Dinosaur Impressions: Postcards from a Paleontologist

The highlight of French paleontologist Taquet's illustrious career undoubtedly has been his discovery in 1964 of a new species of dinosaur--the ouranosaurus, a fin-backed, Cretaceous herbivore about as long as a limousine--that he unearthed in the Saharan wastes of Niger. In this memoir, first published in France four years ago, Taquet (The Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs) devotes two chapters to the creature's discovery and taxonomy, at times straining the patience of the general reader with odontological expositions. By contrast, his explanation of the history and science behind continental drift is remarkably elegant and economical. It's based on his work on the prehistoric crocodile remains in the Gabon basin--a croc with ancient relations in Brazil--that provided some of the first fossil evidence for the theory of continental drift and tectonic plates. Also detailed is Taquet's retracing, in Laos, of the steps of French geologist Josue-Heilmann Hoffet at a distance at some 60 years, to prove Taquet's suspicions that the dinosaurs his predecessor identified were iguanodontids--like his beloved ouranosaurus--and not hadrosaurs. Another adventure finds Taquet in Mongolia, roving the Gobi Desert and digging up enormous sauropods in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Though Taquet is prone to highly technical digressions, he is on the whole an engaging writer, one who has produced a book that's an oddly sweet mix of ephemera and hard science. 18 halftones and 22 line diagrams. (Oct.)