On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs
November 26, 2012
In this revealing work of pop paleontology, Switek (Written in Stone) travels across America to visit dinosaur fossils, but don't let the subtitle and descriptions of stunning scenery and trips down gravel roads mislead youâthis isn't really a travelogue: each stop serves as but a jumping-off point for an examination of our changing understanding of dinosaurs. As a child, Switek learned that his beloved Brontosaurus had been denounced as a distinct species and relabeled Apatosaurus; in the course of his travels, he learns that other dinosaurs have met a similar fateâbut he doesn't see this as something to be mourned. In fact, it's proof of the great strides being made in the science of dinos. Along the way, Switek describes a host of colorful characters, including Heinrich Mallison, who uses digital modeling software to figure out how certain dinosaursâparticularly the troublingly spiky-tailed Kentrosaurusâhad sex. He also demonstrates that contrary to the relatively dowdy dinos of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, new science suggests many were feathered, and colorfully at that. Engaging and accessible enough for the lay person, readers will readily agree when Switek concludes that "dinosaurs are better than ever." Photos & illus. Agent: Peter Tallack, the Science Factory.
January 1, 2013
A dinosaur lover since childhood, science journalist Switek (Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature, 2010) chronicles his travels through North America visiting scientists, museums and fossil beds while delivering an enthusiastic account of the history, description, discoveries, ongoing controversies and inaccurate media obsession with these popular but extinct creatures. The brontosaur itself illustrates the author's theme. Paleontologists discarded the name a century ago (it's been Apatosaurus since), but it remains the popular term for one of the largest, heaviest land animals in Earth's history. Until the 1970s, experts portrayed it as a lumbering creature too massive to support its weight, perhaps living partly submerged in swamp water. Then experts decided they were wrong, and it became an agile creature of the plains; adolescents could walk on hind legs. Research into fossil bones and skin reveals that dinosaurs, although reptiles, were not reptilian (scaly, crawling, sluggish, coldblooded) but so energetic, fast-moving and fast-growing that it's likely they were warmblooded. Scientists also changed their minds about the dull green lizard skin featured in images from the 19th century to Jurassic Park. Many covered their nakedness with colorful fuzz, the primitive ancestor of feathers, which have been turning up in dinosaur fossils since the 1990s. Today, most readers are aware that a catastrophic mass extinction 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs. In another reassessment, paleontologists now believe that only "nonavian dinosaurs" vanished. One family had already evolved into birds. Readers will forgive Switek's detours into cuteness and bad jokes in exchange for a genuinely informative introduction to his favorite subject.
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February 15, 2013
Switek, a journalist who digests technical literature on paleontology for mass-market publications, presents dinosaurs through his own experience of enthusiasm, from childhood to his late-twenties present, for these giants of the earth. As a kid, his favorite behemoth was brontosaurus, which still inspires his adult imagination, though he knows apatosaurus replaced it in dino taxonomy. Memory of his inspiration by an iconic if mistakenly named dinosaur echoes in his tour of changing interpretations of dinosaurs by paleontologists during the century-plus they have studied them. Switek's memories arise in descriptions of his visits to exhibitions of fossils, lending a road-trip tenor to a narrative that describes the up-to-date knowledge about dinosaurs, contrasting present views with previous caricatures of dinosaurs as solitary, oversize dimwits doomed to go down for the count in the evolutionary boxing match. Switek's chapters tout dinosaurs as colorful, feather- and fuzz-covered creatures. Consideration of social behavior, from herding to fighting to reproduction, has spawned scientific theories on which, as well as those that debate extinction, Switek reports. Writing with unaffected ardor, Switek will resonate with readers fascinated by dinosaurs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)