Tales of the Prehistoric World: Adventures From the Land of the Dinosaurs by Kallie Moore

For dinosaur aficionados, Tales of the Prehistoric World is book filled with some of the most interesting fossil discoveries over the last two hundred years or so.

Tales of the Prehistoric World opens with information on the Geologic Time Scale which geologists have devised to organize the previous four and half million years of Earth history and brief descriptions of the the five major extinctions that occurred during this time.

Chapter One The Beginning presents a description of two billion years of the PreCambrian when life was just getting started. Moore then quickly moves into the Paleozoic Era in Chapter Two when all of the major animal groups appeared in the Cambrian, around 500 million years ago. Life moved onto land from the ocean and a supercontinent named Pangea also formed. Moore includes the discoveries in the Burgess Shale, a story about the largest trilobite, the age of armored fish, and the appearance of the giant arthropods (insects) of the Carboniferous and Permian.

 

Chapter Three is all about the Age of Reptiles which includes the reign of the dinosaurs during the Jurassic. After explaining the formation of Pangea, Moore highlights the first giant dinosaurs, the sauropods (think Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus) and goes on to describe many interesting and unusual fossil finds, each one increasing our knowledge about dinosaurs. Of course no discussion of dinosaurs would be complete without an entry on Tyrannosaurus Rex. Several famous fossil hunters are also featured including Mary Anning considered  and the rivalry between Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. This chapter ends with the currently accepted theory of the cause of the demise of the dinosaurs.

In Chapter Four, Moore explores the post-dinosaur world.The Cenozoic began 66 million years ago and is the Era we currently live in. After the demise of the dinosaurs, with the exception of those who would evolve into birds, the age of mammals. Many other animals grew to enormous sizes such at Titanoboa. Primates evolved and from them our ancestors developed. There were a series of ice ages that changed the way the continents looked.

Discussion

Tales of the Prehistoric World focuses on describing some of the more interesting dinosaur fossil discoveries in the last one hundred and fifty years and how those discoveries have helped scientists piece together the reign of the dinosaurs.

To help younger readers understand where dinosaurs fit into the history of our planet, Kallie Moore, a paleontologist, begins with what geologists and paleontologists believe they know about the beginning of life on Earth. The development of life, from single celled organisms to increasingly more complex ones is presented until the Age of Reptiles in which many different types of dinosaurs and how we came to learn about them are featured. The stories after the demise of the dinosaurs are short and sweet, ending abruptly with the Last Mammoth.

Many unusual dinosaur fossils are featured including a frozen reptile fossil found in Antarctica, unique dinosaurs from prehistoric China, the gemstone dinosaurs of Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, Australia, the remarkable story of the lost and then found again fossils of Spinosaurus, the Egg Mountain site in Montana, the unsolved questions about triceratops, and of course the infamous Tyrannosaurs Rex.

The one drawback to this book is the sometimes uninspiring artwork that accompanies each story. Digitally created, the illustrations at times can be confusing as to what they are attempting to portray. With so many fascinating stories that use many correct terms for various dinosaurs, the illustrations simply aren't up to the same level. For example, one story, The Seafaring Ankylosaur is about the  discovery of an almost complete anklyosaur from the Millenium Mine, a huge oil sand quarry in northern Alberta in March, 2011. Shawn Funk, a heavy-equipment operator was digging in the quarry when he noticed a change in coloration and texture of the rocks. His excavator had already chewed off the tail and back end of the fossil. Funk contacted his supervisor who then reached out to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. When geologists arrived they realized that Funk had discovered the fossil remains of a dinosaur. This fossil specimen was particularly special because it had fossilized features like skin that are normally not preserved. For some reason, Moore doesn't mention the location of this remarkable discovery ( oil sands outside of Fort McMurray) that received much press and the accompanying small map showing the location of the fossil discovery in Northern Alberta is meaningless without any labels. (During the time the ankylosaurus lived, North America was split by a large, inland sea.) Was this just a general oversight or was the location of the discovery in the environmentally contentious oil sands to blame?Because the recovered fossil is so unique, a photograph accompanying this story would have been so much more engaging.

There is also no information about the author, Kallie Moore, except in the introduction to the book where she identifies herself as a paleontologist, nor about the illustrator, Becky Thorns. An online search reveals that Moore is the Fossil Librarian, at the University of Montana. 

Still, readers interested in dinosaurs will find Tales of the Prehistoric a great overview of just how much we've learned about dinosaurs over the past one hundred years.

Book Details:

Tales of the Prehistoric World: Adventures From the Land of the Dinosaurs by Kallie Moore
New York: St. Martin's Press
159 pp.