Dionsaur Lives: Unearthing an Evolutionary Saga

Dinosaur Lives: Unearthing an Evolutionary Saga written by John R. Horner is a well-written account of paleontological fieldwork told in an engaging style. This book is the continuation of the book Digging Dinosaurs one of the author's previous books.Horner is a thinker as has helped out on numerous motion pictures to make the dinosaurs seem real and alive. In this book we get to read (speculation) about dinosaur eggs, their young and their nests as found from the fossil record.Horner has an infectous style when he write and you can't help but getting into lock-step with him as he writes a telling-tale, making the read feel as if you are there right along side. Our understanding of how dinosaurs grew up, raised their young, and socialized with other dinosaurs are brought out in this book.There is still a lot of information yet to be discovered, but Horner has been making long strides in elucidating information and answering some of the nagging questions involving dinosaurs. Some of the new evidence and arguments regarding the major dinosaur controversies of the day, being that of warm-blooded verses cold-blooded are tackled in this book. This book is a quick read and should be on your bookshelf as the author's discoveries regarding the dinosaur are ground-breaking and unparalleled. Paleontologist Robert Bakker is another forward thinker when it comes to dinosaurs.This book gives some credence to Bakker's theory about the inland sea retreats and the dinosaurs from the eastern part of the North American continent mixed with those of the West, exchanging bacteria and other pathogens for which the recieving group had no inherent resistance. This could be a slow death or a prolonged one depending upon the pathogen involved. Also, climate was changing substantially at that time as well, becoming cooler, and more arid, this could slowly add to the demise of the dinosaurs.This book was an enjoyable, engaging read.

Mr. Horner has made an extraordinary accomplishment with 'Diggin Dinosaurs,' as it is able to present relative information regarding the topic at hand in a manner to be easily read by the masses and hold the reader's attention. His ability to stimulate the imagination with his illustrative speach and diction is quite amazing, as is his ability to distill the necessary information from the vast amounts of data that is available for analysis. An amazing breakthrough to be certain.

Touches on lots of topics: various dinosaurs, bone sites, evolution, extinction, digs, past and present bone hunters, the science of the Jurassic Park movie, etc. Very easy to read.

This book is not only about dinosaurs. It is also about us. Where we come from, where we are going... There are no answers in the book, but at least you will find a lot of honest thought.

John Horner presents a very clear picture of what it means to do field work in paleontology. The reader gets a good taste of what it would be like to work on a dig, including the scientific way of looking at things, the down side of heat and hard work, the excitement of discovery, the fun and frustration of trying to figure out how to get a sample safely out of the ground and transported to a waiting vehicle. Horner's enthusiasm and love of his subject come through clearly, but it was also nice to find he is still flexible in his ideas. Revision of ideas, as new facts come to light, is the way good science should work, but often doesn't. This is good science, carefully presenting the evidence that caused Horner to revise his ideas, and build a new picture of some dinosaur behavior and of evolutionary events. Even the amateur enthusiast can learn from his clear explanations and see the relationships over distance and time of some of the well know dinosaur bearing formations like Judith River and Hell Creek. I kept referring back to his diagram as I read, and found it easy to picture the changing environment and the evolutionary pressures brought to bear on his cast of characters. The final discussion of scientific versus commercial imperatives is important, and he is not one-eyed enough to lambast all commercial and amateur work.