Indiana University Press Earth before the Dinosaurs

This book is chock full of descriptions and diagrams, particularly of how skull bones have evolved over the millions of years. Its richness of content was a welcome surprise! One little thing - this is a translation from French, and a few places they got "New Scotland" from "Nouvelle Ecosse", rather than "Nova Scotia" - had me checking my atlas...A very enjoyable book, that I will pass on to my grandchildren!

Ótimas ilustrações, informações interessantes.

恐竜が現れる前の時代の両生類、爬虫類を取り上げた本です。種類ごとにカラーの復元画と骨格図、化石の写真があり、英語が分からなくても楽しめるものだと思います。特に両生類については、日本の図鑑にはないものが多く取り上げられています。爬虫類は網羅的とまではいきませんが、樹上性のものや空を飛ぶもの（翼竜ではない）など変わりどころが取り上げられています。恐竜以外の化石両生類、爬虫類に興味がある人にお勧めです。

This book is either five stars or three, depending on the audience. If you are an academic or are looking for a highly-detailed book about four-legged life prior to dinosaurs, this is an excellent book. If you are a casual reader (or a younger reader), then this book is going to be too dense and slow to be really interesting. The author is a French paleontologist who studies ancient fish, amphibians, and reptiles. The book provides a detailed history of these animals, who ruled for much longer than the dinosaurs did. It's full of information about fossils, anatomy, genetics, evolution, and the science of labeling and placing organisms. It also has plenty of superb pictures and photographs. I quite enjoyed reading it, but it definitely was not aimed at a general audience. Translated from French (with some humorous faults like repeatedly referring to Nova Scotia as New Scotland), I think this book aims at being the definitive account of pre-dinosaur terristrial vertebrates. If that's what you are looking for, than you would be hard-pressed to find a better book than this one. But if you simply want a casual read, or want to buy this book for a younger child, you'll probably find the reading a little heavy and slow in places. So, five star or three star, it depends on what you're looking for from this book. As I don't mind the heavier science, I'm leaning towards five stars, but I think it's important that potential buyers know what they're getting with this book. A very detailed, but very cool book about some of the most fascinating animals and evolutionary stories our Earth has produced.

Very good book. A little too much science jargon and a chapter on embryo development in lab animals that seems out of context though. Great for illustrations paintings and pictures.