John Pickrell

This is the second of John Pickrell's books I have read, the first being [b:Flying Dinosaurs: How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds|23093880|Flying Dinosaurs How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds|John Pickrell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413131535s/23093880.jpg|41727402]. Weird Dinosaurs is very good and is a well put together overview of the many current digs and the odd and surprising dinosaurs that have been discovered.

Is it any surprise really? They were around for millions of years and, just like every other animal on earth, they evolved and adapted to and for the environments of their times. The distribution of fossil dinosaurs revealed in this book ranges from Siberia to Patagonia to Madagascar and the Antarctic. There is a new golden age of fossil finds and dinosaur research that is really expanding our knowledge.

Pickrell, as a science writer, crafts an interesting book for the layman reader or even for someone like myself, who has been reading about dinosaurs for 40 years. I just can't help myself, I have at least a shelf's worth of books just about dinosaurs ranging from college-level texts to popular science books by paleontologists like Jack Horner, Robert Bakker and more. Some childhood fascinations just don't go away.
… (mer)

When I started this book after about 25 pages or so I was inclined to set it aside as it didn't seem to be telling me enough that I didn't already know. However, things pick up quickly and Pickrell has a lot to say about the metabolic and structural relationships between dinosaurs and modern birds, the contributions of Chinese researchers, the modern problem of fake fossils, and other issues. Pickrell ends on the note of contemplating how birds were able to survive the great Cretaceous extinction and, more interestingly, why small dinosaurs did not.… (mer)