Terrible Lizards - a bestiary

Believe it or not, I'm not familiar at all with Dungeons & Dragons. Of course I know what it is, and that there's a Dungeon Master overseeing things and lots of high fantasy and dice and such, but not much more than that. It's just not something that I've really been exposed to (if you'll forgive the use of a word that makes it sound slightly unseemly). So, I was intrigued when we were contacted by Ralph Stickley, who's produced a bestiary entitled Terrible Lizards, with the laudable aim of bringing up-to-date dinosaurs to the game.

Dinosaur Art II - Marc's review

You may find it difficult to believe (or just unsettling to contemplate), but it's been five years since the publication of the original Dinosaur Art, that gorgeous-looking coffee table compendium of "The World's Greatest Palaeoart". Five years is a long time in the world of scientifically-informed life reconstructions of prehistoric animals, and so now editor Steve White and Titan Books are back with Dinosaur Art II: The Cutting Edge of Palaeoart. Is it just more of the same? Well, not quite; there aren't too many surprises, and the format remains largely unchanged, but there is a little more stylistic variation than before, including a breakout into the world of model sculpting. What's perhaps most telling is how DA2 brings the series into the post-Paulian age.

Dodgy photo from my sofa.

Book review: Maja Säfström’s "Animals of a Bygone Era: An Illustrated Compendium"

“Dinosaurs have intentionally been left out of this book to give some attention to less popular – but still fascinating – creatures that once lived on this planet.”

Thus begins Maja Säfström’s Animals of a Bygone Era: An Illustrated Compendium, a new book that I suspect will be of great interest to this blog’s readers, dinosaurs or no. Besides, Maja’s not technically correct – there are some wonderful avian dinosaurs that made the cut. And there are plenty of Mesozoic relations of the dinosaurs proper.

The cover for Maja Säfström’s Animals of a Bygone Era: An Illustrated Compendium © 2017 Ten Speed Press

The aesthetic is simple, but indirect. Säfström approaches her subjects with more of an eye for their alien charm than for strict fidelity to their anatomy. Rendered in stark black and white, with great attention paid to textural, patterned line work, her animals will appeal to those of you who appreciate a fanciful take on paleoillustration. There’s a cock-eyed, occasionally Seussian quality to the work that I find eminently appealing.

Säfström’s writing is plain-spoken, jargon-light, and witty, with some of the jokey dialogue given to her creatures reminding me of Rosemary Mosco’s Bird and Moon comics. “Wings are overrated – look at my beak instead. It’s huge! Best Regards, Terror Bird,” says a terror bird. The educational content varies from simple facts like the size of the eyes of Opthalmosaurus or the diet of Gigantopithecus to brief references to changing paleontological viewpoints on oddballs like Helicoprion.

No book is without small sins, of course (take it from me, the knucklehead who messed up the extinction date of the mammoths). The biggest one I saw here was the repetition of the old canard that the giant azhdarchids’ flight capabilities were questionable, but this just gives Säfström the opportunity to discover the glory that is Wittonalia.

The Helicoprion spread from Maja Säfström’s Animals of a Bygone Era: An Illustrated Compendium © 2017 Ten Speed Press

Small quibbles like that do not take away from the value of this book, which is populated by a wide array of often-overlooked prehistoric animals. Säfström lovingly introduces readers to such animals as Synthetoceras, Nuralagus rex, Coryphodon, Sharovipteryx, Pteraspis, and Macrauchenia. At the risk of alienating myself from present company, there were even animals here I’d never heard of, such as the “horned gopher” Ceratogaulus.

I’ve seen an upswing of interest in highly stylized paleoillustration online lately, much of this thanks to Johan Egerkrans’ stunning pieces recently shared with the Paleoartists group on Facebook. While more surreal than Egerkrans' work, I imagine there could be a healthy crossover between the two artists’ fan base. As someone who primarily works in this vein, it’s heartening to see support for such work, and I hope that Animals of a Bygone Era finds its audience.

Buy it here and read Säfström's post about it at her site.

The Stomping Grounds: A Dinosaur Art Zine

Recently, there has been some back-and-forth on Facebook about what capital-P paleoart is, as John Conway proposed some guidelines for the Paleoartists group. While certain genres of dinosaur art - for instance Jurassic Park fan art - aren't too hard to rule out, other forms are a harder call. The group has been debating whether fantastical pieces based on close anatomical study of ancient life are allowable. Others have mused about how stylized something can be and still count as paleoart. I've certainly wondered that about Mammoth is Mopey. And it's a balancing act we've played at LITC, for instance with our 2013 All Yesterdays competition. But while we may debate the place and the value of Rigorous Paleoart vs. "mere" illustrations of prehistoric life, I think we can all agree that it's good for pop culture to be permeated with more depictions of prehistoric beasts based on contemporary paleontology.

This leads us to the subject of today's post. As I was traipsing through the dinosaur realms of DeviantArt recently, I came across a wonderful stylized Amargasaurus illustration by Tanya Kozak, AKA Virsiris. It looked like it could have been a still from a dinosaur cartoon I'd definitely watch. The description said that the illustration was part of Stomping Grounds, a dinosaur art zine. I followed the link to Gumroad and picked up a copy. It's sold on a pay-what-you-want scheme.

Carnotaurus © Tanya Kozak, shared here with the artist's permission.

