Redartz: Anyone catch the news this week about the remarkable fossil find? An actual dinosaur's tail (or part of one, anyway) actually preserved in amber; bones, soft tissues, and even the feathers. Truly an amazing specimen, and fascinating to any longtime dinosaur buff. It got me thinking back (not as far as the Mesozoic, only to the Bronze Age), to when I'd hungrily devour any book available about dinosaurs.
One of the first such I acquired was "Dinosaurs and More Dinosaurs", a paperback from Scholastic Books. Yes, it was ordered through one of those much beloved school book club bulletins, and I counted the days until it arrived. And I wasn't disappointed: it had some very dramatic black and white painted illustrations of a wide range of dinosaurs, presented chronologically through the eras. I first met Pachycephalosaurus through that book- loved the name, and the spelling (yes, Dino geek cred established).
My Elementary School was also the source for another favorite: "All About Dinosaurs" by Roy Chapman Andrews. In fact, I checked that book out from the school library so often that they ended up telling me not to borrow it any more so that someone else could have a chance at it. That book told the tale of Andrew's adventures in the Gobi Desert, hunting dinosaurs. Aside from superheroics, I couldn't imagine a better career goal.
Of course, that book had to be returned to the library. So to fill my home shelf with dinosaurian doggerel. I went to the local supermarket of all places. At the time, early 70's, there was a series of books called "How and Why Wonder Books" that were sold off a rack , actually next to the comic spinner rack. These books covered a wide range of subjects from nature to history, but the majority were focused on science. Of course, the edition devoted to "Dinosaurs" was the first one I hunted out. Other volumes I picked up included Prehistoric Man and Prehistoric Mammals...
A few years later, in high school, I made a trip to the local used bookstore where I regularly hunted through the dime stacks of comics (oh, for those lost days). On one trip I found this book: "The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs" by Adrian Desmond. Up to then, my understanding of those Mesozoic Mights followed the old preconception of them as dull, slow moving and slow witted. This book exposed me to the new theories and research of such paleontologists as Robert Bakker. These theories suggested that the dinosaurs may have been warm blooded like birds, and much more active and intelligent than previously thought. T-Rex and company suddenly became even more intriguing to me.
These books satisfied the inquisitive thirst in my youthful brain for facts about all those ancient wonders. Even more, they whetted my appetite for more; leading to a fascination for paleontology that lasts to this day. I once had the great pleasure to meet Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, who wrote numerous fascinating books on the subject. I still make it a point to visit the fossils at the Field Museum upon making a trip to Chicago. I had another great pleasure in taking my father and my youngest son with me on a fossil hunt in southern Indiana one day. And that bucket list of mine still includes a trip to Montana to join a dinosaur dig. One day...
Perhaps some of you have shared this interest with our long-vanished friends (who, more accurately, are still with us as birds). Maybe you had a few of these books on your shelf. Here are a few more that graced the rooms of my sons, or simply attracted my attention at the time. Any other old bone buffs out there?
21 comments:
Yes, I'm another huge dinosaur fan and I also saw that story about the feathered dinosaur tail in amber which was just amazing - perfectly preserved after 99 million years and there were little insects in there too. The first book about dinosaurs I can remember owning was called "Dinosaurs Of The Earth" when I was about nine. And I know all about Roy Chapman Andrews and his expeditions to the Gobi desert because there was a TV program about it in the early '90s. Some other fascinating TV shows about dinosaurs (and other prehistoric life) that I've watched include "Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives" from 1989, "Walking With Dinosaurs" from 1999 and "First Life" from 2010 - all three narrated by the great David Attenborough. But I'm interested in all kinds of prehistoric life and talking of Stephen Jay Gould, I've read his 1990 book "Wonderful Life" about the creatures of the Burgess Shale that lived about 530 million years ago just after the "Cambrian Explosion". Basically, anything to do with dinosaurs or prehistoric life - even as recently as the last ice age - and I'm hooked. Oh, and the first film I ever saw at the cinema when I was seven was called "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth". By the way, Redartz, you didn't say what fossils you found when you went on that fossil hunt with your father and son :)
Like Colin, I loved dinosaurs as a kid. I'm not sure what fascinated me so - I guess just the idea that these giant beasts roamed the Earth. I remember some of the books pictured but don't have the depth of knowledge about the archeologists and authors that others do.
I do remember collecting the dinosaur coins from Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles. I think I had them all. I always liked the stegosaurus and triceratops the best.
Hm, my comment got eaten...
Colin Jones- Like you, I have great interest in all prehistoric life. The book you mentioned, "Wonderful Life" is excellent reading. Truly remarkable learning of all those strange creatures. Anomalocaris comes to mind, very odd. By the way, at that event I mentioned above, Dr. Gould was kind enough to sign my copy of "Wonderful Life"; it still holds an honored position on the bookshelf.
Oh, and as for the fossil hunt- we scoured a road cut near Cincinnati, Ohio with an amateur rockhound club. Found countless brachiopods, shells and coral, also bryozoans. All very well preserved. I also was ecstatic to find a small trilobite. There's nothing like the experience of cracking open a rock and seeing a fossil inside; something that hasn't seen light for millenia...
Edo- don't know why your comment hasn't shown up on here today. I'll see if I can track it down. You mentioned Charles Knight- his work includes the famed mural in the American Museum. Another dino artist who deserves mention is John Gurche. His cover for Robert Bakker's "Dinosaur Heresies" is breathtaking.
Marti- those coins would have been very cool, I missed those! And Stegosaurus topped my list,too...
I had that very same How and Why book! Read it until the cover split along the spine.
Doug
Here, folks, are Edo's comments from previously; apparently lost to the blogger ether...
