Dinosaurs are a persistent
source of fascination for many people. Everything about earth’s ancient
prehistoric past freezes the workaday humdrum reasoning part of our brain and
liberates the imagination. Asking the question, What would it have been like to
live back then? is inevitable with even the slightest perusal into this topic (FYI, for much of the time,
especially for the first generation of dinosaurs, it would have felt very much
like living in a sauna). Author Steve Brusatte is a paleontologist at the
University of Edinburgh and his book The
Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reads like an epic.
The book is all about the
dinosaurs but also discusses the planetary conditions that lead up to the
proliferation of the many dinosaur species. Included in the narrative are
several of the mass extinction events with special emphasis on the Permian
extinction event roughly 250 million years ago. The Permian extinction wiped out perhaps as
much as 90% of the living species on earth. Slowly over millions of years the
living animate things rebounded and the stage was set for the rise of the
massive reptilian creatures of popular imagination. And there were many, many species
of these house sized reptiles. One of the startling facts encountered within
the pages of this book is the ongoing and frequent discover of ever new species
of dinosaurs.
What makes Brusatte’s
story so interesting and what separates his account from many others I have
read is the emphases placed on current technology and the creative efforts of
scientists to “get inside the heads” of the dinosaurs. What did they think? How
did they sense the world? How did they hunt their prey? Researchers in our day
with all the latest gadgets that the year 2018 has on offer are attempting to squeeze
every ounce of information out of the fossil records. The results are intriguing and provide an
almost visceral glimpse into the lives of these huge creatures.
For a topic of this size
(pun intended), The Rise and Fall of the
Dinosaurs is not an overwhelming read. The tone is actually quite
conversational and is filled with the author’s observations about his
profession. His enthusiasm for the subject and his delight with every new
discovery is evident on every page. If you wanted one volume on the latest
research into all things dinosaurs this could be the book for you.
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