This beautiful volume introduces the incredible animals that populated the planet before the Age of the Dinosaurs. Readers voyage to a time, beginning about 370 million years ago, when the first four-footed vertebrates appeared, and ending 200 million years later at the moment when the dinosaurs begin their ascent. During this time, vertebrates emerge from the sea and there appears a parade of animals, each more astonishing than the last. On this expedition, we learn how palaeontologists become detectives to understand the history of life and we discover that many widely held ideas about the evolution of species are completely false. Earth before the Dinosaurs is an entertaining and informative guide to an astonishing and little-known world.
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"This book invites you on a journey to a time before the dinosaurs; a journey into a distant past to discover animals as surprising as they are fascinating" --from the Preface
About the Author
Sebastien Steyer is paleontologist at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
Alain Beneteau is an illustrator who specializes in paleontology.
Chris Spence is a professional translator, freelance journalist, and Paris tour guide.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Despite the catchy "Dinosaurs" word of the title, the book pays scant attention to these big Stars of the evolution drama. The author's purpose is to lure the readers away from the "Terrible Lizards" and acquaint them with the equally exciting - and sometimes more successful in time and space - early amphibians and amniotes.
Well, he certainly got my attention! From the middle Devonian to the early Triassic, we get first the tetrapods' tale and their transition from an aquatic to a terrestrial existence (and back again in some cases!). And as if that evolutionary leap was not enough, then we get to the development of the great animal family of Amniotes (reptiles and from them birds and mammals), their hesitant steps away from the safety of the water environments, compliments of their hard-shelled eggs, and the first real blooming of families and genera which lead to many of today's vertebrate species.
The author is very careful in his choice of species, in order to illustrate those two evolutionary journeys. And he is adamant in his position that these transitions do not represent any kind of "progress" towards "higher goals", but rather random branching events of the tree of life and equally fascinating for that reason. All selected species are presented by fossil photos, skeletal sketches and, in the majority, excellent color illustrations - congratulations to M. A.Beneteau, the artist responsible for them. Furthermore, there are tentative hypotheses about the creatures' ecology, in order to get a better understanding of their whole world.
M. Steyer's concise and lucid text clearly aims for anyone interested in prehistoric life. It is true that, sometimes, he gets carried away with specialized vocabulary, particularly when discussing cranial or skeletal details for some of the species. But these points are few and the drawings offer a lot of help, so the reader's pleasure goes undiminished.
To put it briefly, it is a very good book for anyone interested in the History of Life on Earth, particularly because it sheds ample light to lost worlds of animal families, seldom presented or discussed, even by paleontology lovers.
Well, he certainly got my attention! From the middle Devonian to the early Triassic, we get first the tetrapods' tale and their transition from an aquatic to a terrestrial existence (and back again in some cases!). And as if that evolutionary leap was not enough, then we get to the development of the great animal family of Amniotes (reptiles and from them birds and mammals), their hesitant steps away from the safety of the water environments, compliments of their hard-shelled eggs, and the first real blooming of families and genera which lead to many of today's vertebrate species.
The author is very careful in his choice of species, in order to illustrate those two evolutionary journeys. And he is adamant in his position that these transitions do not represent any kind of "progress" towards "higher goals", but rather random branching events of the tree of life and equally fascinating for that reason. All selected species are presented by fossil photos, skeletal sketches and, in the majority, excellent color illustrations - congratulations to M. A.Beneteau, the artist responsible for them. Furthermore, there are tentative hypotheses about the creatures' ecology, in order to get a better understanding of their whole world.
M. Steyer's concise and lucid text clearly aims for anyone interested in prehistoric life. It is true that, sometimes, he gets carried away with specialized vocabulary, particularly when discussing cranial or skeletal details for some of the species. But these points are few and the drawings offer a lot of help, so the reader's pleasure goes undiminished.
To put it briefly, it is a very good book for anyone interested in the History of Life on Earth, particularly because it sheds ample light to lost worlds of animal families, seldom presented or discussed, even by paleontology lovers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars
7 reviews
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
lost in translation
30 Jun 2012
By Andrew Stiller
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book, which covers the origins and early radiation of tetrapods through the Triassic period, is marred by an inept translation.