Released about a year ago,Stomping Grounds couldn't be simpler in its execution. It is focused solely on illustration, without any text besides credits for the creators. I'd have appreciated a bit of background information on the species and the artist's rationale for each illustration, and I'd think it would justify a bump up from pay-what-you-want to a set price to cover the additional layout work required.

The zine is decidedly not filled with capital-P paleoart, but that's not the intent. This is a celebration of dinosaurs. Kozak invited a range of artists, many of whom work in animation, to contribute. So it's not surprising that the art bursts with character, like Squeedge's slavering Cryolophosaurus in pink plumage or Kari Fry's Dracorex standoff. My personal favorite was Neogeen's Troodon flock, dramatically rendered in red and drab green, all fully feathered. More than any other piece in the collection, Neogeen's suggests a wider world and I'd love to see it stretched out into a comic or animated piece. Kozak, whose Amargasaurus led me to the zine in the first place, has a few pieces in the zine, with standouts like a fierce Mosasaurus , a Carnotaurus with subtly but effectively exaggerated features, and a fuzzy, ready-for-cartoon-villainy Dilophosaurus.

The zine is well worth picking up and throwing a few buck the artists' way. It's heartening to see artists who aren't scientific illustrators continuing to absorb the good news of our current paleontological golden age. Head to Gumroad to download for free or name your price.

Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved - Marc's review

As anyone who's been there will attest, the NHM (London) doesn't seem to care a jot what hideous CG imagery it slaps on the merchandise in its tack-o-rama dinosaur shop. Notably, the same few hideous stock images appear again and again; there's a Triceratops with human molars, a bunny-handed, gorilla suit Velociraptor, a T. rex with a skull that's been through a mangle and retro JP dangly-arms, and a boringly generic wide-mouth Giganotosaurus with teeth that go all the way back. Sadly, it's the latter that's found its way onto the cover of their latest dinosaur publication - Dinosaurs: How they Lived and Evolved, by Darren Naish and Paul Barrett. Thank you, marketing twonks. Fear not though, dear reader, for this is a book that one certainly shouldn't judge by its cover.

This reminds me of something from a long time ago.

Recreating an Age of Reptiles: Marc's review

While recent years have seen a number of books that celebrate palaeoart for its own sake (rather than featuring it in a purely illustrative context), not enough of them feature explanations by the artists as to why they made this or that choice when restoring long-dead animals. Why that colour pattern? Why that crest of scales? Why that unusual plumage distribution? Informed speculation is an absolute necessity, but it doesn't mean that (good) palaeoartists are just pulling the lever on an extinct beastie fruit machine and cobbling together the results. Perhaps the best aspect of Mark Witton's new book, Recreating an Age of Reptiles (aka Rec-a-Rep), is that Mark consistently provides the informed thinking behind his speculative choices, as well as explaining the science that forms the foundation of all his art. It's easily one of the best palaeoart books in years, and not just because Mark's artwork is often very lovely.

Images copyright Mark Witton, used with permission. Remember, "there's a special circle of hell...located halfway up Satan's bottom" for art thievin' types. (And book pirates.)

Dave Hone's The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: at last, a review

A mere several weeks behind everyone else's, here it is - my review of The Tyrannosaur Chronicles, a book dedicated to the lives and times of the tyrannosauroids, as written by Dave Hone (for it is he). As a rare addition to the canon of popular books on dinosaur palaeobiology aimed at an adult audience, it's already quite an exciting prospect for us mere enthusiasts - but can Dr Dave do Sexy Rexy and friends justice? Of course he can.

Guest Post: A Look Back at Crichton's Lost World

Today we welcome Rohan Long to the blog to offer his insights about The Lost World novel. Rohan is a zoology teaching guy at University of Melbourne. You can find him on Twitter @zoologyrohan and listen to his new musical project, Bronzewing, at bronzewing.bandcamp.com. Take it away, Rohan!

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The Lost World, published by Michael Crichton in 1995, must have been one of the most anticipated literary sequels of all time. And yet, it seems to have been forgotten almost instantly.

The basic plot (spoiler alert?) is that mathematician Ian Malcolm has teamed up with palaeontologist Dr. Richard Levine to find a remote, isolated region where non-avian dinosaurs have escaped extinction. The appearance of a number of unusual animal specimens leads them to Isla Sorna in Costa Rica. They are joined on the island by field biologist Sarah Harding, a couple of engineers who designed their gear and two precocious high school students – you can almost see Spielberg standing over Crichton’s shoulder at the computer, cajoling him to add some kids to the cast. Unbeknownst to our team, they are followed to the island by unscrupulous geneticist Lewis Dodgson and his team of expendable dinosaur chew toys who are attempting to steal the animals for their own nefarious ends (again).

Writerly advice? Illustration © David Orr 2016.

In contrast to Jurassic Park’s amiable Alan Grant, Crichton writes Levine as an irritating pedant, albeit one with the fierce intelligence to back it up; “the best palaeobiologist of his generation, perhaps the best in the world”. Yet it’s hard to believe that a brilliant, world-renowned scientist would think that a remnant population of living dinosaurs is a plausible scenario. This is fringe stuff; the sort of thing only taken seriously by young Earth creationists and cryptozoologists. Levine even puts forward Mokele-mbembe – a folkloric sauropod from the Congo beloved by both aforementioned groups – as supporting evidence for his ‘lost world hypothesis’, a suggestion more befitting a recreational sasquatch hunter than a world authority on palaeontology.

