Danielle Clode, From Dinosaurs to Diprotodons: Australia’s Amazing Fossils, Museum Victoria Publishing, August 2018, 44 pp., RRP $24.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781921833472
Why are fossils so interesting? It was Charles Darwin who noted that giant prehistoric fossils were like living species and this helped him understand evolution. Fossils however can also give us important information on the movement of land masses and climate of the time as well as the impacted environmental change has had on plant and animal species in and out of the water.
In her latest book published by Museum Victoria, Zoologist and science writer for children and adults Danielle Clode explores the amazing world of fossils. Using charts,photographs, illustrations and thought bubbles Clode takes us on a prehistoric adventure in our own backyards; exploring marsupials and reptiles over 14 sites. Did you know for example that Propleopus oscillans was a kangaroo that ate meat? Or that giant wombats Phascolonus gigas grew to the size of a large pig and that Aboriginal people called megafauna, large extinct animals from the last ice age, bunyips?
Providing Glossary, Places to Go and Index of Animals pages at the back, Clode also gives details of how many of these fossil sites around Australia can be visited. Although in picture book format, this is a great reference book for kids of any age wishing to know more about our origins.
Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Mem Capp