The errors are of three types. First there are just plain mistakes, for example "New Scotland" instead of Nova Scotia. Secondly, the translator seems to have simply guessed at the English equivalents of numerous French scientific terms (as "amnios" for amnion, e.g.). Finally, issues of word order and comma placement have led to many confusing or even self-contradictory passages of the "eat, shoots, and leaves" variety.
Even stripping away the translation problems, this book is far from an ideal introduction to its subject. Steyer can't seem to decide as to the level of prior knowledge his readers should have. On the one hand, he assumes they know nothing about paleontology as a profession, while on the other he assumes they will have more than a passing familiarity with all the different bones of the basic tetrapod cranium (which are far more numerous than in the human skull). The focus of Steyer's interest clearly lies with the amphibians, and when he gets to the reptiles his coverage becomes scattershot and incomplete. His clumsy attempts to be chummy and humorous simply get in his way.
On the plus side, the book is excellently illustrated, with outline skeletons and full-color life reconstructions of a great many species, including many not previously covered in this way--at least to the best of my knowledge. My one cavil is that Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, and Ichthyostega are depicted without the bushy external gills they are known to have had.
The errors are of three types. First there are just plain mistakes, for example "New Scotland" instead of Nova Scotia. Secondly, the translator seems to have simply guessed at the English equivalents of numerous French scientific terms (as "amnios" for amnion, e.g.). Finally, issues of word order and comma placement have led to many confusing or even self-contradictory passages of the "eat, shoots, and leaves" variety.
Even stripping away the translation problems, this book is far from an ideal introduction to its subject. Steyer can't seem to decide as to the level of prior knowledge his readers should have. On the one hand, he assumes they know nothing about paleontology as a profession, while on the other he assumes they will have more than a passing familiarity with all the different bones of the basic tetrapod cranium (which are far more numerous than in the human skull). The focus of Steyer's interest clearly lies with the amphibians, and when he gets to the reptiles his coverage becomes scattershot and incomplete. His clumsy attempts to be chummy and humorous simply get in his way.
On the plus side, the book is excellently illustrated, with outline skeletons and full-color life reconstructions of a great many species, including many not previously covered in this way--at least to the best of my knowledge. My one cavil is that Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, and Ichthyostega are depicted without the bushy external gills they are known to have had.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good coverage of a long ignored period
5 Jun 2012
By Terry Sofian
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This work covers the groups of animals that existed prior to the more familiar dinosaurs. Many of these lineages are extinct, having been wiped out by the end Permian event, and most are generally less well publicized than the animals that came to rule the world later. The book is extremely well illustrated and brings out the diversity of forms that these groups exihibited. Even a quick browse will excite the readers with a wide range of swimming, crawing, running and gliding animals. Highly enjoyable and well worth adding to any collection on prehistoric animals.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Exciting Look at a Little Known World
2 July 2012
By Dr. John W. Rippon
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm an avid "Dinophile" and have read dozens of books about them and paleontology and geology in general. In recent times I have been intrigued by the discoveries in the advent of tetrapods adapting from aquatic existance to terrestrial life. This has been a fairly unknown and understudied area until recently. The discovery of Tiktaalik and other related "tetrapodomorphs" has done much to clearify this area of study and shows it to be a fascinating area of research. I read with great interest J. Clack's "Gaining Ground" and she now has a second edition in print. This whole field has suddenly become a scene of intence interest. For that reason Dr. Steyer's book is of great use for the devoted amateur that gives us an overview of some of the confusing recent findings. He spends much time in discussing the proposed evolution of tetrapodomorphs to tetrapods and why the distinction is made. This is the key value of the book and has at least given his readers a background for works to come. The rest of the book gives light to a mostly ignored area of terrestrial life; early tetrapods, amphibians and early, often highly specialized, little reptiles before the big dinos took over. As another reviwer noted you will need to refer to your Comparative Anatomy books for reference to this bone and that digit, but that's part of the fun of reading science books afterall. Yes some of the opinions expressed by the author I think are challengeable and no doubt will be altered. (How many times has this occurred in Paleontology?) But I loved the book and will refer to it often. The illustrations are really great; color, sketches, diagrams and the "live" pictures take you there and are beautifully done.
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