Re: The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs

[Daniel Bensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>]

I got the Scientific American book for Christmas and spent the Christmas
break reading it, and I am happy to say that this is the best dinosaur
book since The Ultimate Dinosaur (perhaps better; certainly more
up-to-date).


>>Somewhere between submission and printing errors crept into my own and

other chapters, particularly with regards to figure captions.  <<
HP Thomas Holtz's essay was one of the chapters I especially enjoyed.  I
now know almost enough about cladistics to follow the discussions of
this listserve.

>>Also, there is no index for the book in the current edition.<<
There most certainly is not.

I was a little disappointed with the skeletal diagrams at the end of the
book, mostly because my expectations were so high.  The illustrations
were _tiny_ in a effort to keep them to scale (I would simply have put a
scale bar underneath each figure) and there weren't nearly as many as I
hoped for.  The ceratopsians are missing completely.  I think HP Gregory
Paul should publish some sort of cheap pamphlet with all of his skeletal
diagrams in it.  Give the people what they want.

BTW: I noticed a new dinosaur book: In the Presence of Dinosaurs.  I
looked at the book briefly and it seems to mimic the national
geographic-type nature books, with big glossy photos (paintings) of
dinosaurs doing interesting things.  Sort of a book form of Walking with
Dinosaurs.  I didn't have much time to read the text, however, and
wondered if I should bother buying the thing.

Dan