Customer Reviews

The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives

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3 star:		(1)
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The Big Cats by Alan Turner is a very thorough discussion of the cat family, past and present. It also sports illustrator Mauricio Anton's splendid sketches and paintings of various members of the family. Those of extinct cats bring them to life in a way that the usual drawings of the skull and skeletal remains cannot. There is a thorough discussion of taxonomy in general and of classification of cats in particular. Unfortunately while the drawings are wonderful and the information dense, the book is not light reading. It might be useful to the professional paleontologist or zooarchaeologist looking for a good overview of cat remains or possibly appeal to the dedicated cat lover, but I can't imagine settling in by the fire on a quiet evening with the book. Its most appropriate place might be in a school library for reference use by students doing classroom projects on cats, paleontology, biology, ecology, etc.

My 12 year old son, who is fascinated by the large cats, saw this book in a bookstore and wanted it. I waited for a year or so before I bought it because it IS college level reading. We thoroughly enjoyed it. There are great drawings of fossil skeletons & extant animal skeletons. Once you have waded past the first 2 chapters and their latin terms are familiar, the rest was terrific. The authors do a fine job of telling the reader what a scholar is looking for in understanding an organism's capabilities and how to see in a living mammal the same capabilities expressed. The bio-mechanics are explained non-mathematically. The extinct species are discussed in terms of their relationship to the probable biosphere in which they lived. The book could use some more graphics to illustrate the "family-tree" of the large cats and where & when they lived in terms of geography, likely environment, & timeline. This material is in the text and in some graphics, but because we all have been sensitized by the great graphics in "National Geographic" & on TV we expect them to be in all books. I am an engineer and found this a fascinating journey into another arena of scholarship, without it being overwhelming.

In
the current dino-mania, fossil mammals are overshadowed. Too bad;
there are many curious and wonderful creatures in the mammalian
lineage. Yet, few well-illustrated popular books on the subject
exist. Bjorn Kurten's _Before the Indians_ had blurry charcoal
drawings. The late George Gaylord Simpson was an authority on
prehistoric South American mammals, but little more than a doodler
with a brush. And Colin Tudge's wonderful _The Time Before History_
had no pictures at all.

So this book is most welcome. Mauricio
Anton is a gifted artist. Cats and catlike creatures such as
nimravids, homotheriums, saber-tooths, dirk-tooths, all seem to live
again in these color and b/w pictures. The only beastie which is
unconvincingly rendered is the poorly-known _Thylacoleo_, the
marsupial lion.

Through the reproductions and discussions of these
and other animals, one gets a lesson in how different animals adopt
similar body plans, based on their ecological niche. Large top
predators are robust, while middle niche hunters are more
gracile. Thus, we are told, _Thylacoleo_, the largest nimravids, and
the largest saber-tooths resemble lions, while smaller predators
resemble cheetahs and leopards. All in all, a must for big cat- and
paleontology- lovers, the latter who may be getting tired of
dinosaurs!

I never expected the book would be such an impressive accumulation of information and pictures. Everything about this book was done with such detail that nothing I've see so far compares to it. The pictures depict not just the details of each prehistoric cat (and the marsupial convergent evolution 'versions') but presents them in scale to the present and extinct cats to give us an clear idea of the size of these animals. Both author and artist have to do a sequel now that a new sabertooth species was just found in Florida.

I strongly recommend this book for any student of mammology or paleontology.The text is very informative and easy reading. The illustrations are so good and elaborate that I suggest art students working in pencil buy this volume. Unlike some books showing only static lateral views, the illustrator has shown these creatures going about their daily lives. Hunting methods are dealt with in great detail.
For book collectors looking for something different, this is it! For biology students and profs, what are you waiting for!??

This is a great book on the evolution of the big cats, in fact I think its probably the only book outside of research journals or more technical material. Its wonderfully illustrated with very detailed pencil drawings of skulls, skeletons, musculature, and 'life reconstructions' of exctinct big cats. Also includes color plates with scenes depicting the cats and their habitats. The text is well organized and accesible to the informed layperson and is detailed enough to satisfy those with a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

The illustrations really makes the book stand out: they are detailed and well drawn, and really bring the subject matter to life, as if you were able to examine the museum collection yourself, and then go on a prehistoric safari. An excellent choice for those interested in cat biology, natural history, or paleontology.

One of few books to discuss fossil mammals in relation to their modern-day counterparts, and the only one I've found that discusses functional anatomy. Easy to read for the beginner, with beautiful illustrations. I began knowing almost nothing about the large cats, and ended knowing not only about the family tree, but also the history of the evolution of morphology. I've now read it three times, and am planning on going through it again.

Most interesting were the theories of niche partitioning among the conical toothed pantherines and the saber tooths. The author's ideas on their interactions and the possibility that the pantherines might have contributed to the extinction of the saber tooths is fascinating. The scene of the last ice age with huge short faced bears, huge lions, huge jaguars, huge wolves and dire wolves, etc. was heart-poundingly depicted in words and pictures. Also, his idea about the impact of the grizzly on the short faced bear of North America is extremely interesting. This book details the evolutionary and migratory history of all the big cats of the world in a clear, stimulating manner.

I have long been interested about large cat (especially jaguars), and have often wondered about their evolution and early relatives. However, I had searched through every library in my county with no success. When I found this book, it was like a godsend. With superb illustrations and an excess of information, this has potential to be the definitive resource on prehistoric cats. Every big cat enthusiast should buy this book. This has become one of my second bibles.

For the lay reader - such as me - the welter of taxonomical and anatomical details with which this book is filled could perhaps have made it very boring. However, the fine drawing and the speculative detail about reconstrued ecology and behavior made the book a light read, even comic at times, when you discover that sabertoothed cats were a kind of lions and tigers "on steroids", with heavily muscled forelimbs and shoulders allowing them to immobilize the prey to the ground in order to deliver a devastating neck bite that would close a windpipe and sever bloodvessels neatly and quickly. Very funny to think that evolution could have taken this alternative path of turning the gracile feline form into something like a BB contest...