07-17-2018, 11:07 AM
Saw this on the new shelf in the library, and thought that I hadn't read anything about the subject except for occasional articles since I was a kid. And I was very pleased. The title does say it all: he starts with Permian extinction which led to the first dinosaurs, then how they became dominant, then the Jurassic (should I say classic?) dinosaurs, including a chapter on the Tyrannosaur line, and then the meteorite strike and a short conclusion. He squeezes in stories of digs he went on with major paleontologists, and nicely fits them with the subject at hand.
The early chapters were a little difficult because I knew pretty much nothing about the period and he names a lot of animals (sadly with no pictures). It got clearer as he went on. I learned a lot, including that extinctions were pivotal in the the dinosaur story: the first dinosaurs appear after the Permian extinction, then they became dominant after another extinction about 200 million years ago, and then they get wiped out, expect for birds (referred to as "avian dinosaurs"), by the meteorite. And his telling of the meteorite strike was quite dramatic and effective.
Recommended.
The early chapters were a little difficult because I knew pretty much nothing about the period and he names a lot of animals (sadly with no pictures). It got clearer as he went on. I learned a lot, including that extinctions were pivotal in the the dinosaur story: the first dinosaurs appear after the Permian extinction, then they became dominant after another extinction about 200 million years ago, and then they get wiped out, expect for birds (referred to as "avian dinosaurs"), by the meteorite. And his telling of the meteorite strike was quite dramatic and effective.
Recommended.
the hands that guide me are invisible