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A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and Other Winged Dinosaurs
A comprehensive illustrated guide to the birds of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and their dinosaurian forebears. Each species is illustrated in multiple views with size and distinguishing features highlighted. Includes introduction summarizing current research into bird origins and evolution, and what we know (and don't know) about the life appearance and habits of the first birds.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 8, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 15, 2013
The conceit of this book is that one can produce a bird-watcher's guide to the ornithology of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The first part of the book provides an overview of the modern understanding of early bird evolution, and just how much we can (and can't) tell about, for example, the plumage of long-dead species. For that matter, what exactly is a "bird" in this context, when we're heading back to the increasingly blurry line between them and the reptiles?
The bulk of the book, in true bird-watchers style, consists of beautifully painted illustrations of just about every known species of Mesozoic bird/winged dinosaur (an appendix at the end lists those that didn't make the cut, largely because not enough is known about them). Each comes with a brief description, with things like the wingspan, native habitat and probable ecology and diet described.
It's a fascinating insight into the diversity of such early birds, and surely an invaluable guide for anyone interested in the subject. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd want to sit down and read at a single sitting, but then neither is, for example, A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Northern Europe.
The bulk of the book, in true bird-watchers style, consists of beautifully painted illustrations of just about every known species of Mesozoic bird/winged dinosaur (an appendix at the end lists those that didn't make the cut, largely because not enough is known about them). Each comes with a brief description, with things like the wingspan, native habitat and probable ecology and diet described.
It's a fascinating insight into the diversity of such early birds, and surely an invaluable guide for anyone interested in the subject. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd want to sit down and read at a single sitting, but then neither is, for example, A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Northern Europe.
February 14, 2026
Pretty good. Solid conceit, a literal field guide you might use if you suddenly found yourself birdwatching in the Cretaceous, makes it something a bit different and novel.
The first section is quite dry, explaining how all the restorations are done. It really highlights how much work and knowledge is required to be a paleoartist but it's a slightly tough read.
Then the guide starts and there's all these beautiful little illustrations (although a slight over reliance on casques so related birds look a bit different).
Worth a read if you're into this kind of thing but it's about ten years old now so an amount of the restorations and cladograms won't be right
The first section is quite dry, explaining how all the restorations are done. It really highlights how much work and knowledge is required to be a paleoartist but it's a slightly tough read.
Then the guide starts and there's all these beautiful little illustrations (although a slight over reliance on casques so related birds look a bit different).
Worth a read if you're into this kind of thing but it's about ten years old now so an amount of the restorations and cladograms won't be right
June 10, 2023
Very thorough book written just like a Peterson or other field guide for the birds of the Mesozoic. This being published in 2012, there was abundant evidence of feathered dinosaurs, with the author noting that feathers for purposes of this book meaning “feathers with a fully modern anatomy, consisting of a rachis (central “quill”), and a vane comprised of barbs linked together by barbules,” a definition that allows inclusion in the book of many dinosaurs not regarded by most amateurs at least as belonging with birds at all (like Utahraptor ostrommaysorum and Velociraptor mongoliensis) but not including every dinosaur that had some sort of feathery covering, such as the ornithnomimosaurs, which appeared to have a coating of downy feathers and may have had feathers with central quills on their arms, but are not really covered in modern feathers and thus not in the guide.
The first 51 pages is a thorough, rather technical, and I will say a little dry but well researched discussion on topics such as what exactly is a bird, the origins of birds, the origins of flight, the evolution of feathers, the diversity of birds in the Mesozoic, and what we know of the feathers, feather color, wings, beaks, and teeth of Mesozoic birds. I liked the discussions on the different types of flying (five distinct styles, “flapping, flap-gliding, bounding, soaring, and bursting”), the exact anatomy of Mesozoic birds with teeth (something that always interested me), and a really interesting multiple page discussion of feather coloration, noting that while Mesozoic birds would have not have had the pink colors of flamingos or the bright greens and yellows of birds-of-paradise (and why this was the case with Mesozoic birds), as they would have worked with a more limited color palate of “muted yellow, rusty red, dark grey and off-white,” they still could have been striking by using different color patterns and using iridescence to create “striking, jewel-like feathers.”
The rest of the book is a field guide to the birds of the Mesozoic, each entry listing the scientific name, the “common name” (derived from the translation of the scientific name), the approximate time the species was alive, where it lived, what type of habitat it lived in, its size, distinguishing features that would have helped with an identification, notes on the biology, what we have from them in the fossil record, and two illustrations, one a full color side view, the other a silhouette juxtaposed next to a silhouette of an adult human male to represent relative size.
