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Volume 27.1
January–April 2024
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ISSN: 1094-8074, web version;
1935-3952, print version
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Dr. Peter Dodson
Professor of Anatomy and Geology
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
Peter Dodson succumbed to the dinosaur bug as a kid. He grew up in Canada, has two geology degrees from Canadian universities (Ottawa, Alberta) and a third from Yale. Since 1974 he has taught veterinary gross anatomy and vertebrate paleontology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is a research associate of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, where he regularly fondles the first dinosaur fossils found in the United States. He done field work recently in China and Madagascar as well as Montana. He is the author of The Horned Dinosaurs (Princeton University Press, 1996) and co-editor of The Dinosauria (University of California Press, 1990).
Copyright: Palaeontologia Electronica, 22 October 1999
FIGURE 1. The complete skeleton of Ouranosaurus nigeriensis a herbivorous bipedal dinosaur (from Taquet, 1998).
FIGURE 2. Reconstruction of O. nigeriensis; length is 7 m (from Taquet, 1998).
FIGURE 3. Reconstruction of an Early Cretacous scene, with large dorsal-crested O. nigeriensis in foreground (from Halstead-Tarlo, in Taquet, 1998).
FIGURE 4. Phillipe Taquet-paleontologist in action.
FIGURE 5. Georges Cuvier's 1808 sketch of a vertebra from the "Gavial of Honfleur", which was really a vertebrae from a carnivorous dinosaur (from Taquet, 1998).
FIGURE 6. Jacques Amand Eudes-Deslongchamps' 1837 sketches of bones from Poekilopleuron bucklandii, a carnivorous dinosaur which was discovered from quarries near Caen, but which was destroyed in WW II (from Taquet, 1998).
Dinosaur Impressions --
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Reviewed by Peter Dodson
The worldwide web, the cell phone, the satellite dish, the jumbo jet, the ubiquitous eye of the television camera, have all served to shrink the world to the size of a big blue marble; or so it may seem to the couch potato. Paleontologists know better. Unlike our colleagues in so many other occupations, it is our privilege and joy to travel to destinations delightful and obscure, to savor the vista unseen by the masses or even by the elite, to know the ways of humble folk and true, to know hardship, the rigors of extreme climates, to go to bed unwashed, to rise unshaven, to savor the delicate hues of sunrise and the blaze of night skies in the desert, to lead a sometimes monastic celibate life in a spartan cell of canvas-all of this in return for the ecstatic bliss of fossil discovery.
Philippe Taquet, France’s premier paleontologist has experienced all of this and more. Best of all, Taquet is a raconteur par excellence. He writes of his adventures with wit, and grace. I have been privileged to hear his story-telling many times. He is fluent in charming English, but his words come to us on this occasion through the smooth intermediary of Kevin Padian’s nearly invisible hand. Taquet tells us of finding his way across the trackless sands of the Ténéré Desert of Niger by following camel droppings; of flying on Aeroflot from Moscow to Irkutsk while vodka flowed like water-even in the cockpit!; of sitting on top of the glowing engine block of a lumbering Soviet truck in 100 degree weather of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia; of sacrificing a pig to appease the local gods so that he could be permitted to collect bones of the "sacred buffalo" in Laos; and of futilely trying to eat enough of the local chickens in a Laotian village to get a night’s sleep!
Taquet rode the tall-spined back of the Saharan iguanodont, Ouranosaurus nigeriensis (Figure 1), all the way to the pinnacle of success, in his case to the directorship of Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. He is also a member of the French Academy of Science. Dinosaur Impressions is the story of Taquet’s life as a paleontologist, beginning with his graduate research project. The narrative commences in December, 1964, in the office of the distinguished professor Jean-Pierre Lehman. A 24 year-old Taquet, in accepting Lehman’s invitation, unwittingly answered in the affirmative the question, "Do you take paleontology as your spouse and promise to serve her faithfully for the rest of your days?" With that, Lehman smiled impishly, pulled a ticket out of his desk drawer, and informed the young man that his plane for Niger left in seven days, and not to forget to take his quinine! Making the rough ride out into the desert, he was taken by French Atomic Energy Commission scientists to a spot, the now-famous locality of Gadoufaoua (meaning "the place where the dromedaries are afraid to descend among the bumpy rocks" in the Tamachek language of the Tuaregs), that greatly rewarded the effort expended:
Suddenly, around a small sandstone promontory, appeared one, then two vertebral columns. But this time, they were not the bleached bones of dromedaries. The vertebrae were of a somber color, bluish and stony. Some of them were still encased in the sandstones that had protected them from destruction for millions of years. The spectacle was striking. Imagine…no. It’s unimaginable, because there is no equivalent in nature. Over many hundreds of square meters, huge skeletons were embedded in the sand, lounging or lying on their flanks like dromedaries at night. The undulations of sand reminded me of a beach where a herd of elephant seals were stretched. But these were not dromedaries, nor elephant seals: They were dinosaurs. (p. 8).
