Discovering Dinosaurs: In the American Museum of Natural History

Even if you think you have no interest whatsoever in dinosaurs, you can still enjoy Discovering Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. Reading this book rivals taking an actual trip to the museum's splendid dinosaur halls. Norell, Gaffney, and Dingus present the first half of the book in question-answer format and dedicate the second half to AMNH specimens and expeditions. Questions range from the simple (What are dinosaurs?) to the complicated (How did nonavian dinosaurs become extinct?) to the unusual (How did dinosaurs mate?). You can poke in a coprolite (fossilized dung) to find what dinosaurs ate or see how workers mount colossal skeletons. Along with answers and information, you get a bonus prize: the incredible illustrations of Erwin Christman. Few contemporary artists can compete with the beauty and accuracy of Christman's nearly century-old work. A drawing or photograph graces nearly every page of Discovering Dinosaurs. Photographs depict paleontology's past, specimens of dinosaurs and of animals that lived at the same time as them, trackways, and current assignments. The book includes the stunning results of the AMNH Gobi expeditions of 1991-1995: beautifully preserved skeletons of oviraptors. Whether you want to examine the texture of dinosaur skin or peer into a tyrannosaur's mouth, Discovering Dinosaurs gets two claws up--20 feet up!