Ice Age Mammals of North America
by Ian Lange, illustrator Dorothy S. Norton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ian Lange, illustrator Dorothy S. NortonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-10
ISBN: 0878424032
Number of pages: 226
Publisher: Mountain Press Publishing Company
Book Reviews of Ice Age Mammals of North America
Book Review: A wonderful little book
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up this book while browsing the gift shop at the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. I was looking for something to serve as a memento for out family trip, something that would serve as evening reading material, and something that would be interesting and educational for the kids. This book seemed like just the ticket. It's nicely presented with rich, glossy pages, and it's chock full of interesting/relevant photographs, black-and-white drawings, and color illustrations.
Lange opens his book with a tantalizing summary of some of the exotic animals that lived during the Pleistocene, and a very short description of a changed world, covered with glaciers. He follows this with a short but very interesting and well-written discussion about continental drift and the interchange of animals between the American and Eurasian continents. I particularly liked his discussion of the discovery of the ice ages, and how he highlights some of the critical evidence such as oxygen-isotope shifts that make it possible for scientists to understand much of the detail of these aspects of earth's history. This section has some exciting discussions regarding earth geology that is sure to excite the young reader and amateur geologist alike.
This introductory material, consisting largely of the geological evidence of ice ages, takes up roughly the first 65 pages of the book. With the groundwork laid, Lange begins introducing the reader to the vast array of fascinating animals that lived, geologically speaking, just a moment ago. In many ways these animals were as amazing as the dinosaurs, but while dinosaurs lived millions of years before humans evolved, the remarkable animals of the Pleistocene lived contemporaneously with our ancestors, hunted them, and were hunted by them.
The majority of the book's middle section consists of case-by-case descriptions of some of the more interesting (at least in terms of size and ferocity) animals from that period. These include the American lion, glyptodont, mammoth ground sloth, yesterday's camel, titanis bird, long-horned giant bison, wooly mammoth Nebraska camel, American mastodon, dire wolf, Florida cave bear, giant short-faced bear, and of course, Smilodon fatalis - the saber-toothed cat.
Lange doesn't just describe these animals; he helps the reader understand how they fit within the context of evolution, the evidence surrounding their discovery, and how they compare and contrast with similar modern-day animals. It's amazing to read of these ancient animals and realize how similar America was to Africa just 12,000 years ago. This leads Lange to his concluding ideas about extinction and the growing sense that early humans were largely responsible for the die-off of large animals in America.
Over all this is a wonderful little book that packs a lot of information into relatively few pages. It's not overly simplistic. Quite the opposite, it describes conclusions and results from cutting-edge research. But the book is also very approachable. Its language, presentation, pictures and photographs make this an entertaining as well as informative story, and one that any grown or budding geologist/paleontologist is bound to enjoy.
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