Customer Reviews

The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution

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I have found this book to be fascinating since I first got hold of it as a child. I have always had a fascination with dinosaurs (I'm in college now and majoring in paleontology), so of course I was always plague by the question "What if they hadn't died out?" Dixon answers this question very creatively and to my complete satisfaction. Some of the other reviews on this book claim that many of Dixon's creations are implausible. Well, look around. I see a lot of equally implausible animals roaming the earth today. Have you ever taken a good look at a camel? An anteater? A duckbilled platypus? A porcupine? Think about it. If we hadn't seen them with our own eyes, wouldn't they seem pretty "out there," too? Or some extinct creatures. Anyone with any real knowledge about this subject can tell you that there are some pretty strange creatures represented in the fossil record. To those people who complain about implausibility, all I have to say is this: Go find yourself a nice illustrated book about the Burgess Shale fossils. I recommend "Wonderful Life" by Steven Jay Gould. Spend some time reading up on weird and wonderful critters like Opabinia, Marella, Sidneyia, Aysheaia, Anomalocaris, and Hallucigenia. Then let's hear your views on implausibility.
Dixon has a wonderful imagination, his descriptions are good, he is obviously knowledgeable about the workings of evolution. I find each and every one of his unique critters to be entirely plausible. In fact, every time I read his book, I have this urge to go on some sort of safari to see all those amazing creatures. I will spend the rest of my life regretting that I will never be able to see any of Dixon's wonderful animals except on the pages of his book.

What would have happened if the K-T had never happened? What if the dinosaurs and their relatives had continued their succesful lineage and continued to gradually evolve? Renowned paleontologist Dougal Dixon delves headfirst into this interesting topic. We start our tour with a brief history on the different theories of the extinction of the dinosaurs. We then move into the present-day dinosaurs. We start in the steamy jungles of Africa, where we see "arbrosaurs" (tree-climbing dinosaurs) eating insects and wasps in the canopy. We then see bizarre giraffe-like creatures on what would be the African Savannah, descended from pterosaurs. In the desert, there are "sandles" a subterrenian predator, and Wyrms, which kill and eat small mammals. We move up to North America, in which we see "gestalts" a social dinosaur, with a queen, soldiers, and workers. We see agile brickets (descended from hadrosaurs) and the zwims, aquatic mammals. We move into the tundra, where giant flightless birds (trombles) migrate to breed. Smaller birds (whiffles) follow in their wake. In the colder deserts, we see ankylosaur descendants, adapted for colder weather. In the grasslands, we see gazelle-like sprintosaurs and the raptor-like northclaws. Dinosaurs have even colonized the mountains, like the herbivorus balacvlavs, and their predators, the mountain leapers. In South America, we see manatee-like watergulps and scaly gliders in the rainforests. On the pampas, heavily armoured turtosaurs roam, sharing their food with the larger lumbers. In Asia, we see panda-like Taddeys, and Numbskulls (their real name!) on the steppes of the Asian highlands. In Australia, things get really bizarre. We see flamingo-like dinosaurs (cribrums) and dingums, poisonous dinosaurs. In the trees, we see tubbs, a saurian equivalant of the koala. On the offshore islands, we see Seussian wandles, and Kloons, flightless pterasaurs. On the beaches, coconut grabs, amphibious ammonites (much like the swampus of The Future is Wild) and Shorerunners, small flightless pterasaurs which are their predators. There are more creatures, but I won't reveal them all. Get the book and find out about them for yourself!

Dougal Dixon's first book, After Man, was an excellent look at what animals might be like if humans became extinct. This book explores what dinosaurs might have been like if they hadn't gone extinct. It's a very interesting idea, and this book does a good job of it. Many of the dinosaurs are imaginatively designed, but are still remeniscent of real dinosaurs. However, the book is flawed in the fact that some of the dinosaurs are very improbable, for example, many have fur. These creatures are not as imaginative as those in After Man, which is one of my favorite science books. A website called The Speculative Dinosaur Project does a similar thing, except that the creatures are more plausible and more developed, and it is more thourough,
Still, this is an excellent book with a well thought out concept, and in spite of what I have said, many of the creatures are very interesting.

Move over, Speculated Dinosaur Project! Long-time time paleomtologist Dougal Dixon has unleashed his view of the Earth right this very second-if the K-T event had not happened, EVER. According to this book, published in the 1980s, the dinosaurs and their relatives would diversify into a varied collection of species that would look as weird as they are magnificent to our very eyeballs. Except our eyeballs would never be able to see them, since we mammals would still remain small (weighing less than 100 killograms)and remain relatively unspecialized.

Some adaptions of the new dinosaur would look weird to a paleobiologist of the 60s but seem to be more accurate now. For instance, some varieties of coelurids, duckbills, and pterodactyls evolve some kind of a furry insulation, like hair or feathers. This is certainly a possibility nowadays. First of all, new evidence from Kazakstan and China suggests that many groups of theropod dinosaurus and pterosaurs had a strange kind of furry body covering. Secondly, if the Cenozoic dinosaurs started moving in habitats with a much cooler climate than they were used to, than highly advacned body covering would have saved them from severe decrease in outside body temperature, as in mammals; this does not mean they were cold-blooded.

My favorite dinosaur in this book is the treewyrn, Arbroseperus longus. This creature evolved from a group of basal compsognathids that, over time, have lost their front limbs to cope with a burrowing lifstyle. The treewyrm, however, has taken the the treetops using its hallax, or first toe, like a thumb to grip on to branches. The dinosaur's long neck is perfectly designed for snatching prey from a distance.

