Customer Reviews

The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't think one could quite call this a "complete" guide to prehistoric life, however it is very informative and a lot of fun to read. The many computer-generated graphics in the book are generally very good, they do a nice job of bringing the animals to life.

The book is divided into three parts, covering the four geological eras, the Precambrian and Paleozoic are both covered in part one. Each part opens with a high level overview of each of the periods of that era, I think these overviews really tied the book together nicely. Following this a selection of animals from that era are presented; with one exception, there are no animals from the Precambrian. Typically one or two pages are devoted to each animal, including text and graphics. The computer-generated graphics are ubiquitous; sometimes there are photos of fossils. I thought the text was very informative and interesting for every animal, not a bad section in the entire book.

I liked the selection of animals. Not surprisingly the animals covered were biased to those with extreme characteristics, e.g. the biggest arthropod or the largest land predator. There were the animals that show up in pretty much every book of this type, for example: Trilobites, Haikouichthys, Dunkleosteus, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Smilodon and Megalodon. There were also some that seem to be less commonly covered, at least in my experience: Pterygotus (a nine foot arthropod), Arthropleura (an 8.5 foot arthropod), Lystrosaurus (an interesting looking therapsid), Leedsichthys (an 88 foot fish), Didelphodon (a cretaceous mammal), Doedicurus (a huge armadillo) and many more.

Based on page count, or number of animals, the presentation clearly leans towards the Mesozoic. Animals from it accounted for almost half the pages, while the Cenozoic accounted for about one-third and the Paleozoic accounted for about one-sixth. Some arthropods are considered in the Paleozoic, but after this it's mostly only vertebrates are covered. Plants aren't mentioned at all. Not a bad thing or even surprising, but given the title of the book I think it should be pointed out.

One the whole I thought this was a great book. For books of this type, the main part being a catalog of animals, it's my favorite.

I bought this book after seeing the Walking with Monsters program on Discovery and have been much impressed with it. The book itself is an encyclopedia of prehistoric life but the authors seem to have taken care not to bias it too much towards the dinosaurs (a failing of other prehistoric guides). Instead they cover a range of animals from around 550 million years to the present day. The book is broekn into three sections which cover the three main time periods of life (Paleozoic and before, Mesozoic and Cenozoic) with a brief introduction and overview to each.

Undoubtedly the great selling point are the computer generated pictures used to illustrate the book which are mostly very realistic but there's also a lot of text as well. Each animal has a one or two page biography that takes you from the basics (what did it eat, where did it live, etc.) through to more technical information about their evolutionry history. I am a fossil buff but there are quite a few creatures in here that are new to me or which I have not seen in other books. In all I would recommend this book to anybody who has a general interest in prehistoric life as it seems to combine a popular touch that will appeal to children with expert/new information that will appeal to more informed fossil fans.

This is a great book. It features 111 of the animals from the BBC's famous "walking with" series. Unlike other books about prehistoric animals, it has realistic illustrations.

The "walking with" series is about prehistoric life that lived millions of years ago. It has many episodes. My favorite is Walking With Prehistoric Beasts which is about life in the Cenozoic era.

Though the book features most animals from the "walking with...." series it introduces a new specie called homo floresiensis. This human is not featured in any production of the walking with series.

The contents of this book are divided into the rise of life, age of reptiles, age of beasts, timescale of the earth and tree of life. The rise of life lists the creatures of the Paleozoic era. The age of reptiles lists the creatures in the Mesozoic era. The age of beasts lists the creatures in the Cenozoic era. Each chapter has great illustrations.

Most of the animals featured in the book are vertebrates. There were only nine invertebrates. Two of them are molluscs while the rest are arthropods.

The illustrations in this book are so realistic that in an illustration of a homo sapien, I knew exactly what the clothes felt like.

Everyone should get this book. It is a must for anyone who wants to collect books about prehistoric life.

I like the book, but there are a few problems. The information is good except that a few of the human-creature comparisons are off. For instance, it said Meganeura on p34 had a 2.5ft wingspan. Compared with the 6ft man, it looked like it had a 5ft wingspan. Another example is that the Megaloceros on p196 is supposed to be 7ft tall at the shoulder. Compared with the man, it is around 4ft tall. In addition, I noticed that it said Othnielia was 13ft long. I looked at one of my other books and on several websites and they all said 4ft; this is a significant difference! Finally, I think it would have been better if they had gotten all of their silhouettes for the human-creature comparisons from the computer-generated animals. For example, I saw that the silhouette for the Tarbosaurus comparison is from an illustration I have seen in many other books. It would have been okay except that it was standing upright, which is generally not in keeping with modern restorations.

I am a freak when it comes to palentology and geology. I may only be in middle school but I know what I'm talking about. I'm in a gifted program. this was very interesting. if you like this type of stuff and want an easy to read book. this is for you. I would recomend this book to anyone even if you know nothing on the subject.

This book has it all. Best of all it's made for the layman without all that heavy duty dry and boring science jargon.

In this book. You will get a very general overview of the history of prehistoric life

Some things you will explore

1) Sea arthropods of the early post Cambrian era. Monster sea scorpions bigger than humans.