Malcolm’s stated reason for being on this expedition is that it will allow him to work out the cause of the Cretaceous mass extinction. This is basically a silly idea and Crichton is coy as to how exactly one would make this deduction. The majority of the dinosaur species on the island weren’t even alive during this era. Ok, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Parasaurolophus and Pachycephalosaurus were right there at the KT boundary, but how is the behaviour of say, Procompsognathus - extinct around 145 million years earlier - going to contribute to this theory? There’s a constant nagging question plaguing the book - why on earth would Malcolm willingly place himself on yet another island full of blood-thirsty dinosaurs - and this flimsy premise for a science experiment cannot and does not fulfil this narrative shortcoming.

Throughout the novel, there’s an unearned air of absolute certainty from the scientist characters. We hear Harding explaining exactly what the predator-prey ecology should be like on the island, Levine authoritatively identifying dinosaurs to species level based on a glance – how could they possibly know this stuff? Crichton was by no means a stupid man, but half way through The Lost World I felt like I was reading Dunning-Kruger Effect: The Novel. A vast amount of the dialogue is clearly intended to make the reader think, ‘Wow! These people are so smart!’ – and that’s certainly how I responded when I was younger – but this time around I found it grating and unwarranted.

In the later years of his career, Crichton showed a tendency toward scientific conservatism and denialism. Knowing this, it’s hard not to pick up on passages in The Lost World as precursors to this kind of thinking. One of Malcolm’s early speeches about the nature of evolutionary thought contains noticeable creationist talking points – even quoting Hoyle’s famous line about evolution being as improbable as ‘a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747’. The final statement of the book, spoken by engineer Thorne, but it could have easily come from Malcolm or Levine, basically states that because people used to believe in phlogiston and the like, all science is fantasy and can’t be trusted.

I’m critical of The Lost World, but I have enjoyed revisiting it. I realised that this novel contained some of the most evocative scenes of life at a university and as a field researcher that I had read as a young person. The descriptions of Levine and Malcolm’s research and meetings at academic institutions in California, the passages about Sarah Harding’s work on hyenas and her struggles as a female scientist; these really stuck with me as a teenager. That’s what I’m hoping to take away from this re-reading and not the silly caricature of science so inevitable of mass-produced pop culture.

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And as a bonus treat, I really dig Rohan's Bronzewing album, so take a listen.

Review: Prehistoric Predators

Two years ago, after the director of Jurassic World confirmed that the movie would not feature feathered Velociraptors, John Conway wrote a brief but influential blog post about the effects of what he called Awesomebro culture on perceptions of nature and, specifically, palaeontology. While pitched at a popular audience, Prehistoric Predators, newly published by Cider Mill Press, hits the scene at a time that palaeoart hobbyists, professionals, and enthusiasts are looking critically at the ways that palaeoart can evolve in a pop culture that still holds on to a view of dinosaurs as monsters. Illustrated by Julius Csotonyi and written by Brian Switek, the book is tightly focused on its titular topic, offering almost a hundred pages of ancient beasts in the heat of predatory action.



In the hands of lesser talent, a project like this could go off the rails. But Csotonyi has proven himself time and time again in his adherence to accuracy as well as drama, and Switek is the most prominent writer continually working the palaeontological beat, not afraid of nuance and uncertainty as he portrays the science to his readers. They're supported in the project by an impressive production team, who have wrapped their words and images in a beautiful package. The skin of Csotonyi's vibrant Giganotosaurus close-up cover art features a pebbly, textured surface, with glossy teeth and title text. The end-papers are a pattern made of some of the book's featured predators. And the book is a generous size, measuring just a bit under 12" x 11", as large as it is the the recent Titan Books publications Dinosaur Art and The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi. With a retail price of $20 US, it's a great deal for the amount of art and information within.

The Mesozoic gets the vast majority of the attention, comprising about 2/3 of the book's pages, so there's no doubt about the book's real stars. The theropods of Prehistoric Predators are decked out with feathers and filaments, from the plumes of Ornithomimus to the moss-and-rust fuzz covering Daspletosaurus (an update of his Judith River mural at the HMNS - the original is much less fuzzy). There's a good variety of takes on integument, and though it's not a focus of the text, readers will come away with a view of dinosaurs that is thoroughly contemporary, and for the most part the animals feel real, weighty, as if caught in mid-action by a preternaturally brave photographer. There are spots where feathers are a bit too detailed to my eye, a bit too shaggy, a bit too closely tracing the contours of the body. When dealing with a group of animals experimenting with plumage, I suppose it makes sense to assume that not all would be covered in a "dynamic shell" of feathers, as Matt Martyniuk has put it. It can be hard for me to completely buy illustrations that split the difference between fuzz and full, birdy plumage. But this is an issue that is larger than is wise to tackle in a review.