What a way to begin a scientific career! He plunged into the work, modestly discounting the role of luck. "So the bone hunter has to be a successful geologist, rambler, and naturalist. And then he has to transform himself into a roadworker, a sculptor, a plasterer, and a trucker." (p. 13). The account not only documents the romantic part of paleontology, the travel to exotic places, the thrill of discovery, the drudge of digging, but also the scientific analysis, following the study of Ouranosaurus to its completion. The Arab word ourane means "brave, courageous bold," and is applied by the Tuareg to the sand monitor. Linnean classification is developed (with a nod also to cladistics, the modern method of phylogenetic analysis), Cuvier’s anatomy is explored, and the historical development of the concept of the Dinosauria in England is traced, with due acknowledgment of Cuvier’s contribution to that subject. With these sure principles in place, the author guides us to the correct assessment of Ouranosaurus as an iguanodont, the African representative of the clade that includes the first herbivorous dinosaur known to science, and to the animals whose massed remains were discovered more than 300 meters underground in a coalmine in Bernissart, Belgium in 1878. The shape of the skull of Ouranosaurus prefigures that of hadrosaurs, with its arched nose and broad beak, but without the dental battery of the latter (Figure 2). Taquet published the definitive monograph on Ouranosaurus in 1976, thus establishing himself as one of the premier dinosaur paleontologists in Europe, his career forever linked with the National Museum. In 1973 came a major turning point when Italian industrialist Giancarlo Ligabue from Venice, excited by Taquet’s work, decided to finance expeditions to such destinations as Brazil, Argentina, Mongolia and elsewhere, in fact to wherever Taquet decided to go--a godfather indeed! Such farsighted philanthropists, as well as dedicated amateurs, provide invaluable support to the efforts of paleontological professionals.
Some of Taquet’s accounts not only make interesting reading but provide tantalizing details of truly significant finds that have not yet enjoyed scientific description. For example, Taquet documents the recovery of a very early cetiosaur (i.e., primitive sauropod) skeleton from Toarcian (late Early Jurassic) deposits from Wawmda of the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Cetiosaurs, Richard Owen’s "whale lizard," which the distinguished British scientist thought to be a giant marine crocodile when he described it in 1841, are poorly known from Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) deposits of England. The Moroccan specimen is large, with a femur length of 2 meters and a rib of 2.2 meters, and includes a skull a meter long! Sadly, though collected in 1980 and 1981, the specimen has not been described nor the skull illustrated.
Taquet was mightily impressed with the vast grassy steppes of Mongolia, which he visited in 1991. Especially striking was the legendary hospitality of the nomads:
The traveler passing by camp is invited to stop and enter the ger, a tent made of walls of camel skins covered on the outside by flapping white silks. Inside the ger he’ll be offered harack, fermented mare’s milk--delicious, sour, refreshing, and diuretic to boot--with a few flies floating on top for extra protein. Little cheeses, and eventually enough Mongolian vodka to knock someone over, complete the hosts' duties to his guest. (p. 131)
Fossils from the classic localities were easy to come by, including mammal skulls. The author particularly thrilled at finding a superb skull of the famous Protoceratops at Tugrig.
