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The Future of Dinosaurs: What We Don't Know, What We Can, and What We'll Never Know
Ever since we first started discovering dinosaurs in the early-1800s, our obsession for uncovering everything about these creatures has been insatiable. Each generation has made huge strides in trying to better our understanding of these animals and in the past twenty years, we have made more discoveries than in the previous two hundred.
There have been extraordinary advances in palaeontological methods and ever more dinosaur fossils promise a landslide of new data and huge leaps forward in our understanding of these incredible animals. Over time, we have been bale to look at the sizes and shapes of bones, we have identified patches of fossil skin, we have looked at footprints and bite marks and we've calculated mass estimates and walking speeds.
With surprisingly little data to work from, we can put together a picture of an animal that has been extinct for a million human lifetimes. But for all our technological advances, and two centuries of new data and ideas, there is stull much more we don't know. What parasites and diseases afflicted them? How did they communicate? Did they climb trees? How many species were there?
In The Future of Dinosaurs, palaeontologist Dr David Hone looks at the recent strides in scientific research and the advanced knowledge we've gathered in recent years, as well as what we hope to learn in the future about these most fascinating of extinct creatures.
There have been extraordinary advances in palaeontological methods and ever more dinosaur fossils promise a landslide of new data and huge leaps forward in our understanding of these incredible animals. Over time, we have been bale to look at the sizes and shapes of bones, we have identified patches of fossil skin, we have looked at footprints and bite marks and we've calculated mass estimates and walking speeds.
With surprisingly little data to work from, we can put together a picture of an animal that has been extinct for a million human lifetimes. But for all our technological advances, and two centuries of new data and ideas, there is stull much more we don't know. What parasites and diseases afflicted them? How did they communicate? Did they climb trees? How many species were there?
In The Future of Dinosaurs, palaeontologist Dr David Hone looks at the recent strides in scientific research and the advanced knowledge we've gathered in recent years, as well as what we hope to learn in the future about these most fascinating of extinct creatures.
272 pages, Paperback
Published June 6, 2024
42 people are currently reading
786 people want to read
About the author
David Hone
15 books56 followersDavid Hone is a paleontologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. He has written about dinosaurs for leading publications such as National Geographic, The Guardian, The Telegraph and HuffPost. His books include The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The Biology of the Tyrant Dinosaurs
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
September 12, 2022
This book is a open and honest account of all the things we do not know about Dinosaurs and Hone speculates about what we might be able to find out in the future. It covers key areas of Dinosaur research.
I really wanted to like this book but I didn't think it was for me. The book does pull back the curtain and show the reasons for why there is a lack of information on some aspects of Dinosaur Palaeontology but if you have any background in the subject you know that Palaeontology is as Hone describes.
I think the book is also let down by its readability. The discussion often veers off into tangential topics and therefore feels as though it lacks structure. The book suffers from numerous spelling and grammatical errors. The first sentence of the introduction reads "...narrative of uncertainly giving way to fact and theory..." instead of "...narrative of uncertainty giving way to fact and theory...". It's so distracting and clearly there needs to be an editorial change as this was present in Tyrannosaurus Chronicles.
I really wanted to like this book but I didn't think it was for me. The book does pull back the curtain and show the reasons for why there is a lack of information on some aspects of Dinosaur Palaeontology but if you have any background in the subject you know that Palaeontology is as Hone describes.
I think the book is also let down by its readability. The discussion often veers off into tangential topics and therefore feels as though it lacks structure. The book suffers from numerous spelling and grammatical errors. The first sentence of the introduction reads "...narrative of uncertainly giving way to fact and theory..." instead of "...narrative of uncertainty giving way to fact and theory...". It's so distracting and clearly there needs to be an editorial change as this was present in Tyrannosaurus Chronicles.
February 13, 2025
A highly informative, engaging, and accessible book that provides heapings of information in a pleasantly structured, never overwhelming manner, plus some tongue in cheek moments.
Whilst more an overview of the science itself rather than providing information on the animals themselves (though this is given), "The Future of Dinosaurs" never drags and never falls into the twin yet contradictory traps of either talking down to you or throwing far too much impenetrable terminology into your path.
It shows a true reverence for the subject matter, and highlights the ways myriad scientific disciplines have informed our knowledge of dinosaurs. Indeed, for me, one of the chief strengths of this book is how it draws together the sciences to show how not only does palaeontology study many aspects, but how even non-palaeontologists support the science, even if they don't always know it.
Truly, I was fascinated by every page, and appreciated how earlier sections were called back to in later chapters. My partner can attest that I was frequently reading passages to her aloud to share my enjoyment and interest.