Though the overall project will satisfy anyone coming to see high stakes conflict, we do get glimpses of animals in less extreme circumstances, such as the alvarezsaur Linhenykus keeping an eye on the horizon, Cryolophosaurus wading at the Antarctic coast, or Guanlong drinking water in the amber light of dusk. The book features a handful of new pieces, with my favorite being a spread featuring new-look Spinosaurus squabbling with a pair of crimson-headed Deltadromaeus over a sawfish. Csotonyi has also confirmed that besides the Daspletosaurus noted above, several other pieces that have appeared elsewhere have been revised for new information. A bit of dodgy stock art shows up, with the worst case being the introduction to the Permian period, and readers familiar with Csotonyi's work would be able to pick those inferior animals immediately, even without warning.

For younger readers and others who aren't as familiar with palaeontlogy as LITC readers, this would be a solid choice for an introduction to what we know about the history of carnage-dealing beasts on Earth. Switek ably summarizes the featured geological eras and offers plenty of evidence-based descriptions of the animals. Again, even if we are mostly concerned with feats of predation here, readers learn about their palaeoecology, the varieties of theropod diets, and the ranges of size they attained (still an underappreciated fact, in my experience). Therizinosaurus gets a whole spread, Oviraptor is featured prominently, and Sinornithosaurus is seen from the point of view of its prey animal (with no mention of the controversial claim that it had venom glands). Only a few animals are depicted with scale diagrams, and not all of the "lesser" participants in the illustrations are named, but the amount of information is impressive. Switek's descriptions are approachable and light on jargon, taking confused time-travelers by the hand as they visit these lost worlds and their fantastic denizens.

In Prehistoric Predators, the Awesomebro is served up with a hearty helping of modern palaeontological knowledge. I'm optimistic that the book can lead readers to learn more about other aspects of extinct life that are less red in tooth and claw. There will always be a side of palaeontology media that focuses on the monstrous side of life, but that's no different than any nature media. It's refreshing to see it done with such care.

Book Review: Tales of Prehistoric Life by Daniel Loxton

This spring, Daniel Loxton published his third and final children's book in the Tales of Prehistoric Life series: Plesiosaur Peril, the story of the dangerous life of a young Cryptoclidus in the Jurassic. It was proceeded by Ankylosaur Attack (2011) and Pterosaur Trouble (2013). Today I'll cover all three. The TL;DR version: they're great.



Daniel Loxton's name is probably recognizable to the portion of our readers who also follow skeptical media. He cowrote Abominable Science with Donald Prothero as well as writing and illustrating the children's book Evolution: How We And All Living Things Came to Be. Loxton is also well-known for his work editing the Junior Skeptic section of Skeptic Magazine. Illustrator Jim WW Smith, who has also worked for Junior Skeptic, provides work on the models for the Tales of Prehistoric Life series. Loxton provides the finishing textures and colors, as well as photographing environments.

I especially appreciate Loxton's series for taking up the mantle of the Rourke titles we've covered so many times during the Vintage Dinosaur Art series. Like the Rourke collection, each Tales of Prehistoric Life book is a narrative story, detailing interactions between temporally and geographically appropriate animals. I love this approach. When grounded in modern paleontological understanding of the life and times of the animals involved, it's both engaging and educational. Like the Rourke titles of yesteryear, each book in this series also wraps up with a brief explanation of the scientific grounding of the story.

The Cryptoclidus family swims through a teeming Jurassic sea. © Daniel Loxton.

The animal interactions are firmly in the realm of plausibility. There are moments that seem a bit of a stretch, such as a veritable army of Saurornitholestes laying seige to the Quetzalcoatlus hero of Pterosaur Trouble. However, there's nothing more outlandish than Dinosaur Revolution's more slapstick moments. Since I'm on the record of admiring much of what that series did, you can predict my reaction here. When the Quetzalcoatus quad-launches to escape his attackers, one of them inadvertently hitches a ride before being flung onto the head shield of a Triceratops, and I couldn't help but crack a smile.

3D dinosaur art is too often only mentioned when picking out the worst offenders, so it's easy to forget that it is often done very well, and Loxton's work here is a prime example. For the most part, the animals are integrated into their photographic environments very smoothly, and interact with them believably - there is a sense of weight and heft to the animals as they walk on sand, browse vegetation, or fall into water. The experience is an immersive one, with illustrations filling entire spreads. The point of view is often right in the middle of the action. Loxton's attention to detail rewards free exploration of the environments and their inhabitants. Feathers float on the air in the midst of combat. Age and experience are obvious, as in an old ankylosaur with battle-damaged armor or a pycnofibre-covered pterosaur.


Quetzalcoatlus soars over the late Cretaceous world. © Daniel Loxton.


An Ankylosaurus couple browses in the forest. © Daniel Loxton.

Coloration is handled conservatively. There are no Rey-style color schemes. Proto-birds and dromaeosaurs are given the most colorful integument. I particularly liked the ruddy tones of Saurornitholestes, reminiscent of the Brown Thrashers who inhabit a similar woodland habitat in my neck of the... er, woods. I also enjoyed touches like subtle sexually dimorphic coloring on the Triceratops, and a seaweedy-green on the Cryptoclidus family at the heart of the most recent book. The tyrannosaurs who appear in Ankylosaur Attack and Pterosaur Trouble could do with some plumage and a splash of color (as well as some more neck musculature, which to my eye looked a little skinny). On the other hand, it's refreshing for the tyrant king to step out of the spotlight.


A Saurornitholestes pack smells something big and tasty on the wind. © Daniel Loxton.

