Finally a Dinosaur Textbook with a Section on Dinosaur Origins! Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History

In 2010 when I reviewed the first edition of Fastovsky and Weishampel "Dinosaurs: a Concise Natural History" for the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology I gave it a good review, recommending it for classroom use.  However, one complaint I had was that as a book on dinosaurs it had almost no coverage of dinosaur origins.  David Fastovsky took note and assured me that the next edition would remedy this. 

Well I'm happy to say that the second edition is out and does indeed have a much expanded section on dinosaur origins. Thanks to David and David for not taking my constructive criticism too hard and adding this section. In my opinion this makes what I think is the best dinosaur textbook available even better. 

What I am Reading: Charming the Bones - A portrait of Margaret Matthew Colbert

I'm usually reading (or attempting to read) several books at any one time but the book that really has my attention right now is Charming the Bones - A portrait of Margaret Matthew Colbert by Ann Brimacombe Elliot.

Margaret Colbert was the granddaughter of botanist and geologist George Frederic Matthew, the daughter of vertebrate paleontologist William Diller Matthew, and the wife of vertebrate paleontologist Edwin Harris Colbert, as well as an artist in her own right. She illustrated Ned Colbert's doctoral dissertation and many of his books.  She also completed Triassic themed murals for the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and the Petrified Forest National Park, as well as a Cretaceous mural for Big Bend National Park in Texas.  She also designed the logo for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Margaret Colbert's mural on exhibit at the Rainbow Forest Museum at Petrified Forest National Park (photo by Karen Sweeny-Justice)

Interestingly her biography is written by Ann Brimacombe Elliot, who is the wife of geologist David H. Elliot who conducted important fieldwork with Ned Colbert in the 1960s.

Ned Colbert wrote two autobiographies which are essential reading for any vertebrate paleontologist, but I also urge you to read Margaret Colbert's biography as well and witness what an amazing woman she was.

What I am Currently Reading

I appear to be on an late 19th - early 20th century paleontology fieldwork kick right now regarding the books I am reading.  I just finished Paul Brinkman's "The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush" book, which I found to be an enjoyable history of collecting Jurassic dinosaurs from the western U.S. by several institutions.  At times I found it was difficult to follow the chronological order of the work being done, but overall the book is a solid offering of this important time in American vertebrate paleontology.  For more see Brian Switek's recent review.

I am now starting "Bone Hunters in Patagonia" following John Bell Hatcher's work collecting fossil vertebrates in South America during the Princeton University expeditions of 1896-1899.  This is supposedly an absolutely amazing narrative of an amazing collecting trip and I hope I enjoy it thoroughly because...

the next book in the stack is "Barnum Brown: the man who discovered Tyrannosaurus rex" by Lowell Dingus and Mark Norell.  Several colleagues have told me that this is an excellent book.  I had actually started reading this book earlier in the summer and was enjoying it immensely, but stopped to read Paul Brinkman's book when it came out.  Reading Paul's book got me very interested in John Bell Hatcher and thus I've found myself reading "Bone Hunters in Patagonia" before going back to the Barnum Brown book.  I hope I'm not making a mistake here.

Overall, from what I have seen so far these are three great books covering the work of many great American early paleontologists.

Triassic Life on Land: The Great Transition

Finally!  After 10 days of waiting my copy of Hans Sues and Nick Fraser's new book on the Triassic was finally delivered (actually I've been waiting much longer, since I found out about this project AND it wasn't really 'delivered' I had to pick it up at the post office).  Unfortunately I'm in the middle of a term paper and several other projects so this is really bad timing, but I have taken a quick skim and it looks like it will be excellent reading.  This is a more technical treatise than the 2006 Dawn of the Dinosaurs book by Nick Fraser, but both are essential reading for Triasofiles.

Now I'm going to go do some more work so Hans and Nick will be forced to do an updated second edition next year ;). 

Sues, H.-D., and N. C. Fraser. 2010. Triassic life on land: The Great Transistion. Columbia University Press, New York, 229p.

P.S. Why is there no aetosaur on the cover?  Maybe it is hiding?