All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals

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Whether showing a Tyrannosaurus simply laying down, Camarasaurus playing, fat Parasauralophus , the use of camouflage, or even dinosaurs with fur, these artists take a refreshing non-traditional approach that is just breathtaking.

These is especially seen in the section illustrating modern life forms in the typical style of illustrating prehistoric life based on just fossils, including the deadly cat , known for their five-switch blade claws pack hunters who no doubt preyed on humans , near whose fossils they are often found. Could future paleontology tell that elephants had trunks lacking fossils? All very interesting and paradigm shifting stuff, I think and I don't think I'll think of traditional ideas of dinosaurs the same way again.

I heard about this book maybe a year ago, and wanted it immediately. At the time, though, I could only find it as an e-book, which, meh. Somehow I saw that it was in paperback right around the time I was putting together a Christmas wishlist, and a few weeks later, I was delighted to unwrap it.

It was instantly at the top of my reading pile. It took longer than I would have predicted to read, but in all the best ways!

I had been expecting just an art book -- creatively imagining how dinosaurs mig I heard about this book maybe a year ago, and wanted it immediately. I had been expecting just an art book -- creatively imagining how dinosaurs might have looked because -- who knows!?

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The sample illustrations especially the sleeping T Rex sold me, I wasn't really expecting science. But it was science. Each picture came with a story of how paleoart works, and the prejudices we hold that have prevented species from being depicted a certain way in the past. For instance -- why are there almost no pictures of dinosaurs sleeping? Why no pictures of smaller dinosaurs sheltering in dens, despite recent evidence some certainly did. Why are all tall spines in dinosaurs almost always interpreted as "skin sails" like the Dimetrodon, even though the Dimetrodon isn't a dinosaur, and modern species like chameleons exhibit tall vertebral spines but do not have sails.

In addition to all the cutting edge paleoart discussion, there was also a fantastic section illustrating the difficulties of drawing an animal based only on its skeleton by imaging future scientists, lacking picture of present-day species, trying to imagine what cats, cows, vultures, etc. I really love and support the idea of this book, so I am going to say up front why it lost a star. The image quality could have been better; in addition, some of the two-page images were cut in very unfortunate places sometimes right through the central dinosaur.

I would have also loved to see some of the "old" depictions the new ones were being compared to but at least there were citations for them, so I can always look them up later. And, of course, it always could have been longer. Other t I really love and support the idea of this book, so I am going to say up front why it lost a star. Other than that, I really enjoyed the heck out of this book. I don't think I ever quite shed my childhood enthusiasm for dinosaurs and other ancient creatures, and this one raised a whole lot of interesting questions and ideas about them.

I also liked that it was written with scientific accuracy, including notes and references. The pictures themselves were innovative and really cool. I would not have quite seen that the big deal was about all of them, but the text explained in each case what I should be looking for. The explanation was sometimes more interesting than the image, but I didn't mind it. Apr 20, Anna-elise Price rated it really liked it. This is a interesting book of pictures and short essays about the art and science of creating artists's impressions of dinosaurs. I hadn't realized how sure I felt that I knew what dinosaurs actually looked like, or just how much these speculative impressions shape our thinking.

It's a very short and easy read that is a great way to shake up your own world view. Also the artists impressions of how some distant archeologist might recreate the animals of our time are lots of fun. Jul 29, Rob Caswell rated it really liked it. While a very short book, it was a thought-provoking read. It starts by addressing the challenges that face an artists when trying to recreate a prehistoric beast from a fossil skeleton. The core of that challenge lies in mastering "technically disciplined art" The critical skill is knowing where to place the balance point between imagination and verifiable facts.

Both are key to making a great rec While a very short book, it was a thought-provoking read. Both are key to making a great recreation. The latter half of the book illustrates the challenge in a clever way: The result is something akin to "The Motel of Mysteries", but with rabbits and hippos instead of toilet seats and TVs.

Nov 17, Andrew Blok rated it liked it. I enjoyed it, but it's probably more enjoyable for someone who's up to date on the trends in dinosaur art. Regardless, it was fun to see some imaginative and interesting work. And, even though I didn't have a really clear imagining of the prehistoric animal life, I have a more interesting one now. The best part is when, to illustrate the difficulties of determining what a creature looked like based on Fun!

