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Dinosaurus: The Complete Guide to Dinosaurs | 
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| Author: Steve Parker
Publisher: Firefly Books
Category: Book
List Price: $49.95
Buy New: $10.67
You Save: $39.28 (79%)
New (27) Used (11) from $6.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 173239
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5
Dimensions (in): 11.6 x 9.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1552977722
Dewey Decimal Number: 567.9
EAN: 9781552977729
ASIN: 1552977722
Publication Date: October 12, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SHIPS TODAY!!!!!! BRAND NEW BOOK
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Product Description
An encyclopedic and vividly illustrated reference. Gone but never forgotten -- no other life form has captured our imagination and attention like dinosaurs. Dinosaurus is organized into the major dinosaur families and identifies 500 species -- creature by creature, from the voracious flesh-eaters to the egg-stealers to the vegetarians. What they looked like. What they ate. How they fought, lived, and died. A dramatic full-color illustration of each dinosaur is accompanied by a concise explanation of their traits and habits. At-a-glance Fact Files describe: Latin name, translation, and pronunciation Adult length, weight and height Diet and habitat Global distribution Dinosaurus challenges and discredits popular myths and long-standing legends. For example: the dinosaur known as Brontosaurus never even existed in the first place. Was Tyrannosaurus really the biggest meat-eater of all time? Were flying dinosaurs simply feeble gliders? Could sea dinosaurs out-swim today's fastest fish? Brimming with the latest research, from contemporary digs in North America, Mongolia, Europe and China, Dinosaurus is comprehensive, innovative, and as compelling and exciting as the dinosaurs themselves. (200402)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Poor Pictures - Megalosaurus Looks Like Darth Maul May 31, 2008
See all my dinosaur book reviews.
I have been into dinosaurs for 30 of my 35 years, ever since my first trip to the museum gazing upon the fossils of these wonderful creatures. I have an extensive collection of dinosaur books both old and new. "Dinosaurus" is aimed at the new student but is flawed.
The beautifully presented "Dinosaurus" is certainly one of the thickest dinosaur books; almost 450 pages of information contained in 15 chapters. The chapters sort dinosaurs into their broader categories like 'The Giants' and 'Armored Dinosaurs', as opposed to era and period order. The 20 page introduction explains such things as fossilisation, evolution, myths, and time scale. The next two chapters provide information on early life and movement onto land. Chapters 3 to 13 specialise on dinosaurs while the last two go into flying reptiles, sea reptiles and animals of the Tertiary and Quaternary Periods.
Each page features a single dinosaur. Half of the page is a written explanation or description. This mainly presents information on fossil location, discoverer, and some on features of the dinosaur. There is also a fact-file chart. The other half of the page is a picture, either painted or drawn with colour. The book caters for the new student by providing basic information.
I like the way the book is set out. But there are problems:
1) The information is not new or cutting-edge, and where there is individual thought it is only speculation.
The information on each dinosaur is not new. I'm not a palaeontologist, but I have 30 years of interest and knowledge under my belt. I could open an older book of mine and read the same thing for most of the dinosaurs. So, if you are looking for something fresh or new, this is not it.
In dinosaur books, there needs to be a balance between suggested fact and speculation. While some books like "National Geographic Dinosaur" lean too far to suggested fact, "Dinosaurus" speculates too much. For example, I quote: "The long spines of Polacanthus MAY have been along the neck and flanks, with the more curved 'shark's fin' projections along the upper tail. It was a low-slung, heavy dinosaur, PROBABLY with a beak-like mouth for cropping plant food". Polacanthus is an old fossil - it is in books from the 70's. It has been known for years where it's spines are and what it's mouth looks like - the fossil hasn't changed! So there is too much suggestion and not enough fact in "Dinosaurus".
However, this book does showcase recent discoveries (last 20 years), but aside from where they are found and what they look like we are not really told anything else. It really is for the new student.
"Dinosaurus" gives enough information on each dinosaur species for the new student, but it is not comprehensive. My main objection is that it doesn't provide any decent information on genealogies - how the dinosaurs relate to each other. Other dinosaur books, for example "National Geographic Dinosaurs" and "The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopaedia", provide much better detail on the families with illustrated family trees matched against time along with evolution patterns. "Dinosaurus" mentions the main group name, for example, Theropoda for Giganotosaurus but not that it is actually an allosaur. All comparisons are with T-Rex not with other allosaurs - its family.
