Walking with Dinosaurs: A Natural History

NO PERIOD on Earth has gripped the human imagination more than the time of the dinosaurs. For over 150 years dinosaurs have fascinated scientists and lay people alike - perhaps because they seem so completely alien to anything currently to be found on Earth, and yet they were frighteningly real. Their very size and power tempt us to try and picture them. But how can we imagine such a different world?
To begin with, visualize the changes in the landscape you would see in front of you should you go back in time; get rid of all the houses and roads, and then all the fields and hedgerows. That just touches the surface. Now replace grass and open ground with ferns and low, palm-like cycads. Convert any trees you can see into conifers - not the familiar plantation-pine types but older species like monkey puzzles - and space them out over the landscape. Pull the birds out of the air, change the noise the insects make and turn up the temperature. Finally, place a herd of enormous, loud reptiles in front of you and watch as groups of alarmingly fast predators stalk them. This book attempts a similar mental exercise, conjuring up the world of the dinosaurs. It is not intended to be an encyclopedia, it is an experience.
The trouble is that we are separated from these prehistoric scenes by a staggeringly long time. Millions and millions of years have passed during which the remains of these magnificent creatures have been scattered, eroded and buried. While mountains ranges have come and gone and oceans have risen up and drained away, a few of these remains became locked in the rocks and turned to stone.