The best part is when, to illustrate the difficulties of determining what a creature looked like based on its skeleton, they show how paleontologist might reconstruct modern animals based only on the sometimes partial skeletons they would leave behind: Nov 19, Heather rated it really liked it. Such an interesting topic! I heard about this book from a podcast: It has some of the art on its website, but luckily my library ordered a copy of the book, so I could experience the whole thing.

Check out the furry iguana and the graceful cow, if you get a ch Such an interesting topic! Check out the furry iguana and the graceful cow, if you get a chance!

Love it- been following TetZoo blog on and off for the past few years, and John Conway is one of my favorite modern paleoartists. In All Yesterdays, Naish, Conway, and Kosemen consider the bits that don't fossilize- integument, musculature and fat, and behavior such as play and rest. There's a short section on All Todays, applying conventional paleoartists trends and interpretations to today's extant critters- my favorite is probably the swan. Jun 09, James Francis McEnanly rated it it was amazing.

Jurassic Park was never like this Most of us know dinosaurs from reconstructions in books and movies. Most of us are wrong. Our vision of dinosaurs would be as if we saw the whole panoply of birds as being plucked chickens. This mainly because sort tissues, like hair, feathers, skin and cartilage do not generally fossilize. The artist demonstrates this by drawing modern day animals as if he knew as much about them as current paleontologists know about dinosaurs.

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Feb 07, Kaushik Thanugonda rated it liked it Shelves: Man, this book was such a tease. The art and speculation in the book is amazing, but it just doesn't pay off well. It could have been so much more in terms of expounding how dino art works, included some more writings, but damn. It just leaves you unsatisfied because you expect better. It's a short read, did it in a day. Dec 30, S. Letham rated it really liked it Shelves: The book serves as wonderful, challenging food for thought in the paleoart sphere, and as a lay consumer of that field. I would like to have seen more of their prehistoric speculations than just enough to make their point.

Nov 18, Amrik Cooper rated it liked it. Entertaining but could have had more to say Entertaining but could have had more to say.

All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals

Perhaps one for the dinosaur fans probably a redundant statement. Some cool illustrations and a good general point about how little we know. Oct 30, Madhumitha rated it it was amazing. Such a wonderful, delightful book that showcases the inaccuracies of our contemporary understanding of prehistory. There's so much we don't know and yet there is so much to marvel at. Oct 26, Kevin Chan rated it it was amazing. This book is a delight to read and I only hope there are more illustrations like these.

I love a good shuffle when it comes to my held perspectives. May 08, WaferBiscuits rated it really liked it Shelves: Hugely entertaining and insightful, though I can see how some might see it as a wee bit hipster-ish. This book may be poorly edited it has a bit of a self-published feel to it , but it gets four stars for the way it challenges our ideas about the physical appearance of dinosaurs.

All Yesterdays points out that we can't really know what dinosaurs looked like just from their fossil remains, since fossils don't take into account things like skin and fat. The book also goes on to say that, unfortunately, the popularized images of dinosaur art are so ingrained in our heads that it's hard to imagine This book may be poorly edited it has a bit of a self-published feel to it , but it gets four stars for the way it challenges our ideas about the physical appearance of dinosaurs.

The book also goes on to say that, unfortunately, the popularized images of dinosaur art are so ingrained in our heads that it's hard to imagine the creatures appearing any other way. And I've gotta say, it's a very convincing case--I now find myself asking if that's really what a triceratops would have looked like, after all these years of assuming I knew the truth. And really, the most eye-opening part of the book is the final 30 pages, where they take the skeletal structures of modern animals and draw them in a way "palaeontological artists of the future" may interpret them.

Ever wondered what a swan might look like to a person who's only ever seen the bird's skeleton? Well, now you can know one of the possibilities. All Yesterdays is a fun, quick book, which I'd definitely recommend to any dinosaur enthusiast--or anyone who wants to have their perception of our planet's history completely rocked. This is a book of speculative paleontological reconstructions. But they were animals, and so surely they looked and behaved more like animals today than we usually imagine they did.

But again, the alternative depictions in this book are at least as plausible and usually more so; and the text gives solidly scientific justifications without getting too dense or detailed. Equally enjoyable was the second part of the book, illustrations how modern animals might be reconstructed by paleontologists far in the future, based upon the parts of the animals' bodies likely to be be preserved and potentially dug up as fossils. It's funny and a bit unsettling, and I'll say no more to avoid spoiling anything.