The field guide section is divided into different groups. We get the basal caenagnathiformes (or oviraptorosaurs, rather distantly related to modern birds but sharing many very avian features explained by convergent evolution), the caenagnathoids (more oviraptorids as well as a poorly known group called caenagnathids; a group that includes the famous Ovriaptor philoceratops from Mongolia), basal eumaniraptorans and deinonychosaurians, Microraptorians (“more predatory that most other early birds”), eudromaeosaurians ((the famous “raptors’ of Jurassic Park fame are included, the famous “terrible claw” dinosaurs), unenlagiines (“a highly specialized group of wading ornithodesmids adapted to heron-like ambush fishing” and mostly known from the southern hemisphere), troodontids (a small subgroup of deinonychosaurians more similar to modern birds), basal avialans (“all birds closer to Aves than to deinonychosaurians are called avialans (“winged birds”)””; includes many famous Chinese birds such as the birds of genus Confuciusornis), basal enantiornitheans (the most “diverse and successful group of Mesozoic birds,” though not like modern birds in having different and apparently independently evolved shoulder joint articulation), eoenantiornithiformes (“many likely inhabited Kingfisher-like niches, perching above lakes and rivers and swooping down to the surface to grab fish”), cathayornithoformes (includes birds that are adapted to life in trees and appeared to have been specialized perching birds, with one species, Archibald’s Bird Lizard – Avisaurus archibaldi – of the very latest Cretaceous in Hell Creek, Montana, which were “possibly equivalent to modern birds of prey in ecology”), enantiornithiofrmes (may not be a natural group, includes basically birds with diving and wading niches), basal euornitheaans (“true birds,” a group known so far from China and appear to have been mostly ground-hunting shore birds, some wading birds, mostly eating fish but some were apparently herbivorous as well), patagopterygiformes (a poorly known group that appear to have been flightless birds maybe similar to rheas or cassowaries), derived euornitheans and basal carniatans (includes toothed birds like the famous Ichthyornis anceps of the Western Interior Seaway of North America, an abundant gull-like bird, Gansus yumenensis, a freshwater swimming aquatic bird known from China 120 million years ago, and the Shining Holland Bird of Mongolia, Hollanda luceria, which appears to have an roadrunner like specialized ground forager), avians (“modern birds,” ancestors of all birds alive today, still poorly known in the fossil record and apparently all modern birds are descended from ancestors of today’s wading shorebirds, ground birds like Galliformes, the flightless ratites, grebes, rails, and cormorant-like birds that survived the Cretaceous mass extinction and from which we get all modern birds, including penguins, hummingbirds, hawks, owls, and perching songbirds), and finally the hesperornitheans (“include the most fully aquatic and marine-adapted birds that ever lived,” includes the famous toothed flightless diver Hesperornis regalis, the Regal Western Bird, known from numerous remains of the Smokey Hill Chalk of Kansas, divers from the Western Interior Seaway that owing to their anatomy, probably had to move on land to lay their legs with “a dragging motion similar to seals”).
Following are several appendices, a glossary, and a list of references. Sadly, no index. It can be a bit dry, but it had great coverage of so many species I had never even heard of before, whole groups of them, and it was great to get more information on the ones I had heard of. Though modern birds were not the most numerous or dominant in the Mesozoic, it was fascinating to see both how fuzzy what a “bird” is and how diverse the avifauna of the Mesozoic truly was.
The first 51 pages is a thorough, rather technical, and I will say a little dry but well researched discussion on topics such as what exactly is a bird, the origins of birds, the origins of flight, the evolution of feathers, the diversity of birds in the Mesozoic, and what we know of the feathers, feather color, wings, beaks, and teeth of Mesozoic birds. I liked the discussions on the different types of flying (five distinct styles, “flapping, flap-gliding, bounding, soaring, and bursting”), the exact anatomy of Mesozoic birds with teeth (something that always interested me), and a really interesting multiple page discussion of feather coloration, noting that while Mesozoic birds would have not have had the pink colors of flamingos or the bright greens and yellows of birds-of-paradise (and why this was the case with Mesozoic birds), as they would have worked with a more limited color palate of “muted yellow, rusty red, dark grey and off-white,” they still could have been striking by using different color patterns and using iridescence to create “striking, jewel-like feathers.”
