The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs - Review

 

 

Synopsis -

‘66 million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth. Today a new generation of dinosaur hunters, armed with cutting edge technology, is piecing together the complete story of how the dinosaurs created a hugely successful empire that lasted for around 150 million years.
In this hugely ambitious and engrossing story of how dinosaurs rose to dominate the planet, using the fossil clues that have been gathered using state of the art technology, Steve Brusatte, one of the world’s leading paleontologists, follows these magnificent creatures from the Early Triassic period at the start of their evolution, through the Jurassic period to their final days in the Cretaceous' and the legacy that they left behind.’

Review -

This book is a brilliant insight into a whole new prehistoric world, filled to the brim with incredible facts and photos and written by an expert in the field.

What I really love about this book is that it gives dinosaurs the limelight, but also explains a lot about the environment and landscape of the earth millions of years ago, detailing how it changed through each era and how this influenced the evolution of dinosaurs and helped them in their way to world domination.

The book explains how the famous dinosaurs you know and love (T.Rex, velociraptor, diplodocus) evolved over millions of years from very different animals, there’s so much more to learn about the genealogy and phylogeny of these species and how they are all related. For example, you may also be surprised to find out that the well-known T.Rex was not even fully evolved during the Jurassic period- most of the well-known dinos coexisted in the Cretaceous period! Even more interesting is how the dinosaurs are related to species living on our Earth today - birds! And how the ancestors of crocodiles competed with dinosaurs in their early days!

Rise & Fall of the Dinosaurs also gives a great insight into what it’s like to be a paleontologist, or essentially, a dinosaur hunter. Brusatte explains how methods of studying fossils have developed over time and how this has changed our understanding of how dinosaurs lived and behaved.

This book is well written, with facts that are well spread out so that you don’t feel like it’s an info dump and can actually digest all the information. Brusatte also uses lots of comparisons to modern animals and anecdotes to help you to understand topics that are fairly complex to the average person.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and learnt a lot. I especially liked how well-rounded it was, incorporating information about all parts of the prehistoric world to make you fully understand the world that dinosaurs lived in.

Rating - 8/10