Although this book does mention dinosaurs that are not scientifically plausable, it does teach us an important lesson: The popular view of dinosaur for nearly thirteen decades was wrong. These were not slow-witted, cold-blooded behemoth doomed of extinction, but mammal-like, fast-moving creatures that did what living animals do; eat, fight, communicate, and reproduce. And maybe, somewhere on this planet, they are real-life new dinosaurs, waiting to be seen by zoologists.

In the tradition of AFTER MAN, this book (which I was lucky enough to discover at a used book shop in San Diego) looks at today- if the dinosaurs had not become extinct. Following evolutionary patterns sometimes not unlike those in AFTER MAN, the book is lavishly illustrated in its depiction of an ecology that has accomodated dinosaur forms in a variety of mammalian, avian and other guises- great for any dinosaur fan, great coffee table book, and one of the most unique dinosaur books I've ever read.

An excellent read, I would consider buying this if you liked "The World of Kong: A natural history of skull island". A great view on the life of dinosaur had they not become extinct.

I absolutely love this book. I have a well-read, well-loved copy that I've owned since my parents bought it for me back when I was seven or eight years old, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. In this book, Dougal Dixon (known for his alternate evolution scenarios like 'After Man: A Zoology of the Future' and 'The Future is Wild') posits a world where the dinosaurs never died out. He opens up with a nice introduction to dinosaurs and mass extinctions, and then goes on to give charts detailing his alternate evolution, information on continental drift, different biomes and regions of the earth, and how lifeforms adapt to everything from tropical rainforests to open deserts and grasslands to the seas. Then we get into the REAL meat of the book.

Arranged by region, we get to see richly illustrated creatures that might have evolved, had the dinosaurs not vanished 65 million years ago. We are introduced to ground dwelling pterosaurs on the African savannah, sleek theropods that stalk the great herds of hadrosaurs on the North American plain, armored ankylosaurs on the Asian steppe, giant ammonites and the pleisosaurs that adapted to eat them, and armless, scavenging descendants of the tyrannosaur in Patagonia. These, and the countless other fascinating, yet believable, creatures all show parallels to contemporary animals like pandas, flamingos, whales, jerboas, pelicans, woodpeckers, and so forth. And, not all dinosaurs survived Dixon's either. He mentions the last stegosaurs as dying out on the Indian subcontinent 2 million years ago, for instance.

Creationists and other such types will probably find the whole concept a bit objectionable, but those of us who accept evolution can look at this book as a fascinating read, an alternate look at the potential creatures that may have evolved were the dinosaurs with us today. Its really sci-fi in the strictest sense of the word, and a fun read to boot, so I definately recommend getting your hands on a copy when (if) you can find it.

well, it's a good book, i'll admit, but the creatures just seem all too familiar. the Treepounce looks remarkebly like a leopard, and the Gwanna, well, that's a kangaroo. the Lank? a Giraffe, of course! creatures like the Glub? well, that's simple. obviously a manatee. the trunk on the Lumber's nose made it an obvious elephant. almost all of the creatures had one thing in common: they seemed to be saurian replacements of real earth animals. i admot, it makes a little sence, seeing as these real animals living with us have evilved to look the way they do for a reason, but for every dinosaur to have a real-world brother? but that's not my big complaint. the only thing that i saw wrong with this book would be the shortage of dinosaurs outside the coelurosaur/hypsilophidont/arbrosaur lineage. there was only one ceratopsian, wich seems illogical, seeing how successful they were during the Cretaceous. perhaps the one creature that i was 100% dissapointed with was the Coconut Grab, an Ammonite/Squid ancestor that can emerge from the sea and climb trees like a robber crab. preposterous! looking at their similarities i conclude, if the cephalopods don't need to reach land in the real world, they wouldn't need to in Dixon's world, either.

anyways, if you are into seeing what life minus the KT extinction would be like, you should check this out. if you aren't really phased by the topic, don't bother.

well, it's a good book, i'll admit, but the creatures just seem all too familiar. the Treepounce looks remarkebly like a leopard, and the Gwanna, well, that's a kangaroo. the Lank? a Giraffe, of course! creatures like the Glub? well, that's simple. obviously a manatee. the trunk on the Lumber's nose made it an obvious elephant. almost all of the creatures had one thing in common: they seemed to be saurian replacements of real earth animals. i admot, it makes a little sence, seeing as these real animals living with us have evilved to look the way they do for a reason, but for every dinosaur to have a real-world brother? but that's not my big complaint. the only thing that i saw wrong with this book would be the shortage of dinosaurs outside the coelurosaur/hypsilophidont/arbrosaur lineage. there was only one ceratopsian, wich seems illogical, seeing how successful they were during the Cretaceous. perhaps the one creature that i was 100% dissapointed with was the Coconut Grab, an Ammonite/Squid ancestor that can emerge from the sea and climb trees like a robber crab. preposterous! looking at their similarities i conclude, if the cephalopods don't need to reach land in the real world, they wouldn't need to in Dixon's world, either.

anyways, if you are into seeing what life minus the KT extinction would be like, you should check this out. if you aren't really phased by the topic, don't bother.

This book by Dougal Dixon asks, 'What would the Earth be like if dinosaurs had not kicked the bucket?' The first chapters deal with evolution in general and with real dinosaurs, where they came from, how they changed and why they might have died out. This is followed by chapters that deal with the different regions of Earth, how they have changed over the millions of years and what the animals are like. Not just dinosaurs either, but also creatures evolved from birds, pterosaurs, sea-reptiles and other animals. As in 'After Man' the whole book has been designed like a non-fiction text book, or a nature guide, but doesn't seem as detailed or as fun. While Dixon's 'The New Dinosaurs' seems slightly more realistic than 'After Man' which had such weird creatures as parashrews, it also seems to have less imagination.