A Review of Prehistoric Times Magazine (Spring 2010) – issue 93

The countdown to the centenary edition of Prehistoric Times continues with the eagerly awaited arrival of issue 92 (Spring 2010).  Prehistoric Times is an American based magazine designed to cater for prehistoric animal fans, amateur fossil hunters, model makers, collectors and enthusiasts of all things dinosaur.  Now in its seventeenth year of production this quarterly magazine goes from strength to strength.

Prehistoric Times Magazine

Issue 93 covers a whopping 63 pages.  The featured prehistoric animals in this edition are Mastodons and Spinosaurus.  There is some super artwork on these amazing creatures, really nice to see a “Kids Korner” feature (trust our American friends to alter the English spelling), with a number of Spinosaurus drawings sent in by younger dinosaur fans.  There is a super article on Spinosaurus written by Phil Hore, it explains how the excavation of this particular dinosaur by the famous German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer was interrupted by world events and tells the story of how much of the early 20th Century fossil material was destroyed.

The Front Cover of Prehistoric Times Spring 2010

Issue 93 of Prehistoric Times magazine.

Picture credit: Mike Fredericks

Tracy Lee Ford, has written a fascinating article in the series “How to Draw Dinosaurs”, concentrating on the drawing and interpretation of feathered dinosaurs.  This feature fits nicely with the Paleonews section, as it covers the evidence of colouration in a dinosaur fossil – the recently published paper on the small Chinese theropod Sinosauropteryx.

To read more about this discovery: Melanosomes provide Further Evidence of Feathered Dinosaurs.

The news section covers the latest dinosaur and prehistoric animal discoveries, and provides a summary of some of the news stories surrounding palaeontology that have been published in the last few months or so.  The Everything Dinosaur blog provides a little more detail on many of these news stories but it is a handy compendium of what has been happening in the dynamic Earth Sciences since Christmas.

Our old friends, the creators of Jurassic Wars – the dinosaur themed combat game get a mention and a review in the magazine and as I write this a model of Amebelodon (Carnegie Safari) looks down on me from the shelf and it is very pleasing to see the in-depth article on Mastodons and other primitive elephants written by Mark Hallett.

To subscribe to Prehistoric Times: Prehistoric Times Magazine.

All in all, a very good publication from Mike Fredericks and team, we are looking forward to discussing the magazine and its contents in the office tomorrow – something to look forward to on a Monday morning.