Book Review #5

So this review is going to be a little bit different. The prior 4 reviews had been books that I had read purely for enjoyment this meant that the review was based primarily on how much I enjoyed the book. This book was read so I could more easily catch up on the data as far as the current state of affairs in the study of pterosaurs. The book was The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time by Dr. David M. Unwin.

For those of you who haven't figured out what this book is about it is clearly, look at the title, about pterosaurs. These group of flying reptiles is often misunderstood and is understudied for sure. The number of books about the group is very limited and this book, published in 2006, is the first major work on the subject since 1991, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs by Dr. Peter Wellnhofer which is fairly outdated seriously 15 years is a long time in sciences.

So as always lets see what the cover flap has to say, its long so you can just skip it if you want:

Here is the first complete portrait of the legendary flying dragons of deep time-the pterosaurs-designed for non-specialists, yet founded on real science of these bizarre creatures. Presented lucidly and accessibly by one of the world's leading experts, David Unwin's book is built on a mountain of new fossil discoveries and the latest research.

About 220 millions of years ago, a group of reptiles took to Earth's vast and open skies. No longer tethered to the ground, the earliest pterosaurs evolved into a multitude of diverse forms, spread around the globe, and ruled the skies until they went extinct along with the dinosaurs about sixty-five million years ago, rarely leaving fossils as a record of their existence. What they did leave was a mystery for paleontologists to solve; an enigma so difficult to crack that it took centuries of false starts and missteps before the path to a true understanding of pterosaurs was uncovered.

Now, an understanding of the fundamental nature of these strange creatures is finally possible. In the last fifteen years, stunning new fossil finds and significant advances in technology have led to a breakthrough in our knowledge of pterosaurs. New fossils of the earliest species were discovered in Italy, a remarkably well-preserved and complete wing was found in Central Asia, and, most extraordinarily, a pterosaur embryo inside an egg was unearthed in China. CAT scanning has let researchers glimpse inside pterosaur skulls and construct three-dimensional images of their bodies from crushed bones, and modern techniques for analyzing relationships between species have revealed surprising insights into the evolution of the group.

Drawing on these and other advances, David Unwin, caretaker of Archaeopteryx and curator at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, paints pterosaurs and their world more vividly than has previously been possible. He eloquently reconstructs their biology and behavior. Pterosaurs weren't scaly like dinosaurs, but hairy; most were brightly colored and adorned with remarkable head crests; they were excellent fliers with physiologically sophisticated wings; they walked on all fours; and they varied in size from eight inches to forty feet in wingspan. He shows how they lived their lives, raised their young, and interacted with the different environments of Mesozoic Earth. Then, building on his thorough examination of their anatomy and lifestyle, and using the powerful technique of cladistic analysis, Unwin unravels the evolutionary history of pterosaurs and establishes their place in the one great tree of life.

Packed with seventy color and eighty-five black and white illustrations-including eight full-page original color paintings that are scientific recreations of different pterosaur species-The Pterosaurs From Deep Time takes readers on an wondrous expedition back through the lost world of the Earth's deep past.

So if you read all that you probably appreciate how long it took me to type all that for those of you who didn't realize it took forever so I understand why you skipped it. Anyway onto the review.

The book is wonderfully illustrated with beautiful images and other graphics, although the images in Wellnhofer's are slightly better and well there are more of them. It also presents some of the latest research in pterosaurology, well recent in 2006. The book is written quite simply at times but if you don't have some basic anatomy some of the chapters might get a little complicated. It also provides so huge updates that have occurred in the study of pterosaurs since 1991. The author also includes many inside jokes that a non-expert might not get but I found hilarious like this one from page 226:

Curious, eventful and littered with strange characters-one might expect the pterosaur story to have been told on half a hundred occasions. And so it has been, but often only as part of the backdrop to those hoggers of the limelight: the dinosaurs. When pterosaurs have occasionally made it to the center stage the performance barely lasts on scene. Dimorphodon briefly lurches into view; those trust troupers, Rhamphorhynchus and Pterodactylus, go through their fish-juggling routine; Pteranodon sweeps past, all beak and crest; and Quetzalcoatlus is winched on for the grand finale. Cue volcanoes and meteorites, and there is still time enough to retire to the bar for a quick drink while the King of the Tyrant Lizards eats the final curtain.

This book should be a required for all those who want to know anything about pterosaurs. If I have any complaints it is that the book is outdated, imagine how outdated Wellnhofer's is if this one is outdated in 4 years, but that problem should be alleviated later next year, of course after I should be done with my Thesis, with the publication of The Pterosauria (I want this bad!!!). Don't expect this to be an afternoon read it takes a lot of time and with all of his sources referenced you can build quite a large library of pterosaur papers which you might want to reference for a little bit more information when he refers to them. But overall a very informative read that very well summarizes the information on pterosaurs that we have accumulated over the last 200+ years.

Book Citations
UNWIN, D. M. 2006. Pterosaurs from Deep Time. Pi Press, New York, 347 p.

WELLNHOFER, P. 1991. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Prehistoric Flying Reptiles. Salamander Books Ltd, London, 192 p.

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