Perhaps my only criticisms are 1) a smattering of typos throughout that feel like leftovers (fossils, perhaps) of earlier drafts before new information demanded rewrites, and 2) that there was, unfortunately, not a chapter on dinosaur sounds and whether science has ever, or will ever, answer questions around that subject.
On this latter criticism, there was a sentence towards the end of the book where Hone calls back to an earlier chapter/passage that doesn't exist, referring to vocalisations, so I can only assume this was excised for brevity, or because new information rendered it redundant.
I think I would place this with Steve Brusatte's "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" and Michael J. Benton's "Dinosaurs Rediscovered" as the Trinity of dinosaur books worth reading to build a very firm foundation of knowledge upon which to learn more about specific lineages, eras, etc.
Whilst more an overview of the science itself rather than providing information on the animals themselves (though this is given), "The Future of Dinosaurs" never drags and never falls into the twin yet contradictory traps of either talking down to you or throwing far too much impenetrable terminology into your path.
It shows a true reverence for the subject matter, and highlights the ways myriad scientific disciplines have informed our knowledge of dinosaurs. Indeed, for me, one of the chief strengths of this book is how it draws together the sciences to show how not only does palaeontology study many aspects, but how even non-palaeontologists support the science, even if they don't always know it.
Truly, I was fascinated by every page, and appreciated how earlier sections were called back to in later chapters. My partner can attest that I was frequently reading passages to her aloud to share my enjoyment and interest.
Perhaps my only criticisms are 1) a smattering of typos throughout that feel like leftovers (fossils, perhaps) of earlier drafts before new information demanded rewrites, and 2) that there was, unfortunately, not a chapter on dinosaur sounds and whether science has ever, or will ever, answer questions around that subject.
On this latter criticism, there was a sentence towards the end of the book where Hone calls back to an earlier chapter/passage that doesn't exist, referring to vocalisations, so I can only assume this was excised for brevity, or because new information rendered it redundant.
I think I would place this with Steve Brusatte's "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" and Michael J. Benton's "Dinosaurs Rediscovered" as the Trinity of dinosaur books worth reading to build a very firm foundation of knowledge upon which to learn more about specific lineages, eras, etc.
April 29, 2022
The book discusses exactly the things that the title suggests!
The things they know, the things they don’t know and what we can expect from the future!
Even for someone who doesn’t work in the field, you will be able to follow along because it is written very accessible.
The things they know, the things they don’t know and what we can expect from the future!
Even for someone who doesn’t work in the field, you will be able to follow along because it is written very accessible.
April 21, 2025
This is an excellent dive into palaeontology. It has depth without jargon, and is exciting without hyperbolising. Hone uses his time to paint a rich picture of what we know and what we can know about Dinosaurs, and respects the intelligence and the curiosity of the reader. There is so much still to learn about dinosaurs, and Hone paints an exciting picture of what we know, why we know it, and what is left to be discovered. The variety of scientific disciplines that have come together to unveil secrets of a prehistoric world, including colours and behaviours being exhibited hundreds of millions of years ago, is breathtaking. Hone’s examination of this collaboration and how it supports his field is a refreshingly novel one.
I can easily recommend this to anyone with even a passing curiosity in palaeontology.
I can easily recommend this to anyone with even a passing curiosity in palaeontology.
January 6, 2024
got this book AGES ago and i only read it till now. was really excited to get my dinosaur freak on but found the writing a BIT tedious at times… some major issues with the editing cause lots of mistakes and extremely long sentences. the ecology chapter was my favourite (because i am an ecologist). 🦕 🦖
September 25, 2022
Interesting but repetitive.
August 27, 2025
Brilliant book! Anything dinosaur, informative and easy reading gets 5 stars in my book...
August 29, 2025
Interesting.
October 28, 2025
This neat little treatise on the current state of dinosaur palaeontology has once again renewed my appreciation for those who’ve contributed to our no-longer-meagre understanding of these amazing creatures, as well as reinforced the sad truth that there’s so much we’ll simply never know about them. Alas, as Hone is apt to conclude (without fail, at the end of every chapter), at least time can only add to our knowledge of the far, far, distant past.
August 5, 2023
An interesting book which does what it says on the cover, but it was poorly edited and full of typos which I found distracting.
June 6, 2022
[edited] Just realized, I finished this book two days before International Dinosaur Day!! Feeling that owning this reading experience in awesome coincidence!
THIS!
THIS!
THIS is what a Dinosaur book supposed to be!
