Publisher: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright: 2013
ISBN: 9780374135065
An interesting book that traces the history of the dinosaur formerly known as the Brontosaurus, that was renamed Apatosaurus, and then renamed Brontosaurus in 2015, and now has I believe three species. This happened two years after this book was published, which I'm rather sure Mr. Switek is happy about.
This book does an extremely good job of both the history of palaeontology, and that of the Brontosaurus itself. It goes into the details of discovery, the people involved, and the naming controversy. The naming of species of dinosaur is a complicated process that was unfortunately not too well regulated in the past, as it was common for different names to be given by different discoverers to what turned out to be the same species. This was due in part to lack of communications, pride, and many other things. Now-a-days things are much more established and many of the previous errors have been corrected.
As I work in the field of palaeontology myself I found it to be an interesting read, and quite enlightening as I haven't looked into the history as much as I likely should. I am grateful however that our lab is primarily concerned with cretaceous dinosaurs, as it is nowhere near big enough to have to deal with something the size of brontosaurus (but then again we didn't have these guys around here anyway).
A well written and researched book. However, I differ with Mr. Switek's opinion as I believe Styracosaurus is definitely the better dinosaur.