One of the most striking venues for fossil collecting is Laos--striking in the sense that when one thinks of great fossil locales of the world, one thinks of great desert areas, not tropical jungles. But the tropics, particularly those associated with French colonies of by-gone years, have been generous in recently--witness the discoveries of Cretaceous theropods and sauropods in Madagascar by David Krause and colleagues. Taquet relates the history of an otherwise obscure French geologist, Josué-Heilmann Hoffet, who worked in Laos from 1927 until his death at the hands of the Japanese in 1945. Hoffet discovered and described ornithischians and sauropods from Cretaceous deposits in that country, but his publications languished in nearly-forgotten obscurity until 1990 when Taquet decided to re-visit the localities. Before being allowed to collect bones, he was required to pay unusual homage to the local gods:
Clearly, there was no way around it; so many years after Hoffet first passed through, we were going to have to make a sacrifice. The local priest, a small man with quick eyes, was called, and I bought a pig for the price of ten thousand kips (about 100 francs, £10 or $17)-a sum I dutifully recorded in the budget for reimbursement to me, as responsible agent for the Museum. The sacrifice settled, villagers and visitors alike assembled for an excellent lunch of-yes, sacrificial pork, prepared according to traditional recipes: grilled, boiled, chopped and mixed with herbs and spices, marinated in fiery sauces. All of it was washed down with great glassfuls of soum-soum, the locally made rice brew. During the meal, one had to take care not to forget the ancestors who had gone on before; they were honored by spilling a few drops of alcohol on the ground through the floorboards. And all this had the salutary effect that the whole troop was authorized to take to the forest road under the scorching sun of lower Laos, to follow Hoffet’s trail. (p. 156)
The sacrifices one has to make for paleontology! The sacrifice was evidently received by the gods, because Taquet once again found significant fossils of iguanodonts and sauropods. The outcome of this project was to establish a museum for the fossils in situ in Laos, as well as a college in the name of Hoffet in Vientiane.
Once thing that I particularly appreciate about the book is that it comes out of an independent tradition that reflects decidedly European views that are so easily drowned out by the demographic crush of English-speaking paleontologists. We find, for example, less than complete enthusiasm for the theory of catastrophic extinction of dinosaurs. Few indeed are the dissenters on this side of the Atlantic-I can only applaud! Taquet is well known to American dinosaur workers but is, to our detriment, far from a household name. It is fresh and valuable to learn his take on the history of dinosaurs, especially of those discovered in the 19th century, to learn the importance of the early fossils from Normandy, including Cuvier’s "gavial" from Honfleur of 1800 (published in 1808), which we now recognize as one of the first scientific descriptions of dinosaur remains (Figure 5). Taquet has already published the documents of Cuvier’s correspondence with Buckland and Mantell that led to the first named dinosaurs, Megalosaurus and Iguanodon in England in 1824 and 1825, respectively. We also learn about the all-but-forgotten theropod Poikilopleuron bucklandii described by Eudes-Deslongchamps in 1837 (Figure 6).
For those who don’t know, there is renewed interest in dinosaurs from France at present. For the most part, these come not from Normandy but from the south of France, the region made famous by abundant dinosaur eggs, especially those presumed to have been laid by the sauropod Hypselosaurus. The story continues. All in all the book is a delightful read. Taquet and his translator Padian are greatly to be congratulated. Enjoy!
Copyright: Coquina Press
22 October 1999
http://palaeo-electronica.org
Paleoecology: Ecosystems, environments, and evolutionby Patrick J. Brenchley and David A.T. Harper |
Kim Freedman
Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
Brenchley and Harper have aimed to produce a palaeoecology textbook that includes traditional case studies and syntheses of more recent evolutionary palaeoecological investigations and, moreover, to consider evolutionary palaeoecology within a geophysiological framework (i.e. the Gaia hypothesis). Brenchley and Harper should be applauded for their ambitious efforts, and their book will probably be widely used because of the dearth of other recent palaeoecology textbooks. Most classic case studies are included and concisely summarized, either within the text or in separate boxes, and presented with a few relevant figures. The treatment of the case studies generally works very well, and I found the review of case studies in Chapter 6, "Fossils as environmental indicators" especially useful and well-presented. The sections covering evolutionary palaeoecology are a little more variable. In Chapter 5, "Trace fossils", for example, the section of the evolution of trace fossils is particularly successful, probably because it draws upon numerous specific studies on the topic. Chapter 10, "Fossil terrestrial ecosystems", however, contains a very broad-brush review of terrestrial ecosystems through time with the particular cases being discussed independently in boxes. I felt that the generality of this section made it more difficult to remember what I had read. The same was true for the section on morphology and environment in Chapter 4, "Adaptive morphology".
Contents-wise, I thought that Palaeoecology was well rounded, fairly thorough, and pitched at an appropriate level for non-introductory level undergraduates. In other words, students would need knowledge of invertebrate and vertebrate palaeontology before they would really appreciate this book. Even though such students should be familiar with the concepts of evolution, it might have been germane to include a discussion of evolution in this book, as it is particularly concerned with evolutionary palaeoecology. Two chapters, Chapter 7 on "Populations and communities" and Chapter 8 on "Palaeobiogeography", consider techniques which require higher level mathematics, which may be a bit tricky for students (and teachers!) that haven't seen a calculus book for a few years. The figures in Palaeoecology are nearly all black and white line drawings, with the odd black and white photograph. These figures are generally clear and relevant to the text but, just occasionally, the fonts used in the figures trend towards the "need-a-microscope-to-read-it" size. The only other formatting comment is that the outer side margin of each page is about 5.5 cm wide, presumably to leave plenty space for note-making. If you're one of those people who likes writing in textbooks, you"ll enjoy this concession, but I would rather have a 5.5. cm smaller book.
There are, however, some problems with Palaeoecology that ought to be noted before making it required reading for students. Most of these concerns relate to the organization of the book, both as a whole and with respect to particular discussions. Terms like fossil assemblage and fossil association, for instance, are used throughout Chapters 2-6, but their usage and meaning are not discussed until the Chapter 7. Chapter 1, "Investigating the history of the biosphere", includes a short discussion of life modes and trophic strategies, using words like plankton, nekton, infauna, and epifauna which are not defined until Chapter 2, "Environmental controls on biotic distribution". Chapter 2 also contains two boxes on the use of carbon and oxygen isotopes in palaeoecological studies spaced about six pages apart, but it is only in the latter box on oxygen isotopes that the concept of different elemental isotopes is actually explained. There are a number of other examples of terms being used in the text well before they are clearly defined and, to be honest, I found this practice annoying. As an undergraduate, I would have found it confusing, particularly since the book does not contain a glossary nor does its index include the words assemblage, association, or isotope. I think that it would have been better to assume, for example, that students already know what an isotope is and not bother to define it or to assume that they don't know and define the word isotope when it is first used.
The text also contains a number of repetitions, inconsistencies, and mistakes. Now, a little repetition is probably a good thing in a textbook, but I counted five chapters that contained a sentence referring to Vermeij's work on the Mesozoic marine revolution (yet not one mention of it in the index). Although I by no means wish to belittle Vermeij's studies, I would appreciate one good, in-depth discussion of the idea rather than five very brief and fairly similar allusions to it. Each chapter has a separate bibliography. References, however, are frequently cited in several chapters and usually only included in the bibliography for this first chapter in which they appear. This structure means that one often has to flip through the book, searching for the first chapter in which a reference was cited. It might have been more appropriate to have a single bibliography or each chapter bibliography to include each reference cited therein. One example of an inconsistency occurs in Chapter 9, "Evolutionary palaeoecology of the marine biosphere", which contains a potentially very handy table summarizing the available information on mass extinctions. While the text of Chapter 9 contains two separate discussions of the possible role of volcanism in the K-T extinction, volcanism is not listed under causes cited for the K-T extinction in the table. Such mistakes may be minor, but they do detract from the book, as do the numerous typographic errors. These various problems meant that I considered long and hard whether I would recommend this book and, at last, have decided to do so. I think this book fills an important niche in the textbook market and that palaeoecology students will benefit from reading it. I would hope, however, that more attention to organization and details will be given to the next edition of Palaeoecology.
Copyright: Coquina Press
22 October 1999
http://palaeo-electronica.org
Sarah Gabbott
Department of Geology, The University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, England, LE1 7RH
Sarah has just started a job as lecturer in geology at the University of Leicester, UK. Prior to this she undertook postdoctoral research work on the Upper Ordovician Soom Shale lagerstatte of South Africa, along with colleagues Prof. R. Aldridge and Dr. H. Theron. At the moment Sarah is especially interested in the geochemistry of black shales and how this has affected the processes of preservation within them. When she is not teaching, digging for fossils or playing with graphs on Excel Sarah can be found playing squash, hill-walking or attempting woodwork.
Copyright: Palaeontologia Electronica, October 1999
FIGURE 1. Ventral x-radiograph image of the arthropod Cheloniellon calmani Broili 1932 (x 0.5; from Bartels et al., 1998).
The fossil record of the Hunsrück Slate:
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Reviewed by Sarah Gabbott
The aim of palaeontology is to reconstruct the biology, ecology and evolution of ancient life through study of the fossil record. This record is extremely biased in many ways but most significantly to the preservation of the hard parts, such as the shells, bones and teeth, of animals. A palaeontologist’s "goldmine" is an exceptionally preserved biota (fossil conservation-lagerstätten) where articulated skeletons and/or the soft parts of organisms have miraculously, by one means or another, survived to become part of the fossil record.
There are now several books on fossil lagerstätten, with informative text and some with beautiful fossil photography, which are useful to academics, and accessible to students and the interested amateur palaeontologist. These books describe the geology, palaeontology and significance of exceptionally preserved biotas and, if well-produced, give the general public an insight into the fascinating world of fossils as well as reminding the seasoned palaeontologist how lucky they are to do what they do! Stephen J. Gould's book Wonderful Life on the celebrated Cambrian Burgess Shale resides on many a book shelf, other recent additions to volumes dedicated to lagerstätten are: Solnhofen: A Study of Mesozoic Palaeontology (N.H.M. Swinburne, S. Conway Morris, K. Werner Barthel); Fossils of the Santana and Crato Formations, Brazil (D. M. Martill); and Das Holzmaden-buch (B. Hauff & R. B. Hauff- short on text but containing the most beautiful fossil photography I have seen).
The fossils of the Hunsruck Slate: Marine life in the Devonian is certainly a welcome addition to these books. The Hunsruck Slate is the best-known of Devonian lagerstätten; it outcrops in the Rhenish Massif, western Germany, and contains a diverse marine fauna. This book represents an enhanced and revised version of an earlier (1990) book on the deposit by Christoph Bartels and Günther Brassel which was produced in German. The soft tissues in this lagerstätten have become preserved through replacement by the mineral pyrite. This mineral replacement occurred before decay processes destroyed the soft tissues and all the valuable palaeontological information that they have subsequently provided.
After a short introduction the book is divided into three sections. Part 1 deals with the mining history of the slate, the geological setting and the palaeoecology and preservation. The mining history was certainly fascinating and parts of the palaeoecology and preservation section would be of great value to final year undergraduates. In particular, the pyritization of soft parts, which has only recently been investigated and understood, is lucidly explained and allows this complicated process to be comprehended.
Part 2, the largest section, deals with the fossils themselves. Commencing with plants and ending with annelids and arthropods each higher taxon is introduced and each genus is graced with a brief description including their occurrence, and where possible, insights into their possible palaeobiology and palaeocology. There are many good photographs in this section and a few line diagrams illustrating what these taxa may have looked like (perhaps not quite enough of the latter). It is a feature of the pyritized nature of some of the fossils that they may be viewed by the use of x-radiography (Figure 1). The images of these fossils are not only beautiful, in a ghostly sort of way, but are extremely useful in subsequent fossil exhumation and preparation (just look at the 'before and after' photographs of the specimen of Schizotremite on pages 167 and 168). The radiographs are, however, terrible reminders to those of us who cannot use this technique as to how many superb fossils we must chuck away, still entombed within lumps of rock, during the lottery of fossil collecting.
Part 3 deals with the techniques of collecting and preparing the Hunsrück Slate fossils, the analytical techniques employed in both fossil and sediment analyses and the plan of future research. The excellent and detailed descriptions of fossil preparatory techniques may be particularly useful to curators and researchers. The incredible patience and skill required in fossil preparation is evident on page 259 where a series of photographs shows a buried asteroid, its x-radiograph and its subsequent exhumation by needles and scrapers by Günther Brassel-a medical surgeon would surely be impressed! Following this last part is a small section which I know will be extremely useful to many researchers-simply a list of taxa recorded from the Hunsrück Slate; a quick and easy to use inventory.
Finally the bibliography has a useful introduction and is extremely comprehensive. I thoroughly recommend this book as it brings together all the information, and more, that has been published on this world-class lagerstätte. The text is easily understood even where, as in the case of pyrite preservation, the subject is quite complex. While it would cost too much for the average undergraduate student to buy this book they should at least browse through it-every university library should have a copy. Undergraduates would find the sections on palaeoecology and preservation particularly useful. As a palaeontologist working on exceptionally preserved biotas I am grateful that so much dispersed literature has been compiled along with handsome photographs in one book.
Copyright: Coquina Press
22 October 1999
http://palaeo-electronica.org
Rob Holmes
Department of Palaeobiology, Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, and Vanier College, Montreal, Canada
Rob Holmes, a long time student of Bob Carroll's, received his PhD from McGill University in 1982. He serves as Research Associate at both the Redpath Museum and the Canadian Museum of Nature when he is not haranguing his ecological technology students (Vanier College, Montreal) from the other side of a beaver pond. Although he has spent some time pondering ceratopsians, he is also interested in mosasaurs, Palaeozoic tetrapods, and practically everything else except teleosts, which he is happy to leave to his wife, Alison Murray.
