Book Reviewed: Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, by Darren Naish and Paul Barrett

A grand tour of the Jurassic park and the prehistoric creatures

Dinosaurs are one of the most interesting group of creatures that appeared in Triassic period around 230 million years ago. They dominated the planet during the Jurassic (201 to 145 million years ago) and Cretaceous periods (145 to 66 million years ago). These creatures occupied every landmass during this vast period and evolved into thousands of species. During the last decade at least one new species has been identified and named every year, greatly improving our knowledge about these species. Even the existing theories that explain the demise of these ferocious creatures have been questioned based on recent geological and archeological studies, and alternative ideas are on the table. A brief discussion about demise of dinosaurs is found in chapter 6, entitled “The great extinction and beyond.”

In this book, the authors trace the history, origins, and family-tree using anatomy, biology, ecology and behavior of dinosaurs. Many creatures of this period are not completely extinct but exist in the form of certain reptilian species like alligators, crocodiles, turtles and tortoises. Many of these creatures grew smaller due to the environmental and survival challenges posed by the geological splitting of the continents from one supercontinent. When dinosaurs first appeared 230 million years ago there was one supercontinent called Pangaea, which stretched from north to south and surrounded by one gigantic ocean. About 150 million years ago, the continents started to split. At around 90 million years ago, South America, India and Australasia were separated from Antarctica. These geological movements brought forth new shorelines and impacted the climate. These planetary changes offered new environmental and ecological challenges to living species which changed the direction of the adaptation, survival and evolution.

There is also a very good discussion in the fifth chapter entitled “The origin of birds,” that discusses how the “flying” dinosaurs evolved into birds. I found this chapter extremely interesting and illuminating. This book is easy to read and no significant knowledge in biology is required. All illustrations and fossil photographs are in black and white. Readers interested in current developments in the field of dinosaurs may find this useful, since the book has a good deal of information from recent excavations and discovery of new dinosaur sites. I recommend this book to readers interested in the ancient history of dinosaurs, paleontology and fossil studies. It is an effortless reading.