De första dinosaurierna

Among the many people I had the pleasure of meeting at TetZooCon, I happened to spend a bit of time chatting with paleoartist Stavros Svensson Kundromichalis. While I had come across his artwork online before the convention, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had recently published a book! While it so far has only been published in Swedish, as a descendant of Swedes myself, I felt obligated to procure myself a copy for review here, and Stavros was kind enough to gift me one of the copies he had brought with him!

De första dinosaurierna is both written and illustrated by Stavros, and as the title “The First Dinosaurs” suggests, focuses entirely on dinosaurs of the Triassic Period. As perhaps the least celebrated period of the Mesozoic Era, books that focus on the Triassic are rare. It generally receives attention in overviews of the whole Mesozoic like Dinosaur Empire! Hannah Bonner made a book all about the Triassic in her “When” series, though it has since been republished as part of a single book with the rest of the series. I applaud Stavros for this niche focus, especially as he told me about how narrow the book market tends to be in Sweden for topics like this.

The introduction of the book covers some of the basics about the world of the Triassic, including the arrangement of the continents, and a brief look at some of the other animals that lived during this time, before jumping in to the main attraction. Each dinosaur featured gets its own profile page, with several descriptive paragraphs along with some basic statistics regarding its clade, estimated size, diet, precise time period, and location of discovery. It’s a small detail, but I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the “type species”, or the original species described in a genus. Pop culture often mistakenly refers to a dinosaurs genus as its species, so it’s nice to see the proper nomenclature emphasized here. (Coming from the land of Linnaeus, I suppose it’s only appropriate that this book would be so careful!)

My ability to fact-check the book is somewhat limited, seeing as I sadly do not speak Swedish. That being said, everything seems good as far as I can tell, and so I assume that if there are any errors, they are of the small, nitpicky variety that get obscured by translation anyway.

The main thing that drew me to this book, however, was Stavros’s striking paleoart. It has a simplified yet bold feel to it that just naturally invites the viewer in, and creates clear silhouettes that help the designs stick out in the reader’s memory. It reminds me a bit of vector art like that of James Gilleard’s in Dinosaur Atlas, though Stavros’s style is somewhat more… “painterly” I suppose I’d call it. It has those crisp, clear lines that recall Gilleard’s art, but they feel somehow softer at the same time; less artificially stark, creating a more natural feel despite the highly stylized look.

De första dinosaurierna is a fantastic look at the dinosaurs of the Triassic Period. Far from boring, generic precursors to some bigger, better descendants, these less celebrated saurians are fascinating in their own right, and this book makes them look gorgeous while championing them. When I spoke to Stavros, he was uncertain as to when an English translation might get published, but I highly recommend obtaining it for yourself either way. The art along makes it worth the purchase, and I for one enjoy having books in other languages anyway! (Give Stavros a follow on Instagram for more of his work, while you’re at it!) The fact that I get to give a fellow Swede my Dino Dad Stomp of Approval is just icing on the cake.

Despite the somewhat limited market, there are several other Swedish authors and illustrators who have paleo-related projects. I have already reviewed Animals of a Bygone Era by Maja Säfström, but I really need to get my hands on something by Johann Egerkrans one of these days (perhaps Simon Stålenhag, too, but I don’t know if any of his paleoart has been published for general purchase). Until then, De första dinosaurierna is more than enough to keep me satisfied!