Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals: A Visual Who's Who of Prehistoric Life

This informative and well-illustrated book would be a useful adition to any nature- or science-lover's personal library, or an interesting coffee table book

I've only seen and read the 1988 edition so I don't know how many changes have been made in the new edition, but I assume the format's still the same. Basically this is a very good non-technical introduction to prehistoric vertebrates (animals with backbones - fish, amphbians, reptiles, birds & mammals). Although there are some pages that provide the basic background - how fossils form, continental drift, etc - by the far the most interesting, and indeed the bulk, of the book is the coverage it gives to a large number of individual genera, each of which is illustrated by a color painting. It is the sheer number and diversity of creatures covered here, rather than simply a few dozen types of dinosaurs, that makes this book so interesting. I find the realism of the art work tends to vary - some drawings seem more realistic than others, but I suppose that's just personal taste. The art work is still of good quality thoughout though. The accompanying text is brief but clear and informative, and gives a basic introduction to that type of animal. The best thing about this book is that it's not just about dinosaurs (although these are covered in detail) but also deals with many other types of vertebrate creatures as well. My only real criticism is that despite the title - "animals" - no invertebrate animals were included, no trilobites, eurypterids, nautiloids etc. Still, you can only cover so much in the space available, and this book does a pretty good job.

Tracing the history of vertebrates, this interesting book provides good information about animals and how they evolved. The illustrations are also very good and interesting. I've read parts of this book to my little daughter and she loves looking at the pictures and imagining living back in time when these animals roamed the earth.

Young earth creationists might want to avoid this book like the plague. The timelines are very heretical and all those intermediate species show a solid pattern of evolution of life on this planet.

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