Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved - Marc's review

As anyone who's been there will attest, the NHM (London) doesn't seem to care a jot what hideous CG imagery it slaps on the merchandise in its tack-o-rama dinosaur shop. Notably, the same few hideous stock images appear again and again; there's a Triceratops with human molars, a bunny-handed, gorilla suit Velociraptor, a T. rex with a skull that's been through a mangle and retro JP dangly-arms, and a boringly generic wide-mouth Giganotosaurus with teeth that go all the way back. Sadly, it's the latter that's found its way onto the cover of their latest dinosaur publication - Dinosaurs: How they Lived and Evolved, by Darren Naish and Paul Barrett. Thank you, marketing twonks. Fear not though, dear reader, for this is a book that one certainly shouldn't judge by its cover.

This reminds me of something from a long time ago.

Dinosaurs: HTLE (or just Dinosaurs, as I should probably start calling it) is about as up-to-date as popular dinosaur books get. It's not unimpressive given how long these things take to go from concept to publication. Inside, you'll find Yi qi (Emily Willoughby's illustration is given no less than a full page to itself), short-legged Spinosaurus, a description of Deinocheirus beyond 'mystery arms, woo!', and much more besides. Furthermore, birds are described as living dinosaurs with absolutely no apologies or concessions made to those who might find the idea hard to swallow. There's even a chapter dedicated to the Cenozoic history of birds. Of course, it isn't the first popular book to do this, but few are so thorough in placing birds in their correct place as members of the wider Dinosauria. This is especially welcome given the disconnect between dinosaurs and birds in the museum itself (although that will surely change in time).

The photos (taken by me) are of somewhat deliberately bad quality and are only here to give an impression. Honestly, the print quality of the book is very good.

There's also a very up-to-date look at the methods used by scientists to reconstruct dinosaur posture, habits and life appearance, including the very latest computer modelling techniques. Yes, one of Heinrich Mallison's digital plateosaurs puts in an appearance, as well it should, along with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) studies on theropod skulls. Of course, the book doesn't skimp on showing us photos of the bones; far from it. There are a huge number of photographs of specimens in this book, including all manner of jaws, claws, hands, feet, beautiful articulated specimens and museum mounts. As a perfect demonstration of the commendable attention to detail shown here, the captions for photos of mounted specimens/casts often comment on how they're dated or just Plain Wrong (even when the mounts are in the NHM).

The text is exhaustive and factual - it's not as fun a read as, say, Darren's The Great Dinosaur Discoveries, with more of the feel of a particularly well-written and informative textbook. Of course, one should consider that this is aimed at a general audience. Us dinosaur, er, enthusiasts love text that's full of knowing nods and winks, and knowing that your audience will already have a certain level of familiarity with the subject frees one up to be a bit more lively. Dinosaurs needs to aim wider than that. It is a book that, cover-to-cover, could bring a complete novice more-or-less up to speed with the current state of dinosaur science (no mean feat), and there's simply so much fascinating information to take in that they can't possibly get bored along the way.

It's all too tempting to say that the more well-informed enthusiast won't find all that much new in here. Well, you might have seen a lot of it before, but there's always something you'll have forgotten about, skipped over, or was announced on a day when you were too busy drinking yourself into a stupor in order to erase the Brexit referendum from your memory. The remarkable, concise section of living bird diversity and phylogenetic relationships knocked me sideways; it's one of my favourite parts of the book just for cramming so much great stuff in. There's also a great deal of lovely artwork in here, too, with contributions from John Conway, Emily Willoughby, Julius Cstonyi, Bob Nicholls, John Sibbick, and more. Contrasting with the cover, most of the artwork inside is thoroughly up-to-date and very beautiful.

