Did You Know Dino? Jurassic America

Regular readers may remember my review of Did You Know Dino? Hell Creek (not to be confused with I Know Dino!), written and illustrated by Andy Cruz, who also produces Dinosaur Comics on Instagram. The Hell Creek book, as the title implies, examined the paleofauna of the Hell Creek Formation, best known as the home of Tyrannosaurus rex at the very end of the Cretaceous Period.

Andy’s latest book, Did You Know Dino? Jurassic America, similarly examines a specific geologic formation, in this case the Morrison Formation of North America, famous for its abundance of sauropod dinosaurs. The book is illustrated in Andy’s characteristic cartoony style, which finds a perfect balance between whimsy and scientific accuracy.

Like the Hell Creek book, Jurassic America is organized into a series of profiles on the various dinosaur species in the Morrison Formation. It is fairly comprehensive, though it mostly focuses on the latest stage of the Morrison, meaning there are a few species that didn’t make it into the book, such as Hesperosaurus and Haplocanthosaurus. I liked that everything was organized by family group this time, rather than simple alphabetical order. I’m a sucker for taxonomy!

Non-dinosaurs get their spot to shine as well. Fossil fish, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, pterosaurs, and mammals all get a page devoted to their groups. While the individual species don’t get their own profile pages, I felt like this section was nevertheless slightly more fleshed out than the corresponding part of the Hell Creek book.

I should give a little shoutout to Andy Cruz and to publisher Rextooth Studios for sending me my copy. There was some issue with the mail, and they had to try three times to get it to me, for which I am supremely grateful! Rextooth Studios also publishes books like  Jurassic, SUE, Sharks, 50 Million Years of Whales, and Mammoth is Mopey, all of which I recommend checking out.

As for Did You Know Dino? Jurassic America, it is just as good as its predecessor, which is to say excellent! It delivers easily digestable details about the denizens of Late Jurassic North America, and is a delight to read. I hope that Andy keeps up with this series, and gives us more books like it in the future. I give Jurassic America a hearty Dino Dad Stomp of Approval!