I have been searching for Dinosaur book that is layman friendly, but answer everything to what I always wonder in paleontology study. Most of books about dinosaur and even museums are cherrypicking the detail about dinosaur that telling what it is but never explain why or how. And of course, my knowledge about dinosaur is based on Jurassic Park, The Future of Dinosaurs points out Hollywood cliché that I need to reimagine the dinosaur that never well-represented
I’ve fallen in love to Dr Hone presentation in youtube that I finally decided to read his book. Surprisingly, his writing is as good as his presentation!The flow of his explanation is so structural, not too technical, but everything he explained is making so much sense by using comparative study with modern animal. THIS book really serves its purpose. (Most of non-fiction books use fancy title but often irrelevant to the context)
Paleontology was my childhood dream job (other than being engineer and mathematician) and this book really reminds me why I wanted to be a paleontologist. Studying fossil is also about learning what our Earth looks like and about what makes the modern animals become what they are today.
I am so looking forward to see further of Dr Hone works. Be it his presentation, or be it book.
P.S to Dr Hone: please write about aquatic fossils since I’m curious about how the life under the sea become like what we have today
THIS!
THIS!
THIS is what a Dinosaur book supposed to be!
I have been searching for Dinosaur book that is layman friendly, but answer everything to what I always wonder in paleontology study. Most of books about dinosaur and even museums are cherrypicking the detail about dinosaur that telling what it is but never explain why or how. And of course, my knowledge about dinosaur is based on Jurassic Park, The Future of Dinosaurs points out Hollywood cliché that I need to reimagine the dinosaur that never well-represented
I’ve fallen in love to Dr Hone presentation in youtube that I finally decided to read his book. Surprisingly, his writing is as good as his presentation!The flow of his explanation is so structural, not too technical, but everything he explained is making so much sense by using comparative study with modern animal. THIS book really serves its purpose. (Most of non-fiction books use fancy title but often irrelevant to the context)
Paleontology was my childhood dream job (other than being engineer and mathematician) and this book really reminds me why I wanted to be a paleontologist. Studying fossil is also about learning what our Earth looks like and about what makes the modern animals become what they are today.
I am so looking forward to see further of Dr Hone works. Be it his presentation, or be it book.
P.S to Dr Hone: please write about aquatic fossils since I’m curious about how the life under the sea become like what we have today
Read
January 27, 2023 A good introduction for those interested in dinosaurs that's presented in a structured and straightforward style. The author, Dr David Hone chooses to take a more general approach to the topic, examining what we know overall about key aspects of paleontological studies like: dinosaur evolution, extinction, reproduction, ecology, appearance, and so on. Another key aim of this book is to assess (as far as practicable) current research, what we can hope to find out about dinosaurs in the future, as well as the gaps in dinosaur research we'll never be able to fill.
As a listener of Dr Hone's podcast with Iszi Lawrence, Terrible Lizards, it's been interesting to finally get to read the book I've occasionally heard about in various episodes. It's clear from the podcast how enthusiastic and knowledgeable Dr Hone is when discussing dinosaurs and this definitely carries through in his book. Overall, I enjoyed reading this and would recommend as a good place to start for those unfamiliar with, but interested in learning more about dinosaurs.
As a listener of Dr Hone's podcast with Iszi Lawrence, Terrible Lizards, it's been interesting to finally get to read the book I've occasionally heard about in various episodes. It's clear from the podcast how enthusiastic and knowledgeable Dr Hone is when discussing dinosaurs and this definitely carries through in his book. Overall, I enjoyed reading this and would recommend as a good place to start for those unfamiliar with, but interested in learning more about dinosaurs.
April 27, 2022
A fascinating book that sets out exactly what ww currently know and don’t know about dinosaurs. Those of us who grew up in the late 60s and early 70s and who were interested in the subject may have carried about an idea that we knew ‘something’ about the topic and thereby being completely unaware of the huge advances made over the intervening years. Of course, if we’d have thought about it, that should have been obvious but one often gets stuck on the idea that what we know about creatures that became extinct 65 million years ago has already been agreed. I enjoyed this book a lot and , despite the difficulties in pronunciation of various creatures, it’s very accessible for those, like me, who have the interest in the subject from childhood.
April 6, 2025
Beyond the occasional dry tone and meandering subject matter, there's really nothing to complain about in this book. The tone may have been a necessary evil for the author to stay on topic and in the realm of nuance, avoiding certainty whilst still conveying a lot of information.
