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Loading... All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals (edition 2012)by John Conway (Author)
Work InformationAll Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals by John Conway
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Examples on Atlas Obscura are wonderful. Given how this is only 90 pp, I'm not sure it's going to be much more revealing than the article. Love it- been following TetZoo blog on and off for the past few years, and John Conway is one of my favorite modern paleoartists. In All Yesterdays, Naish, Conway, and Kosemen consider the bits that don't fossilize- integument, musculature and fat, and behavior such as play and rest. There's a short section on All Todays, applying conventional paleoartists trends and interpretations to today's extant critters- my favorite is probably the swan. I heard about this book maybe a year ago, and wanted it immediately. At the time, though, I could only find it as an e-book, which, meh. Somehow I saw that it was in paperback right around the time I was putting together a Christmas wishlist, and a few weeks later, I was delighted to unwrap it. It was instantly at the top of my reading pile. It took longer than I would have predicted to read, but in all the best ways! I had been expecting just an art book -- creatively imagining how dinosaurs might have looked because -- who knows!? The sample illustrations (especially the sleeping T Rex) sold me, I wasn't really expecting science. But it was science. Each picture came with a story of how paleoart works, and the prejudices we hold that have prevented species from being depicted a certain way in the past. For instance -- why are there almost no pictures of dinosaurs sleeping? Why no pictures of smaller dinosaurs sheltering in dens, despite recent evidence some certainly did. Why are all tall spines in dinosaurs almost always interpreted as "skin sails" like the Dimetrodon, even though the Dimetrodon isn't a dinosaur, and modern species like chameleons exhibit tall vertebral spines but do not have sails. In addition to all the cutting edge paleoart discussion, there was also a fantastic section illustrating the difficulties of drawing an animal based only on its skeleton by imaging future scientists, lacking picture of present-day species, trying to imagine what cats, cows, vultures, etc., looked like based only on theirs. Fascinating and delightful. Highly recommended! This in an alternative interpretation of how dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals may have looked based on reconstructions from fossil records. Although footnotes are used throughout the book, there is no table of contents, index, or bibliography. It is an interesting topic and could generate discussion among dinosaur lovers. This book is appropriate for adults interested in paleontology. no reviews | add a review
"This is a book about the way we see dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Lavishly illustrated with over sixty original artworks, All Yesterdays aims to challenge our notions of how prehistoric animals looked and behaved. As a critical exploration of palaeontological art, All Yesterdays asks questions about what is probable, what is possible, and what is commonly ignored."--P. [4] of cover. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)567.9Science Fossils & prehistoric life Fossil cold-blooded vertebrates ReptiliaLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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