2nd edition of Tour, I see that I gave it too much credit. In this review, I list the 2 main reasons why that is.
1) There's a lot of weird text (1) & writing (2) throughout Tour. This is especially apparent in the Pim quote:
-1) I'm specifically referring to Pangaea (which had already split into Laurasia & Gondwana in the Jurassic), "the first spikey-skulled ceratopsians" (which had already evolved in the Jurassic), carcharodontosaurs (which were already roaming South America in the Jurassic), & maybe the part about tyrannosaurs.*
-2) I'm specifically referring to the missing commas ("In western North America tyrannosaurs[...]and on land the first flowers[...]"), the oddly-structured sentences ("The warm seas teemed with ammonites, gigantic pterosaurs flapped through the skies,[...]"), the hyperbole ("monstrous carcharodontosaurs[...]the most almighty bang..."), & maybe the part about tyrannosaurs.*
2) There's a lot of non-paleoart (1) & bad paleoart (2) throughout Tour:
-1) Less than half of the profiled dinos (I.e. 83 out of 195) are reconstructed.
-2) Many of Pastori's reconstructions are shameless rip-offs of more famous reconstructions, just plain outdated/abominable, or some combination of both. This is especially apparent in his Dromaeosaurus/Scipionyx/Deinonychus/Velociraptor (which 1st appear on the 1st inside flap & then on page 4: https://web.archive.org/web/202301280... ): For 1, they're shameless rip-offs of Klausmeyer's Deinonychus/McCreery's baby Velociraptor/multiple JP reconstructions/Rey's 90s Velociraptor, respectively;** For another, they have mostly scaly skin &/or bunny hands; For yet another, they have very misshapen & disproportionate body parts (which makes sense given that they're mostly based on the wrong genera). Yes, they're from 1999. However, even if you ignore the fact that other paleoartists were doing better work in 1999 & earlier, that wouldn't explain why his newer reconstructions also have the above problems. The most egregious example in Tour may be his Neuquenraptor from 2008, which shamelessly rips off Sibbick's "Deinonychus portrait, front" with the addition of colors & feathers.*** Not only is Sibbick's reconstruction very well-known (E.g. See Norman's "Dinosaur!"), but Neuquenraptor has been known to be an unenlagiine (& thus, very different looking from eudromaeosaurs like Deinonychus) since 2005.
*In reference to "maybe", is the problem more about text or writing?: On the 1 hand (in reference to text), Pim might mean that tyrannosaurs had both unrivaled brain-power & unrivaled bite-power; If so, that's not right (I.e. Maniraptoriformes had relatively larger brains & cerebrums); On the other hand (in reference to writing), he might mean that they had an unrivaled combination of brain-power & bite-power; If so, why not simply say that?
**By "multiple JP reconstructions", I mean the T. rex head, the Velociraptor body, & the Ultimasaurus colors/patterns.
***Speaking of colors, remember what I said about the Durantes's colors (See problem #3: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3877062213 )? The same goes for Pastori's (E.g. Compare the front cover T. rex to any of Rey's tyrannosaurids).
Quoting Pim: "No great extinction opens this epoch, only a geological trend that saw more chalk formed than in any other time within the last 500m years, which led a German geologist to name it the Kreidezeit or ‘chalk period’. This term was later Latinised into Cretaceous; the limestone-rich Greek island of Crete owes its name to the same derivation. And so while Pangaea dispersed further, with the southern landmass of Gondwana splitting into something approaching the arrangement we recognise from today’s atlas, the dinosaurs flourished, diversifying further into some of the most amazing forms to have inhabited Earth. The first spikey-skulled ceratopsians and bone-headed pachycephalosaurs evolved, while monstrous carcharodontosaurs roamed South America alongside the lithe and lethal abelisaurs and the immense herbivorous titanosaurs. In western North America tyrannosaurs became the most advanced meat-eaters known, blending a brain-power and bite-power both unrivalled among fellow land animals of their time. The warm seas teemed with ammonites, gigantic pterosaurs flapped through the skies, and on land the first flowers began to bloom. Mammals began their ascent, birds became established - and then it all ended with the most almighty bang... except that it didn’t end, for we remain surrounded by dinosaurs to this day. Those that survived joined the mammals, fish, reptiles, flowering plants and trees to form the template for our present array of flora and fauna. As the terrestrial dinosaurs’ world ended, the one that we recognise was just beginning."
August 30, 2018
I never did grow out of my childish fascination with Dinosaurs. So this tome holds massive appeal to me.
It's not exactly one that I've read cover to cover as a committed read, but it's a great reference, and chock full of things you probably never knew about our long extinct brethren.
It's not exactly one that I've read cover to cover as a committed read, but it's a great reference, and chock full of things you probably never knew about our long extinct brethren.
June 8, 2021
SO many new Dinosaurs to read about. It was also neat to read about the professionals who have enlarged our knowledge about dinosaurs. I was struck with how many dinosaurs were so alike! And loved the ones that were VERY different.
October 21, 2017
Neatly formatted and easy to understand with lots and lots of info
August 27, 2018
A good dinosaur reference book.
June 28, 2019
Being able to read about all the dinosaurs from all over the world and the different periods is awesome. I loved this experience!
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