Flying Dinosaurs: How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds

by John Pickrell, Philip Currie (Foreword)

“It will be difficult for any reader to think about dinosaurs—or birds—in the same ways they had before.”—Publishers Weekly   The discovery of stunning, feathered dinosaur fossils coming out of China in the twentieth century suggests that these creatures were much more bird-like than paleontologists previously imagined. Further evidence—bones, genetics, eggs, behavior, and more—has shown a seamless transition from fleet-footed carnivores to the ancestors of modern birds. Mixing colorful portraits with news on the latest fossil findings and interviews with leading paleontologists in the United States, China, Europe, and Australia, John Pickrell explains and details dinosaurs’ development of flight. This special capacity introduced a whole new range of abilities for the animals and helped them survive a mass extinction, when thousands of other dinosaur species that once populated Earth did not. Pickrell also turns his journalistic eye toward the stories behind the latest discoveries, investigating the role of the Chinese black market in trading fossils, the controversies among various dinosaur hunters, the interference of national governments intent on protecting scientific information, and the race to publish findings first that make this research such a dynamic area of science.   “Fascinating.”

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Dinosaurs, Palaeontology, Evolution, Animals, Birds

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2014

About the author

John Pickrell is an award-winning journalist and the editor of Australian Geographic magazine. He has worked in London, Washington DC and Sydney for publications including New Scientist, Science, Science News and Cosmos. John’s articles can also be found online and in print at BBC Wildlife, National Geographic, Scientific American and the ABC. He has been a finalist in the Australian Museum’s Eureka prizes three times, won an Earth Journalism Award and featured in The Best Australian Science Writing anthology in 2011 and 2014. John studied biology at Imperial College in the UK and has a Master of Science in taxonomy and biodiversity from London’s Natural History Museum.

Reviews

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

While a tad disjointed and repetitive (the chapters read more like collated publications from a blog than a cohesive book), it was still a charming book written by someone who is clearly into dinosaurs.

[Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it very much. I recommend it to everyone who has a bit of interest in paleontology, dinosaurs and evolution in general. The author doesn't write the dry scientific explanations but gives a more readable approach to the topic. I have his second book in my TBR pile and it just moved up several spots towards the top of the list :)
I don't give the full 5 stars because I did miss illustrations and photo's of the fossils in the various chapters.

[Mike Tuholski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I very rarely start a book and leave it unfinished but I could not get past two chapters of this book simply because I dislike the author's style. Instead of just telling the story, it is written with a jumble of quotes from famous paleontologists as if the author simply cut-and-pasted several interviews together rather than searching through the primarily literature and source material himself. This is a very odd way to structure a science book, even a popular science book. It reads as if written by a newspaper journalist writing an article, not a science communicator writing a popular science book.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and well written book that generally summarizes what is know about the Dinosaur-Bird relationship.

[Alastair French · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Imagine, if you will, …”
and so I didn’t even get to the end of the first sentence and I was already annoyed with the style. The author keeps saying that someone “pulled a fossil from the ground” as if they were carrots – it made me wonder if he had ever actually seen a fossil in situ, or only those presented in museums …
DNF

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really great book about the link between birds and dinosaurs. The basic premise is that birds ARE dinosaurs, and that it is a fool's errand to try to distinguish between them. From this, there are a lot of insights that dinosaur fossils can offer for understanding ornithology, and for how modern birds can inform our understanding of ancient dinosaurs.

These are my summaries of the content of each chapter:

Introduction about how birds are dinosaurs, and the fossil boom in China.
1. Connection between birds and dinosaurs in paleontological history.
2. Sinosauropteryx and feathered dinos from China.
3. Xu Xing (Chinese paleotologist) and the dinosaur boom; comparison to Marsh and Cope in the 19th century.
4. Dinosaur origins of bird genetics, disease, metabolism, and behavior.
5. Fossil poaching and forgery in China.
6. Evolution of feathers.
7. Theories for how flight evolved - ground-up vs tree-down, gliding vs flying, temporal paradox, wing-assisted movement that is not actual flying.
8. Dinosaur origins for bird nesting, brooding, courtship, and sex (T. Rex penises are discussed here).
9. Color and sound in dinosaurs compared to birds.
10. Bird DNA contains the potential for previous dinosaurian traits (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny).
11. Why did avian dinosaurs survive K-T and no others? We're not sure, but here are some ideas.
Appendix with a simple cladogram and a listing of every feathered dinosaur species.

This was an engaging and interesting book that looks at modern research and international and interdisciplinary work. My only critique is that I wish there were more diagrams and illustrations. The example that stands out to my mind is the chapter on feather development, where the author verbally describes how feathers develop - how much better if a page had been devoted to illustrating the stages! But I did enjoy this book, and I would recommend it.

