Smithsonian Books Lost Animals: Extinct, Endangered, and Rediscovered Species

I received this book well packaged by Amazon. The book is beautifully done. The information and illustrations make for a nice read!

Great book, sturdy, heavy, great quality paper and printing. This has made my nephew very happy!

I loved it. Exceeded expectations....learned a great deal about the extinct animals...

Holiday present and was a huge hit!

The book starts with what may be the earliest animals found, Dickinsonia or Charnia, and ends with the Bermuda petrel (an ending with a positive story). There are a lot of interesting animals in between, like the alien-looking Hallucigenia.The chronological arrangement of the sections mostly suits it well, as they talk about "firsts," such as including the first sign of predatory animals and the fact that the first animals weren't predators (p. 27). The chronological order helps in revealing firsts such as the introduction of vertebrates (53), the first land-dwelling animals (56), animals having live births rather than laying eggs (57), and the first reptiles (69).That being said, at times the chronological nature can lead to odd things such as a snake (125) and birds (126-129) in the mammals chapter, and a tortoise in the human section (168). While I still like that they went with a chronological-type order, it does come across as a bit strange at times when reading, to suddenly run into an animal that doesn't seem to fit in the chapter it has been placed in.As a reviewer, I was disappointed to get an advanced copy. I was unable to experience the beauty of full-color illustrations and photos, and images of unfamiliar creatures are important to knowing what they were like. Of course, I am not letting this influence my rating. I'm just unable to comment on an important part of the book. Just in general about the images, though, I wish they showed concept art of all the animals. It is not easy to tell what an animal looked like by looking at fossils. Thankfully, there are images for most that show what they are believed to have looked like.