So, should you get it? Yeah, you should get it. It's essentially the perfect summation of 'where we're up to' with dinosaur science, allowing for differences in opinion and areas where More Research is Needed. If you know anyone who's recently developed (or redeveloped) a healthy interest in dinosaurs, you should thrust this book their way without any hesitation, safe in the knowledge that you're giving them exactly the right education. This is the complete picture, from what lived where and when, to biology, ecology, life habits and the latest research techniques, covering every dinosaur clade including the one that's still with us. It's one of the best popular dinosaur books out there, and I thoroughly encourage everyone to purchase one to encourage more of this sort of thing. Just...consider getting a replacement dust jacket into the bargain.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs - Living Monsters of the Past (Part 2)

It seems like an awful long time since the first half (it isn't really, I just moved home in the meantime), but here's Part 2 of my look at this Bentontastic book from 1993. As promised, I'll open with a more detailed look at the piece used on the cover, namely Vladimir Krb's fantastic Albertosaurus panorama produced for the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.

This piece provides the stunning backdrop to a mounted Albertosaurusskeleton in a similar pose. I must be honest – my access to the internet is very limited at the moment, so I've had trouble determining how old this painting (and the mount) are. I'd guess 1980s, but if any readers are able to fill me in, please do so. In any case, the star tyrannosaur is restored with a 'modern' posture and, unlike many Dino Renaissance-era pieces, isn't unduly skinny (although the legs look a little puny). Quite apart from the wonderful painterly backdrop (the sky alone is quite lovely), I really like the speculative dewlap/gular pouch on the Albertosaurus, which gives its neck an intriguingly different profile to that usually seen. Period curiosities include the reversed hallux on a tyrannosaur (which seemed to pop up quite a lot back in the '70s-'80s) and the bizarre-looking wisp of a pterosaur in the top right. No matter – it's still an awesome work.

Appearing alongside the Albertosaurus in the book is this detail of two dromaeosaurs (adult and juvenile) scavenging a centrosaur carcass. It's presumably from the same panorama as the above, but, again, it's tricky for me to check just now. For obvious reasons pertaining to the Feathery Future, it hasn't aged too well; there's also the matter of the eyeball being in the wrong place, which gives these fellas a peculiarly lizardy look. There's something of the Bakkerian Deinonychus about these two, as well – it's probably the dewlap. Regardless, these are, again, beautifully painted, with superb patterning and an intriguing otherworldly quality about them.

Also from the Royal Tyrrell is this painting of nesting hadrosaurs, although unfortunately no artist is credited. The animals, which look well-proportioned if a little lean (typical of the era, really), are described in the book as 'Maiasaura', although I rather fancy that this is because Benton wanted to squeeze in a mention of the Good Mother Reptile – those head crests suggest a lambeosaurine. Nice work on the reflections in the puddles.

The work of a certain Greg Paul (for it is he) is featured here, too. His Avimimus (above) is notable for being remarkably prescient for 1993, a time when most artists were happy to copy Sibbick's Normanpedia version, which although feathered had a head straight out of the theropod spares bin. Of course, Paul did produce something similar himself, but the fact that he'd moved on to a small-headed, beaked restoration by 1993 just goes to show how he's often been ahead of the curve. The wattle on the neck is a great touch, too.

The two restorations underneath (skeletal & life) are just as remarkable, having been produced by Sergei Kurzanov, who described Avimumus in 1981. Kurzanov saw Avimimus as being even more birdlike than is now believed, and restored it as such, going so far as giving the animal hands like a modern bird and an extremely short tail. Of course, given how much feathers can obscure an animal's anatomy, it may well be that his life restoration isn't toofar off the mark after all.

Back to Paul, and here we have a seldom-seen restoration of Megalosaurus, the first dinosaur to get a (really unimaginative) name. [Gag about Owen removed from here because Buckland named it...not Owen. Not sure what I was thinking. Wasn't even drunk. Thanks Dave.]  We're in 'generic big theropod' territory here, which isn't Paul's fault, of course, and the artist livens things up with some natty stripiness and moody driving rain. Inclement weather isn't seen often enough in palaeoart. The curled-up pronated forearms are a Predatory Dinosaurs of the World-era Paul staple that the artist himself has since abandoned in the light of anatomical evidence, but which have proven difficult to kill off in palaeoart more broadly (much to the chagrin of hundreds of internet pedants - especially me).

