Book review: When Dinos Dawned….

I would have put the full title of the book in the title of of the post, but frankly I thought it might end up filling the whole page. “When Dinos Dawned, Mammals got Munched & Pterosaurs took Flight: a Cartoon Prehistory of Life in the Triassic” is probably one of the longest titles going, but this is perhaps the only real criticism I can have of this book.

This entry is the latest in a series for National Geographic by author / artist Hannah Bonner. It’s aimed at children quite clearly, but I think there’s enough depth to be of interest to adults and bring a little enlightenment to even knowledgeable readers. The science is basically perfect, and the material is presented in a fun and accessible manner. The drawings are simple in style, but extremely accurate in terms of anatomy and settings and nicely executed – there are ‘cartoon’ style animals for various panels, but the majority of the content is more like the cover shown here.

The Triassic is of course a time when lots of interesting things were happening. While perhaps understandably most books like this would focus on dinosaurs and by extension the Jurassic and Cretaceous, there is a lot more to the Mesozoic than just dinosaurs and the Triassic has most of that covered. Odd crocs, aetosaurs, phytosaurs, the first pterosaurs, the first icthyosaurs, prolacertiforms and the weirdness that is things like Longisquama. A lot of these are unlikely to be on the radar of a young dinosaur enthusiast, so this really helps fill in the picture of what was going on in terms of evolution and the changing faunas.

Obviously the reptiles get to dominate this, but mammals, insects and even plants get a decent look-in and are put in context of what was going on. It was also good to see lots of more obscure things get a look in – even books that do cover aetosaurs or the like will often include a token animal – I certainly can’t think of any previous effort that covered three (count them!) drepanosaurs. When the rhynchosaurs, Panphagia, Lotosaurus, Odontochelys and Proterosuchus also get a mention and are illustrated, well it’s just lovely.

At this point I should probably note that I’m reviewing this because I was lucky enough to be sent a preview copy. My colleague Corwin Sullivan played a major role as a consultant on this book given his work on various Triassic critters and Hannah also contacted me during her research (but I don’t recall even giving her any specific help in the end). Still, she was kind enough to arrange for me to get a free copy and I’ll gladly cover it here (especially after I spotted a reference to the Musings in a list of useful websites in the back). Certainly the accuracy is to Corwin’s credit for his advice and to Hannah’s for taking it, and the book certainly benefits as a result.

Overall though this is an excellent effort with much to recommend about it – good science, nice art, a great theme and well written. While I’d imagine the market is a little limited, this is going to go down very will with all kinds of kids who like their dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasties but want to know more and have more than enough books discussing Diplodocus and Tyrannosaurus. Great stuff.