Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures

[Requiem28]

*Sperm whales

[judge death]

Is now looking for advice's on good dino books/prehistoric life so is looking for your help.

I prefer very detailed books with pictures whcih shows how they think dinos looked like since most books I find is from the 80s and older and is outdated. I also like size comparisons and new discoveries and facts and also from which ancestors they and animals to this day evolved from and theories about their lifes and death. But I dont want a super detailed one which is very dry to read.

So far this is the best book I have found:
http://www.pdfmagazines.org/uploads/posts/2012-05/1338495997_3.jpg

I also liked this book:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/images/1032/great-extinctions-book-image-cover-118716-1.jpg

Any suggestions?

[DoomRulz]

http://www.amazon.ca/Dinosaurs-Complete-Up---Date-Encyclopedia/dp/0375824197/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392310051&sr=8-2&keywords=thomas+holtz%5C

[Vertigo]

I've actually considered writing my own dinosaur book for my nephew, as I don't know which books out there would be at a casual level without dumbing everything down, skewing facts, spouting opinions I don't agree with, or generally being outdated (which happens in 5-10 years at the moment, the current rate of progression in the science is totally unprecedented).

Doom, I love that a few scrolls down the preview of the book you linked is an image of Scrotum humanum. ^_^
Holtz is definitely a high-grade palaeontologist though, and my understanding is that he writes at a broadly understandable level. So that'd probably be a good book to try. Luis Rey's artwork tends to be a little out-there, but generally not beyond the realm of possibility.

[DoomRulz]

Your own book, really? Damn. Are you a palaeontologist as well?

[Vertigo]

Nope, just spent a ton of time incapacitated with nothing to do but sponge up knowledge of things I'm passionate about. It's not like I'd be publishing it! For starters I'd need to snip most of the pictures from Deviantart, unsolicited. ;P

[Immortan Jonesy]

I like big dromaeosaurs like Utahraptor or Austroraptor

[DoomRulz]

Nope, just spent a ton of time incapacitated with nothing to do but sponge up knowledge of things I'm passionate about. It's not like I'd be publishing it! For starters I'd need to snip most of the pictures from Deviantart, unsolicited. ;P

Well, keep it up. Knowledge is power. I'm guessing you're like me when you go to a museum. You give your friends tours in the dinosaur gallery, say waaaaaaaaay too much, then have strangers come up to you and ask if you're a guide?

[Vertigo]

Well, keep it up. Knowledge is power. I'm guessing you're like me when you go to a museum. You give your friends tours in the dinosaur gallery, say waaaaaaaaay too much, then have strangers come up to you and ask if you're a guide?

Well, you're not the first person to ask if I'm a palaeontologist... When I'm at a museum looking at an extinct animal though, I'm generally occupied reconstructing my mental picture of what it was like, and searching for any new observations I can add into that picture; I tend to forget I'm with anyone.
It is great having that information though, isn't it? You see these places in a whole different light.

I like big dromaeosaurs like Utahraptor or Austroraptor

http://i.imgur.com/S528QQd.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7MKrew7.jpg

Interesting to note, Austroraptor (which I think those are illustrating) is part of a highly distinct dromaeosaurid group exclusive to South America (and possibly Madagascar, though I think that particular animal is a bit of a reach). All of them had very shallow and long snouts, and lived (highly successfully) alongside a wide range of other predators.
I've just been reading Matthew Martyniuk's book about Mesozoic birds and advanced maniraptorans, and it did a great job of putting the group (unenlagiinae) into context. It seems these dromies were specialised for preying on fish - explaining their spearlike jaws. They were originally small enough to avoid competition with the spinosaurids that dominated waterways in the region, but after the spinos went into decline, some unenlagiines like Austroraptor grew vastly larger, to fill the vacant niche that the superpredators left behind.

It's a similar story with Utahraptor, which appeared to take advantage of allosaurid extinction in the area; the giant dromies then disappeared from North America when carcharodontosaurids moved in.
Seems to be paralleling the more recent story of large flightless birds, which take up the apex predator role if it's left empty, but tend to vanish quite quickly if another group of predators move in (big cats and wolves outcompeting the terror birds in South America, for example). The impression is that they can fill the niche, but their ancestral evolution is too derived and specific for them to excel at it.

