Review by Choice Review
Without question this is the finest book currently available on dinosaurs. Everyone interested in this remarkable group of reptiles will learn from and enjoy Bakker's book. Through both words and strikingly rendered drawings, the author transforms the dominant life forms of the Mesozoic into ecological reality. Bakker, best known for his strong stance on dinosaur endothermy and classification, presents his admittedly controversial arguments (note the book's title) in an articulate, entertaining, and generally convincing manner. Dispelling virtually all of ``traditional'' dinosaur natural history, Bakker paints a picture of a far more interesting and lively group than previously imagined. Giant brontosaurs did not live in swamps-they probably avoided them. Some, like Diplodocus, may have worn elephantine trunks (an idea with which Bakker is admittedly uncomfortable). Duckbilled dinosaurs are ducklike in name only-they too lived in upland environments. Dinosaurs galloped, reared up on their stout hind legs, fought, had sex, tended their young, and communicated by vocalization-all, in Bakker's view, with an endothermic physiology. Although he writes in a light, often flippant style, Bakker provides reference lists to take the reader into the primary literature. This book deserves a wide audience and ought to be in all libraries.-J.C. Kricher, Wheaton College, Mass.
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
While a Yale undergraduate, Bakker studied the brontosaurus skeleton in the Peabody Museum and concluded, ``There's something very wrong with our dinosaurs.'' His further study and career as a controversial, iconoclastic paleontologist have been devoted to righting that wrong, arguing forcefully against received wisdom that the great beasts were reptiles who died out because they were maladapted to their environment. Here at last he writes an entire, popularly accessible book about his research and rationales for saying that dinosaurs were more birds than lizards warm-blooded, active, superbly developed to dominate their world, which they did longer than any other class of large animals ever has. In chapters based on the evidence deducible from the fossil record about particular species and families, Bakker points up his differences from paleontological orthodoxy and notes how often his ideas echo those of great nineteenth-century scientists. Along with Wilford's Riddle of the Dinosaur (Booklist 82:714 Ja 15 86), Bakker's work makes this a banner year for dinosaur books. To be indexed. RO. 567.9'1 Dinosaurs [OCLC] 86-12643
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Bakker is undoubtedly the controversial and exciting dinosaurologist of the day. His ideas of active, behaviorly complex, warm-blooded dinosaurs have shaken orthodox views and stimulated both public interest and renewed scientific research. In this book he reviews many of his well-known ideas about dinosaur physiology, feeding habits, running ability, taxonomy, and extinction, and offers tidbits on more minor details, e.g., whether dinosaurs had a gizzard. He writes in a colorful, even impassioned prose more akin to political rhetoric than analytic science. While this book lacks the breadth and balanced objectivity of David Norman's excellent The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (Crescent Bks., 1985), it is nevertheless important and revolutionary. Highly recommended. Walter P. Coombs, Jr., Biology Dept., Western New England Coll., Springfield, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Three cheers for the Terrible Lizards--from a world-class authority who likes nothing better than to shake the academic tree--not to mention the evolutionary tree--by generating new and ingenious theories about your favorite fossils. Bakker is best known for touting the idea that dinosaurs were warmblooded. In this magnum opus Bakker not only offers six' kinds of evidence for warmbloodedness, but also elaborates on how dinosaurs ate, ambulated and copulated; how they fought, lived, and died. He's the first to admit that a lot of what he has said has been called heresy. But he has turned more than one expert around and by the end of the book, readers may well be convinced that he's more right than wrong. Interestingly, Bakker does not back the modish theory that dinosaurs died suddenly 65 million years ago as a result of extraterrestrial collision and sky darkening. (They were well on the wane by that time, he avers, probably because of an accumulation of geological changes: inland seas dried up and widely separated species could then mix, with the potential for ecological disaster--runaway population explosions; introduction of new germs, etc.) Bakker bases his warmblooded ideas on a deep knowledge of biomechanics, metabolism, comparative anatomy and physiology. For example, bone analysis indicates rapid growth for dinosaurs--consonant with the high rates of metabolism of other warmbloods. Anatomy and fossil footprints indicate high rates of locomotion--enabling tyrannosaurs to chase prey and maintain the high calorie intake mammals require. Bakker is brilliant in piling on argument on argument to build his case and is positively skin-crawly as he describes, say, the super spikes and scimitar teeth that various dinosaurs used in defense and attack. And just in case you miss the verbal point, his drawings of fancied combat or family trees, his contemporary detailing of how a boa constrictor swallows, or a chameleon walks, are explanatory treats to behold. Incidentally, he concludes that dinosaurs belong to a class of their own. So does Bakker's book: and it's a high one. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
