DK Guide to Dinosaurs

All about dinosaurs-all in Dorling Kindersley style.

Using the most accurate models ever produced, DK Guide to Dinosaurs blends lifelike dinosaurs replicas with photorealistic scenery. The resulting images bring dinosaurs and their strange world back to life in astonishing detail. Visit the dank swamps, moving seascapes, and sun-scorched deserts that marked and molded the lives and ultimate demise of the dinosaurs. Packed with mind-boggling dinosaur facts, records, and timelines, DK Guide to Dinosaurs profiles key species from Barosaurus to Tyrannosaurus and features many of the latest discoveries, including Giganotosaurus and the feathered Caudipteryx. The front cover of this jacket features a pack of Giganotosaurus dinosaurs charging through the conifer forests of Argentina, 95 million years ago. Bigger even than the colossal Tyrannosaurus rex, Giganotosaurus is now thought to have been the largest predator ever to walk the Earth.

A pack of fang-toothed Velociraptors gangs up on an unlucky Protoceratops, loping across the desert sand to close in for the kill. A gentle, duck-billed Maiasaura ("good mother lizard") feeds bits of scrub to the appreciative youngsters scampering at her feet. A 41-foot-long, six-ton, flesh-eating Gigantosaurus roars as he lunges at ... a taxicab? DK pulls out all the stops bringing dinosaurs to life in this guide's gorgeous 14-by-21-inch glossy spreads, imagining how they'd appear and behave in their natural habitats, all based on fossil evidence. (Well, except for the Gigantosaurus, who makes a playful appearance with a Barosaurus and a Compsognathus in a bustling downtown scene, just to give you an idea of size and scale.)

DK's seamless graphic treatments and evocative models and photographs are unparalleled, and this oversized Guide to Dinosaurs makes tasty eye candy for any dino lover. Each section tackles a different behavioral or physiological trait ("Arms and Claws," "Hunting in Packs," "Extraordinary Eggs"), placing representative species in convincingly mocked-up settings to illustrate the point. And sneaked in with all these pretty pictures are quite a few meaty but kid-friendly lessons on everything from fossil formation to extinction theory, thanks to award-winning dino author David Lambert. For an imaginative but scientifically rigorous peek into the Mesozoic, you'll find no better guide than DK. --Paul Hughes