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Tracy Ford wrote:
Are you
sure its Doug’s work? It doesn’t quite have the same look/feel to it. I looked
for a signature but couldn’t find one on the painting. If
this is just a small taste of what the book will be, it’ll be worth
it. I have a copy of the book for a couple of weeks now, so here
is some information ...
An introduction to the book is written by Kevin
Padian.
Author is Paul Barrett, a lecturer in zoology at the
University of Oxford and a research associate at the Oxford Museum of Natural
History. He completed his PhD on the biology and evolution of herbivorous
dinosaurs at the University of Cambridge. I'm sure that Dr. Barrett is no
stranger to listmember Darren Naish.
My database tells me that Dr. Barrett was involved in the 1998 description
of Shanxia tianzhenensis and Acanthopholis hughesii & keepingi.
the artist is Raul Martin, a paleo-artist who works with the
paleontology department of the Spanish Universidad Autonoma of Madrid and with
the paleo-anthropological team of the Atapuerca (Spain) excavations. The image
that was sent to the DML shows a tyrannosaur and Edmontonia, the book contains
similar two-page artwork of : mosasaurs; plateosaurs feeding in a Triassic
forest; a Diplodocus under attack by a pack of Allosaurus; a pair of
Parasaurolophus with a herd of Edmontosaurus; a mother Maiasaura feeding her
nestlings; a Tyrannosaurus disturbing a pair of scavenging Quetzalcoatlus; a
herd of Chasmosaurus; a Hypsilophodon in a dark early cretaceous fores; a
Camptosaurus trying to escape from an Allosaurus; a herd of Iguanodon walking
through a marshy forest; a tyrannosaur attacking a Corythosaurus; a herd of
Lambeosaurus; three Camarasaurus individuals near the coastline of a Mesozoic
sea; a pair of Diplodocus drinking from a river; an Allosaurus attacking a
Dryosaurus (also on the book's cover); a Baryonyx catching a fish; a
Tyrannosaurus being dwarfed by giant trees; an (unfeathered) Oviraptor on a nest
of eggs; two (unfeathered) Deinonychus in a forest.
Most of this artwork is even more impressive than the
image you have now already seen; I'm particularly impressed by the breath-taking
plant life that was recreated, I've rarely seen such accurate Mesozoic
landscapes. The dinosaurs themselves are so life-like that the images often look
like photographs.
The book also contains individual images of 50+ different
dinosaur genera, by the same artist.
The book itself is comparable to Lambert & Ostrom's
Ultimate Dinosaur Book (1993), a book which for many of us, marked a transition
to more serious dinosaur literature.
The new National Geographic book follows the same pattern;
several introductory chapters on dinosaurs in general (what is a dinosaur, the
age of dinosaurs, finds around the world, how they lived, how they moved,
extinction, dinosaur movies ...) followed by extensive descriptions of some
56 different genera. These 50+ genera were carefully selected to represent the
diversity of the Dinosauria, and is clever in not including pterosaurs and
marine reptiles, but do include Archaeopteryx, Baptornis and Iberomesornis, and
thus forwards the inclusion of extant birds in Dinosauria. Not only traditional
dinosaurs are included in this total, also several recently described genera are
present; Sinosauropteyx, Caudipteryx, Pelecanimimus. The descriptions of
traditonal forms like Velociraptor and Oviraptor remain rather conservative and
images of these genera do not show feather-like integument. the book also
contains numerous high-quality photographs of actual fossil specimens and cast
skeletons, including rare images of Troodon eggs & skull, Lesothosaurus,
ankylosaur skulls, Kentrosaurus, Eoraptor skull, Apatosaurus skull, Giraffatitan
(=Brachiosaurus brancai) skeleton, Plateosaurus skeletons, Saltasaurus armour,
Carnotaurus skeleton, Baryonyx holotype skull, Liaoning feathered specimens,
Therizinosaurus cheloniformis manus, Pelecanimimus skull ...
Many of these photographs were apparently made during visits
to the Canadian Royal Tyrrell Museum, the Berlin Humboldt museum and Argentinian
institutions.
Like Lambert and Ostrom's book, the new NG
publication is designed for young adults, but the active involvement of a
professional paleontologist like Dr. Barrett makes it useful for much more
experienced readers and gives it long-term value as a reference book. The
two-page images by artist Raul Martin make this book even more appealing, and it
would be an absolute joy to see one of these as an enlarged reproduction
overlooking one's office or living-room.
Although not a scientific book, like the recent The Armoured
Dinosaurs (by Carpenter et al.) or Mesozoic Vertebrate Life, this is again a
must-have book (where did I hear that before this year ?).
Regards,
Gunter Van Acker
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