Book Review
, D. B. Weishampel : The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs. Second Edition . Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, UK , 2005 , xiv+485 pp . , GB£40.00 or US$80.00 .
The interest in dinosaurs, their life, and their times is ever increasing, seemingly at an exponential rate. This is matched by the unabated pace of scientific discoveries of and about dinosaurs. New ‘dinosaur books’ are thus a sure bet for publishing success. But can the contents of this book live up to expectations of an ever more knowledgeable audience, especially in a second edition? In the case of The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs they do, and the book is much more than an updated version of the first edition.
The book contains 18 chapters divided into four parts aptly entitled ‘Setting the Stage’, ‘Ornithischia’, ‘Saurischia’ and ‘Endothermy, Environments, and Extinction’. The first part provides the reader with the framework for understanding research on dinosaurs, a necessary but enjoyable exercise because the book sets out to show how dinosaurs ‘illuminate not only the past but the present’ (quoted from the preface). We learn about the nature of fossils and the nuts and bolts of doing research on fossils (chapter 1). The temporal and physical framework is provided in chapter 2, with a discussion of Mesozoic stratigraphy, geography and climate. While this is basically the homework that needs to be done, the third chapter is of greater conceptual importance to the book because it explains how phylogeny informs much of what we have learned about dinosaurs in recent years and why sound phylogenetic hypotheses are so crucial to studying dinosaurs and other extinct life forms. Chapter 4 is more descriptive again, applying what has been learned about phylogeny reconstruction to provide the phylogenetic framework of the dinosaur radiation by exploring the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates.
Beginning on page 88, part II ‘finally’ deals with the dinosaurs themselves, providing a systematic treatment of ornithischian dinosaurs. The chapters in this part and the first two chapters of part III all follow the same outline, first discussing palaeobiology of the respective group, followed by its evolution and systematics, and the history of discovery and research. This explicit treatment of the historic aspect is important not because it provides interesting trivia but because it drives home the message of the epistemological importance of the history of science.
The treatment of the dinosaur groups in parts II and III is authoritative and current up to about 2003, including references to the bible of dinosaur research, The Dinosauria, Second Edition, edited by David Weishampel and published in 2004. I was pleased to see the modern approach to systematics that is unusual for a book for a general readership, i.e. that all taxa are defined as well as diagnosed. However, I was unable to find out whose phylogenetic analyses the diagnoses are based on. This information should have been included as footnotes.
Chapters 11 to 14 comprise the third part of the book, dealing with Saurischia, i.e. sauropodomorph and theropod dinosaurs. The origin and early evolution of birds is discussed in detail, this arguably having been the area where the most spectacular progress has been achieved since the first edition of this book. I particularly like the detail in which Archaeopteryx is discussed, providing on 20 pages a veritable primer on this icon of evolutionary biology and illustrating why Archaepoteryx is still sitting (perching?) firmly on its throne as the oldest bird, the spectacular discoveries from the Jehol Group of north-eastern China not withstanding.
The last part deals with the favourite controversies surrounding dinosaurs, thermoregulation and extinction. To a certain extent, the thermoregulation chapter is a holdover from the first edition, when much of what we wanted to know about dinosaur biology centred on this issue. The many intriguing advances on other aspects of dinosaur biology are found in the respective systematic chapters in parts II and III, making me wonder if the information in chapter 11 should not have been redistributed to these places as well, not the least in order to make the point that inquiry into dinosaur biology is not restricted to the warm blooded–cold blooded issue. The chapters on extinction are preceded by a welcome synopsis (chapter 16) of dinosaurs in time and space. The first extinction chapter (chapter 17) deals with the methods of extinction research, while the second and, befittingly, last deals with the K/T extinction per se.
In all, there are very few contentual flaws to Fastovky's and Weishamplel's book. One certainly is format-related, i.e. the lack of referencing in a book geared towards a general readership. This leads to the problem that some studies that are discussed quite specifically cannot be cited because of the format of the book. In addition, some issues receive a somewhat unbalanced coverage and points could have been made better, e.g. endemism of dinosaurs could have been discussed using the neoceratopsian radiation in western North America.
One of the really strong features of The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs are its line drawings by John Sibbick, one of the foremost dinosaur illustrators who excels here as a textbook illustrator as well. My personal favourite has to be the ‘exploded Plateosaurus’ covering p. 74–75, but there are also some very nice composite figures of line drawings and photographs. Photographs are frequently used throughout the book, but in black and white only.
Weak formal aspects of the book include the layout with its wide margins that wastes the ample space provided by the relatively large format. No apparent benefit is derived from this layout. The figure captions are hard to read, having been set in a sans-serif font and a light print. The fact that the typography of the footnotes is even worse offers little consolation. There are few errors, the figures and figure captions being most prone, such as the distribution maps. An example is Fig. 11.3 in which the caption mixes up the symbols for sauropods and prosauropods, or Fig. 4.12 in which prolacertiforms are included in Archosauria. Typographic errors are rare (but present), which is not surprising in a volume of this scope and magnitude.
In conclusion, the second edition of The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs represents a great achievement by the authors and a substantial improvement over the first edition. It must have been a real challenge to write an update of this rapidly moving field, but the book very well manages to convey the excitement of the ongoing research on dinosaurs. I recommend this book very highly to anybody interested in dinosaurs and evolution, if not as an introduction to science in general. At the same time, anybody teaching palaeontology should own a copy as well.
