Book review: “Dinosaurs of the British Isles” by Dean R Lomax and Nobumichi Tamura

“Dinosaurs of the British Isles” by Dean R Lomax and Nobumichi Tamura

ISBN: 978-0-9574530-5-0
Published by Siri Scientific Press, 2014
414 pages, paperback
http://www.deanrlomax.co.uk/Books.html


I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I've read a few dinosaur books in my time, but I feel now that they suffer from being a little too glossy, a little too removed from reality. This book, however, will take you from a person who likes dinosaurs, and has maybe seen fossils in museums, and turn you into someone who really gets it. I mean, I knew some dinosaurs are only known from a few skeletons, but I don't think I had any idea that many of them are known from just one or two bone fragments. And the teeth! The photos of fossil teeth are amazing. Anyway, let me tell you about the book.

The book starts with some excellent brief sections covering (and I paraphrase):

• what a dinosaur actually is


• what all the bone structure stuff is about


• how the world has changed and all the timeline stuff


• the history of naming dinosaurs


• dinosaur classification


• the people behind early dinosaur discovery


• modern palaeontology


• other creatures around at the same time


• British geology relevant to dinosaurs

These were very well laid out, and give a serious scientific grounding to grasping what dinosaurs and palaeontology is actually about, without being overly complex (I thought). I was really excited about these chapters and learned a lot. Given that the dinosaur was really 'invented' in the British Isles, this book could be considered a fantastic resource to anyone keen on dinosaur science or history.

I also thought that the sections on the timelines and world maps were the best I've ever seen. Everyone's seen an illustration of Pangaea etc., but to see detailed outlines of how the changing land relates precisely to the British Isles was fabulous, I've not seen that before. The book was great at explaining different trackways as well.

The book then goes on to outline the dinosaurs known from the British Isles laid out from oldest to newest, under the headings of the time periods.

At this point I should mention what the authors mention in their introductions, that to write this book they basically trawled the length and breadth of the Isles (mostly Dean, I think. Nobumichi did a lot of the illustrations), seeing what various collections had, and trying to make the book as comprehensive as possible.

Not long after I finished reading this book, Dean Lomax hit the news because it had been announced that he had discovered a new ichthyosaur, merely by being at his local museum and realising that the 'cast' they had was actually a genuine fossil, and by studying it, they had categorised a new species. (Not a dinosaur, I know, but still exciting!)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31521719

I think this is the excitement of this book. It demonstrates that the study of dinosaurs is not as dusty as the bones they dig up in some desert half way across the globe. There are still new and exciting things to be discovered just by fishing around in old boxes down your local museum :p

The chapters on the dinosaurs themselves are peppered with photos of actual fossils in museum collections, as well as the usual illustrations of imagined skeletons and lifelike representations. This is where you really grasp that many dinosaurs are known from just one femur, or a tiny bit of jaw. It's really good to see it laid out in this way. The fossils are mostly ugly as hell, with ancient museum stickers on them, glued together in 1880, or barely recognisable as a bit of vertebra, but that's the point. These are the actual lumps that led us (or rather greats like Owen) to imagine stegosaurus or polacanthus. And I think this section is where the genius lies. Other books say 'here's a dinosaur, and this is what the skeleton and the creature would have looked like'. This book says 'here's a dinosaur, and this is the crumbling bit of rock in a basement in Dorset that it's based on, and this is what the creature would have looked like'. I perhaps paraphrase, but the truth and honesty and scientific nature of the book is refreshing. It's hard to explain, but the book was a genuine revelation for me.

But the dinosaurs aren't all from the 1880s. You read about dinosaurs that have just been discovered in the last few years, and that's exciting too.

I'm not sure why it took me reading this book to understand the significance of those connections between the museum cases and what you might call Jurassic Park, but there we go. It's just a clear, comprehensive, unsanitised documentation, doing exactly what it says on the tin.

The book is rounded off by a word about museums and collections, and fossil hot spots to visit and how to do that. There's a glossary and index.

This is a proper scientific publication, but its perfect for the serious dinosaur fan, wherever you live.

It has over 250 pages of dinosaurs to pick from if you are looking for something new :D Why not use Nuthetes destructor, from page 232? Named in 1854, based on part of a left jawbone about 5cm long that's now housed in Dorset County Museum, by the father of British dinosaurs himself, Richard Owen. It was like a scary chicken, and was only classified properly as a dromaeosaur in 2002.

I read every page of this book, and it never seemed too dry. It's hard to believe that Dean is only 25. His enthusiasm for all things palaeontology is very infectious. Here he is on my local BBC channel *g*



and an interview with the museums association. 
http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/q-a/04032015-q-a-dean-lomax

Why not request it from your local library or ask your local bookshop to get it? Or you can get a signed copy from the author's website :) It's also available from Amazon, of course.
Thanks for reading!