2) Pictures.
The pictures in "Dinosaurus" are the single most disappointing aspect of this book.
Each picture is either very poorly drawn/painted or is terribly inaccurate. For example, I'll just concentrate on the large carnosaurs: Allosaurus is nothing like the modern convention - I'm picturing the allosaurs in 'Walking With Dinosaurs' here: head forward slightly below the neck vertebrae with tail out verses an upright Allosaurus in the book. Also, the book's Carnotaurus doesn't have a bull-like snout but has elbows! Spinosaurus, Albertosaurus and Ceratosaurus are shockingly bad. Megalosaurus looks like Darth Maul.
The other thing is, I am a dinosaur romantic. By this I mean I grew up on dinosaur books that painted pictures of the world they lived in and how they interacted with each other and their surroundings. In other words I prefer the books that have many pictures of sprawling landscapes, pictures of herbivorous dinosaurs in their habitats with the local communities, and pictures of the hunter verses hunted in order to gauge size and scope.
The pictures of each dinosaur in "Dinosaurus" are stand alone - no background, no context, and no sense of size. There is a scale comparing the dinosaur to a 6 foot man, but this is in terms of 'size' not height or length - meaningless information. And information that requires us to turn pages to compare dinosaurs, instead of scaled diagrams of dinosaurs next to each other.
There are hardly any pictures of dinosaurs in an environmental setting and these are taken from other sources anyway. The best ones in this book are also found in "The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopaedia". If you want gorgeous pictures, then look no further than Raul Martin - the illustrator of "National Geographic Dinosaurs".
Overall, I'm disappointed with "Dinosaurus". It doesn't add anything to my collection. It would probably suit a new student - but it is a lot of money and there are cheaper, better books. I would recommend "National Geographic Dinosaur" first followed by "The Kingfisher Dinosaur Encyclopedia" by Burnie.
 One of the Better Dinosaur Books October 25, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the better dinosaur books out there. The illustrations range from good to excellent; some are so realistic that they appear to be photographs (see the Baryonyx on p. 190). However, as pointed out by other reviewers, some of the illustrations appear to be considerably off the mark (the orange Spinosaurus on p. 199 appears to be the size of a Velociraptor, not a 45 foot long animal!). The text is written for an adult with some knowledge of the field; it's very well written, makes interesting points, but it's not done in a stiff or awkward style. The scope of dinosaurs covered is not complete, but it contains info on more dinosaurs than 90% of the books on this subject, & the info is quite detailed, & there's an index for easy searching. Overall, a good addition to any serious dinosaur library.
Congratulations - Excellent February 8, 2007
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Thanks for your product - it's too much good!
It's satisfy my better expectatives...
Have a good day...
Something isn't right here... December 3, 2006
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Something isn't right here. Where are the feathers? The scaly velociraptor mongoliensis and therizinosaurus(pardon me for spelling [if it's not right]) look less likely than a tyrannosaurus with wings. And on a page about Stegos, i read that "Stegosaurs, like MOST DINOSAURS [My caps] are COLDBLOODED. That is not right! And i thought that ever since the time Gregory S. Paul's every Theropod being feathery theory, dinosaurs were becoming faster, smarter, and featherier in the public eye! Well, gees, did this book ever prove me wrong! And by the way, except for a couple of feathery fellows, how come they're all brown or maybe a little dull red? Frankly, although there is good info here, go for The Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Henry Gee for the dino's life.
 Great in combination November 6, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a great book to have on hand because of the vast amount of creatures that it covers.
My only gripe is that some of the illustrations are outdated and not so accurate with current findings. Still it has wonderful artwork and offers a lot of information to the reader. Best used with other Dinosaur guides in my opinion, but great to have in a collection for referencing on not so well known dinosaurs and other creatures that lived during the same time.
If you want more then just dinosaurs, a book that covers other prehistoric life that was around at the same time, this is a great book to have.
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