Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #400679 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-25
• Released on: 2001-10-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Walking with Beasts is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the hugely successful Walking with Dinosaurs and fully deserves to be just as successful. Subtitled A Prehistoric Safari, it takes the reader on a journey through the wildlife parks of the last 65 million years since the demise of the dinosaurs.

While everyone has heard of the many different kinds of dinosaurs, how many people have heard of the indricotheres, chalicotheres, dinotheres or even our own ancestors the plesiadapiforms? Hopefully, after the showing of the BBC TV series Walking with Beasts and this superb book from Tim Haines, we might have a better idea about the life and times of our own mammal relatives and ancestors. Designed for the general reader, the story follows a mixture of chronology and environmental themes from the "New Dawn" following the demise of the dinosaurs, when mammals were just beginning to find their feet again, through to "Whale Killer", describing when mammals first took to life in the oceans and evolved awesome top predators such as the 18m Basilosaurus. The strange extinct mammals such as the indricotheres figure in the "Land of the Giants" and our own human story is told, culminating in the Ice Age and the question of our ancestors' hand in extinctions. The computer-generated images produced by Daren Horley's team are absolutely stunning and are, if anything, better than those in Walking with Dinosaurs. The animals look especially convincing in the still photos, which appear on every page. The pictures are so good that it will be hard to convince younger children that they are not real. Walking with Beasts should be on everyone's shopping list. --Douglas Palmer

From Publishers Weekly
Walking with Prehistoric Beasts is designed to be a "prehistoric safari"; author and guide Tim Haines (Walking with Dinosaurs) leads readers through the world of ancient (and often strange) mammals. The 16-foot-long Andrewsarchus, for example, was the largest known land carnivore, but it was also an ungulate in other words, more sheep than wolf. Plentiful illustrations and sidebars punctuate text that is as much adventure story as history: "Relationships within the group [of australopithecines, which were primates that walked upright] are highly political. Although Graybeard is still very much in charge, he knows Bruiser is waiting to challenge him." Published in conjunction with the BBC to accompany the Discovery Channel's Walking with Beasts television series, of which Haines is executive producer.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Beyond the woolly mammoth and the saber-toothed cat, most of us know very little about ancient mammals, many of which rivaled the dinosaurs in size. Haines, author of Walking with Dinosaurs (2000), gives an overview of these beasts in a companion volume to a Discovery Channel series. With a combination of natural history insights laid over the fossil record and computer graphics, extinct species like Smilodon (a saber-tooth), Indricotherium (enormous rhinoceros relatives), and even our ancestors Australopithecus come to life. Each chapter tells the story of one species, following specific individuals as they eat, mate, deal with the seasons, and interact with other species. Sidebars give paleontological data and a thumbnail sketch of each species mentioned. The chapters are in chronological order, so each presents a view of the age of mammals from a different period, culminating with woolly mammoths and Homo sapiens. The illustrations are spectacular, giving the feel of photographs of these extinct creatures. A section on source material provides the fossil underpinnings for the computer re-creations. Nancy Bent
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