Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals of Big Bend (The Corrie Herring Hooks) Paperback – April 11, 2023

Excellent book about Big Bend dinosaurs!

I was expecting a large,vibrant coffee table book much like “Oceans Of Kansas” or “Sabertooth” but it instead follows a chapter book format with lots of precluding text and dozens of illustrations by the great Julius Csotonyi of the life that once thrived here. Each area of big bend gets a lovely introduction in the form of a hypothetical scenario of how its ancient inhabitants might have interacted with one another. It’s very similar to the setup employed by Mike Frederick’s “Prehistoric Times” magazine and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After this each creature gets a very interesting full-body portrait(though sadly not in color)along with information on where the fossil was found,it’s likely diet,lifestyle,size estimates and more. What really stood out to me about the original illustrations was just how detailed,lifelike,and primal they were. If you’ve ever seen an angry wolf before then you know exactly what I mean. You get a great look at the dentition. By contrast,the tyrannosaurid is portrayed in the opposite way of what you’d expect. Instead of displaying the gaping mouth it’s just sort of lingering there,almost as if staring down the reader. Somehow it manages to be even more imposing by concealing it’s teeth! I highly recommend this book to anyone with a keen interest in the formidable creatures that once inhabited Texas.

This book is extremely well done and written. Highly suggest

Chapter book format was a bit informal for my purposes (aiming to use this as a reference guide) but the information presented, especially in the fauna lists, is excellent and very useful.