Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide (and a Missed Opportunity)
Dinosaur enthusiasts will find much to enjoy in Michael J. Benton’s new guide, but the perfect book on dinosaurs has yet to be written.
Review by Collin Slowey
When you pick up a book about dinosaurs, you usually want two things. First, you want to be swept away by dramatic illustrations and descriptions of strange beasts. Second, you want to learn something, so you don’t just feel like a kid reading a children’s encyclopedia.
It’s part and parcel of the narrow line all popular science has to tread, keeping one foot in entertainment and the other in, well, science. Someone who decides to write about T. rex and Triceratops for a broad audience has to deliver the thrills of a Steven Spielberg movie in a package roughly as informative as a Campbell textbook.
That’s a tall order. Does Michael J. Benton, author of the new Princeton University Press tome Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide, meet it?
The answer, unfortunately, is not quite.
I’m a long-time dinophile and armchair science nerd, so I was excited to read Benton’s work, which promises to be a compendium of “cutting-edge” research on prehistoric life that “tak[es] readers inside the mysterious world of these marvelous animals.” I wasn’t let down by the first promise; Dinosaur Behavior takes impressive stock of recent discoveries, referencing many papers that are less than five years old. But it does so in a fashion that is often awkward, always dry, and sometimes downright confusing. Its pages were enlightening, but rarely enlivening, and they did little to resurrect a long-lost past.
What many people don’t know is that birds are now considered dinosaurs, full stop.
Consider the introduction to a chapter on the relationship between dinosaurs and birds.
Anyone who’s seen Jurassic Park knows that scientists believe dinosaurs were the ancestors of our modern feathered friends. But what many people don’t know is that birds are now considered dinosaurs, full stop. There is much that could be said about this—about how our estimation of a cardinal at the bird-feeder is deepened by the recognition that it is in the same biological category as an 80-ton Argentinosaurus, or about how our conception of dinosaurs as semi-mythological creatures is challenged by the understanding that they live among us, in the same way that our conception of ancient Rome is invigorated by visiting the Forum.
But Dinosaur Behavior doesn’t say any of that. Instead, it says this: “It’s wonderful to know that birds are dinosaurs and you can see them every day; but birds arose in a remarkable way through the Jurassic period that involved a reduction in their body size.”
If you’re like me, your first reaction to this sentence is style-induced bewilderment. Why does Benton use a semicolon when an ordinary comma would do? Why does he use “but” as a connector when the second half of the sentence in no way contradicts the first? Why does he conjoin these seemingly unrelated observations in the first place?
The unusual grammar and syntax are more permissible, however, than the lack of vim and vigor. Specifically, Benton fails to communicate the value of his writing. He says it’s “wonderful” to know that dinosaurs are birds and that it’s “remarkable” how birds evolved, but makes no attempt to actually prompt wonder or solicit remark. There is no “so what?” here, just dressed-up factsheets. It’s poor form for any popular science work, but especially so for one about dinosaurs, whose ability to bridge the real and the fantastical truly is wonderful and remarkable and ought to be expounded upon as such.
if you are already fascinated by dinosaurs to a more-than-usual degree, Dinosaur Behavior will pique your interest, its dryness notwithstanding.
Lest I overstate my case, not all of Benton’s sentences are so strangely written. And if you are already fascinated by dinosaurs to a more-than-usual degree, Dinosaur Behavior will pique your interest, its dryness notwithstanding.
I particularly enjoyed the chapters on feathers and flight and the sections on prehistoric metabolisms. The former taught me that wings may have arisen in dinosaurs at five independent occasions, revising my simple mental division between “bird-like dinosaurs” and “non-bird-like dinosaurs” to a more complex, vibrant spectrum of climbing, gliding, and flying beasties, not all of them related. The latter raised my appreciation of how basic physics—in this case, surface area-to-volume ratios—determine biological characteristics, like whether an animal is cold-blooded or warm-blooded.
I should also give due credit to Bob Nicholls’s illustrations. They exhibit common flaws of digital art; their surfaces lack definition, and the dinosaurs they depict seem somehow squishy and ethereal. Nevertheless, they reflect the scientific accuracy of a draftsman who takes his job seriously, and their subjects are believable as living creatures—which is more than I can say about the “shrink-wrapped” creations of artists like Gregory S. Paul.
Still, I can’t help feeling disappointed by Dinosaur Behavior.
The prehistoric world is a naturally engaging topic for a book. It is a battleground: the site of epic clashes between beasts more colossal than giants and more incredible than griffins. It is also a living gallery, filled with artistic triumphs—from electric-blue, four-winged Microraptor to slender, stately Diplodocus, whose 85-foot frame combines size and grace in a manner reminiscent of the greatest feats of human architecture and engineering.
On top of all that, the prehistoric world is a mystery, with old riddles that are constantly being answered and new riddles that are constantly being unearthed. As Benton himself notes, the rate of dinosaur discoveries is higher now than at any other point in history, which means it should be a tremendously exciting time to dive into the field.
All of this makes it a shame that there is not more vibrant literature on the topic. I long for a work on the Mesozoic with the philosophical depth and arresting beauty of Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams, an elevated Walking with Dinosaurs in book form. But I would happily settle for something with pretty pictures, intriguing insights, and entertaining prose. Too bad Dinosaur Behavior is neither.
Collin Slowey is a writer living and working in Washington, D.C. He hails from Bryan, Texas and holds a degree from Baylor University. Collin’s work can also be found in Public Discourse, The American Conservative, and The Dallas Morning News, among other outlets.
Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide was published by Princeton University Press on October 31, 2023. Fare Forward appreciates the provision of a copy for our reviewer. You can purchase your own copy from the publisher here.
