{"id":31865,"date":"2019-05-20T14:16:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T19:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/?p=31865"},"modified":"2019-05-20T19:10:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T00:10:53","slug":"new-prothero-twenty-five-dino-discoveries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/20\/new-prothero-twenty-five-dino-discoveries\/","title":{"rendered":"New Prothero: Twenty Five Dino Discoveries"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a new book by Don Prothero, and it is a new book in the microgenre of “25 things.”<\/p>\n

The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries: Amazing Fossils and the People Who Found Them<\/a>\"\"<\/strong> by Don Prothero is available now for pre-order, and is expected to hit the shelves in mid July. It will provide excellent summer reading!<\/p>\n

You know of Prothero because of his many books including the current classic (now in its second edition) Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters<\/a>\"\". The “25” genera includes The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks: Tales of Important Geological Puzzles and the People Who Solved Them<\/a>\"\", and The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution<\/a>\"\".<\/p>\n

\"\"This book has a chapter devoted to each discovery. The nature of the discovery varies, and the definition of discovery is, necessarily and helpfully, very wide ranging. In many cases, the discovery, recovery, eventual reporting or publication, and integration of a dinosaur species is a long and drawn out process involving multiple field trips, many different characters, and a lot of action. For example, the “discovery” of spinosaurus (from Egypt) comes to us as a story involving two world wars, several expeditions, great human tragedy, and some cool dinosaur bones. Other discoveries are more about how we think about dinosaurs. This is especially true of the first few chapters, which serve to illustrate how clueless early researchers were about certain things, while being pretty smart about other things.<\/p>\n

Chapter 6, on Eoraptor, focuses not on a specific discovery, but rather, on the question of what a dinosaur actually is, how taxonomy has changed, and on attempts to identify and define the basal dinosaur (which is not Eoraptor, but it kinda is). There are other similar orienting pauses elsewhere in the book as well.<\/p>\n

Although the chapters vary a great deal in the range of time, space, or fossil material covered, they follow a general pattern of putting together in one place most of the pertinent facts about a particular episode in the history of dinosaur research, and the pertinent facts about a particular part of the overall dinosaur bestiary. All in all, there is a good bit of history, history of the science, anatomy, evolutionary biology, scientific drama, greatness and tragedy of the act of discovory (or loss), and many many bones.<\/p>\n

It is important for you to know that Prothero brings the reader up to date on many, probably most, of the current dinosaur controversies and conundra. The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries: Amazing Fossils and the People Who Found Them<\/a>\"\" is divided into four sections. The first is about early finds and early thinking, from the dark ages of dinosaur research. The second focuses on the long-necked giants, the third on theropods, and the fourth on the ornithischians (duck beaked, horned, and spiky armored dinosaurs). I’ve put a current draft of the TOC at the bottom of the post to give you an idea of the detail of coverage.<\/p>\n

I highly recommend this book.<\/p>\n

Also by Prothero: When Humans Nearly Vanished: The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano<\/a>\"\", Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future<\/a>\"\", UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens: What Science Says<\/a>\"\", The Princeton Field Guide to Prehistoric Mammals (Princeton Field Guides)<\/a>\"\", California’s Amazing Geology<\/a>\"\", and coming out in the future: Fantastic Fossils: A Guide to Finding and Identifying Prehistoric Life<\/a>\"\", and a bunch of other books.<\/p>\n

TOC:
\nPart I. In the Beginning
\n1. Megalosaurus: The \u201cGreat Lizard,\u201d the \u201cScrotum Humanum\u201d, and the First Named Dinosaur
\n2. Iguanodon: Gideon Mantell, Louis Dollo, and the First Dinosaur Fauna
\n3. Cetiosaurus: The \u201cWhale Lizard,\u201d Richard Owen, and the First Known Sauropod
\n4. Hadrosaurus: Joseph Leidy and the First American Dinosaur
\n5. Eoraptor: The First Dinosaurs
\nPart II. The Long-Necked Giants
\n6. Plateosaurus: Ancestors of the Giants
\n7. Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus: Marsh, Cope, and the Bone Wars
\n8. Diplodocus: The Real \u201cJurassic Park\u201d and Carnegie\u2019s Gift
\n9. Giraffatitan: The Tallest of the Tall, and the Tendaguru
\n10. Patagotitan: Who\u2019s the Biggest of Them All?
\nPart III. Red in Tooth and Claw: The Theropods
\n11. Coelophysis: The Little Dinosaur of Ghost Ranch
\n12. Cryolophosaurus: Denizen of the Polar Darkness
\n13. Spinosaurus: Lost Giants of Egypt
\n14. Tyrannosaurus: King of the Tyrant Reptiles
\n15. Giganotosaurus: Biggest Predator of All?
\n16. Deinocheirus: \u201cTerrible Hands\u201d Lead to Big Surprises
\n17. Velociraptor: \u201cTerrible Claws\u201d and the Dinosaur Renaissance
\n18. Sinosauropteryx: Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Birds
\nPart IV. Horns and Spikes and Armor and Duck Beaks: The Ornithischians
\n19. Heterodontosaurus: The Origin of Ornithischians
\n20. Stegosaurus: The \u201cRoofed Lizard\u201d and the Thagomizer
\n21. Ankylosaurus: Armored Dinosaurs and \u201cMr. Bones\u201d
\n22. Corythosaurus: Duckbills with Headgear
\n23. Stegoceras: The \u201cUnicorn Dinosaur\u201d and the Boneheads
\n24. Protoceratops: The Griffin Legend and the Origin of Horned Dinosaurs
\n25. Triceratops: The \u201cDinosaurian Bison\u201d and the Last of the Dinosaurs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a new book by Don Prothero, and it is a new book in the microgenre of “25 things.” The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries: Amazing Fossils and the People Who Found Them by Don Prothero is available now for pre-order, and is expected to hit the shelves in mid July. It … Continue reading New Prothero: Twenty Five Dino Discoveries<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5050],"tags":[192,1962,2929,187],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/ProtheroDinosaursFeatured.png?fit=389%2C259&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-8hX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31865"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31876,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31865\/revisions\/31876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}