Edo: You better believe I was into dinos and all things prehistoric from the first grade onward, when I checked a book out of the school library with some cool looking monsters and one of the first big images inside was this one of a brontosaurus (yeah, I know we don't call them that anymore, but that's what it was called in the book). This image remained burned into my memory since, and years later, thanks to the internet, I was able to find out that the artist's name was Charles Knight, and his illustrations were used in that and many other books. Another artist who also formed my mental image of dinosaurs back then was a Czech painter named Zdenek Burian, whose illustrations also appeared in many of those prehistoric life children's books (check the gallery in that link, I'm sure many of you also saw that guy's work if you were into dinosaurs back then).
Like you, Redartz, I was also constantly checking those books out of the library, and, yes, my school library had a bunch of books by Roy Chapman Andrews, all of which I read voraciously from cover to cover. Like Colin notes, his accounts of his expeditions to the Gobi Desert were captivating, and I was all set to become a paleontologist at one point. Of course, other interests cropped up so that goal got left by the wayside, but my fascination with all things prehistoric has never left me, so I my mind was suitable blown by that partial tail in amber - and it makes me wish that some day someone will stumble onto a bigger chunk of amber with most or all of the body of one of the small-sized dinos in it...
Hey, thanks for finding that comment, Redartz!
And yeesh, I really should proof read those before clicking publish - that last sentence, oh, man...
By the way, I had some embedded links in the comment, which may have been the reason it got chewed up or blocked or whatever, here's the one for the Burian gallery I mentioned (unembedded): http://www.zdenekburian.com/cz/galerie/category/9-paleontologie.
The bronto image by Charles Knight can be found by going to the Wikipedia entry on him and scrolling down a little. It's the one with the big bronto in the water craning its neck.
I went through a "dinosaur phase" too as a kid, although it didn't last long. I remember those "How and Why" books; I didn't have that particular one, but I had a few others including one on Extinct Animals with some plastic-looking dinosaurs on the cover. In fact, I think I still have that book somewhere ...
Mike Wilson
Edo- thanks for the link on that Burian Gallery. Very sharp work; pretty sure I have seen some of those images before.
I hail from fossil country (South Dakota, currently experiencing a wonderful natural phenomenon known as a polar vortex) and they found the most complete set of T-Rex fossils, around 80%, out in the western half of the state. It was dubbed Sue, female I guess, named after the paleontologist who found her, or it, IIRC.
They had a replica of it's skeleton set up at the local museum, and, I mean, sheesh. It was horizontal, maybe 40 or so feet from head to tip of tail and I dunno, 12 feet or more from foot to head. It kind of looked like a cat from hell, and could have eaten me like a poptart.
Of course, everybody who goes to N.Y.C. should check out their museum, too! Holy moly.
I had me some toy dinosaurs when I was a kid too, and it's hard not to feel like a kid again when you see that stuff. Great post!
M.P.
M.P. I think it is Sue who is in the main lobby of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. When you stand next to it you can really get a feel for its tremendous size. Crazy how big those things were. It is pretty cool to think those things roamed the Badlands. Didn't they also find a fairly well preserved Wooly Mammoth somewhere recently - maybe my imagination.
And Red, I still call them, "brontosauruses.". Cannot shake the habit and probably never will.
M.P.- Keep warm up there!
Toy dinosaurs ; great then and great now. There was a nice little set from Marx toys, I found them in my stocking one Christmas. The Brontosaurus (right, Marti?) was huge, almost a for long. Do you recall much about yours?
And currently: just saw some really sharp Dino figures the other day at the store. I believe the brand name was Schleich. Asked my wife to tell Santa about them...
I had that How and Why book, as well as one of those pop-up books on Dinosaurs. I still have the latter, but I think the former disintegrated like Doug's. Great post!
Count me on on those people who love dinosaurs, I loved them as a kid and I still love them up to this day. I guess the recent discovery of a well preserved feathered tail in amber after all these millions of years is like winning the lottery to palaeontologists. I personally hope that they find more well preserved fossils so that we can discover more about our dino friends.
Yeah, it's funny how dinosaurs are not technically extinct since their descendants live on in the form of birds. I always joke about eating a lot of dinosaurs all the time (KFC)!
- Mike 'Godzilla rules' from Trinidad & Tobago.
I was given a copy of the How & Why Book of Dinosaurs when I was just three or four years old, by our neighbors.
That was in the mid-60s, and yet I still remember them showing it to me over the fence... I no longer have that copy but have since picked it up again, along with hundreds of other books about prehistoric animals.
They say our interests form early.... I think they're right!
That is true, isn't it Glen. We may have to discuss earliest memories in a post sometime. It is funny how those things can stick with a person all those years and have the details and feelings retained.
Hi Martin,
Another one of my earliest memories is of watching Batman and Lost in Space on TV, also back in 1966/67.
Formative indeed!
Glen- "hundreds of other books"? Wow, you must have the best dinosaur archive outside of the Museum of the Rockies! And that year, 66/67, was memorable in many ways...
Redartz, I do indeed have literally hundreds of dinosaur books, as well as dozens of magazines, DVDs, Blu-rays and figurines. I'm also a dino artist, and I currently live next to a dinosaur museum.
I remember almost three decades ago picking out a dino book at a store, and my wife remaking 'Don't you already have a book about dinosaurs?'
Funny, funny stuff!
As for the mid-late 60s, that was the greatest time for TV, comics (Kirby Thor and FF) and pop music. I'm probably very biased but that's my firmly held view.
I had that book with the Bronto on the cover, Dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles, dating from the early 70s. Back then I was fascinated by dinosaurs, and animals in general, even reading Darwin's Origins of Species when I was 9 years old. And as an adult I managed to keep up with most of the new info, including that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs, that great carnivorous dinosaurs did not really walk with their tails dragging on the ground and that many, maybe most dinosaurs, had feathers.
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