Loxton's choices in depicting behavior are the strongest aspect of the stories, as pains are taken to focus on details of Mesozoic life lent us by recent paleontological research. Quetzalcoatlus falls prey to small dromaeosaurs because of tooth marks found on actual fossils of the great azhdarchid. It bears repeating that the pterosaur is depicted performing a quad-launch, too (a touch which pleased Mark Witton greatly). The family unit in Plesiosaur Peril is based on evidence that these marine reptiles were viviparous. It's a stretch to lump Loxton's book series in with the All Yesterdays Movement. But it is certainly complimentary in its dedication to anatomical fidelity and reasonable inference, while offering views of prehistoric life which reflects the way extant animals act rather than what Hollywood dinosaurs are asked to perform for the masses. There's no need to layer on excessive personification or spectacle after spectacle. Loxton's adherence to this is the main reason the books succeed.

The Cryptoclidus family feeds on belemnites. © Daniel Loxton.

My only major critique is that a more readable typeface for the body copy of the books could have been chosen, but that's a small quibble in the big scheme of things. This is as good as prehistoric fiction gets. The life restorations are exactly the kind that the new generation of paleontology fans should have access to: contemporary, not stuck in decades-old knowledge. All books in the series are available at major booksellers or via Skeptic.

Around the web: Check out Loxton's post about Plesiosaur Peril at SkepticBlog. Darren Naish wrote a detailed post about the book at TetZoo - fitting since he served as technical consultant for the whole series. Adam Stuart Smith reviewed Plesiosaur Peril at Plesiosauria.com. Dispersal of Darwin's Michael Barton reviewed Plesiosaur Peril in March (and reviewed the other titles in the series previously). Ankylosaur Attack recieved positive reviews from Quill and Quire, Kirkus, and SkepticDad.

The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi - review

Following the success of 2012's Dinosaur Art, Titan Books have evidently noticed the public's appreciation for palaeoart - not just as an eye-catching way of padding out a kiddies' dinosaur book as in the bad old days, but as art for its own sake. In what I can only hope will become a series of titles featuring the work of today's prominent palaeoartists, Titan now present their latest stupendous coffee table compendium - The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi. It's quite the stunner, and I could happily rant about it all day long (in an interminably rapid manner while flapping my hands about), but I'll try and keep it brief.

It's a great big beautiful Golden Book of Dinosaurs

While we are quite obviously rather partial to a little dinosaur-themed nostalgia here at LITC, we're nevertheless very keen to embrace the new - the latest discoveries, inventive ways of portraying our favourite beasts, and so on. How perfect, then, that Robert Bakker and Luis Rey should bring us an updated take on The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs. The original (in its various guises; see alternative title in the photo) is one of the most fondly-remembered of all popular dinosaur books, children's or no, and paying appropriate homage to Zallinger's memorable art was certainly quite a task. Could the ever-divisive Rey meet the palaeoartistic challenge?

Book Review: My Beloved Brontosaurus

The gap between the popular "Dinosaur" and the scientific constructs of the animals called dinosaurs - an increasingly awkward classification, as Matt Martyniuk has pointed out - has been fertile material for this and other blogs. The natural world is not made of discrete, clean containers of organisms, but rather a messy, interconnected, continually evolving web of life reaching back into the obscurity of deep time. We humans like our toy boxes, though, organizing the components of the natural world in a way that makes us comfortable. That tension is at the heart of Brian Switek's recently published My Beloved Brontosaurus, in which he deftly brings the concerns of dinosaur fanatics regarding the dinosaurian public image to the popular culture.

Coming in at a little over 200 pages, Switek's second popular science book is a breezy read, accessible to an audience who may enjoy Radiolab and Science Friday, but doesn't follow all of the latest paleontology news on a regular basis. It's a beautifully designed book, with a dust cover folding out to a large double-sided poster by Mark Stutzman. On the front, Switek presents an Apatosaurus - deliberately outsized for dramatic purposes, Switek has explained - with a bouquet of flowers. On the back, he crouches before a mount of the same animal. Even the case binding is beautiful, with illustrated typography rendered as if revealed between layers of Lagerstätten. The illustrators whose work populates the book will be familiar to the on-line paleo community, too. Switek had the good taste to choose work from Mike Keesey, Jeff Martz, and our very own Niroot.

My Beloved Brontosaurus is loosely structured as a road trip, couching topics such as dinosaur origins, size, social life, bird ancestry, and sex in Switek's visits to museums and field sites. You can feel the exhilaration of stepping out into the clarity of the desert or peeking behind the curtains to see the inner workings of natural history museum collections. The way scientists explain ancient life accompany the popular stories of the same. He presents himself as a relentless searcher rather than an authority, with curiosity as his most essential tool.

For the die-hard paleontology fan, there won't be a lot of material that is brand-new, but it's still a refreshing read to travel along with a writer who clearly appreciates how lucky he is to be able to embark on these travels. And of course, it's always a treat to read someone so captivated by the romance of natural history. As he writes in his chapter about the end-Cretaceous extinction,

Turning over the Triceratops tooth in my hand... I envision an old, solitary dinosaur standing the Cretaceous twilight. One of her horns is broken, and her face is scarred with signs of a hard life in the land of tyrannosaurs. The terminal member of her species, she holds a lonely vigil as the horizon swallows the sun, and the Cretaceous closes.

