In the Presence of Dinosaurs [Hardcover]

John Colagrande (Author), Larry Felder (Author, Illustrator), Jack Horner (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

Prepare to forget everything you thought you knew about dinosaurs. Ferocious battles of lore played out by dimwitted, reptilian, lumbering monsters? Not true. IN THE PRESENCE OF DINOSAURS draws on the latest information from fossil records and studies of present-day wildlife to create an intimate account of the parentally attentive, agile ancestors of birds that roamed the earth millions of years ago. Here, in more stunning detail than ever before, is an evocative depiction of the lives of dinosaurs. From mating patterns and habitats to nesting colonies and physiognomy, IN THE PRESENCE OF DINOSAURS takes readers into the world of dinosaurs like a field guide, traveling from present-day Arizona to Connecticut, the Triassic to the Cretaceous. Throughout are 100 glorious, full-color painting by acclaimed dinosaur artist Larry Felder.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The dinosaurs are dead; long live the dinosaurs. Extinct for 65 million years, dinosaurs have never been more popular. They have been riding a wave of public interest as their image changes from slow-moving monsters doomed to extinction to fascinating, frightening relatives of birds. In the Presence of Dinosaurs proclaims itself "the culmination of this paleontological paradigm shift"--and it is certainly a stunning sight.

Larry Felder's dinosaur paintings have near-photographic realism. The lighting and angles of view are those of the wildlife photographer, not the static diorama. When a Hydrotherosaurus (a close double for the Loch Ness Monster) catches a coelacanth, the line of sight is up the huge neck and apparently through a water-dotted lens. James Gurney, author of Dinotopia, reports: "When I saw the Pterandon courtship picture, I said, 'Yes, of course!'" Parasaurolophus bellowing at sunset, Coelophysis snaring prey as they run from a wildfire, Tricerotops at a waterhole; all the pictures are grippingly realistic and beautiful.

The text, by Felder's high school teacher John Colagrande, is also exceptionally vivid. It reads like a naturalist's exploration of a living world, not the catalogue of a museum: "Just as the wet season is winding down, and the rivers are at their highest, female phytosaurs take over the portions of the riverbank closest to the scrub cover of the flood plains as nesting areas." This is indeed "not an account of extinct animals so much as a celebration of life. It is a wildlife book whose subjects include dinosaurs." --Mary Ellen Curtin

From Publishers Weekly

With childlike energy and pluck, Colagrande, an award-winning New Jersey public school science teacher for 34 years and self-described "dinosaurologist" since the third grade, and Felder, who has received acclaim for his provocative and revolutionary oil paintings of dinosaurs, introduce readers young and old to the world of dinosaurs as never before. Scientists' new views have taught people to understand dinosaurs not as the dumb, violent and lumbering creatures that have long dominated popular imagination, but rather as lively, agile and even elegant creatures that nurtured their young and interacted in accordance with their own social norms, the authors say. Colagrande and Felder also side with those scientists who believe that dinosaurs were not cold-blooded but warm-blooded, some even with hair and fur. With a modern flair, Felder realizes the beauty and detail of various types of dinosaurs and the myriad animals and plants that lived alongside them, reinforcing the authors' main point that "above all, [dinosaurs] were animals. And if the bones they left behind hint at anything at all, they were very special animals indeed." With lively, accessible narrative and striking oil paintings, Colagrande and Felder deliver an imaginative and tantalizing new look at dinosaurs. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Time Life Books; 1st edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0737000899
• ISBN-13: 978-0737000894
• Product Dimensions: 12.2 x 9.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,555,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It`s entirly fantastic! A must-have for the dino freak, March 18, 2001

By 

Johannes Ehn Hellstrand (Stockholm,Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Presence of Dinosaurs (Hardcover)

This book is a true treasure. I have not heard of Larry Felder before,but he has quickly become my favourite dinosaur painter. The way the book is made is as unique as the paintings. It is not an encyclopedia,but instead a book of wildlife on Earth. The pictures are amazingly detailed and I can see that the animals` shapes and colours are based on carefull studies of real wildlife. For example,the Pteranodons looks and acts like pelicans,as well as the Parasaurolophus are similar to zebras. Most of the meat-eating dinosaurs are feathered and are sometimes similar to birds of prey or lions and tigers. The habitat pictures are among my favourites... Among my favourites comes the triassic chapter,the late jurassic,and the cretaceous chapters of the seas and the dinosaur migrations. I love drawing dinosaurs and when I look at the pictures,I learn to draw such dinosaurs too,although not as detailed as Felder`s. I will also base my story "A Dinosaur Story" on the behaviour and look of the animals in this book. Over all,this is a book that could not be much better. The only thing minus is that I think it is almost too short. A book of 300 pages would have been better and with more artists.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars an uneven but ambitious book, March 1, 2001

By 

Tim F. Martin (Madison, AL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Presence of Dinosaurs (Hardcover)

I don't know quite what to make of this book. Parts of it are excellent. Parts of it are, well, not so good.

The good first. The authors make an effort to depict entire environments throughout the Mesozoic of North America, not just focusing on showy (though fascinating) dinosaurs. Reading like a nature show transcript, Colgrande and Felder don't discuss scientific theories or paleontoligsts, but try to place in you the actual landscape of the past, whether a Triassic rain forest or a Jurassic inland sea. Plants, invertebrates, birds, mammals, other reptiles, pterosaurs, marine reptiles are all discussed being born, living, and dying in lush worlds.

Some of the descriptions are quite engaging. I especially loved the Triassic rain forest (preserved as the petrified forest) and the Niobrara Sea.

Another plus are some of the illustrations. The ones of marine life are inspired, and others are quite excellent. In a field increasingly crowded with prehistoric art, some of this stands out.

Now the bad. This book is full of theories, and it doesnt' really tell you that, or doesn't stress it. Some, such as the idea that hypsilophodontids might have been corpophages is interesting, but it is just that - a theory. No evidence of it. And some of the theories (or illustrations showing such theories) are arugably wrong. Several dinosaurs species are shown as feathered as young, but scaled as adults. From what I understand this just not possible. Those are two entirely two different types of external covering, and it is not possible to switch from one to the another; if you are born with feathers, you live your life with feathers, you don't switch to scales at a certain age. Yes, birds have down while in the nest, but later get feathers, not scales. While this makes for some pretty pictures, and yes some dinosaurs species may have been feathered their entire lives, there is no evidence to suggest feathered (or furred for that matter) hadrosaurs.

Another bad point is ironically the illustrations. Though some are quite good, others are not good. Some come across as wooden or simplistic, while others are strangely unconvincing. One or two I would even describe as bad. Perhaps the illustrator wasn't quite as trained as he should have been, perhaps a few subjects were beyond his grasp, or maybe this was simply too much to paint, an overly ambitious project.

This book is an interesting one and can certainly inspire debate among amateur paleonotologists such as myself, but this might not be the best book available.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book!, December 10, 2000

By 

Dean Hannotte (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Presence of Dinosaurs (Hardcover)

I have been collecting "dinosaurabilia" for 40 years, including many of the paleontological works of Charles R. Knight, America's first dinosaur painter. The only time I have ever been tempted to add an original painting by any other artist to my collection was when I first saw Larry Felder's depiction of a baby Parasaurolophus a few years ago. "Duckling Bill" is now the centerpiece of my entire "Metropolitan Museum of Mesozoic Memorabilia".

Only a handful of artists per century ever burst onto the scene with such imaginative vigor and precision as has Felder. Leafing through this book will make your hair stand on end and a chill run up your spine. At last we know what these amazing monsters really looked like!