Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The Utahraptor vs. Astrodon image.
  • The author gushing about the dinosaurs he specializes in (Tyrannosaurus Rex and its relatives):

"Unquestionably the coolest, most spectacular of all dinosaurs - indeed, of all living things in the history of the Earth - is Tyrannosaurus Rex. (Okay, I'm biased. T. rex and its closest kin are my professional specialty, and it's been my favorite dinosaur since I was a kid.) But really - it even has the best name, which translates as 'king of the tyrant lizards'!"

  • "If a T. rex-size Therizinosaurus tried [Wing-Assisted Incline Running], the tree would probably collapse."
  • Oddly humorous are the implications of birds being dinosaurs that the author brings to light, probably because so many other books tend to differentiate between birds and non-bird dinosaurs, even those that otherwise acknowledge the fact. The smallest dinosaur is... the bee hummingbird. The fastest dinosaur is... the peregrine falcon. There were marine dinosaurs: hesperornithines! Lambeosaurines may have been the most specialized sound makers of all dinosaurs... except for songbirds. And dinosaurs didn't go extinct!
  • The author criticizing terms like "sauropod" and "ornithopod" for being inaccurate or imprecise.
  • "... a great explosion of specialized, sophisticated (and to tyrannosaurs - tasty!) iguanodontians called Hadrosauroidea."
  • On the fighting dinosaurs fossil: "Because the nearest veterinarian was 80 million years away, the raptor would have almost certainly died from that wound."
  • The very fact that the scientific data table at the end of the book contains exclamation marks is a Crowning Moment of Funny. Special mention goes to the little note on the etymology of Torosaurus:

"Perforated lizard (not bull lizard!)"

  • Possibly topping everything else is the illustration on the last page of the book. Good God, the illustration on the last page of the book...