Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons: ,

You already know about the first seadragon, although you probably do not know you know. Mary Anning, a girl of 11 or 12, found the first ichthyosaur to be recognized as an ancient reptile on an English beach in 1810. The tongue-twister "she sells seashells down by the sea shore" refers to her career as the first person to establish a commercial business in fossils as fossils (rather than as "dragons' teeth," which have been sold by Chinese druggists for centuries; they grind them to powder). Although nowadays the examination of fossils is a recondite subject, the basic principles of the subject are rather easily understood -- and very commonly misunderstood. Christopher MacGowan, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and an ichthyosaur specialist, says that much of the information specialists feed to the public about dinosaurs and their allies is far overstated. 'We can begin to understand extinct animals only by understanding living ones,' writes MacGowan. And we can never understand any extinct animal as well as we can know a living one. Thus arguments over whether some or all dinosaurs were warm-blooded or did or did not care tenderly for their young are usually excessive. MacGowan's approach is to ask what, in principle, a particular animal could have done, based on engineering constraints. Thus a comparison to a Spitfire fighter and its World War II opponent, the Messerschmidt 109, illustrates his inquiry into how well a pterosaur could have flown -- or perhaps merely glided. 'Dinosaurs, Spitfires & Seadragons' is an engaging approach to the endlessly fascinating topic of dinosaurs (and ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs and the first birds), because MacGowan invites the reader to understand these animals at the same level the experts do -- or, he implies, sometimes don't. The sophistication of popular books about paleontology has evolved tremendously since the days of the adventurous but simplistic tales of Roy Chapman Andrews and his dinosaur eggs from the Gobi Desert in the 1920s. MacGowan pioneered in this elevated approach, for which all dino fans can be grateful. This 1991 book is a revision of his 1983 'The Successful Dragons.'

I thoroughly enjoyed this volume even though I am not really a dinosaur enthusiast. A little old (c. 1992), it is still a very readable and comprehensive text on the paleontology of dinosarus. The author covers recent findings regarding dinosaur skeletal structure and what it tells of lifestyle, their modes of locomotion and what it implies of thermoregulation, etc. The book would definitely be a valuable first line undergraduate textbook on the subject and on paleontology as a field of research. It also might interest an enthusiastic younger student even to the level of junior high as long as he or she was a reader with a sophisticated vocabulary or one with some knowledge of the discipline already.

This book is ideal for paleontology students or avid dinosaurphiles. Math is used extensively to demonstrate how dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures walked, ran, swam, flew, etc. The book gives a wonderful glimpse into how the hard science of paleontology is performed, instead of glossing over the math like many other popular books do. Once you finish this book, you will never look at dinosaurs the same way again.