Lowell Dingus

Young readers should like this enjoyable, informative book. It answers a variety of questions about dinosaurs, including the following: what they looked like, where they lived, how they were named, what they ate, how babies were "born" (hatched), and what killed them off. The book also introduces the major types of dinosaurs -- the saurischians and ornithischians (which the text imprecisely labels as "families"). And of course that recurrent question of what color dinosaurs were is addressed. (As the text notes, traditionally they were reconstructed in drab colors of green and brown, but starting a few decades ago, the possibility of bright colors and patterns became popular.

The author of the book, Lowell, Dingus, was an exhibition coordinator and project director for the American Museum of Natural History (New York City). Color illustrations were skillfully rendered by Stephen Quinn; they show the extinct beasts eating, fighting, locomoting, and accompanying their offspring.

Readers unfamiliar with the subject many be surprised at the book's assertions the dinosaurs are not extinct. Starting in the 1970s, birds increasingly were regarded as dinosaur descendants, and under the rules of classification, they were therefore labelled as dinosaurs themselves. Another surprise revealed in the book has to do with an exhibit at the museum, in which an enormous sauropod, Barosaurus, is shown rearing up on its hind legs to protect its young from an attacking Allosaurus. Experts have challenged whether this posture was even possible for the huge beast (and whether its heart could have pumped blood up to the head in this position). The book reveals that the main reason the museum built the Barosaurus mount was "to draw attention to the fact that we cannot answer many interesting questions about the ways dinosaurs behaved.

Having been published in 1994, this book is somewhat dated. In particular, it missed the rapid accumulation of evidence (from the 1990s onward) that many dinosaurs had feathers (which therefore predated birds). In this respect, the book reflects an outdated aspect of the American Museum display itself. Over the past quarter century, the museum has had thousands of visitors, many of whom recognize that the claim that feathers are unique to birds is incorrect. It'd be nice if the display could be updated, since many a 8 year old boy and their grown up equivalents will know that feathers are one of the features that unite birds with their saurischian ancestors.… (mais)

Not exactly what I was expecting but still interesting. Hell Creek, Montana is more of a travelogue and political commentary than a work of paleontology. Author Lowell Dingus does a good job of combining popular dinosaur lore with the history of the area around Jordan, Montana.


The Hell Creek has probably passed the Morrison and the Chinle Group as the dinosaur-bearing stratigraphic unit in the US, not because the fossils are particularly abundant or well preserved but because it transgresses the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary and therefore is the focal point for studies of the KT extinction (in geological map abbreviations, Є is Cambrian, C is Carboniferous, and K is Cretaceous). Like many paleontologists, Dingus was an “asteroid denier” when Alverez et al. proposed an impact as the terminal event. Despite locating an iridium anomaly in the Hell Creek (while trying to demonstrate there wasn’t one) Dingus still has some sour grapes about the subject, but it’s interesting to read how a real scientist adapts to a change in the paradigm.


The history part of the book chronicles the adventures of Crazy Horse, Custer, and Nelson Miles in Garfield County (naming it after a national hero doubtless contributed to the violence at Little Big Horn). A more recent confrontation between the inhabitants of Justus Township and the US government provides an opportunity for discussion of the travails and politics of the local ranchers. If you don’t remember or weren’t around for Justus Township, it was a group of tax protestors (“tax protestors” is a great oversimplification of their philosophy but will do for shorthand) that holed up on a ranch in the area while standing off the FBI and miscellaneous other government agencies. Dingus is sympathetic to the ranchers but not the Townshippers.


Seems to be out only in hardcover, and thus rather high priced for a relatively short book. Worth reading but borrow from the library.… (mais)