Myke Mollard, Australian Dinosaurs and Mega Beasts, Woodslane Press, November 2022, 48 pp., RRP $29.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781922800060
What a book! Be warned, you might need a coffee-table-and-a-half to open it out or a cleared bedrom floor. Not only is this book packed with information, it is a joy to look at and explore.
Fascination begins with the endpapers, which offer informative and easy to understand illustrations of the movement of the earth’s tectonic plates and the locations and geological dates for dinosaur and mega fauna discoveries throughout Australia. There is sure to be a site somewhere near you – and after reading this book you will know of some great destinations to go exploring for opalised and fossilised evidence of life forms long gone from the planet.
We are newcomers to this planet, so there is a lot of history to catch up on: in fact, about 3.5 billion years of history for life on Earth. Through exquisitely coloured full-page and finely detailed illustrations the text tells its story without fuss and with superb clarity. On some pages where there is very little text the illustrations will soak up many hours of looking, examining and imagining. Beginning with early Stromolites, coral sponges, mud skippers and small reptiles we come to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods teeming with enormous dinosaurs. Australia and Antarctica (Gondwanaland) had its share of these beasts.
Since the first fossil discovery in 1903 near Inverloch in Victoria, there has been a steady increase in sites and findings across our landmass. We learn that around 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs disappeared, mammals arose and among them the mega beasts such as the Diprodoton, the giant wombat and the horned tortoise. These creatures ruled the land for over 60 million years, the last of them dying out only tens of thousands of years ago. In the far north of Australia there are rare surviving rock paintings and petroglyphs (rock carvings) of the tracks and shapes of these giants.
This is a book that will consume hours of reading, gazing, talking, and imagining. And it might lead the family to pack the car and head off to the coasts and inland sites where fossils lie waiting to be uncovered.
Reviewed by Kevin Brophy
