Tidwell, V. & K. Carpenter. Eds. 2005. Thunder–Lizards: The Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs. – Bloomington, Indiana University Press

Abstract

‘Thunder–Lizards: The Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs’ is a collection of 20 papers on sauropods – and one on a prosauropod – sandwiched in a cloth binding and wrapped in an attractive and colourful dust jacket. You can rapidly gauge your level of interest in the book by asking yourself this question: how badly do I want to read 21 papers on sauropodomorphs?

The book pays lip service to its subtitle with a single chapter on a non–sauropod: the ‘prosauropod’ Melanorosaurus. (Some recent phylogenies have suggested that the traditionally recognized prosauropods include a few basal sauropodomorphs and many basal sauropods; in these phylogenies, Melanorosaurus is a sauropod after all.) The remaining 20 chapters exclusively cover neosauropods, the clade that includes diplodocids, camarasaurs, brachiosaurs, and titanosaurs. Read more...