The rest of the book is a field guide to the birds of the Mesozoic, each entry listing the scientific name, the “common name” (derived from the translation of the scientific name), the approximate time the species was alive, where it lived, what type of habitat it lived in, its size, distinguishing features that would have helped with an identification, notes on the biology, what we have from them in the fossil record, and two illustrations, one a full color side view, the other a silhouette juxtaposed next to a silhouette of an adult human male to represent relative size.
The field guide section is divided into different groups. We get the basal caenagnathiformes (or oviraptorosaurs, rather distantly related to modern birds but sharing many very avian features explained by convergent evolution), the caenagnathoids (more oviraptorids as well as a poorly known group called caenagnathids; a group that includes the famous Ovriaptor philoceratops from Mongolia), basal eumaniraptorans and deinonychosaurians, Microraptorians (“more predatory that most other early birds”), eudromaeosaurians ((the famous “raptors’ of Jurassic Park fame are included, the famous “terrible claw” dinosaurs), unenlagiines (“a highly specialized group of wading ornithodesmids adapted to heron-like ambush fishing” and mostly known from the southern hemisphere), troodontids (a small subgroup of deinonychosaurians more similar to modern birds), basal avialans (“all birds closer to Aves than to deinonychosaurians are called avialans (“winged birds”)””; includes many famous Chinese birds such as the birds of genus Confuciusornis), basal enantiornitheans (the most “diverse and successful group of Mesozoic birds,” though not like modern birds in having different and apparently independently evolved shoulder joint articulation), eoenantiornithiformes (“many likely inhabited Kingfisher-like niches, perching above lakes and rivers and swooping down to the surface to grab fish”), cathayornithoformes (includes birds that are adapted to life in trees and appeared to have been specialized perching birds, with one species, Archibald’s Bird Lizard – Avisaurus archibaldi – of the very latest Cretaceous in Hell Creek, Montana, which were “possibly equivalent to modern birds of prey in ecology”), enantiornithiofrmes (may not be a natural group, includes basically birds with diving and wading niches), basal euornitheaans (“true birds,” a group known so far from China and appear to have been mostly ground-hunting shore birds, some wading birds, mostly eating fish but some were apparently herbivorous as well), patagopterygiformes (a poorly known group that appear to have been flightless birds maybe similar to rheas or cassowaries), derived euornitheans and basal carniatans (includes toothed birds like the famous Ichthyornis anceps of the Western Interior Seaway of North America, an abundant gull-like bird, Gansus yumenensis, a freshwater swimming aquatic bird known from China 120 million years ago, and the Shining Holland Bird of Mongolia, Hollanda luceria, which appears to have an roadrunner like specialized ground forager), avians (“modern birds,” ancestors of all birds alive today, still poorly known in the fossil record and apparently all modern birds are descended from ancestors of today’s wading shorebirds, ground birds like Galliformes, the flightless ratites, grebes, rails, and cormorant-like birds that survived the Cretaceous mass extinction and from which we get all modern birds, including penguins, hummingbirds, hawks, owls, and perching songbirds), and finally the hesperornitheans (“include the most fully aquatic and marine-adapted birds that ever lived,” includes the famous toothed flightless diver Hesperornis regalis, the Regal Western Bird, known from numerous remains of the Smokey Hill Chalk of Kansas, divers from the Western Interior Seaway that owing to their anatomy, probably had to move on land to lay their legs with “a dragging motion similar to seals”).
Following are several appendices, a glossary, and a list of references. Sadly, no index. It can be a bit dry, but it had great coverage of so many species I had never even heard of before, whole groups of them, and it was great to get more information on the ones I had heard of. Though modern birds were not the most numerous or dominant in the Mesozoic, it was fascinating to see both how fuzzy what a “bird” is and how diverse the avifauna of the Mesozoic truly was.
January 13, 2013
A great introduction to the diversity of Mesozoic birds, from Archaeopteryx to Velociraptor. Comprehensive, well-presented and pithy. TV producers should read this book and think twice before ceegeeing parrot-coloured troodontids or rubbery bunny-sauruses.
I would have liked more detail and definition in the illustrations, as black-feathered areas tended to appear almost as featureless as silhouettes in some examples. I don't know if this is a fault limited to the e-book edition. A lot of the art looks like it lacks any shading on a retina iPad display (there's an illustration of an Epidexipteryx hui clinging to a tree trunk which is just a head and four tailfeathers). Mind you, I did read this book right after 'All Yesterdays' where the art looked fantastic, so I might not being completely fair.
