If you ever dreamed of being a Paleontologist (and who hasn’t) when you were a child, then this is definitely the book for you. Heck, add a dash of anthropology plus some earth science and we might just have the book covered.
The main focus of Prehistoric Life is, of course, the actual life in it’s diverse forms that once inhabited the Earth, from the very beginning microbes to the largest of the dinosaurs. There are over 500 profiles of bacteria, fungi, animal and plant life featured, all presented with either fantastic photos of actual fossils or 3D images created to show what the life form looked like. I love the renderings of the creatures that have been done, you are awestruck that these creatures actually walked the earth at one point.
I also love that you get to see the lesser known creatures, everyone by now knows what a T-Rex or Velociraptor looks like, but to me the giant beaver Castoroides that was taller than a man takes the cake.
Of course a book covering the prehistoric periods wouldn’t be complete without it being a time line of the Earth’s evolution, so we start right at the beginning with the Earth’s formation in the introductory section termed Young Earth, learning about the millions of years of events such plate tectonics and climate changes.
The Life on Earth section details each geological period, starting with the Archean period which featured the earliest of life forms, to the Quaternary which was the continuation of the Ice Age that came about at the end of the Neogene period. The plant life, vertebrates and invertebrates of each period are featured with the information on their group (example: mammals, bivalves, grasses) to the date they inhabited the earth, plus their size and the country or continent they were located on.
The Rise of the Humans details the earliest beginnings of man with a timeline of our ancestors all the way to modern day.This is probably the most in depth book for the average reader on the subject that I have ever read and of course, I haven’t read it all, there just isn’t the time! It is a book to take your time with and enjoy not only as a reference book but as an entertaining read.
Reading level: Teen/Adult
Page Count: 512 pages
Publisher: DK Publishing
Publisher’s synopsis: With an extensive catalog at its heart, Prehistoric Life profiles hundreds of fascinating species in incredible detail. The story starts in earnest 3.8 billion years ago, with the earliest-known form of life on Earth, a bacteria that still exists today, and journeys through action-packed millennia, charting the appearance of new life forms as well as devastating extinction events. Of course, the ever-popular and endlessly intriguing dinosaurs feature large, but Prehistoric Life gives you the whole picture, and the plants, invertebrates, amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals that are the ancestors of today’s species also populate its pages, making this book unprecedented in its coverage of prehistory. Specially commissioned artworks use cutting-edge technology to render species in breathtakingly realistic fashion, with astonishing images of prehistoric remains, such as skeletons and fossils, to complete the story. To put all the evidence in context, the concept of geological time is explored, as is the classification of species and how the evidence for their evolution is preserved and can be deciphered.
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