Wildlife of Gondwana: Dinosaurs and Other Vertebrates from the Ancient Supercontinent (Life of the Past) (Hardcover)

by Patricia Vickers-Rich (Author), Thomas H. Rich (Author) "In ancient times many Gond kingdoms lay to the south of the Narbada Valley of Peninsular India, south of the majestic Himalayas..." (more)
Key Phrases: palaeonisciform fish, trunk armour, median dorsal plate, Australian Museum, South America, South Australia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
From the late Paleozoic era to the early Mesozoic era, 350 million to 140 million years before the present, the latter-day continents and subcontinents of Antarctica, India, Australia, Africa, and South America formed a single landmass, a southerly "supercontinent" that contemporary scientists call Gondwana. The physicist Alfred Wegener posited the existence of Gondwana as early as 1912, but only in the 1960s was his theory of continental drift widely accepted. Since that time, considerable evidence has been gathered about Gondwana's ancient flora and fauna, much of it from Australia, which the authors of this handsomely illustrated volume deem a kind of "Noah's ark" of species found almost nowhere else.

Some of those animal types, such as the allosaurid dinosaurs and the labyrinthodont amphibians, may have endured on Gondwana long after they went extinct on its northern-hemisphere counterpart; others, such as the placental mammals and certapsian dinosaurs, may have developed on Gondwana. First published in 1992, this book offers a useful introduction to plate tectonics and other tenets of modern geology, as well as a fine catalog of long-extinct creatures such as the sauropod, pterosaur, and iguanodont. The revised edition recounts recent discoveries from southern Africa, India, and Patagonia that augment the fossil record and correct earlier classification schemes. --Gregory McNamee

Review

Gondwana (also known as Gondwanaland) is the supercontinent that existed (primarily) in the southern hemisphere from about 350 to 150 million years ago, composed of what is now Australia and much of Africa, India, and South America. This oversized work examines Gondwana's geologic history and the fossilized evidence of its diverse life forms (with an emphasis on vertebrates) in light of recent discoveries. Background information on the history of scientific investigation of the supercontinent, geology and geologic time, problems of the fossil record, and the history of life make this work accessible to a wide audience. This new edition (1st, 1993) adds 15 pages of new discoveries, as well as correcting typographical errors and revising the systematic, geographic, and geologic index. This is a treasure trove of photographs, maps, charts, time lines, and drawings, as well as a source of concise but detailed scientific information. Written by a group of Australians, including paleontologists and photographers, it is an ideal beginning place for research on the subject. An extensive bibliography enhances its use as a reference source. Recommended for all libraries. General readers; undergraduates through faculty.J. Nabe, SUNY at Stony Brook, Choice, July 2000

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253336430
• ISBN-13: 978-0253336439
• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #116,629 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #2 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Paleontology > Vertebrate
  #13 in	Books > Outdoors & Nature > Ecology > Animals > Dinosaurs
  #21 in	Books > Outdoors & Nature > Fauna > Fossils

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very nice book on Australasian fossils, March 2, 2001

By	Tim F. Martin (Madison, AL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

For those interested in photographs of fossils found mainly in Australia from the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic (along with a few from Antarctica), then this is the book for you. Crisp high quality photographs of vertebrate fossils are provided, everything from the hindlimb of Dromornis stirtoni to the top view of the skull of Leaellynasaura to numerous fish fossils. The primary focus appears to be on dinosaurs, though extinct mammals are well covered as well.

Accompanying the photographs are short articles detailing various aspects of the region's history, such as extinction of Australia's Quarternary megafauna, the floodplain faunas of the Great Southern Rift Valley of the Early Cretaceous, the role the increasing aridity of post-Miocene Australia played in evolution, and the fauna of the Gogo Reef. Longer articles deal with the basic geologic and paleontological history of Gondwana, the history of research there, and the role of Gondwana in the global context of worldwide evolution of animals. Numerous photographs of wildlife today accompany discussions of the unique biogeography of Australia and the role isolation has played in the development of the organisms there.

A beautiful coffee-table book, I hold from giving five stars for two reasons. One, the price is fairly high; though a really nice book to own, it may be out of the price range for many, or at least more than they really want to pay. Two, though the numerous photographs of fossils in the book are really high quality, I think the book could have benefitted from more artists' illustrations of the animals and their environment in life. Though a few nice ones are included, several more could have really added to the value and popular appeal of this book. Many of the extinct fauna of Gondwana are bizarre and fascinating, particularly some of the extinct marsupial megafauna, and it would have been nice to see more illustrations of how they looked in life. All in all though a really well done book.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another time-trip to the past, April 21, 2000

By	nonreview - See all my reviews

I compared the book Walking with Dinosaurs to a time machine. Well, here's another one. Wildlife of Gondwana is composed with love and devotion to the field of Paleontology. It is a momentous feeling to relive the evolution of our planet's surface leading to Gondwana and Laurasia and stunning to watch how vertebrate species diverged to fill all the ecological niches of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. A must for the dino lovers but also gives a fresh insight to other vertebrates that were contemporaries of the giant lizards. I hope there will once be a Wildlife of Laurasia, too.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not what it seems, October 1, 2003

By	Andrew Stiller (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Warning: the title of this book is highly misleading. By its content, it should be called "Fossil Vertebrates of Australia." If it really covered the wildlife of Gondwana, it would include a great deal RE invertebrates and plants and would give much, much more space than it does to Africa, South America, and India. The critters on the cover, BTW, are Pleistocene Australian forms, and therefore not from Gondwana (the ancient southern supercontinent) at all.

The chief value of this volume lies in its highly inclusive selection of spectacularly fine and detailed photos of Australian vertebrate fossils, including one of the famous opalized plesiosaurs. Alas, though, there are only a handful of whole-body reconstructions, though those few are very good.

Another problem, endemic to coffee-table books of this kind, is inconsistency of labeling, terminology, and interpretation. The authors can't decide, for example, whether sloths, armadillos and so on are to be called Edentates and placed among the placentals, or should be taken out of the placentals and called Paratheria. Similar inconsistency plagues the coloring of some geological maps, and even the definition of "teleost."