Customer Reviews

Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin of Birds

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First of all, this book is a must have for any dinosaur lover, and in particular those who are interested in the idea that many species of theropod dinosaurs may have had feathers. Indeed, there is direct fossil evidence that at least a few species of theropods had feathers, and the idea that feathers were a common feature of theropods is becoming increasingly plausible. That said, there is also direct fossil evidence for scales among some theropods, such as Carnotaurus. The question then becomes, which theropods had feathers and which didn't and exactly what did these feathers look like in life? How birdlike did these animals appear? Did some of them possess some combination of scales and feathers and, if so, what did that look like? It would probably take a time machine to definitively answer such questions, but a tentative answer can be had just by looking at Peter Schouten's beautiful illustrations in this book.

While the text is informative, the artwork is definitely the highlight of the book. Unfortunately the book suffers from one unforgivable flaw--bad page layout. Specifically, the paintings are presented as two-page spreads, resulting in a crease through the middle of the picture that, in many cases goes, right through the focus of the viewer's attention. This was a very poor design decision on the part of the publisher. The book is published by an academic press, so perhaps they don't understand how to make an art book. It should have been done in a different format, perhaps as an oversize book, in order to avoid putting that terribly distracting deep crease through the picture. That said, the paintings are better (in my opinion) than those of paleoartist Luis V. Rey, who has also taken to painting feathered dinosaurs. See Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages. In particular, Rey's dinosaurs are just too colorful and overly imaginative. Schouten's feathered dinosaurs, on the other hand, look much more plausible and not so over-the-top.

If you like Schouten's art in this book, I also recommend you take a look at A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals and Astonishing Animals: Extraordinary Creatures and the Fantastic Worlds They Inhabit, which cover recently extinct and modern animals.

In summary, if you love dinosaurs and want to know what they really looked like as living animals, buy this book. Just keep in mind that we still don't know what they really looked like, and as a result of a lifetime of conditioning (books, movies, etc.), I still tend to believe that the theropods were not as heavily feathered as portrayed here. I do hope that they re-release this book in a better format and page layout at some point, as the failure of the publishers to consider the visual impact of the crease in the center of the page has prevented me from giving this book a five star review.

This is an astonishingly good book on the topic. The art is first-rate, and I appreciate how the text immediately tells me what the animal's name means. I realize a lot of speculation and imagination goes into a work like this, but as long as the reader/viewer keeps in mind that a little license had to be employed, a work like this one can really spark a good deal of awe and wonder. That bucket of chicken from KFC? Really does look related to vicious raptors of "Jurassic Park" fame. Tweety? A fluffy yellow dino-spawn. I think learning about this link between avian dinos and their distant kin has had the effect, for me, of making birds more interesting. I was never an avid avian lover, but looking at them as related to the dinosaurs I always found so fascinating has made the little boogers a lot more interesting to me. This beatiful book might have that impact on you, as well. Final note: The illustrations are kid-friendly, but unlike the other books on this topic, this is not a kids' book. Adults will find much to love here. And it makes a handsome, if somewhat unsettling, coffee table book.

I was a tad disappointed with this book. I hoped to learn more about the evolutionary transition from dinosaur to bird, but there was far less on this topic than I expected. The majority of the pages were actually full-page pictures. They were drawings of the feathered dinosaurs and others. If you want to buy a book, which is predominately artwork, this is your book. However, if you want to understand dinosaur-to-bird evolution, this book is mediocre. Ralph Hermansen 4/8/09

The reviews and description were spot-on. It's pretty much a visual feast, but the information is sparse. I would have preferred photos of bare bones (and feather imprints) to the paintings, which always include a heavy subjective element. This book is definitely geared to the layperson with no background in paleontology. Nothing wrong with that; it's just not my cup of tea.

This book is more a work of art than science (the author even admits it). It is based on a series of wonderful artistic reconstructions of a score of avian and non - avian dinosaur and early birds. The reconstruction is often more based on the fantasy of the artist, and on his educated guessing, than on solid evidence. In some points it also fails in explicitly indicating if the feathery coat of the animal and other details of its outer look is proved by the fossil record or not.
It is a beautiful book for what can be referred as "popular science". It lacks a bit of scientific rigor.