2) Massive predatory fish of the Devonian era. Fish who ate Sharks!!!!!!!!!!!

3) World of man sized insects of the carboniferous era.

4) Forgotten world of terrifying Desert reptiles like the famous Gorgonops of the late permian era. Thank god there extinct.

5) Cretaceous period- world of killer and even bigger killers. Humans would of been at the bottom of the food chain.

6) Pleistocene era- Home to the most terrifying mammals of all time like the Hyaenodon and the Pig from Hell the entelodon. To the more more famous Saber cats and Cave bears and Mammoths.

This book will spark your imagination and ignite your appreciation of the history of life. Great for KIDS and adults!!!!!!!!!

The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life is a field-guide like book that contains (nearly) all the prehistoric creatures from the "walking with" series. This book is written by Tim Haines and Paul Chambers, both of whom had very influential parts in the making of all the programs.

This book is really fun to read, and contains just about every creature from the series, but there are a few missing. (some examples are the Mesothelae spider form "Walking with Monsters" and the Polar (dwarf) Allosaur from "Walking with Dinosaurs") This is rare though, overall it's a very complete volume.

The book is designed very well. The animals are listed chronologically throughout, starting from the Cambrian and up through the Pleistocene Epoch. (mya = million years ago)

Part One> The Rise of Life

- CAMBRIAN PERIOD (543 to 490 mya)

- ORDOVICIAN PERIOD (490 to 443 mya)

- SILURIAN PERIOD (443 to 417 mya)

- DEVONIAN PERIOD (417 to 354 mya)

- CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD (354 to 290 mya)

- PERMIAN PERIOD (290 to 248 mya)

Part Two> The Age of Reptiles

- TRIASSIC PERIOD (248 to 206 mya)

- JURASSIC PERIOD (206 to 144 mya)

- CRETACEOUS PERIOD (144 to 65 mya)

Part Three> The Age of Beasts

- PALAEOCENE EPOCH (65 to 55 mya)

- EOCENE EPOCH (55 to 34 mya)

- OLIGOCENE EPOCH (34 to 24 mya)

- MIOCENE EPOCH (24 to 5 mya)

- PLIOCENE EPOCH (5 to 1.8 mya)

- PLEISTOCENE EPOCH (1.8 mya to 10,000 years ago)

Each creature gets a page or two and at least one picture. The text is very interesting and the pictures are fantastic, as usual they look incredibly real! Many pictures are taken from other "walking with" books and the series, but many are new and they look great. There is also a lot of new info that isn't included in the programs, and makes this book hard to set down.

Although not quite 100% complete, still a very good addition to your "walking with" collection, highly recommended!

Another good book..but if you want a lot of dinosaurs, use this with other guides.

This covers various prehistoric life. Not all the pages give you a good look at the animal and it only covers a small portion of dinosaurs. But because it does cover some creatures that almost never make it into guides on prehistoric life, this is a great book to use with other guides and is fun to read.

My only complaint about the book is its title: "The COMPLETE Guide to Prehistoric Life". It is by no means a complete or encyclopedic guide.....however it is very informative, entertaining and the pictures/illustrations are superbly done.

For its size, the book does an admirable job of covering some of the most interesting animals from prehistory and not just the dinosaurs.

This book was published by the same people who aired the series "Walking with Dinosaurs" "Walking with Beasts" several years ago and makes a great followup to the DVDs.

The level of the text is straightforward (not too high and scientific.... yet certainly not a "Barney Book" book either) and appeals in my opinion to people of any age who just want to look and see and find out about what was around back then.

I've read some of the other reviews here, and I agree there is some sensationalizing, and certainly liberties are taken in guesswork about these animals- but then again, it makes the book more fun to read and we all know nobody knows the facts for sure. Some animals for example we only have a single jawbone or half a skeleton to go on so there is plenty of room for imagination and guesswork. The authors tend to focus mostly on the largest and most bizarre animals but then again, that's usually what draws the crowds.

I collect dinosaur books and find this one is one of the most looked at, unlike many books of this nature it goes a bit farther than just a picture of an animal and a short paragraph- often has several different poses, and more background information, longer schpiels.

I got this book for $8 off Amazon, although when it arrived it wasn't exactly 'new' as advertised, it had a library sticker on it(???). Nevertheless, an exceptional buy and well worth the price. A must have for the dinosaur fan!

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3/09/10 I just wanted to add one more thing after looking through this book- the size of the dinosaurs are continually exaggerated. Most of them are at least five feet bigger than their counterparts in other dino books, and in some cases (such as Scutosaurus and Liopleurodon), they are TWICE the size they are in other books.

Argentinosaurus, the largest land animal that ever lived, ridiculously oversized (the human figure looks almost like a dust speck in comparison). Oh well.

After the three highly praised television series from bbc comes another true to life exact accurate incomparable long retelling of our ancient shrouded prehistoric past which is full of maginificent large weird beasts never imagined before visually which of course is unrivalled in its creative talented imagery of our own animals ancestors past.All in all a must have for any palaeontologist or reader who needs a complete indepth comprehensive field guide.Note to readers of the book text review is from earlier 2005 edition that i own cheers...