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National Geographic Dinosaurs
99 pages, Paperback
Published May 20, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 1, 2024
Having been obsessed with dinosaurs for all of my living memory, it doesn't take much to convince me to read about them. However, I'd gone back and forth a lot in grocery store lines about buying the National Geographic special edition on the most updated science in the dinosaur field. In the end, I ended up exploring this wonderful issue of the magazine via different means: the videos I use to help fall asleep. (That video, by LLOYD'S ASMR, can be found here: https://youtu.be/MW3u3lAvGnA?si=rHhXY...--)
This was an immersive experience adjacent to that of an audiobook, but not quite. While the reader occasionally read quotes and passages, he largely showed the breathtaking paleoart that lays within, so I kept pausing to zoom in and read the easily approachable writing on the latest in dino science. With paleontology, science is changing so quickly and so an up-to-date magazine like this is the perfect way to dive into the interdisciplinary study: as one scientist within is quoted, "If you want to do modern, cutting-edge research, it takes a team of people from very diverse backgrounds."
Even though the science doesn't always correlate with the beautiful tyrants of franchises like "Jurassic Park," a film that it seeks in particular to contradict and disprove, the magazine does a great job of illustrating the present period as a new golden age of paleontology. As one article says, "there's never been a bigger boom of fossil discovery than right now." This is an accessible dinosaur read for all ages, though articles differ in how much hard science jargon they end up using.
This was an immersive experience adjacent to that of an audiobook, but not quite. While the reader occasionally read quotes and passages, he largely showed the breathtaking paleoart that lays within, so I kept pausing to zoom in and read the easily approachable writing on the latest in dino science. With paleontology, science is changing so quickly and so an up-to-date magazine like this is the perfect way to dive into the interdisciplinary study: as one scientist within is quoted, "If you want to do modern, cutting-edge research, it takes a team of people from very diverse backgrounds."
Even though the science doesn't always correlate with the beautiful tyrants of franchises like "Jurassic Park," a film that it seeks in particular to contradict and disprove, the magazine does a great job of illustrating the present period as a new golden age of paleontology. As one article says, "there's never been a bigger boom of fossil discovery than right now." This is an accessible dinosaur read for all ages, though articles differ in how much hard science jargon they end up using.
December 23, 2025
I love me some dinosaur facts
January 1, 2026
National Geographic Special: Dinosaurs - A New Look At The Prehistoric Icons
🌿🦕🌲🪶🌱🦖🍃
❌ could've been even more detailed, considering explanations
❌ the advertisment pages, but that's what you have to deal with
❌ I really really missed a picture of borealopelta markmitchelli, instead we've got a picture of what it has eaten before its death (but also very interesting to read about)
✅ very interesting points of view onto field work
✅ lots of paleontologists mentioned you already know if you're interested in vertebrate paleontology
✅ easily understandable explanations for people who aren't so deep into paleontology
✅ Dr. Nizar Ibrahim and the spinosaurus (my personal favourite, even more after the BBC documentation)
✅ theory of Chicxulub and Dekkan working against each other after the asteroid impact
❌✅ A mixture of feelings about the topic of people owning fossils for their private enjoyment. On the one hand, they are totally right - fossils should rather be studied by paleontologists and for science. But on the other hand, people dig out fossils themselves (in the magazine we see a boy sitting next to triceratops horridus skull) while science doesn't receive enough money to actually work on digging out fossils. The same happens with Bromacker (not too far away from my place and one of the most important places to find permian tetrapods in the world) in Germany, considering short field work times of about three or four weeks a year, allowed by the ministries. It feels like sabotage to not let scientists work on important revelations about prehistoric times.
🌿🦕🌲🪶🌱🦖🍃
❌ could've been even more detailed, considering explanations
❌ the advertisment pages, but that's what you have to deal with
❌ I really really missed a picture of borealopelta markmitchelli, instead we've got a picture of what it has eaten before its death (but also very interesting to read about)
✅ very interesting points of view onto field work
✅ lots of paleontologists mentioned you already know if you're interested in vertebrate paleontology
✅ easily understandable explanations for people who aren't so deep into paleontology
✅ Dr. Nizar Ibrahim and the spinosaurus (my personal favourite, even more after the BBC documentation)
✅ theory of Chicxulub and Dekkan working against each other after the asteroid impact
❌✅ A mixture of feelings about the topic of people owning fossils for their private enjoyment. On the one hand, they are totally right - fossils should rather be studied by paleontologists and for science. But on the other hand, people dig out fossils themselves (in the magazine we see a boy sitting next to triceratops horridus skull) while science doesn't receive enough money to actually work on digging out fossils. The same happens with Bromacker (not too far away from my place and one of the most important places to find permian tetrapods in the world) in Germany, considering short field work times of about three or four weeks a year, allowed by the ministries. It feels like sabotage to not let scientists work on important revelations about prehistoric times.
June 1, 2023
A nice summary of some of the key developments in dinosaur research, including warm-bloodedness, controversies regarding the causes of dinosaur extinction, what dinosaurs really looked like (color and feathers), and modern-day birds as their successors. A key theme is the collaborative approach of traditionally distinct branches of science to the study of dinosaurs: biomechanics, CT scans, and computer modeling to name a few. Individual paleontologists are interviewed and given a chance to explain their approach to research. Flaws in the depiction of dinosaurs in the popular JURASSIC PARK movies are used to underline the progress that has been made in just a few decades. Spinosaurus, velociraptor and dilophosaurus are looked at in some detail. As always, this NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC issue contains illustrations that are beautiful and informative.
September 9, 2024
I will forever scream my love for dinosaurs.
"[T]oday's birds are the last remaining twig on an otherwise demolished dinosaur family tree, grown from fierce predators and sculpted by evolution into an array of flapping, feathery fowl" (p.88).
To note: I read the updated version of 2024. Since this book has a cover (and the other version doesn't show up with a cover on GR) I marked it as read.
"[T]oday's birds are the last remaining twig on an otherwise demolished dinosaur family tree, grown from fierce predators and sculpted by evolution into an array of flapping, feathery fowl" (p.88).
To note: I read the updated version of 2024. Since this book has a cover (and the other version doesn't show up with a cover on GR) I marked it as read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews