Best vertebrate paleontology books according to redditors
We found 8 Reddit comments discussing the best vertebrate paleontology books. We ranked the 5 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 8 Reddit comments discussing the best vertebrate paleontology books. We ranked the 5 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
You win. My son's only 1 years old, but I found this book at a thrift store and can't wait for the awesomeness to begin.
>their genome was edited to make them much larger than they should otherwise be
None of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were authentic; they are all theme park monsters. This point is made in the original book, but isn't really brought up in the first movie; Dr. Wu talks about it pretty heavily during an exposition scene in Jurassic World, however.
That said, the Utahraptor was not discovered until after Jurassic Park was released, and just happens to be the same size as the film's Velociraptors.
Per the Jurassic Park wiki:
>In the Jurassic Park universe, the term "Velociraptor" is applied to the genus of another dromaeosaurid dinosaur known as Deinonychus. The films, like the novels, followed the unusual taxonomy created by Gregory S. Paul, who believed that Deinonychus, as well as a few other species of dromaeosaurids, could be classified under the genus "Velociraptor".^[1] As for the large size of the raptors, the novel raptors were sized up for an unknown reason by author Michael Crichton while the movie raptors were made larger per Steven Spielberg's request to him being unimpressed by the size of Deinonychus.^[2]
No problem! Here are a couple of books that might help you along, if you haven't already gotten a hold of them! :)
All Yesterdays, a wonderfully provocative book that challenges common paleoart tropes.
The Paleoart of Julius Csontonyi is awesome. Most of his artwork can be found online, but it's nice to have it there in your hands. I won't go so far as to say Csotonyi is the modern day Charles R. Knight, but he's rapidly gaining that reputation.
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World by Gregory S. Paul. Modern paleoart owes a lot to Paul's work, even if his attention to anatomical detail resulted in dinosaurs that are just a bit too lithe.
Finally, we have William Stout's The New Dinosaurs. Yes, at times Stout makes his dinos look downright emaciated, but his comic-book-y style and portrayal of dinosaur behavior is a bit prescient of "All Yesterdays," and I can't help but associate his work with those wonderfully cheesy 1980s dino documentaries with Gary Owens, and that catchy theme music.
And once again, good luck!
This myth about them being the size of a turkey just will not die. :(
Jurassic park Velociraptors were actually Deinonychus which is more very large dog sized with a tail length comparable to that of the movie dinosaurs. They do seem to have been beefed up a little in the movie still.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus
Look on the right of the above wikipedia page under Synonyms and you'll see Velociraptor antirrhopus Paul, 1988. Click on Paul and it will take you to the page of a palaeontologist named Gregory S. Paul who wrote a book that was the main source that Michael Crichton used to write the novel, and Paul eventually was consulted for the Jurassic Park Movie. At the time that book was written, there was considerable debate as to what subfamily Deinonychus belonged to, hence the reason for some palaeontologists including Paul labelling it as Velociraptor antirrhopus. That name made its way into Michael Crichton's novel and the rest is movie history in terms of naming conventions.
The turkey sized dinosaur that everyone talks about is a completely different species called Velociraptor mongoliensis, so called because Mongolia is the site of the species fossil discovery, and so far all of the other fossil examples of the species are limited to Mongolia and China. In otherwords the turkey raptor is an exclusively Asian species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor
Deinonychus however is an North american species with fossil remains coming exclusively from Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Montana. Where was the dig site at the start of the movie? Yep. Montana. :)
The book even makes the distinction between Velociraptor antirrhopus and Velociraptor mongoliensis by mentioning both species.
Hi /u/WalterFBishop,
I was a dino-crazy kid, and now I'm a bird-crazy adult, so this topic speaks to my passions! As a result, I've cultivated a list of books I want to read on the subject, but sadly, I haven't read any of these yet. Just the same, here are books I hope to read based on the reviews they've received and apparent comprehensiveness:
all ratings/reviews come from Amazon
Some are pricier than others, as it looks like they're now out-of-print. I'm not sure which of those is the best book on the subject, but that may depend on your preferred reading style and source material. :) I'd recommend clicking on the "Open in Expanded View" option beneath the cover picture of the above books so you can skim a few sample pages to see what speaks to you!
Hope this helps.
One of the best books I used was Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America, Volume 1 because the first chapter is an overview of the climatic changes in the Cenozoic and the second chapter is an overview of the vegetation changes in the Cenozoic. However, it is out of print, so you'll have to check a library (worldcat can help you find the closest copy available).
Evolution of Grasses and Grassland Ecosystems is probably the best overview of what you were asking about, and while it goes into detail, I don't think it's too bogged down with jargon. Mammalian Response to Cenozoic Climate Change and Using phytolith assemblages to reconstruct the origin and
spread of grass-dominated habitats in the great plains of North America during the
late Eocene to early Miocene are two more papers I recommend. If you can't access them through the links, try searching the titles on google scholar to see if you can get them that way.
I don't have a favorite documentary, but I will recommend the photo book Hunting Dinosaurs by Louie Psihoyos to anyone.
It's kind of dated (early 90s) but is a wonderfully written personal account of Psihoyos going around and meeting many of the great paleontologists of our time and talking about dinosaurs - alongside gorgeous photos.
Also: he somehow convinced the University of Pennsylvania to give him Edward Cope's skull and he talks about busting it out every time he met another paleontologist.
Another book that is quite good and fun and about dinosaurs is Hunting Dinosaurs. I gave it as a gift to one of my tiny cousins and he loved the book.