Here’s another book about ancient megafauna, appropriately titled Meet the Megafauna! Written by Gabrielle Balkan and illustrated by Phung Nguyen Quang & Huynh Kim Lien, it is similar in premise to Stone Age Beasts, in that it features a different prehistoric giant on each page. It differs though in focusing more explicitly on the concept of megafauna, rather than on a specific period of time.
Meet the Megafauna includes animals from the Mesozoic on through to the present day. A time chart at the beginning of the book introduces readers to the geologic periods of the Cretaceous, the Paleogene, the Neogene, and Quaternary.
The book also includes an interactive element in the form of 10 “gatefolds”, which unfold to give an expanded view of the featured creature. Make sure you pay attention to which direction they unfold however, so you don’t accidentally rip the page! Some unfold sideways, while others go up and down.
The animals are organized roughly by age, according to their first appearance in the fossil record. We aren’t limited to extinct animals this way either, as several modern animals show up, too. Readers may be surprised by how long ago these modern creatures first appeared.
I did notice a few minor errors, both in illustration and text. The Blue Whale is given Humpback Whale flippers, while a couple of predator-prey relationships are mis-identified. Specifically, the North American Smilodon is said to have hunted the African Black Rhino, and the Eurasian Megaloceros is said to have been hunted by the North American Dire Wolf.
Overall, I really like Meet the Megafauna. It covers a broad variety of megafauna, with all of the classics one would expect to appear in a book like this. The minor mistakes I mentioned aside, it has excellent information, and pleasant illustrations. I think I feel comfortable giving this one my Dino Dad Stomp of Approval. For books with a similar theme, see my reviews of Once Upon A Mastodon, Mammal Takeover!, Mega-Predators of the Past, and Stone Age Beasts.
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