Copyright: Palaeontologia Electronica, October 1999
The Horned Dinosaursby Peter Dodson |
Reviewed by Robert Holmes
Ceratopsian dinosaurs have intrigued professional palaeontologists and the general public alike since the end of the last century, when bones of these creatures were first collected from the Cretaceous deposits of western North America. Early work, much by O. C. Marsh and his associates, culminated in a lavishly illustrated volume entitled The Ceratopsia (Hatcher, Marsh, and Lull 1907). A second contribution (Lull 1933) reported additional discoveries of the subsequent quarter-century, but despite the description of a number of new taxa since publication of the latter, no new reviews of the group have been attempted.
Peter Dodson's book, The Horned Dinosaurs, although not a scientific review in the traditional sense, nevertheless fills this void in many respects. The anatomy, systematics, and biology of the group are briefly covered. The history of collection is discussed, and all known taxa are described. New discoveries and reinterpretations of old data, as well as recent controversies surrounding these interesting beasts are explored. Each chapter is generously footnoted and well indexed. Since this volume is not intended first and foremost as a technical treatise, much of the "hard" data have been omitted, but the reader need not miss anything - Dodson has done an excellent job providing references to the primary literature if more information is desired. The volume is well illustrated with carefully chosen figures from the literature as well as many original figures by Robert Walters and several attractive coloured plates by Wayne Barlowe.
In Chapter 1, Dodson sets the stage with a overview of ceratopsian classification, introduces some basic concepts of systematics, and then gives a thumbnail sketch of the early history of field collection, in which he tips his hat to all the usual suspects and introduces a number of ceratopsians unfamiliar to all but the initiated. In Chapter 2, he covers the basics of ceratopsian anatomy, and in Chapter 3, uses an extended discussion of the most famous horned dinosaur, Triceratops, as a vehicle to deliver a brief history of the Cope-Marsh feud, and air a problem all too common in paleontology of the late ninteenth and early twentieth century paleontology - the artificial multiplication of species, or "splitting". With the reader now on firm ground, Dodson then delves into the two ceratopsid subfamilies: the Chasmosaurinae and Centrosaurinae. Each genus is introduced, described, and discussed in turn. This is followed by an account of current work and recently described taxa. A chapter on the basal protoceratopsids, which includes information on the obscure central Asian forms originally described in the often difficult to get Russian journals rounds out the discussion. Chapter 8 presents a history of ceratopsian classification and a comparison between recent cladistic and resistant-fit theta-rho analyses (fortunately producing similar results) are given. The final chapter explores the biology of ceratopsians-hypotheses regarding feeding, locomotion, social behavior, and possible causes of their extinction.
What sets this book apart is that it is fun to read. Dodson is very clear in the preface-this volume is a personal offering, and as a result it is infused with the enthusiasm (not to mention the occasional idiosyncracy) of the author. This not only provides an entertaining read, but proves to have considerable heuristic value. For example, in Chapter 2 "Skin and Bones", Dodson approaches the potentially dry topic of skeletal anatomy by concocting an amusing yarn at his own expense. We are presented with an image of Dodson sitting on his livingroom floor surrounded by a disarticulated cast of a Chasmosaurus skeleton purchased from Big Bob's Bargain Bone Barn. Lacking assembly instruction and desperate to clean up the mess before his wife returns home, he begins to sort the bones into piles. As we read on, we gradually realize that what he is actually doing is walking us through the anatomy step by step. Although arguably not necessary for fellow palaeontologists, this is very helpful to the nonspecialists who presumably represent a large percentage of the intended audience.
Dodson has attained a fine balance here. He has, on the one hand, written a book that can be read and understood by an intellegent, informed high school student, while providing enough substance to keep the attention and interest of other paleontologists.
REFERENCES
Hatcher, J.B., Marsh, O.C., and Lull, R.S., 1907. The Ceratopsia. United States Geological Survey Monograph 49, 1-300.
Lull, R.S., 1933. A revision of the Ceratopsia or horned dinosaurs. Peabody Museum of Natural History Memoirs 3: 1-175.
Copyright: Coquina Press
22 October 1999
http://palaeo-electronica.org
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Review: The Princeton Field Guide to Mesozoic Sea Reptiles
The Princeton Field Guide to Mesozoic Sea Reptiles
Article number: 26.1.1R
April 2023