Customer Reviews

Glorified Dinosaurs: The Origin and Early Evolution of Birds

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I think it has come to be pretty well accepted by most scientists that the songbird outside your window is a descendent of the dinasaurs that once reigned supreme.

This book by a renowned paleornithologist, gives the best summary yet of how the dinosaurs evolved into birds. It begins with the development of feathers, and continues with the earliest fossil samples, including the famous archaeopteryx. (As best I can tell there is only one archaeopteryx in the United States at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, Thermopolis. At this date the display for these fossils is being built. It should be open sometime in May, 2007, but check with them first.)

This book is current as to early 2007, reflecting all of the latest findings (especially in China) of the steps in the descent of the modern bird.

This book is lavisly illustrated with hundreds of illustrations from color photographs of fossils to line drawings showing the variations in skeletal structure as the birds developed. It uses high quality paper, printing and binding to insure a long useful life.

Luis Chiappe is one of the leading paleontologists working on Jurassic and Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs and primitive birds. In his "Glorified Dinosaurs" he summarises in clear words the arguments supporting the idea of close relationships between these two groups, but also discusses the alternative theories on the origin of birds and their flight. The illustrations - photographs, color drawings, reconstructions and diagrams - are of extraordinary quality. Photographs of virtually all the most important relevant fossils, such as Archaeopteryx and perfectly preserved feathered dinosaurs and birds from Liaoning in China, are provided. The book gives a very interesting insight into the history of discoveries and evolution of concepts. It is an invaluable tool for all the vertebrate paleontology teachers and a thrilling lecture for non-professionalists.

This book covers all the latest research, with readable text and splendid artwork and photography. It is a deluxe must-have book for dinosaur and paleo-bird enthusiasts everywhere.

Having read the other reviews of this book - "lavishly illustrated" "deluxe must-have" "extraordinary quality" - you might think it would be a full-color visual feast. It certainly is an authoritative and scholarly text meant for the educated layman. It has no technical faults. It is scientifically up to date, and comprehensive. But it offers nothing new or terribly exciting, and the illustrations are lifeless and leaden.

Take advantage of the "click to look inside" feature that Amazon offers. The picture of the four-winged Microraptor on the copyright page is representative - exceptional, actually, that it is in full color - an adequate but hardly inspired portrait lacking any ecological setting. While most every other page offers a photograph of a fossil printed in two-tone sienna and grey, there are no dioramas or other dynamically composed images that might excite the imagination.

I suggest looking at this book in a bookstore or a library before purchasing it, and strongly recommend against buying it, unless specifically requested, as a gift. If, like me, your idea of a lavish illustration is something more like those at the American Museum of Natural History, then you will be sorely disappointed. The commissioned artwork neither justifies the glossy pages nor the outrageous price of this otherwise visually mediocre book.

Most books on evolution don't talk about the evidence in enough detail that you can really understand it, let alone be convinced by it. This is a tragic waste since there really is good fossil evidence for evolution, but the experts just can't be bothered to talk about it. There have been 3 recent exceptions to this rule: T. S. Kemp's The Origin and Evolution of Mammals, Jennifer A. Clack's Gaining Ground (origin of amphibians from fish), and now this book, which is the only one really accessible by the general public. Bird fossils is a field which have really exploded recently, I read lot's of science mags and try to keep up, but this book has tons of stuff I hadn't even heard about. The title of the review really says it all, I just want to add that the old debate about whether birds started as gliding tree dwellers or as two legged runners that flapped to go faster may have been finally settled. I won't give away the ending, though. Creationists will probably pay this book the supreme complicment of ignoring it completely, anyone with an open mind will be very impressed.

A wonderful, fully up-to-date synthesis of everything that's known about bird evolution. The writing is clear and engaging and the illustrations stunning. The level of technical discussion is perfect -- not too heavy and not too light. This is the standard to which all other evolutionary overviews should aspire.

I cannot fully judge the scientific value of this book, because I'm just an engineer, not a paleonthologist. It is a beautifully illustrated book with plenty of colour pictures, photos, schemes. It is clearly written not only by a professional, but by somebody who ADORES his job. And above all, it is one of the first books in the modern paleonthology of birds. Even if Archeopteryx litographica was discovered almost 150 years ago, only the discoveries in the last 20 years are beginning to shed some light on the evolution of birds. The amount of darkness still present in this field is evident even in "Glorified Dinosaurs": the author displays and upholds his own theories about the origin of Aves, but honestly informs about the (numerous) alternative theories and the black spots still present here and there. In 10 - 20 years the theories of the author, or maybe all theories we have now, will be maybe obsolete, or completely revised, or perhaps vindicated. The book just says, to the scientist and the amateur: keep in touch, good news are still to come.

UNSW which word book title means expanded for long univeristy of New South Wales has created and made another beautiful exquisite masterpiece which traces in prehistoric celebration of popular fossil discoveries found in the areas in the world the transition of feathered dinosaurs to birds in gradual step-by-step change of evolution within each species of animal in shape and form.Finally this is a book that has much fascinating scientific research in it for palaeontologist's that has never before been revealed to modern people of today but is still an intelligent overview in information text of a range of avian and nonavian dinosaurs.