And plenty of this information was new to me, particularly in that which was tangential to the discussion of palaeontology - the nuances in different types of endothermy vs ectothermy, for example, put into an easy-to-understand format. This makes the book incredibly useful to reference, and, I can imagine, annotating extensively too.
And plenty of this information was new to me, particularly in that which was tangential to the discussion of palaeontology - the nuances in different types of endothermy vs ectothermy, for example, put into an easy-to-understand format. This makes the book incredibly useful to reference, and, I can imagine, annotating extensively too.
February 5, 2023
Moderately intriguing book about what we know and don't know (but might in the future) about dinosaurs. I've learned a fair amount that I hope will stay with me.
A couple of criticisms: there's a section about what caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs which expressed uncertainty about the role of the asteroid, then later in the book states 'we know what did it', referring to this extinction event. This seems to be a contradiction. Also, there are a few typos and other mistakes that sometimes cause confusion e.g "for another set of similar beds similar" p.217.
A couple of criticisms: there's a section about what caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs which expressed uncertainty about the role of the asteroid, then later in the book states 'we know what did it', referring to this extinction event. This seems to be a contradiction. Also, there are a few typos and other mistakes that sometimes cause confusion e.g "for another set of similar beds similar" p.217.
March 27, 2025
I read this back to back with Dr. Hone’s latest book, “Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior”
Plenty of overlap can be found in the subject matter of both titles as both focus on the surprising amount of knowledge we have gleaned from fossils alone while reminding us that some conclusions should be taken with a fair pinch of salt and much information remains (and will very likely always be) tantalizingly out of reach. That being said, between the two, I found this earlier work to be all around better written.
Plenty of overlap can be found in the subject matter of both titles as both focus on the surprising amount of knowledge we have gleaned from fossils alone while reminding us that some conclusions should be taken with a fair pinch of salt and much information remains (and will very likely always be) tantalizingly out of reach. That being said, between the two, I found this earlier work to be all around better written.
March 2, 2023
A very enjoyable and interesting read, as the subtitle says it explains the present and future of paleontology. Very readable and accessible with some bits of humour throughout. I started it a while ago and got side tracked with other books but that is not representative of this very excellent book.
March 17, 2023
Functional if a little uninspired tour of the past, current and possible future state of knowledge on dinosaurs. Could do with a more attentive editor I think. There were numerous sentences written with oppositional words like "although" or "but" where the 2 clauses agreed. Or vice versa. About as confusing as I've now made this explanation
December 16, 2023
I wrote a review for “How Fast Did T.rex Run?” and being “The Future of Dinosaurs” the British edition of that book, I’ll just repeat what I stated about it. For the laymen it’s a wonderful book, highly informative and well written. Being mainly not about what we know but rather about what we actually don’t know on mesozoic ecosystems, the reader is left with even more interest in the field.
Recommended!
Recommended!
April 26, 2024
The book does exactly as advertised, explaining what we don’t know about dinosaurs and where research is currently at. The problem is that I was looking for books on dinosaurs, not on what we don’t know about them. I guess I will appreciate this book better once I know more about dinosaurs from other books.
April 7, 2024
While more experienced readers will find this text a little basic, the author does a good job at laying out just why we know the things we know. If you are looking for a more detailed analysis on what we DO know about dinosaurs, there are plenty of books that tackle all aspects of that.
February 28, 2025
The Future of Dinosaurs is a fresh take on pop-palaeo that flips the script by charting the limits of our knowledge. Read my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2025...
March 3, 2025
Absolutely amazing. Exactly the book about dinosaurs that I have been looking for. Clarifying so well which parts of "common knowledge" about dinosaurs are founded in scientific evidence and which are not
July 29, 2025
The Future of Dinosaurs by David Hone.
What we don't know, what we can and what we'll never know.
This book does a good job in laying out what we know and how we know it and what such knowledge might suggest.
What we don't know, what we can and what we'll never know.
This book does a good job in laying out what we know and how we know it and what such knowledge might suggest.
September 29, 2025
Great book to update myself on current themes in dinosaur studies. Easy to read and written with an easy and often humorous style I enjoyed Davids book untuil it became rather repetitive in the last few chapters and slowed down rather. Definitely recommend and I learnt a lot
May 5, 2022
Just as it says on the cover….. a great read, honest and informative
May 8, 2022
Interesting topic, nicely written. Lacks detail.
May 23, 2022
A very readable (and enjoyable) update on the current state of palaeontology.
July 28, 2022
Very interesting! Not too difficult to understand but also goes in depth in some ways.
August 5, 2022
A fascinating survey of the known unknowns of the non-avian dinosaurs. Would recommend.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews