ISLE OF WIGHT DINOSAURS BOOK

[<darren.naish@port.ac.uk>]

At long last, _Dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight_ is out - copies arrived
yesterday (ironically, while I was away from the university and on the
... Isle of Wight). At 433 pp. it's a weighty (though so-called 'pocket
sized') tome and is sort of half-way between being a fully academic
review and a popular book about dinosaurs. The idea is that is will
appeal to both a popular and technical audience, though be insulting to
neither. This is the 10th volume in the highly successful Field Guide to
Fossils series and is published by the Palaeontological Association.
The full reference is...

MARTILL, D. M. and NAISH, D. (eds) 2001. _Dinosaurs of the Isle of
Wight_. The Palaeontological Association, London, 433 pp.

Each chapter stands alone as a paper (see below).

Despite its size, it's only 16 UKP. Details of how to order and postage
costs etc are at the bottom of this email - I don't want this to be a
blatant advertisement but for all the work we put in I hope interested
parties will buy it. Sorry, I definitely cannot supply free copies (except
to those of you who have contributed - you know who you are). Let
me say this was not a commercial venture and neither I nor any other
author gets one penny from the sales of the book, nor from writing it.

For myself and Dave, the project was a rambling tour through much of
Britain's nineteenth-century dinosaurology - it almost felt like a
pilgrimmage as we visited Rev. Fox's grave, his old church and
cottage, handled Buckland's and Mantell's IoW specimens and visited
the locations for most of the famous IoW material - places trampled by
Fox, Hooley, Beckles and even Owen, Darwin and Tennyson. We made
multiple visits to the NHM, to Oxford, Sandown, the Brighstone
Dinosaur Farm Museum and numerous IoW field localities,
systematically went through the private collections on the IoW and
visited, or were aided and abetted by, Phil Powell, Paul Barrett, John
Martin, Paul Upchurch, Angela Milner, Jim Kirkland, John Sibbick,
Mike Benton, Ben Creisler and Denver Fowler, as well as others.

With chapters written/cowritten by Dave, myself, Stafford Howse,
Steve Hutt and Andrew Milner, the volume covers the Mesozoic
geology of the IoW, the taphonomy and preservation of the IoW
dinosaurs, the history of dinosaur science on the IoW (with useful
biographies of the characters involved - lots of collated material on
Buckland, Hulke, Fox, Beckles, Lydekker, Hooley, Swinton and
others) and, of course, discussion of the systematics, taxonomy,
ecology and morphology of all reported IoW dinosaur and pterosaur
species. We discuss all 24 (or so) valid species as well as their
synonyms and include substantial details on new material. Some
interesting tidbits include...

-- First photos of some of the very earlier IoW dinosaur material
reported. From the Buckland collection at Oxford.

-- First figuring of _Iguanodon_ vertebrae with very very unusual
pathologies (big loops of bone on the neural spines).

-- Discussion on horned dinosaurs in Europe, is _Yaverlandia_ really a
pachycephalosaur, and are heterodontosaurs actually basal
marginocephalians?

-- First figuring of MIWG.6475, a strange ulna thought by some to
belong to _Polacanthus_ (and mentioned in some Carpenter and
Kirkland papers on polacanthids), though IMHO it doesn't look
enough like an ankylosaur ulna, and MIWG.5390, a superficially
troodontid-like tooth also traditionally thought to belong to
_Polacanthus_.

-- Discussion of _Hylaeosaurus_ from the IoW: Victorian authors
referred various IoW material to this taxon.

-- IoW stegosaurs: we located BMNH 2516, the pubis suggested by
George Olshevsky to be stegosaurian. Unfortunately we couldn't
incorporate Bill Blows' new data on probable IoW stegosaur material.

-- Significant attempt at reviewing the IoW sauropods. Collation of
data on possible diplodocoid material and also revision of the
brachiosaurs, _Chondrosteosaurus_ and others.

-- Whacky ideas about coelurosaurs diversifying at the Triassic-
Jurassic boundary (aka = was Chatterjee right?).

-- New data on the small theropods. Is _Thecocoelurus_ an
oviraptorosaur? What the hell is _Calamosaurus_? Good photos of
_Aristosuchus_ and others. Where are the IoW birds,
ornithomimosaurs, troodontids etc?

-- New name for the pterosaur '_Ornithodesmus_': it's now
_Istiodactylus_ Howse, Milner and Martill in Martill and Naish. New
details of the morphology of this taxon are included here for the first
time. Given its own monotypic family (Istiodactylidae), though not
sure if this was warranted.

Figured properly for the first time is the material of _Valdosaurus
dextrapoda_ (a species we do not officially recognise), nice photos of
the _Calamosaurus_ type material and lots of new drawings of
_Neovenator_ material (from Steve's MPhil thesis). The book is very
well illustrated - lots of photos, reproductions of old woodcuts,
diagrams (each dinosaur section is decorated with little cladograms,
the dinosaurs penned by yours truly) and life restorations. The
frontispiece is a previously unpublished B&W Luis Rey scene and we
also have previously unpublished John Sibbick stuff (including a
_Polacanthus_ and a brachiosaur) as well as some of his colour
paintings. Tracy Ford has contributed various skeletal reconstructions.
I've been a bit naughty and produced a skeletal reconstruction of
_Yaverlandia_... something I'm sure I will regret.

The contents list is...

1. INTRODUCTION pp. 11-24
David M. Martill, Darren Naish and Stephen Hutt

2. THE GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT pp. 25-43
David M. Martill and Darren Naish

3. THE GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT
DINOSAURS pp. 44-48
David M. Martill and Darren Naish

4. TAPHONOMY AND PRESERVATION pp. 49-59
David M. Martill and Darren Naish

5. ORNITHOPOD DINOSAURS pp. 60-132
Darren Naish and David M. Martill

6. BONEHEADED AND HORNED DINOSAURS pp. 133-146
Darren Naish and David M. Martill

7. ARMOURED DINOSAURS: THYREOPHORANS pp. 147-184
Darren Naish and David M. Martill

8. SAURISCHIAN DINOSAURS 1: SAUROPODS pp. 185-241
Darren Naish and David M. Martill

9. SAURISCHIAN DINOSAURS 2: THEROPODS pp. 242-309
Darren Naish, Stephen Hutt and David M. Martill

10. DINOSAUR TRACE FOSSILS: FOOTPRINTS, COPROLITES
AND GASTROLITHS pp. 310-323
David M. Martill and Darren Naish

11. PTEROSAURS pp. 324-335
Stafford C. B. Howse, Andrew R. Milner and David M. Martill

12. AN AID TO THE EASY IDENTIFICATION OF THE
COMMONER WEALDEN DINOSAUR BONES pp. 336-350
David M. Martill and Darren Naish

13. A DINOSAUR TRAIL pp. 351-358
David M. Martill

There is a glossary; the references are fairly exhaustive (pp. 372-410).
At the end of the book (as well as a systematic index) is an appendix
listing all dinosaur and pterosaur specimens belonging to the Isle of
Wight Museum of Geology collections.

I might be a bit biased, but I'd say it's a must-have for those that
research Lower K dinosaurs, or for those with a serious interest in
dinosaurs. Like all published works, it's far from perfect and the more I
look the more mistakes/contradictions I see - have just noticed
Shamosaurinae is spelt Shasmosaurine (hooray, new taxon!) - but,
what can you do: we succeeded in producing a fairly significant work
in time for the opening of Dinosaur Isle, the new IoW museum
(scheduled to open August 2001).

-- Ordering/purchase info. This is reproduced from the back cover....

Please add postage costs per book as follows: UK 2.00 pounds;
Europe 3.00 pounds / Euros 6.00 surface or 4.00 pounds / Euros 8.00
airmail; Rest of World 3.00 pounds / $6.00 surface or 6.00 pounds /
$12.00 airmail. Dollar checks welcome if drawn on a US Bank.
Cheques in Euros must be drawn on a European Bank. Credit card
authorisations welcome. For orders from outside Europe the dollar
price will be used, converted to pounds sterling at the prevailing rate.
Postage for larger orders will be quoted on request.
        Dr Tim Palmer, Executive Officer, The Palaeontological
Association, IGES, University of Wales, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB,
Wales, UK. Phone/Answerphone: + 44 (0) 1970 627107; Fax: + 44
(0) 1970 622659; Secretary: + 44 (0) 1970 622643; Email:
palass@palass.org; Web: www.palass.org

--------------------

Please do NOT send requests/order details to me - I will not be able to
help. Tracy and Luis: do not buy, yours are on their way.

DARREN NAISH
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
Burnaby Building
Burnaby Road                           email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
Portsmouth UK                          tel (mobile): 0776 1372651
P01 3QL                                tel (office): 023 92842244
                                       www.palaeobiology.co.uk