Field Guide to Dinosaurs: The Essential Handbook for Travelers in the Mesozoic - Hardcover

Gee, Henry; Rey, Luis V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0764155113 ISBN 13: 9780764155116

Publisher: Barrons Educational Series, 2003

Synopsis

This beautifully produced and illustrated volume is the result of sophisticated scientific research. However, it has been written in clear laymen’s language for nonscientists who have serious interest in paleontology. Author Henry Gee provides naturalists’ notes on more than 50 different dinosaur species. His information is supplemented with dramatic, anatomically accurate full-color illustrations of each dinosaur. Material in this book is based on findings of dinosaur remains in North and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Antarctica, and is divided according to time periods: Triassic, Jurassic, Early- and Mid-Cretaceous, and Late Cretaceous. At-a-glance icons convey key information about each animal, including size, taxonomy, geological period of origin, and geographical location of discovered bones. The book also presents general background information on the 180 million years of the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic era, including details on Mesozoic plants and animals and the modern story of dinosaur discovery. More than 500 vivid illustrations are all in full color.

About this title

About the Author

Luis V. Rey is one of the most highly respected dinosaur artists working today. His images are based on rigorous anatomical study, which keeps him in demand by many leading dinosaur experts.

From the Back Cover

[Back Cover]
Renowned dinosaur artist Luis V. Rey and paleontologist and writer Henry Gee use up-to-the minute research findings to paint a vivid picture of the dinosaurs' world. Their unique approach gives readers lifelike portrayals of dinosaurs similar to that of naturalists in the wild, observing living animals of our own era.

Experience dinosaurs as living, breathing creatures, each kind described--from the field--and shown in breathtaking illustrations

Observe dinosaur physiology in full-color paintings, anatomical sketches, and a host of fascinating incidental detail, much of it never published outside specialist journals

Understand the dinosaurs' environment in terms of the world's changing face throughout the 180-million-year extent of the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic Era, with a detailed, full-color chart that relates the time-span of each dinosaur group

At-a-glance icons convey key information about different dinosaur groups,
including size, taxonomy, diet, geological period and geographical origins

[jacket flap copy]
Sensational discoveries during the past decade have shed new light on the most intimate details of dinosaurs'lives, including their appearance and behavior, their family structures, and even their sex lives. Modern dinosaur finds encompass far more than just bones, and currently take account of eggs, footprints, skin impressions, and in some cases, feathers. Today's paleontologists use biochemistry to learn what dinosaurs ate, and they study fossil bones to understand how those animals grew. Modern science also employs engineering design techniques to work out how dinosaurs fed, for instance demonstrating from skull structure and density that Tyrannosaurus was a bone-crushing butcher, while Allosaurus ripped and slashed flesh from its fleeing prey.

The latest dinosaur findings present a far more vivid and complete picture of this extraordinarily successful group of animals than would have been thought possible only a few years ago. Recent finds in South America, Madagascar, Mongolia, China, and Australia have revealed the existence of amazing and exotic dinosaurs. Some of the most remarkable finds in these recently explored territories include feathered dinosaurs from China, as well as a sauropod dinosaur nesting ground in Patagonia that stretches for miles in every direction. Our knowledge of dinosaurs is richer today than ever before, with no sign of the excitement lessening or the flood of new finds drying up. Paleontologist Henry Gee and artist Luis Rey have seamlessly integrated all of the most recent discoveries in the making of this unique book. Henry Gee is a renowned and thought-provoking science writer, and the author of In Search of Deep Time and Jacob's Ladder. Trained as a paleontologist, he is a senior editor of Nature, the weekly journal of science, where many of the dinosaur discoveries described in this book made their scientific debuts.
Luis V. Rey is one of the boldest and most highly respected dinosaur artists working today. His vivid images are based on careful anatomical study, making him a first-choice illustrator for many leading dinosaur experts.

Reviews

Grade 6-9-"One thing must be made clear from the start: this is a work of fiction." So states the first line of the extensive, well-written introduction, and should readers skip it and dive headlong into the sumptuous "field guide," they may take for unshakable fact material that, while based on current findings, is largely extrapolation. Gee discusses a wide variety of topics-fur, feathers, color, an "imagined reality," the dinosaur-bird connection, continental drift, and the nature of the Mesozoic world. A time line, an excellent cladogram, instructions for using the "field guide," and a warning regarding the speculative nature of many of the "facts" presented are included. The "field guide" is divided into the Triassic, Jurassic, Early and Mid-Cretaceous, and Late Cretaceous periods, presenting representative dinosaurs from each one. Rey offers a host of small black-and-white sketches and vividly dramatic, brilliantly colored paintings as well. Many of the selected saurians are the "usual suspects"-T. rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and the like-but a horde of the newest finds, such as Masiakasaurus, Amargasaurus, and Muttaburrasaurus, are also included. As in a standard field guide, a global-positioning map for each dinosaur is included, as is information on description and size and paragraphs on distinguishing features, habits, and habitats. Handsome and engrossing, this book should have a large and appreciative audience, especially among fans of the stunning videos of Walking with Dinosaurs (BBC).
Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"One thing must be made clear from the start: this is a work of fiction." Having gotten that admission out of the way at the very beginning of his text, paleontologist Gee, a senior editor at the prestigious journal Nature, goes on to explain that picturing the outsides of dinosaurs known to us only by their bones is inherently an act of imagination, but one based on scientific realities. Did dinosaurs do mating dances? Nobody knows, but many animals do, so perhaps dinos did, too. And since dinosaurs are now believed by many to be the ancestors of birds, it makes sense to imagine them in as wide a range of colors as today's avian species. Each of 56 dinosaur species is presented here through black-and-white sketches of heads and claws and other body parts, and in full-color, full-body paintings that are indeed striking for the range of colors and textures: blues and greens and reds, with speckles and stripes, scales and feathers. Rey, a leading dinosaur artist, pictures his subjects in action, climbing trees, chasing prey, baring their fearsome fangs in habitats ranging from jungle to seaside. At the end of his introduction, Gee returns to the question of veracity-the dinosaurs probably didn't look as pictured here, he admits: "they were far, far stranger." But dinophiles will enjoy this excursion into a vividly illustrated possible past world.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 6-12. If readers miss paleontologist Gee's introduction, they might assume all the information in this impressive volume is true. As it happens, the book is a fascinating mix of fact and fiction, introducing dinosaurs from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. The layout and design of the book are reminiscent of a field guide to birds. That's a particularly fitting comparison because one of Gee's goals is to present the fact and speculation related to the idea that birds evolved directly from dinosaurs. A brief but detailed introduction to the field of paleontology and a look at competing theories about dinosaurs are followed by profiles of dinosaur species. Accompanying the text (and frequently overwhelming it) are stunning color illustrations by a professional dinosaur artist. Rey depicts the prehistoric creatures as ferocious and birdlike, with beaks, feathers, and wings. The fascinating, attractively designed, and beautifully illustrated book is sure to pique imaginations. Ed Sullivan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Barrons Educational Series
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0764155113
• ISBN 13: 9780764155116
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144