Synopsis
How scientists are unravelling one of the most tantalizing questions in paleontology
Our understanding of dinosaur behavior has long been hampered by the inevitable lack of evidence from animals that went extinct more than sixty-five million years ago and whose daily behaviors are rarely reflected by the fossil record. Today, with the discovery of new specimens and the development of new and cutting-edge techniques, paleontologists are making major advances in reconstructing how dinosaurs lived and acted. Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior provides an unparalleled look at this emerging field of science, presenting the latest findings on dinosaur behavior and explaining how researchers interpret the often minimal and even conflicting information available to them.
David Hone begins by introducing readers to the fundamentals of dinosaur biology, diversity, and evolution, and goes on to describe behaviors across the whole range of species and groups, from feeding and communication to reproduction, sociality, and combat. Speculation about dinosaur behavior goes back to the earliest scientific studies of these “terrible lizards.” Hone traces how pioneering science is opening a window into prehistoric life as never before, and discusses future directions of research in this thrilling and rapidly growing area of paleontology.
Written by one of the world’s leading dinosaur experts and featuring accurate color recreations by paleoartist Gabriel Ugueto along with a wealth of photos and diagrams, Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior is a foundational work on the subject and an invaluable reference for anyone interested in these amazing creatures.
Review
A little outside the usual FanFi genres, but this one really had me thinking of Loreland Bestiary by Hope Christofferson, so I wanted to share here. While dinosaurs may not be mythological beasts, you’ll see from my review that from what little we know, they might as well be. Also, have you ever wondered if what spawned these mythological beasts were people finding fossils?
Huge thanks to Princeton University Press, NetGalley, and HighBridge Audio for the ARC. Graham Mack did a solid job, with a studious voice to match the subject matter. Although I wish I owned a physical so that I could have followed along with the examples!
Every once in a while, I find myself in need of something nonfiction to really clean the palette. But if I can manage to do so while also learning about dinosaurs, that’s even better. So when I saw the audio on NetGalley, I had to request it. The thing that struck me first and foremost about this, was the author’s aim to give as realistic of a viewing of dinosaurs as possible. While the date of when the first dinosaur fossil was discovered is often debated, did you know that we’ve learned shockingly little since then?
Of course for years people have heard that the dinosaurs on display in the Jurassic Park series are not entirely accurate. The type of raptors they claimed they were for example would be shorter and much more feathered apparently. Then there’s the even less believable movie, 65, starring Adam Driver, that not only showed a slew of dinosaurs together that were not even alive at the same time, but also seemingly made up their own as well. But did you know that shows the likes of Netflix’s Life On Our Planet, and Apple’s Prehistoric Planet aren’t entirely accurate either?
Due to the fact that none of these creatures still exist, it means that none of them can ever truly be studied, and therefore scientists are left with tons of guess work, inferring, and extrapolating. Most of which, has lead to what is considered to be correct today, but as the author points out, could just as easily be disproved tomorrow. The author points out how Trex eggs and nests have never been found, so not only do we not truly know how they mated and reproduced, but we cannot truly know if they guarded their nests or protected their young. Nor can we know if a single parent stayed or both (something popularized in The Lost World…). It just goes to show how little we really know. Even the concepts on group behavior could easily be disproved as the author points out that we cannot even prove that this was standard practice, something coming together due to happenstance, or tracks fossilized over time that weren’t even a group, just different passerby.
The author does a good job of displaying what we know and how we know it, while not knocking the thousands of others that have tried to learn more. As technology changes, and more fossils are inevitably discovered, that knowledge and guessing will continue on ad nauseam. It’s incredible to me just how much goes into, and how hard it is, being a scientist of any kind of.
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