Additionally, My Beloved Brontosaurus serves as an object lesson in how to communicate paleontological research, engaging less informed readers with the insights of creative researchers. In his chapter on the sensory life of dinosaurs, Switek recounts the way David Evans, Ryan Ridgely, and Larry Witmer spin research into dinosaur hearing to consider what it says about vocal ranges. For those whose only image of paleontolgy in practice is Grant and Sattler dusting off Velociraptor bones in the badlands, the creativity of modern paleontologists will be eye-opening.

It's more than simply a dinosaur book for adults, though: throughout, Switek subtly makes the case for science as a way to understand the world and, to that effect, the continual dialogue of science. It's an antidote to cartoonish headlines which give the impression that science keeps changing its mind. The way an answer blossoms into a field of new questions, the way scientists accept uncertainty and relish mystery is all in here. It's not a hard pitch, which makes it all the more effective. Switek's message is that dinosaurs are a relevant, vital field of study because the illumination extends to broader issues of evolution and the fate of our world. In the same way, My Beloved Brontosaurus uses the engaging topic of dinosaur lives as a way to celebrate the ongoing exploration of science at large.

The Unfeathered Bird - today's dinosaurs, undressed

Katrina van Grouw's The Unfeathered Bird is undoubtedly the best ever book to be inspired by a dead duck. It's also been out there for a number of months now and has quite rightly been met with near-universal critical acclaim, so you could quite easily accuse me of lagging behind somewhat. Which I am, but rather fortuitously there is a special exhibition starting this very weekend at the Natural History Museum in Tring, dedicated to the book. Not only that, but Niroot and I were recently fortunate enough to meet Katrina, and the dino-talk that bored her rigid might actually be of interest to you lot. So it is timely, you see. Oh yes, and the book really is bloody marvellous, so it can't be praised anywhere near enough! (Needless to say, images are used with permission and aren't for printing out, carrying around in a dirty overcoat and selling on street corners.)

As you are no doubt already aware, The Unfeathered Bird is packed to bursting with sumptuous anatomical illustrations of birds. At the very least, they are missing their feathers; in many cases, they are reduced to their skeletons. Katrina worked as the curator of the bird collections at the Natural History Museum (in Tring, where they are based) for 94 years*, and one would be forgiven for assuming that the majority of the pieces in The Unfeathered Bird are based on pre-assembled, pristine, complete, mounted skeletons, the likes of which you might see on display in the museum. In fact, a great many of them are based on specimens that were quite literally in pieces - a bone here, a bone there, that Katrina had to painstakingly reconstruct. It makes the sheer achievement in putting this book together all the more astonishing.

Great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo)

For the lay person such as I, this book serves as a beautiful reminder of the closeness of even highly derived modern birds, their skeletons often stretched and warped in fantastic ways, to non-avian theropod dinosaurs. Everyone who fancies themselves as a dinosaur artist needs to see this book - there are a great many lessons to learn. It also provides further proof, as has been so drilled home by what some would rather I didn't call the 'All Yesterdays movement', that soft tissue and integument can make an animal appear radically different to how one might guess it would look based on its skeleton. Of course there are the likes of owls, their gorgeous facial discs formed entirely by feathers. However, perhaps the most startling pieces in The Unfeathered Bird concern more everyday avian dinosaurs, the likes of which you might see flitting around your seed feeder...

Robin (Erithacus rubecula)

For example, how many people would guess that a robin (above) has such long, elegant legs and feet under all that floof? Not to mention the fact that, shorn of feathers, its stubby wings look ridiculous. The Unfeathered Bird also contains a sojourn into the terrifying Twilight Zone of domestic fowl, in which the hand of humanity has warped nature's creations in ever more bizarre and twisted ways. It's not for the faint hearted.

The Unfeathered Bird is a rare book that can be appreciated equally from scientific and artistic perspectives; educational and insightful, it can also be enjoyed as art purely for its own sake. The animals are meticulously reconstructed, detailed down to the last suture and often posed as if engaging in intriguing behaviours, such as the (plucked) sparrowhawk plucking its pigeon prey, or the trumpet manucode displaying with its amazing coiled windpipe on view. The accompanying text naturally takes a back seat to the artwork, but is nevertheless a warm and informative read. We have a lot to thank Amy for.

Magnificent frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) chasing white-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus)

In short - buy it immediately. IMMEDIATELY! And if you get the chance, do pop down to Tring to check out The Unfeathered Bird exhibition at the Natural History Museum, which is free and runs from March 22 until May 5.

We're not finished yet, however - expect a treat from Niroot tomorrow...

*Sorry, it's a New Scientist/Private Eye referencing in-joke - it was actually seven years.

Dinosaurs: In Your Face! - review

If there is any palaeoartist whose work is inherently suited to 3D, then it's Luis Rey. Thanks to his use of bright colours and wild perspectives, Rey's work often seems to be jumping from the page anyway. The combination of Rey's face-meltingly bright dino art, Robert Bakker's exuberant enthusiasm and very silly glasses is simply irresistible, not to mention ingenious. This is not only a fantastic kids' book, but far too much fun for any adult with a geeky bone in their body.