Paul also provides illustrations of a couple of dramatic confrontations between predator and prey. Here, the pin-headed sauropodomorph Massospondylusrears up to defend itself from Probably Coelophysis (aka Syntarsus, aka Megapnosaurus). I love the way the wispy clouds enhance the movement and drama here. The animals seem alarmingly thin even by Paulian standards, which suggests to me that this is an earlier piece by him. Close inspection reveals a crest of feather-like structures on the theropods (shades of Bakker) and those neck wattles again.

This illustration, depicting the tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus confronting the super-weirdo maniraptor Therizinosaurus, also appeared more recently in Paul's 2010 opus The (Princeton)  Field Guide to Dinosaurs. Unusually, it was completely unaltered for The Field Guide in spite of Paul's (commendably brave) tendency to update his work according to advances in dinosaur science. You wouldn't get away with scaly therizinosaurs these days, chuck. Of course, for its day this is pretty damn remarkable – subtract the hadrosaur-like crest, add some floof, and you're more-or-less up to 2016 standards. Miles better than a quadrupedal 'prosauropod' version, or just drawing a giant pair of arms surrounded by an army of floating question marks.

And finally...have a couple of bonus vintage photographs of the London Natural History Museum's dinosaur gallery as it was, back in the day (by which I mean, long before I was born). Being a little lazy (and without home internet at the moment), I put the question of the above photo's date to my friends on Facebook, who promptly established it as late '60s – early '70s, prior to Dippy and, er, Trikey's removal to the Main Hall (shan't use that new name). The Triceratops was of course then moved again to the current dinosaur gallery, along with the Iguanodon also shown here, although (unlike Dippy) they retain their original tail-dragging poses. But I digress. Look at how light and airy it was! Can't we have a little natural light shining in on the gallery again NHM, pretty please?

The book also features a photograph of this intriguing thing, being half a Tyrannosaurus rex composed of bits of some of the earliest T. rex specimens found, along with material cast from other, more complete specimens and a few sculpted parts. Happily, Darren Naish once wrote at length on this unusual mount during the days of Tet Zoo Mk2. The lower jaw (part original, part sculpt), having been in storage for years, can now be seen again as one approaches the robotic T. rex in the current gallery, while the skull was unearthed some years back and put on display as part of a temporary exhibition featuring a panoply of robosaurs. Presumably, the rest of this beast is buried somewhere deep within the NHM's mahoosive store rooms, being looked after by top. Men. It's a shame that it can no longer be seen, but at least the NHM now has a mount of a British dinosaur – Baryonyx– in the same spirit.

For my next post: I went to Dorset, and I found a Dinosauroid there.

'It's your turn now.' Dippy and the Blue Whale

'It's your turn now.'
Ink on watercolour paper, 202 x 100mm.

Scarcely had I mentioned how well Sophie the Stegosaurus complemented the presence of the beloved Diplodocus at their respective entrances to London's Natural History Museum than news of the latter's planned retirement emerged, apparently splitting the public and experts alike into 'Team Dippy' and 'Team Whale' across social media.

Of course I'm sad -- very sad -- to see 'Dippy' retire (no, I don't much care for the name either, but that's another story).  For me as for so many others, it has been the museum's de facto mascot and symbol for as long as we can remember. And lest our readers forget, sauropods are among my favourite dinosaur groups. My own 'saurian portrait' is a Diplodocus, for heaven's sake.

 'However, change, or its refusal, is not within our gift.' I welcome the blue whale with happy, if subdued, acceptance. Of the many voices in its favour, Michael Rundle of Huffington Post UK encapsulates it best for me, not least because he puts forward the case with great respect and affection for both without any of the unnecessary aggression and derision I've seen accompany some arguments ('Dippy is fake! A lie!'). My illustration above attempts to reconcile this change in the same vein. The title of 'It's your turn now' speaks both of the whale skeleton's place in Dippy's stead and of the blue whale's fragile existence being celebrated now. I wanted to avoid that dreaded word, 'relevance', much bandied about in this case. Nevertheless, highlighting the blue whale's significance doesn't seem to me to signal a disregard for the Diplodocus. But perhaps I'm not cynical enough on that score.

N.B. This post was prepared ahead of Mike Taylor's post over on SV-POW on the same subject, in which he actually advocates having both skeletons together, a suggestion that I could only be too happy with, were such a thing possible.