As i've again written before in the above title review of this book art and science are the oldest known form of visual creativity which explores amazing imaginative fossil remains of feathered dinosaurs brought to life from a large bygone genuine reptilian dragon world that doesn't exist anymore but instead is accurate visual represention of detailed evolutionary transition from small feathered dinosaur no bigger or wider than the palm of your hand to the primitive flying bird which was and still is perhaps a descendent of modern living birds such as medium sized pelicans or tall flightless emus and ostrichs.Finally all that can prevent it from getting a five star review is it's a little bloody or gory when a dino bites or kills another prey species picture otherwise it would be perfect for a five star rating that it deserves as a resource.

This book is great if you ever feel the urge to imagine life 65 million years ago. The drawings are beautiful and creative, yet realistic. I appreciate that Schouten took some creative liberties in depicting the dinosaurs, but also explained his vision in a brief paragraph on each page.

One other review criticized the layout of the book, noting that the page seams run through some of the pictures. This is true, but only becomes really bothersome for two or so pictures out of several dozen. Overall, the creases do not distract from the pictures.

I also would have liked more information on each dinosaur, such as their estimated size and what they ate. However, that's not the purpose of this book. This book is about appreciating the beauty of animals we can only imagine.

I'm not claiming that the internet is always the best source of information. It can be a misinformation superhighway a lot of the time. But despite the perils, I found it useful when I was working on an assignment for my geology class. We had been handed three worksheets comparing ancient life forms with more advanced life forms. For instance, one paper compared ancient fish with amphibians. The next compared amphibians with reptiles. They were challenging, but it wasn't until I was working on the one that compared the dinosaurs with birds that I was driven to the internet for more information.

My assignment included questions about a dinosaur called a Troodon. I decided it would be helpful to see a picture of what scientists thought a Troodon looked like (the picture on my handout was of a skeleton), so I googled it. And that's when I stumbled across a reference to a book: Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin Of Birds, by John Long and Peter Schouten.

The reference was a picture from the book, featured on Stephen Bodio's blog. It was an artist's rendition of a feathered dinosaur tending to her newly hatched "chick." I liked it so much, I printed it out. It currently resides on one of my kitchen cupboards, where I can look at it every day. Each time I look at it, I can see the bird in the dinosaur and the dinosaur in the bird. As I sat looking at this picture on my computer screen, the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs finally became more than an abstract concept to me. So I had to buy the book.

I keep it where I can thumb through it from time to time. It's like an AUDUBON collection, except the feathered creatures inside have teeth. My only objection to it is that sometimes the paintings are centered so that the binding splits them in two. This will probably be less of a problem once the binding gets a little looser with wear.

Feathered Dinosaurs contains some interesting information, but it's not a textbook - it's designed to inspire. If you love dinosaurs (or birds), check it out.

It may even help you get an "A" on an assignment . . .

This book shows in most graphic terms, for those who are visual learners, just how close theropod dinosaurs are to birds, reminding us that those birds that come to our feeders and poop on our car are actually feathered dinosaurs as well. The book gives some detail on the evolution of birds, but doesn't go into the amount of detail some of us evolutionofiles might like. I realize that we are still learning alot about the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs. However, the existence of feathers found on recent finds of theropod dinosaurs in China show pretty graphically that feathers evolved within this family of dinosaurs and we can speculate their purposes.

The book does detail some other evidence of bird-like behaviors that are implied from the fossil record such as nesting behaviors and flock-like, herd-like characteristics that the evidence suggests as plausible. One of the lessons from this book as well as others that talk about the evolution of birds from dinosaurs, is that we may in fact learn many behavioral characteristics of long-extinct species from their non-extinct cousins who still fly all around us as well as end up on our dinner table.

What is most striking about this book is that when you add the feathers to the projected looks of theropod dinosaurs as well as the markings you might typically find on close cousins of birds, you get a real feel for the close relationships and it helps break down the barriers of time that help us understand these dinosaurs as living creatures rather than fossils in a museum or monsters on the big screen.

The pictures are beautiful, the writing informative. A must have for the dino lovers.