[Mark Zodda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really opened my eyes to current thinking about dinosaurs and birds, and that we've come a long way since I last looked at the subject. A bit more detailed than I expected for a popular read and it was easy to get lost in the weeds with the names of all the different dinosaurs and details presented. The kindle version in shades of gray did a disservice to the images of the fossils and dinosaur recreations (I had to open it on my iPad to really appreciate the pictures). Definitely worth picking up if you have any interest in the subject.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction and overview of developments in palaeontology and evolutionary biology, re dinosaurs, in the last twenty years. Interesting and easy read. I personally would love to see a "dino-chicken" (see chapter 10). A great pop science read, just wish there were more pictures of recent discoveries.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

2022 re-read: not quite as good as I recalled, and the book now feels a bit outdated, though its 2014 publication date is still fairly recent. Writing is good, and the author is knowledgeable. Recommended reading, if you are interested in learning about the evolution of birds.

[Prahlad Vaidyanathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just the book I was looking for. It is well written for the lay person, with just enough scientific jargon to keep one interested without getting overwhelmed. It is also peppered with the human stories behind the discoveries, which keeps the book from getting too dry.

The primary thesis of the book is that birds are dinosaurs. Not "birds evolved from some shrew-like dinosaur the way mammals did". No. Birds are dinosaurs.

Naturally, understanding that sentence took me a fair amount of mental gymnastics. Here are the important takeaways for me from this book:
- Birds, or creatures much like them, existed well before the K-Pg extinction. Creatures like Microraptor, Deinonychus and others will have you scratching your head about what constitutes a "bird" in the first place!
- Many features we associate (almost exclusively) with birds such as powered flight, wings (formed from forelimbs), feathers, brooding over nests of eggs, and even possibly birdsong all existed in the dinosaur family tree long before we anticipated.
- Archaeopteryx, which could certainly fly, dates back to 150ma, to the late Jurassic. Many other features mentioned above all show up in the Cretaceous in various branches of the Dinosaur family tree, not just in the Theropods.
- We still don't know a lot though: When and why did powered flight first evolve? Why did feathers first evolve? Were all dinosaurs warm blooded? These are all questions without concrete answers.
- There are many interesting ongoing investigations: scientists are trying to understand what noises dinosaurs would have made, which dinosaur fossils are of juveniles and which are of adults, and some are even trying to reverse engineer a "dinosaur chicken" (this sounds equal parts cool and terrifying).

All in all, an excellent book. Strongly recommend it to anyone interested in this fascinating subject.

[Chris Thorley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a little on the short side but there's a lot of interesting stuff here and it helps to bring dinosaurs to life, often in ways we wouldn't have thought possible at one time. When you realize that the dinosaurs never really died out, that they still live among us as birds, it really changes how you see them. We've come a long way from seeing dinosaurs as slow and very reptilian and I fail to see how any respectable scientist could deny that they evolved into birds. Despite the short length of the book it really goes into a lot of interesting detail, particularly how we can determine the colour of some dinosaurs feathers (something I was assured we could never know as a child).

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book though it is not a gripping page turner so it took a while to get through. There has been a LOT of dinosaur discoveries and links between birds and dinosaurs in the last 30 years. This book covers a basic background of dinosaur paleontology and then the new discoveries in depth. If you are not familiar with the topic, this makes a bit of a slow read since it is a lot of new names of researchers, dig sites, and dinosaurs, but it is all pretty awesome if you are keen on birds or dinosaurs. There is one section of color pictures, but it is mostly a text book. There are other books available if you are looking for artistic interpretations of feathered dinosaurs.

[dot · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun & interesting read, Pickrell is conversational and informative. A lovely exploration of feathered dinosaurs. There were a couple of things I picked up on that I thought were strange - continually referring to Huxley as “Darwin’s bulldog” when it had been mentioned many times and is not particularly relevant other than for interest, and explaining what eco-devo is for the third time. I only wish I had read it when it first came out.

[Barbara J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Had no idea of the many "feathered" ancestors of birds.n

Always a fan of paleontology, I eagerly read new evidences of the creatures that lived in the past. However, I did not know of the great numbers of birdlike dinosaurs and their coexistence with newly evolved birds! How can there be any serious doubt that our birds are the new dinosaurs? So informative that I feel that my geology courses have been totally updated.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting topic, and well written so that you don’t need to memorize 100 dinosaur names to understand what is being said. This is definitely a book that is better as a physical copy than an ebook or audiobook, as there are is a section of coloured images to refer to (though I would have preferred if they were always explicitly referenced when the relating topic was spoken about in the book) and a few sections at the end that are useful to flip to.

[Erwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read.
Since the 90s, the fossil record has been enriched with numerous feathered dinosaur fossils.
How they helped to refine the phylogeny, what has been the evolution of ideas in paleontology in the last century, how researchers find the color of feathers of animals that roamed in the Cretaceous?
An excellent book for all dinosaur enthusiasts and for all the curious.

[Elizabeth de Moya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Make the IMAX documentary already!! It is sure to inspire generations of children and adults for years to come.

It’s at an easy enough reading level to read to kids.

Now when I look at birds I see a highly evolved dinosaur.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly I have not been so exited about something in a long time! I did not realize than we learned basically everything we know about dinosaurs in my lifetime?! So interesting, I cannot thank the park ranger in big bend who recommended this book to me enough!

[Patrick M · Rating 5 out of 5]

History of Dinosaurs to Birds through fossils

A good overview of recent paleontology findings of featherd dinosaurs and relationship to birds. Covers well the many high grade fossils from China showing dinosaurs with feathers, and tries to explain the origins of feathers.

[Rachel (Sfogs) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book! So much to learn!

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, solid information. Dense in places, fluid in others. I'm not sure that the title is fitting, the book seems to jump around considerably.

[Angus Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually a great book - only took so long to read it because summer kept me busy.

[Tara Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot! It had some history, biology, geology but it was all very accessible. Learned a lot about feathered dinosaurs and their place in the avian family tree.

[Ron Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent summary of how the dinosaurs developed feathers, which then later became adapted for flight.

[Brandaronii · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super rad, read it a few times

[Mol Plourde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear information, covers the topic well for a general reader’s interest.

[Heather]

I enjoyed this book. I love learning about history.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It feels very episodic--like the author has a blog and just lopped them altogether here. The science lacks depths.

[Olivia Livingstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

an interesting short read !! wish it delved a little deeper into the biology

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that I randomly encountered at my library and checked out because dinosaurs are always interesting. However, I initially wondered if it was really worth reading since I am generally familiar with the discoveries that helped prove that birds descended from dinosaurs, though I wouldn't be able to say exactly who discovered what and when and what they named it. Fortunately only the beginning of the book focuses on this sort of information and later sections go into greater detail about the science of bird adaptation on speculations on how this impacts our interpretation of extinct dinosaurs.

Some things I found particularly interesting:
- a description of the one-way airflow of birds respiratory systems, including both rigid lungs and pneumatized bones
- the idea that neoteny may partially explain changes in bird anatomy from dinosaur ancestors (though neoteny is invoked in so many places now I wonder if it really has any explanative value)
- how bird embryos are able to move around in the eggs, but turtle and crocodile embryos won't develop properly if moved, and how dinosaur nesting patterns may indicate the types of eggs dinosaurs produced
- crop milk
- the horrifying image of a "2-meter-long, explosively eversible, corkscrew-shaped T. Rex penis"
- how pigments work, and how this is used to identify probably coloration of extinct dinosaurs: melanosomes limited mostly to black, grey, orange and brown, with colors like green and blue coming from iridescence, which uses structures to achieve colors (though I feel like this description leaves some colors of animals not fully explained)
- the fact that humans are fairly unique amongst mammals for having tri-chromatic vision, while most only see in black and white and limited colors; conversely birds have tetra-chromatic vision which includes UV light; if extinct dinosaurs had eyes like birds, they would probably have been much more colorful creatures than are commonly depicted
- speculation on the sounds of dinosaurs; mammals are unique in having vocal cords; birds produce sound with a special structure called the syrinx, and crocodiles use the larynx; what would dinosaurs have used? did they only produce hisses and physical sounds (stomping, jaw snapping, etc) or could they produce some sort of vocalization? indications that dinosaurs could have heard (and probably used) much deeper sounds than humans can perceive; studies that indicate Parasaurolophus and other crested dinosaurs probably could produce an interesting range of sounds with their crests
- biomechanical studies that indicate that Allosaurus was not just a smaller T. Rex but fed differently: it probably used a back-and-up tearing motion like modern raptors use as opposed to shaking the head from side to side to rend the carcass

Overall, this book left me with the impression that we should really re-imagine what the age of dinosaurs was like; less lumbering reptiles, more fuzzy, feathery, possibly chirping giant bird/lizard hybrids.

My one dissatisfaction with the book is the color images. Partly the problem is just the nature of printing that it is more economical to have all the color pages in the middle and not integrated into the text. But I think the images could have been better organized and better referenced in the text such that one could more easily follow along with the explanations. As it is now they are interesting, but it has sort of a grab-bag approach, a bunch of images related to feathered dinosaurs all jumbled together.