Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (Philip J. Currie & Kevin Padian, editors, 1997)

ISBN 0-1222-6810-5

A landmark book, collecting together a huge range of information about dinosaurs which would ordinarily only be available to those with access to a professional research library. The writing is generally dispassionate, the information generally balanced and well-presented.

I have only one criticism of this book though, unfortunately, it is an important one: there is very little attention given over to stratigraphy. Now I'll be the first to admit that dinosaurs need to be studied by people who know about anatomy, but not at the expense of totally ignoring geology: The ages of things are vitally important to many of the debates and contentions surrounding any paleontological subject, and dinosaurs are no exception. Yet whole sections of this book go by without any mention – or worryingly imprecise mention – of the ages of the fossils.

This omission extends into the rigour of the text itself. Let me give an example: There is an important debate concerning the origins of birds, with probably the most popular argument today being that birds arose from theropod dinosaurs, specifically the dromaeosaurids. (Indeed, if one relied solely upon the lay media – National Geographic and what have you – for information, you'd think it was the only argument worthy of serious attention.) But, however passionately expressed, the argument as it stands today is compromised by a very serious flaw: The earliest known bird is the famous Archaeopteryx, known only from Late Jurassic (perhaps 150 million years old) fossils from Germany, whereas dromaeosaurids do not appear in the fossil record until mid Cretaceous times, about 110 million years ago. The relevant paragraph in EoD brushes over this 40 million year disparity with the following:

"The apparent absence of earlier records of dromaeosaurids, although puzzling, is not unusual in the Mesozoic fossil record [gives some examples]. Moreover, small maniraptorans are not at all absent from Late Jurassic sediments: Jensen and Padian (1989) described a collection of bones ... [which] could not be identified to the generic level but nonetheless indicated that if they are not bones of birds, then they are certainly those of their sister taxon, the dromaeosaurids. These arguments would appear to dispose of the fatality of the stratigraphic argument to the theropod hypothesis." — p. 78

The vague appeal to an imperfect fossil record is weak, though rational. The second argument is specious: even ignoring the presumption of the conclusion ("sister taxon") in the supporting case, if Jensen and Padian's bones are indeed those of birds, they do nothing to close the stratigraphic gap between birds and their supposed sister group, the dromaeosaurids. Finally, the dismissal of any contrary view, inherent in the last sentence, is a piece of quite remarkable arrogance. Fortunately it is quite atypical.

(Read more.)

Recommendation: Recommended, but don't make it your only reference.

Look and Feel: Good quality hardback. Photographs and good diagrams are plentiful. The few coloured plates could have been put to better use than reproducing various artists' impressions of what dinosaurs may have looked like.

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