I would have liked more detail and definition in the illustrations, as black-feathered areas tended to appear almost as featureless as silhouettes in some examples. I don't know if this is a fault limited to the e-book edition. A lot of the art looks like it lacks any shading on a retina iPad display (there's an illustration of an Epidexipteryx hui clinging to a tree trunk which is just a head and four tailfeathers). Mind you, I did read this book right after 'All Yesterdays' where the art looked fantastic, so I might not being completely fair.
September 7, 2017
Very good summary of all the different types that connect modern birds to dinosaurs as far as we know now. It has a lot of great illustrations and examples.
March 24, 2022
Fajny pomysł -- opowiedzieć o "ptasich dinozaurach", jakby był to przewodnik po współczesnych ptakach. A są bardzo, bardzo ptasie na ilustracjach. Oczywiście, opisy nie zawierają wielu informacji jakie mamy o ptakach, kolory piórek też wydają się mocno dowolne (mimo szerokiego opisu, co wiemy o kolorach piór mezozoicznych ptaków); ale i tak oddziałuje na wyobraźnię.
Ale... mam złą wiadomość. Te ptasie dinozaury, które przeżyły upadek asteroidy, to były takie ówczesne... kaczki. Tak więc, kaczki radzą sobie z katastrofami. Niestety...
Ale... mam złą wiadomość. Te ptasie dinozaury, które przeżyły upadek asteroidy, to były takie ówczesne... kaczki. Tak więc, kaczki radzą sobie z katastrofami. Niestety...
December 13, 2018
This is not light reading, nor an elementary "all about" kind of book. The text is dense with academic terminology like "avialans" and "caenagnathiformes" which do get explained eventually, but are not included in the brief glossary. It discusses questions like what is a bird, really, and how did various bird parts evolve. And it explains how one discerns features like feather color from the fossil record. The illustrations are impressive, and show familiar creatures like archaeopteryx and velociraptor much differently from the pictures I remember from elementary school. Plus, there are many more I'd never heard of, with fascinating names like Achilles' Tendon Hero and Giant Chinese Beautiful Feather. You can sample Martyniuk's art, with possibly more reader-friendly descriptions, on his website: http://mpm.panaves.com/nh/paleoart.ht...
September 13, 2024
The best part about this book, for me, was not the actual "field guide" but the initial pages that talk about the evolution of different aspects of birds, like wings, beaks and flight, and how dinosaurs ended up becoming what we know now as "birds".
The field guide was really illustrative as well, making you see the vast diversity of birds that existed in the Jurassic, with timeframes and everything so you can realize that birds appeared long before we think of, and many even coexisted amongst the true dinosaurs.
The field guide was really illustrative as well, making you see the vast diversity of birds that existed in the Jurassic, with timeframes and everything so you can realize that birds appeared long before we think of, and many even coexisted amongst the true dinosaurs.
March 18, 2022
You'll have to be willing to go through pages and pages of dry statistics accompanied by the paleoart to enjoy, but this is a great little book that broadens one's perspective on dinosaurs, including today's birds, by depicting them in a realistic, non-Jurassic Parky way. There is a helpful introduction that goes into bird evolution as well - my favorite art is of the various early forms evolving toward a modern bird.
January 30, 2022
Nice idea, but the execution was disappointing, with drab, sketchy and low resolution illustrations.
November 12, 2024
Well put together description of mesozoic birds' evolution, taxonomy & appearance, with useful call-outs on the evidence used for the speculative plates. The wonders of the planet & the lifeforms it has created, & the vast scale of prehistory were also awe-inspiring.
August 26, 2013
When you think of Mesozoic birds, you probably are picturing Archaeopteryx-- which is fine, but Velociraptor mongoliensis, Deinonychus, and the Oviraptors (all of which I knew as a 10-year old) are also really types of bird, reconstructed here as entirely feathered (except on the feet and face). There are four-winged birds, enormous ostrich-like birds, waterfowl, all kinds. The author tried to be as accurate as he could but they've got to be in color so he was creative that way (though he notes that the really outlandish colors of parrots and such probably evolved later, so it's mostly black, white, gray, and shades of brown.) It really is laid out and feels like a field guide. The printing of illustrations isn't awesome; it seems like it was done on a good computer printer rather than the usual way books are printed. But I liked the paintings themselves.
July 15, 2014
Think of the person in your life who gets most excited about dinosaurs, the one who won't shut up about how you're all eating a dinosaur at Thanksgiving dinner. Then get them this. Superb book presented in an innovative way. All the paleontology blogs I read seem to say that this guy's science is quite solid.
August 24, 2025
Illustrations are lovely and the book is informative. It's a tad outdated now, but I love the format in concept, especially as an avid field guide collector.
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