Walking with Dinosaurs: A Natural History

Though dinosaurs died off more than 65 million years ago, our fascination with them--as anyone who's ever heard of Jurassic Park knows--is far from extinct. Now comes this astounding illustrated tour of their world, to coincide with the Discovery Channel's program of the same name that originally aired to tremendous acclaim on the BBC. Innovatively illustrated with images created by a combination of photography and state-of-the-art computer graphics and written by award-winning BBC series producer Haines, this magnificent natural history will help readers imagine that ancient and alien world more completely than ever before. When dinosaurs first roamed the planet, earth had high sea levels and no ice caps and was covered by one giant continent, Pangaea, which was slowly disintegrating. It wasn't until the end of the Mesozoic era that the land masses began to more closely resemble our current world. Among the inhabitants presented in the book are the carnivorous Coelophysis, one of the smallest and earliest dinosaurs of record; the gigantic and brutal Tyrannosaurus; the ambush predator of the sea Cryptoclidus; and the huge, vegetarian Diplodocus. Spanning the middle of the Triassic period more than 220 million years ago, when dinosaurs were making their first appearance, through the Late Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, as they were dying off, this marvelously illustrated volume renders a vivid portrait of the extraordinary beasts' violent existence amid an ever-changing terrain. BOMC and QPB alternate selections. (Apr.)