As such, I just had to review it for LITC - and pose for the below photo, thus permanently reversing any gains that dinosaur enthusiasts have made in terms of public perception of their hobby. You are very welcome. (As usual, all images are copyright Random House and the artist and shouldn't be reproduced without their permission, unless it's for a review in which case you can get away with claiming fair use, right? Right?)

 Back to the task at hand. There are far too many dinosaur books aimed at children that are filled to the brim with terrible, terrible art - usually, these days, embarrassing digital stuff that ends up resembling concept art for an N64 game circa 1997. No doubt this is justified on the grounds that, hey, it's for kids, yeah? So, who cares? Well, damn it, children deserve good dinosaur books too. Although a lot of people aren't so fond of Luis Rey's style, he could never be accused of not doing his homework; in short, he knows his anatomy, and this is high-quality stuff. As is traditional, the book opens with a 'size comparison parade' of various giant dinosaurs, along with an elephant and, brilliantly, a human riding said elephant. It's beautifully executed, the 3D works excellently and Rey adds typical characterful touches, including a diminutive dromaeosaur and hypsilophodont running away to the left (out of frame here), both giving the viewer a knowing glance.

This book is an excellent showcase of Rey's work, and popping on the 3D glasses instantly turns the pictures into wonderful dioramas - in spite of the book's title, there are actually next to no 'poke-in-the-eye' moments. Instead, the effect tends to be of meticulously arranged cardboard cutouts, like a pop-up book you can't break - which is fine by me. If you're only really familiar with Rey from the Holtz encyclopedia or Dinosaur Art, his illustrations of non-dinosaur animals (including prehistoric humans, one of whom sports a rather Bakker-esque bushy beard) will be of great interest, especially as the drab colours of large mammals naturally force him to rein in his usual bold style.

As for the text - well, it's Bakker, so you probably already know what to expect. It can get a little twee at times, and he indulges in some plausible speculation that isn't signposted as such (see above), but then it is a children's book, and there is a need for the text to match up to Rey's exciting, dynamic illustrations. Being a palaeontologist, Bakker - like Holtz in his encyclopedia - has no qualms in explicitly stating that birds are dinosaurs (see below), which is definitely to be applauded in a book aimed at kids. Some people might take issue with his declaration that "modern-day birds are descendants of raptors", but it's perhaps worth considering that he could mean maniraptors as a whole as opposed to just dromaeosaurs. He should also be applauded for his frequent mentions, in characteristically lively prose, of the fossil evidence behind (most of) the assertions about dinosaur behaviour, which really adds to the exciting feel of the book - these events really happened. Fellow Brits will also find the pronunciation guides rather amusing ("pay-lee-uhn-TAH-luh-just", "GLIP-tuh-dahnz" - Americans, bless 'em).

If your delightful progeny are of the sort who get in my way when I'm visiting a natural history museum, and eat up any dinosaur books they can lay their hands on, then you absolutely have to buy them this book. Consider that an order. They'll absolutely bloody love it and, what's more, it's cheap for such a quality product - in the UK, under a fiver on Amazon. Even if you're a grown-up dinosaur fan with a healthy appreciation of lovely, vibrant palaeoart and good old-fashioned bi-colour 3D glasses with a scaly pattern printed on them, you're bound to have fun with this book. Let's face it, you'd only spend the money on bottles of ale otherwise, and they aren't good for you, you know. Or so I'm often told.

Please do heed this warning, however - this book does have one unutterably terrifying in-your-face 3D image, and it happens to be a sojourn into the darkest depths of the Uncanny Valley. I have semi-legally scanned it in the name of providing readers of this blog with an advanced warning - better you know it's coming, than to suddenly turn the page and be confronted with...that face.

Actually, I'm tempted to turn it into a Halloween mask. What do you think?

Written in Stone: some thoughts

I want to be Brian Switek when I grow up. The guy gets to write about dinosaurs all day long, and not only that, but he's paid for it and people read what he has to say. I'm in awe..the jammy git. This is a somewhat belated review of his last book (there's another one out in the not too distant future!), and I must say up front that it is really rather enjoyable. Given that it's old news, I'll try and keep this brief.

Second edition UK paperback (mine!)

A lot of what Switek offers up here will be familiar to the average reader of this blog, but contrariwise a lot of it probably won't be; certainly, I learned a fair amount about the complex evolutionary history of whales and, in particular, horses from reading this book. While the feathered dinosaur stuff won't be anything new, you're almost certainly going to learn something.

Moreover, even if you happen to be, say, a bona fide scientist (don't laugh - we do have some of them turn up here) with a specialism in a relevant field, it's possible to really appreciate Switek's passion for the subject matter. Most readers will probably be familiar with his blog writing, and while that's certainly very good it is nevertheless difficult to deny that Written in Stone is a cut above. This is particularly true of the final chapter about human evolution - Switek builds to a Big Finish that puts us firmly in our evolutionary place and, happily, smacks down the silly idea that the evolution of a humanoid creature is somehow inevitable (as exemplified by the 'Dinosauroid', which I must apologise to certain people for mentioning again). After all, "we are creatures of time and chance".

