DONALD R. PROTHERO specializes in physics, planetary sciences, astronomy, earth sciences, and vertebrate paleontology. He taught for 35 years at the college level at Columbia, Knox, Pierce, and Vassar Colleges, most recently as professor of geology at Occidental College, and lecturer in geobiology at the California Institute of Technology. He has authored or edited more than 30 books and 300 scientific papers.
KIRKUS REVIEWS
A remote island inhabited by creatures unknown to science is a
hoary sci-fi scenario that bears some relation to reality,
according to this enthusiastic, somewhat scattershot history of
life on a vast, isolated island-continent: South America. A veteran
science writer and professor of geology, physics, planetary
sciences, and vertebrate paleontology, Prothero (The Story of Life
in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of
Evolution, 2015, etc.) reminds readers that 250 million years ago,
Earth’s land occupied a single supercontinent, Pangea, and all life
evolved in unison. Around 150 million years ago, Pangea broke up,
South America drifted away, and things got interesting. The
familiar giants of the golden age of dinosaurs trod North America
and Asia only because that’s where early paleontologists looked.
When Latin Americans joined the hunt, they turned up new and
oddball species including a carnivorous dinosaur larger than
Tyrannosaurus and a titanic vegetarian larger than Brontosaurus.
Odder still, when dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago and
mammals replaced them, the top predators were not bears, lions, and
wolves that evolved up north, but rather huge, carnivorous,
flightless birds. Also present was a flying bird five times larger
than today’s largest flying bird, the Andean condor, and a ground
sloth as big as an elephant. Then, 10 million years ago, Central
America rose from the waters, and northerners, apparently more
competitive, moved in and took over. Even animals associated with
South America (llamas, jaguars, and tapirs, among others)
originally lived much further north. Prothero spends more time on
size and weirdness than serious readers require, but he also
delivers amusing anecdotes, a lucid history of evolutionary ideas,
stories of the great fossil discoveries, and an entertaining
description of animal evolution on an isolated continent.
QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY
A highly valuable resource for anyone with a serious interest in
dinosaurs and other ancient creatures of South America and a great
and enjoyable read. Even as dinosaur family trees change, the
closer and closer relationship to birds emerge, and all of the new
discoveries alter what we thought we knew, the book is fertile
ground for students and experts interested in paleontology.
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