Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Tell the Publisher!
I�d like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Simon and Schuster Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures: A Visual Who's Who of Prehistoric Life [Hardcover]

Douglas Palmer (Author), R.J.G. Savage (Author), Brian Gardiner (Author), Barry Cox (Editor)

Available from these sellers.

Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details.

› See more product promotions

Product details

Hardcover: 312 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Revised edition edition (26 Oct 1999)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0684864118
ISBN-13: 978-0684864112
Product Dimensions: 29.2 x 23.6 x 3 cm
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,138,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Douglas Palmer Page

Product Description

An unmatched reference work distinguished by its erudition and beauty, "The Simon & Schuster Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures" is an illustrated who's who of prehistoric life, a Baedeker of more than 500 million years of evolution on Earth.

With entries for more than 600 species, each arranged in its evolutionary sequence, the book presents a panorama of enormous diversity, from predatory dinosaurs to primitive amphibians, from giant armored fish to woolly mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and dire wolves. Each entry features a specially commissioned full-color painting prepared according to the best research of today in close collaboration with world-renowned paleontologists. The records of the rocks -- fossil bones, teeth, skin, hair and even footprints and nests -- have been combined with knowledge of the anatomy and behavior of present-day descendants to arrive at informed judgments about posture, color and other aspects of appearance.

Lively and informative "biographies" of the creatures accompany these remarkable illustrations: how they moved, what they ate, where they ranged and the habitats and ecological niches they occupied. Comparisons are made wherever possible with familiar living animals, highlighting both the contrasts and similarities. Also included are articles on subjects such as the time scale of evolution, fossil formation and interpretation and convergent evolution.

Truly a magnificent sourcebook, "The Simon & Schuster Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures" is both a triumph of scholarship and a work of art. It will stand as the best and most accurate presentation of the prehistoric animal world available.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
The first known fossil animal to show the beginnings of vertebrate characteristics is Pikaia, which dates from mid-Cambrian times, around 535 million years ago. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items.

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 7 reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

Engaging at first, but then the flaws ... 4 July 2000

By Maine Writer - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book looked great at first, but then, on closer inspection, the drawings are second-rate, the information is thin, and the inaccuracies mount. Yet, there are no real alternatives that seek to comprehensively catalogue ancient life. I'd still buy it, but my enthusiasm has waned.

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful

On the second thought... 23 Feb 2000

By Alex - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Hardcover

Several months after acquiring the book I leaf through it and wonder how I could have given it such a high rating as I did. It has flaws throughout!

- The book appears to have a drastic shortage of species to list - it is only half as thick as Simon and Schuster's Encyclopedia of Animals - despite the fact that on numerous occasions they list but one or two species from a thirty-species family;

- The art is severely degraded from the above mentioned encyclopedia of animals. While I can see the puzzlement concerning the colors of the creatures' hides, there is no excuse for the the sloppy drawings of several of the animals! If you make a conjecture, please, be sure to follow through! On several of the animals the hair cover fails to obey the laws of physics, and most of the amphibians look like a horrid joke.

- The information is sketchy at best - on numerous occasions special biological mechanisms are mentioned (like a new jaw bone arrangement for the fishes, and the skull structures of the early land animals), yet are never explained in function. Almost all species are captioned with the basics like weight and dimensions followed with senseless filler.

- The between-section class summarizations and the cladistic graphs are also very, very basic. While I understand that the book was not intended for specialists, even the basic layman will find the charts a bit "dumbed down".

This book is flashy and artful, but lacking, lacking a great lot.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

An engrossing and informative volume for laymen or experts 8 Feb 2005

By Alexander M. Moir - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Hardcover

This volume is the best one I've found on prehistoric creatures. Having always been fascinated by them, I wanted as an adult to find something to broaden the base I'd built as a kid obsessed with Tyrannosaurus and trilobites. Though I'm far from a paleontologist or even a biologist (my own training is in anthropology and linguistics) I find this book a pleasure to browse and consult.

Beginning with the earliest worm-like organisms and evolving through the early fish, amphibians and armored sea creatures, the book continues on up through dinosaurs, Pleistocene megafauna and finally simians and hominids. The desciptions are brief but seem informative, but it is the quality of the artwork that I value most. I never tire of looking at the colorful depictions of the denizens of Devonian swamps, Ordovician seas and Jurassic forests.

So, while I cannot pretend to be an authority, and though I certainly must defer some credibility and ask that you look at my review in conjunction with those of my fellow critics who disagree, I offer my personal recommendation on this book to any person interested in prehistoric life and what it must have been like.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 7 reviews

Were these reviews helpful? Let us know

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }