The World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Tour

Most natural histories of dinos have a chronological or day-in-the-life format. This makes sense given that they're the easiest & best ways to tell the story of dinos, respectively. However, a few have a phylogenetic format, including Norell's "The World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Tour" (henceforth TW). The most similar example to TW I can think of is Barrett's "National Geographic Dinosaurs": For 1, they're both for casual readers; For another, they're both collections of ~50 dino profiles. In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why TW is so much better than most of the other examples.*1) TW was published by 1 of the best natural history museums, the American Museum of Natural History (& thus, is extra high-quality/authoritative). I can't overstate the importance of books like TW (in conjunction with museum websites) to people like me (who can't visit those museums in person).2) TW is more well-illustrated: Not only is TW full of great photos & drawings of fossils, but also great life reconstructions based on said fossils; Those by Mick Ellison & PNSO are especially note-worthy for obvious reasons (E.g. See Chuang/Yang's "THEM: Age Of Dinosaurs", another great natural history of dinos for casual readers); 1 of my only gripes is that some of the life reconstructions are a bit shrink-wrapped &/or have too many claws (E.g. The Mononykus on the front cover & the Styracosaurus on the back cover, respectively).**3) TW's dino profiles are more complete & in-depth: For 1, TW doesn't profile just any dinos, but ~50 of the AMNH's most well-represented dinos; For another, not only are the dinos arranged in order of when their sub-groups evolved (E.g. "Theropoda" begins with Coelophysis, a primitive meat-eater, & ends with Gastornis, a modern-style bird), but each dino is put in perspective ecologically & with its relatives (E.g. See the Norell quote); In other words, TW puts the AMNH's dinos into an evolutionary & ecological context, making it feel both personal & broad at the same time.*Only Fastovsky/Weishampel's textbook is similarly great or better.**My other gripe is a few weird bits in the writing (E.g. "These include[...]very un-crocodile-looking primitive crocodiles"). Otherwise, TW is very well-written, as you can see in the Norell quote.Quoting Norell: "The specimen consists of a Velociraptor mongoliensis entangled with a Protoceratops andrewsi specimen. Protoceratops (see p.190) is an herbivorous dinosaur, and as an adult would have been about the size of a large pig. It was probably the ecological equivalent of the sheep that are predated on by wolves in Mongolia's rural ecosystem today. Because of the nature of preservation in these beds (see Citipati, p.100), there is strong evidence that they were buried alive. What is preserved in this instance is an adult Velociraptor seemingly in combat with a Protoceratops. The large raptorial claw is embedded in an area that would have covered the important blood vessels feeding the head of Protoceratops. Velociraptor's right arm is in its mouth, and the hand with its sharp talons is tearing the face while the forearm is being crushed. Without doubt this is the smoking gun of a predation event that happened about 80 million years ago.Velociraptor has several characteristics that provide evidence of its close affinity to birds. It has a wishbone (see p.227), large hollow air sinuses in its skull, a swivel wrist, an S-shaped neck, and three primary toes on the foot that all face forward."

Outstanding book in easy to understand, modern language, with completely up-to-date info. Prof. Norell writes with a sense of humor & a knack for making his subject interesting. Lots of photos of fossils, archeologists, mounted dinosaur displays in museums, etc. Modern color illustrations that are as accurate as possible (some accurately show feathers, but some are more fanciful than accurate), as well as older illustrations & mounted poses that are pointed out as being inaccurate. The illustrations & photos alone are worth the price, especially Yutyrannus, Tyrannosaurus Sue, Dilophosaurus (the ”poison spitting” dino of Jurassic Park 1), dino tracks, the huge arm bones of Deinocheirus, Microraptor (illustrated as a “crow” with clawed wings), the giant Phorusrhacos “bird”, Hypselosaurus (would you rather have deer eating the plants/leaves in your yard, or this thing?), a mounted Patagotitan (in the running for the biggest dino).Two of the most interesting chapters are concerning birds as “Dinos”, & Dino “Extinction”. The author makes the point (with evidence) that modern birds are a type of Dinosaur, & posits “Dinosaurs” as the most common species on earth today (in the form of birds, a fascinating & seemingly absurd thought). If that sounds too fantastic to be true, you might not think so after reading that chapter. Good index makes it easy to find subjects you’re interested in returning to.This is not a children’s book, & is highly recommended for folks with an intermediate to advanced knowledge of the subject.

Really enjoying this book. Alot of information, lots of fossil pictures and info on the examinations of the bones. Every couple pages are dedicated to a different dinosaur and the basic info about it, but there's also plenty of chapters for general info. I would say this book is for 12+ years of age. But perfect for the dinosaur lover who just wants to learn a little more.

I used to have a small business where I traveled around teaching folks about dinosaurs and other prehistoric life. That caused me to read A LOT of paleontology books and papers. Some were for general consumption. Others were for the scientific community. So with that background I can say that The World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Tour was one of the worst introductory dinosaur books I've ever read. The author over simplifies too many scientific areas and topics. I've seen kids' books that did a better job describing the evolution of dinosaurs, their biology, the relationship to birds, their extinction, etc than this book did. But then he'd use obscure scientific terms that even with my background I had to look up. But the most egregious error he made over and over and over again was to use the word species when he really meant genus. The photos were really good (only reason I'm giving it two stars instead of one) so this book may make a good picture book for your 4-year-old who likes dinosaurs, but if you're an adult who's trying to learn something about these there are about 100 better books out there.

I just got this but know from the author and a quick glance (you can check the contents above) that it provides a comprehensive overview of the dinosaurs - but the bonus on this book are the many illustrations - photos and color drawings, which you don't always get with seriously informative books on prehistoric animals. I look forward to spending a lot of time with it.

Excelente libro, imágenes insuperables, muchos datos importantes.

I liked that it had some dinosaurs in it what i disliked was that i wish it had more dinosaurs in it

has a lot of information, good book

There are nice visuals, but this book was a bit more informative that I thought! It goes deeper into the paleontology aspect, the digging and processes of such. It isnt bad, not at all! I just thought I was going to dive into PURE dinosaur.Learning is always a plus, so why no!?

Very informative summary of some discoveries by a well known palaeontologist Mark Norell. It focusses on dinosaurs in the two great dinosaur halls at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, but not really elsewhere.An entertaining writer with interesting background on the field work and history, but I think of more value to an intelligent teenager than someone wanting detailed information..

Zeer mooi boek zeker de moeite waard zeer tevreden.

A wonderful tour

A