I really enjoyed this book, which is part of why I gave it four and not five stars: Yes, I understand that the illustrations are the focus but I wanted to see more of those, even if it meant not all could be as well done artistically, or that some had to have abbreviated text accompanying them.

Other people, perhaps, will find the amount of material satisfactory, but like the carnivorous dinos depicted in most pictures, books, movies, etc. A thoughtful book that puts the meat on the bones of dinosaurs. There are myriad beautiful and sometimes whimsical, or even amusing, paintings and drawings of dinosaurs going about their daily life The last segment of the book explores how contemporary creatures might be reconstructed if aliens from the future tackled them with all the same tools and information we have as we reconstruct dinosaurs.

Overall, a very charming, beautiful, interesting little book. Other than wishing it were longer, I only have one real qualm with this book- many of the wonderful illustrations bridge across the whole spread, and since the book is perfect bound, that means a lot of detail and information is lost in the binding.

I almost wish the book was coil bound so it would lay flat, because now I'm torn between protecting the spine and trying not to let it bother me, or crushing each spread flat to see the art but ultimately more or less destroying the book. I got this book for myself as an adult who still has a passing interest in dinosaurs. The illustrations are very well done and the explanations really make you think about how paleontology has changed over the years.

I think it can be appreciated by people of all ages, although heads up if you're going to give this to a younger kid, there's a section in it that discusses and illustrates dinosaur reproduction so if they haven't thought about that process much you might end up needing to answer questions. I also noticed the book had a few typos in normal words, not the scientific parts as far as I could tell but it doesn't detract from the readability. Given only the skeleton of a peacock, could anyone guess that it had an enormous tail for the purposes of sexual display? Given only the skeleton of a dog, could one guess the animal lived mostly in the company of a type of advanced primate humans.

Would we know about the long ears of rabbits or the extra-long penises of ducks?

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The implication such questions is that paleoart i. Also behavior is almost unpredictable from either hard or soft parts. This is the theme of a new book "All Yesterdays" by paleontologist Darren Naish and three artists: Koseman, and Scott Hartman. This is not a straight science book, but one of those exercises that uses plausible speculation to challenge the way you think about certain topics. My previous favorite is "After Man. A Zoology of the Future" from The first part of the book, with a little bit of humor, challenges current restorations of dinosaurs by offering alternatives.

One particular paleoart paradigm that is criticized here is "shrink wrapping. Knight sometimes went too far in that direction, making dinosaur thighs much too narrow from front to back given the size of the pelvis. Artistic cliches are another issue. Since a Tenontosaurus was found with the remains of several Deinonychus, poor Tenontosaurus has been consistently depicted as under attack.

The authors provide about 20 additional alternative restorations. My favorite is the idea that elasmosaur long-necked marine plesiosaurs males could compete with each other by holding their necks straight up from the water; a very difficult feat, but not very much harder than some competitive games modern mammals play. The authors point out that Majungasaurus, a short-snouted theropod from Madagascar relative of Carnotaurus , has an extremely long body, very short legs, and extremely tiny arms.

How this animal could run after prey is not clear; instead it might have lain on the grown and pretended to be a log until prey got close enough. Knight , and then continues into analyzing reconstructions after the Dinosaur renaissance. It points out that these reconstructions do not take the often bizarre integumentary coverings of living animals into account, and that dinosaurs should be portrayed as natural animals that aren't 'shrink-wrapped' with many of the individual bones visible.

The remainder of the book consists of pictures with accompanying explanatory texts. Each picture displays a hypothetical adaptation that an extinct animal could have possessed, such as a plesiosaur disguised on the seafloor like a decorator crab or something that dinosaurs aren't usually shown doing, such as a sleeping Tyrannosaurus. The texts describe the adaptations or habits and explain why they are plausible.

The second and last major section of the book is titled "All Todays", and depicts animals from the present day as if non-human paleontologists from the future were reconstructing them from fossilized skeletons. Some of the creatures are somewhat recognizable, like a vulture depicted with pterosaur -like wings; others are completely unrecognizable, like a rhinoceros reconstructed with no nose horn and a sail instead of a hump.

By showing how completely extant animals might be misunderstood if known only from skeletal remains, All Yesterdays shows that our own conceptions of extinct animals are likely equally mistaken.

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