[DoomRulz]

Well, keep it up. Knowledge is power. I'm guessing you're like me when you go to a museum. You give your friends tours in the dinosaur gallery, say waaaaaaaaay too much, then have strangers come up to you and ask if you're a guide?

Well, you're not the first person to ask if I'm a palaeontologist... When I'm at a museum looking at an extinct animal though, I'm generally occupied reconstructing my mental picture of what it was like, and searching for any new observations I can add into that picture; I tend to forget I'm with anyone.
It is great having that information though, isn't it? You see these places in a whole different light.

'ken oath. I always picture where the organs were, how the muscles fit onto it, what its locomotion was like, what colour was it, in the case of theropods how many feathers did it have, what sounds did it make...

:')

I like big dromaeosaurs like Utahraptor or Austroraptor

http://i.imgur.com/S528QQd.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7MKrew7.jpg

Interesting to note, Austroraptor (which I think those are illustrating) is part of a highly distinct dromaeosaurid group exclusive to South America (and possibly Madagascar, though I think that particular animal is a bit of a reach). All of them had very shallow and long snouts, and lived (highly successfully) alongside a wide range of other predators.
I've just been reading Matthew Martyniuk's book about Mesozoic birds and advanced maniraptorans, and it did a great job of putting the group (unenlagiinae) into context. It seems these dromies were specialised for preying on fish - explaining their spearlike jaws. They were originally small enough to avoid competition with the spinosaurids that dominated waterways in the region, but after the spinos went into decline, some unenlagiines like Austroraptor grew vastly larger, to fill the vacant niche that the superpredators left behind.

It's a similar story with Utahraptor, which appeared to take advantage of allosaurid extinction in the area; the giant dromies then disappeared from North America when carcharodontosaurids moved in.
Seems to be paralleling the more recent story of large flightless birds, which take up the apex predator role if it's left empty, but tend to vanish quite quickly if another group of predators move in (big cats and wolves outcompeting the terror birds in South America, for example). The impression is that they can fill the niche, but their ancestral evolution is too derived and specific for them to excel at it.

Fish-eating dromies? Damn, never saw that one coming. Also, which carcharodontosaurids were in NA?

On a different note, enjoy this absolutely f**king beautiful drawing by Frank Lode of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

[judge death]

http://www.amazon.ca/Dinosaurs-Complete-Up---Date-Encyclopedia/dp/0375824197/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392310051&sr=8-2&keywords=thomas+holtz%5C

Thanks so much! Gonna try that one out

[Vertigo]

Also, which carcharodontosaurids were in NA?

That'd be Acrocanthosaurus. Carchies then apparently vanished from the continent, with recently discovered Siats the neovenatorid taking their place. Tyrannosaurids popped up 20 million years later, but we have no idea what (if anything) held the giant predator niche during the interim.

[DoomRulz]

I'm pretty sure smaller tyrannosaurids did. Didn't Lythronax appear right around the same time? Or was Siats already gone by then?

[Requiem28]

Fantastic!

[Vertigo]

I'm pretty sure smaller tyrannosaurids did. Didn't Lythronax appear right around the same time? Or was Siats already gone by then?

Just under 20 Ma after Siats.

We're not really sure what the tyrannosauroid family was up to at the time, there aren't any major finds for them anywhere throughout the middle of the Cretaceous. Only fragmentary remains prove they even existed in North America before the evolution of true tyrannosaurids (of which Lythronax is the earliest known example).

:edit: To clarify the fragmentary remains. One is Stokesosaurus from the Jurassic (70Ma before Lythronax), known from a hipbone, some vertebrae and a braincase.
The more interesting examples are teeth, which indicate something very similar or identical to Asian Xiongguanlong, around 112Ma (contemporaneous with Acrocanthosaurus). The animal's quite big for an earlyish tyrannosauroid, just under 300kg, but not exactly challenging for the apex predator role.