Mighty Mammals of the Past

by John Stidworthy

Book Overview

Describes what the fossilized remains of mammals that lived before, during, and after the Age of Dinosaurs have revealed about their physical characteristics and way of life. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0382093216
• ISBN13: 9780382093210
• Release Date: October 1986
• Publisher: Silver Burdett Press
• Length: 37 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Compact but fun

This little book was fun. Right next to the table of contents there is a simple geological time scale, with emphasis on the Cenozoic, there are 5 chapters in the book and they correspond to each of the five major subdivisions of that era. The chapter titles don't really tell you much but as you read them you find each contains a short list of the representative mammals of the period in question, with lightning-brief descriptions, usually just the height, number of toes and inferred diet. There are a couple of places where ancestor/descendant relationships are mentioned alongside full-page illustrated diagrams (I would've liked cladograms instead, even though the book is aimed at children). Short, very short sections on rhino, horse and elephant evolution are the highlights for me. Chris Forsey's restorations are nice, but most of the predator/prey scenes look a little bit stiff: the prey is eating or passively standing while getting ripped to pieces by the predator. Each chapter opens with a color spread and the next page clearly points out the names (and pronounciation) of each animal that appears in the spread. Two pages on Darwin's Beagle voyage are added near the end of the book, almost as an afterthought. There is little mention of Mesozoic mammals, since these were not "mighty", of course. In all, I liked the book. I would recommend it for junior high-schoolers and under. But if you are interested in mammals or vertebrates in general, it's a fun way to spend an hour.