Customer Reviews

The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs

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"The Scientific American book of Dinosaurs" edited by distinguished artist and vertebrate paleontologist Gregory S. Paul is a splendid summary of the current state of knowledge of dinosaurian paleobiology. Although there are a couple of classic articles included in this volume, most notably Robert Bakker's "Dinosaur Renaissance", published in Scientific American in the mid 1970's - which sets the tone of much of the book's contents - most of the text is comprised of recent Scientific American articles or new essays commissioned for this volume. The first two chapters are an overview of the history of dinosaur paleontology and the history of reconstructing dinosaurs from both an artistic and scientific perspective. Chapter Three contains several articles on dinosaur systematics, emphasizing the relationships between living dinosaurs (birds) and their nearest cousins, small predatory theropods such as Velociraptor and Deinonychus, and their larger cousins, the tyrannosaurids, most notably Albertosaurus, and of course, Tyrannosaurus. It closes with an elegant essay on the origin of birds and their flight by distinguished paleobiologists Kevin Padian and Luis Chiappe. Chapter Four is an overview of the physical geography and climate of the middle and late Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs were the dominant creatures on land. Chapter Five delves into intriguing reconstructions of dinosaur behavior, from locomotion, and food gathering to nesting and the rearing of young. Chapter Six contains several essays on dinosaur bioenergetics, exploring issues such as how rapidly they grew and whether they were - or were not warm blooded creatures. Chapter Seven is devoted to the demise of non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic, focusing on extraterrestrial impacts as the likely "smoking gun" for their extinction. Finally, in Chapter Eight, Gregory Paul offers some interesting speculations on the future of dinosaur paleobiology. This is absolutely a must read for anyone fascinated with dinosaurs, replete with many first-rate drawings and color plates of dinosaurs and their world.

The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs edited by Gregory S. Paul is a book that combined with the essays that preceed its chapters bring the most current knowledge about dinosaurs to light.

The essays contained within this book are written by some of the foremost thinkers of today about dinosaur life long, long ago. This book attempts to answers some of the most commonly asked questions about dinosaurs; where did they live, how did they evolve, which dinosaur families lived where and when, how did they look, act live, were dinosaurs warm-blooded, did they have feathers, did some of them fly, are birds of today the living descendants of dinosaurs, how are dinosaurs named?

These are just a few of the questions that are answered by some of the best minds now working on these questions from the knowledge of the fossil remains found. You have to remember that the knowledge that is found here has been debated for years and may not be all conclusive, but the best quess is given from some of the most sensational finds.

We are given a remarkable tour of the 140-million-year reign of the dinosaur, a tour that covers some of the most exotic animals that ever walked the earth. This book is written for adults and is not a childrens book.

As a fan of Paul's earlier work, Predatory Dinos of the World, I bought this book hoping it would follow a similar format and to some extent, update the previous book. I realize that Paul didn't write this book, but one can always hope for the best. I expected a book that listed all of the known species and gave some info on each. Take note, if this is the type of book your looking for, keep looking. However, this is a good book, with lots of new and informative info., and well worth having if you are interested in dinosaurs. The drawings, many of them by Paul, are first class and represent the state of the art. The color pictures are also good and represent a nice mix of new and old. Especially good is the chapter on feathered dinosaurs and the one on dinosaur thermoregulation. I've found myself reading some chapters many times over. Not perfect, but a very good read that adults will find geared towards them without having to have a masters degree to understand.

Almost considered using this as a textbook in an undergraduate dinosaur class; it is perhaps a little to difficult for those not already highly interested in dinosaurs. Book consists of reprintings of Scientific American articles with lots of new material and entire chapters by various experts in dinosaur paleontology. Great artwork is also another plus for the book. Editor Gregory Paul did a wonderful job of compliling these articles with major contributions of ideas and artwork by himself.

Some of Pauls ideas about dinosaurs are speculative and a little quirky, but are well-presented. Some odd, non-paleontological, speculations at the end of the book by Paul are sort of out of place.

I read Scientific American fairly regularly, and so thought this might be a good book to try. After only a few chapters I was highly impressed. Most books I've bought on the subject are really just lists of dinosaurs with a few blurbs and factoids set against some pretty art, while others are heavy on the mechanics of paleontology and talk about things like the strata of rock you find fossils is (which while important info, can be rather boring.) This book has a high level of detail, while not getting boring. For example, I had only a vaugue idea of what cladistics was, and thought it would be boring even if I did, but the essay on the subject was very simple without being condescending. If you like dinosaur books, but are tired of too much artwork with no substance behind them, this book is for you.

I found this to be an interesting, very informative read. It covers the dinosauria well, and would make a great first dinosaur book.

The skeltal reconstructions in the back of the book are also particuarly usefull for any paleoartists.

This scientific factual indepth mythical information resource goes back in time of discovery in species evolution and explores the rich lush open diverse mythical landscape of beasts that inhabit it and roam it's area and start's asking a lot of theortical argumentive scientific questions on debate about whether or not they had loose feathers for insulation from the cold winter windy weather or whether they had scaly(plates) on their back but it also asks other argumentive questions of debate about whether or not they were cold-blooded or warm-blooded which means whether they could raise or regulate there body temperature above the surronding environment.All in all a superb book with the only unfortunate let down or set back being that it has dull black and white color illustrations in it.Other than that flaw or let down it,s a superb book for resource in information on a hot topic of continuous debate

very satisfying serious overview of the current thinking on dinosaurs with the scientific american imprimatur. for grown ups who love dinosaurs, this is ectasy. nice pictures, too.

This book is up to date and very informative. It has various skeletal rescontructions including one of T .rex in four different views, with muscular and life rescontruction all in one page! By Gregory Paul!! This collection of articles from real paleontologists is a must have in any serious dino-freak's library.

If you're looking for a rehash of a few good old articles, plus a set of new articles that are in general of very poor quality, and some decent artwork (most old, some new) then this book is fine for you.

But if you're looking for quality dinosaur science, then this book will greatly disappoint you. The new articles are laden with assertions lacking in concrete data, are generally awful in writing quality, and offer a very narrow view of dinosaur science, with alternative viewpoints barely mentioned. These articles' authors are just a few of the editor's friends, not the best and brightest in the field. Together, these new articles destroy the quality of the book, in my opinion. They are sad, weak, shameful science. I was very disappointed.