By the same token, Switek's chronicling of the earliest days of palaeontology is not only fascinating in itself (even if a lot of it will be familiar to those who have read, for example, Deborah Cadbury's The Dinosaur Hunters), but one can't help but make the connection between the repressive influence of religion back then and the apparent resurgence of fundamentalist nonsense today. What's striking is just how much quicker scientific progress might have been if the thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries did not view the accommodation of religious views a necessity; either out of genuine piety, or because religion held such power in society. It's also amusing just how closely some of their views, long since revised and/or abandoned, resemble current creationist thinking.

Enough about all that, though - I mentioned horses a couple of paragraphs back, and indeed the chapter on horse evolution is one of the best; it not only chronicles the earliest discovery of potential ancestral horses, but brings things right up to date by blowing away any preconceived notions you might have had about a 'chain of progress' in horse evolution. The idea that evolution necessarily presents orderly 'progress' or 'improvement' is a false paradigm* anyway, but the neat progression from a small, multiple-toed animal up to a large, single-toed one remains a persistent meme. Hopefully, people picking up this book for the dinosaurs and whales (ahem) will learn a lot about just how crazily branching the 'tree of life' really is, especially in the light of the fossil evidence we now have. As Switek puts it, "living horses are just the last remaining twig of a previously much richer family" - and he says much the same about elephants in another excellent chapter.

Ultimately - without wishing to blather on too much - this book serves as a marvelous refresher in the bamboozling complexity of the evolutionary history of life on Earth, and even of what might be considered quite small clades, relatively speaking. It's also a riveting tour through the history of palaeontological discovery.

*Yes, I just did.

Dinosaur Art: 'Time Machine Enough'

I am at a considerable disadvantage, following up David, Marc and Asher. Not only am I in possession of an inferior brain to those of the authors of this blog, I also happen not to have a copy of Dinosaur Art to hand, and am having to rely largely on my recollection of leafing through this gorgeous book from when Marc kindly shared his copy with me.

Given its title, I had initially imagined the book to be not dissimilar to Dinosaur Imagery in presenting almost a miscellany of renowned names in contemporary palaeo art. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of its focus on just ten artists, which affords a more in-depth look at their oeuvre and methods, as the others have already pointed out. This was especially welcome to me as an illustrator myself. On the purported premise of its featuring the very best in the genre, however, no doubt everyone will have their own quibbles as to who was left out of this exalted group. And in this, I have to agree with David that the absence of Mark Hallet and Michael Skrepnik is a notable one.

Raúl Martín; Sauropods

Of the ten represented though, it heartens me to see that there does seem to be a degree of variety in terms of style and approach, and to see what might be regarded as 'newer' names in the palaeo art world sitting alongside the long-established greats. I confess at once that Robert Nicholls and John Conway, for instance, were artists whom I had only discovered within the last year or so. It is refreshing to contrast the latter's more stylised but highly atmospheric -- sometimes even elegiac -- digital illustrations with the exquisitely detailed and resolutely traditional gouache paintings of John Sibbick (to whom I kowtow); or to see two quite differing sides of the same coin in the works of Todd Marshall and Luis Rey, both of whom relish the opportunities for dramatic perspectives, postures, and wilder speculative features in their animals. Whilst Douglas Henderson's 'truly artistic approach to paleoart' breathtakingly ravishes every scientific and aesthetic sensibility with his evocative landscapes, convincingly populated by fauna. I do take Asher's point that the greater weight does still tend to fall on the naturalistic or photo-realistic approaches on the whole, and fully agree that the inclusion of William Stout would have added yet another facet of this world to this gem of a book.

Todd Marshall; Kaprosuchus

Allow me, if you will, a brief moment of self-indulgence from the perspective of a traditional artist. I readily admit that I myself am guilty of the 'hand-wringing' which David mentioned with regard to digital media changing the craft. The exquisite watercolours and coloured pencil pieces of  Julius Csotonyi were what made me fall in love with his work in the first place, and as much as I admire his stunningly wrought digital paintings, I lament that they seem to have supplanted his traditional work both in actual terms and insofar as they are represented in this book. A watercolour of Einosaurus is the sole instance of this here. I should so much have preferred several more in lieu of one or two of his less successful combinations of photography and digital painting.

Julius Cstonyi; Brachylophosaurus. Awarded The Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize for Two-Dimensional Art (2010) by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

I do agree with Marc that a little more light could have been shed on some of the decisions for certain idiosyncratic features the artists gave to their depictions. Though the whole science and art of restoration are so broad that I see how difficult these would be to bring into each interview, and one which would be better served by focusing on an individual work in its entirety than by random questions in amongst each section. But this would require many more pages and much more expense. For me, the 'highlight taxon' for each artist as mentioned by David suffices comparatively well enough in this effort for the book's purposes. I also recall that at least one blog reader was concerned that more is not made of dinosaur lives and evolution itself; but this, too, would be to make even more of an attempt to be 'all things to all readers', as Asher aptly pointed out.

My overall opinion, however, is quite simple: secure yourself a copy of this book with what despatch you may! Of its production values, I have little else to add. As has already been mentioned, the quality of the printing is sterling and the book is a treasure, appealing fully to the bibliophile and the dinosaur art lover in me. I even had to remonstrate with Marc regarding his customary cavalier handling of books when he brought his copy along. Even if does not, indeed, quite succeed in being all things to all readers, what it does offer in terms of insight into the artists' processes together with the wealth and quality of the images ought to earn it a place on the bookshelf of any dinosaur enthusiast of whatever degree.