stoutfellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stoutfellow) wrote2018-10-06 09:08 am
stoutfellow) wrote2018-10-06 09:08 am
Dynamics of Dinosaurs
I finished reading R. McNeill Alexander's Dynamics of Dinosaurs yesterday. I have now read all of the books I bought on my last Amazon trip, so I'll probably make another soon.
I have to admit I was a little disappointed by the book when I began reading it. The other book I'd read by Alexander, The Chordates, was actually an undergraduate textbook, and very dense. This one is more pop-sci, although the author doesn't shy away from mathematics at the college algebra, or perhaps pre-calc, level. Still, I found it interesting. Alexander writes, in succession, of weight, footprints (including discussion of the problem of bogging down in sandy or marshy soil), necks and tails (how they were held, and what they tell us about gait and eating behavior), fighting and voice (including the purposes and uses of the same), warm-bloodedness (this was before the discovery of dinosaur feathers), flying and marine reptiles (including the different modes of swimming, flying, and soaring), extinction (the book was written after the discovery of the iridium layer, but before the identification of the Chicxulub impact crater), and the giant birds and mammals of the early Cenozoic.
I enjoyed it. (Serendipitously, I read the section on soaring just before rereading the section of Seveneves where Kat 2 is preparing to return from Earth to the space habitats; this added a little spice to the reread.)
I have to admit I was a little disappointed by the book when I began reading it. The other book I'd read by Alexander, The Chordates, was actually an undergraduate textbook, and very dense. This one is more pop-sci, although the author doesn't shy away from mathematics at the college algebra, or perhaps pre-calc, level. Still, I found it interesting. Alexander writes, in succession, of weight, footprints (including discussion of the problem of bogging down in sandy or marshy soil), necks and tails (how they were held, and what they tell us about gait and eating behavior), fighting and voice (including the purposes and uses of the same), warm-bloodedness (this was before the discovery of dinosaur feathers), flying and marine reptiles (including the different modes of swimming, flying, and soaring), extinction (the book was written after the discovery of the iridium layer, but before the identification of the Chicxulub impact crater), and the giant birds and mammals of the early Cenozoic.
I enjoyed it. (Serendipitously, I read the section on soaring just before rereading the section of Seveneves where Kat 2 is preparing to return from Earth to the space habitats; this added a little spice to the reread.)