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The Wonderful World of Weird Tyrannosaurs



Back in the 1950's and 60's  (in the Baby Boom Dinosaur Boom), a publisher in 
England put out a series of  "Wonderful World" books. They were very stylish 
and trendy with their  illustrations. I had a number of them, _The Wonderful 
World of the Sea_, _The  Wonderful World of Mathematics_ (my old man gifted me 
with that, hoping I'd  forget about dinosaurs), and the very wonderful _The 
Wonderful World of  Prehistoric Animals_ by W.E. Swinton and illustrated by 
Maurice Wilson. Then  there was the first one, _The Wonderful World_ from 1954. 
It 
was written by  James Fisher, one of the great popularizers of natural 
history back then (he was  a close friend of Roger Tory Peterson's and they 
produced 
several books  together). In this book is an illustration of Tyrannosaurus (I 
don't know the  artists name) that still gives me pause after fifty or so 
years. Even back then  I thought it was very odd. It seems as if the artist 
studied the Zallinger mural  then dropped some acid. I accidentally bumped into 
it 
again today. Here it  is:

http://usscatastrophe.com/kh/wworld/wonderful.world.dino.jpg

Other scans from the book can be seen here, click on images to  enlarge:

http://kevinh.blogspot.com/2006/06/wonderful-world.html

DV