9780521779302book bcp D - Cambridge University Pressassets.cambridge.org/97805217/79302/frontmatter/...lisher, Odile Jacob, didn't usually advertise heavily in our field. I called

• DINOSAUR IMPRESSIONS

•

Originally published in 1994 in French, Dinosaur Impressions is the engaging account of thirty years of travel and paleontological exploration by Philippe Taquet, one of the world's most noted paleontologists. Dr. Taquet takes the reader on a surprisingly far-flung tour - ranging from the countryside of Provence to the desert of Niger, from the Brazilian bush to the Mongolian Steppes, and from the Laotian jungle to the Mo

roccan mountains - in search of dinosaur bones and what they have to tell us about a vanished world. With wry humor and lively anecdotes, Dr. Taquet retraces the history of paleontological research, along the way discussing the latest theories of dinosaur existence and extinction.

Elegantly translated by Kevin Padian, Dinosaur Impressions provides a unique, thoughtful perspective not often encountered in Englishlanguage works. This insightful, firsthand account of an exceptional career is also a travelogue par excellence that will enthrall enthusiasts and general readers alike.

Philippe Taquet is the former Director of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and is a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Kevin Padian is a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a curator of its Museum of Paleontology. He is also the editor of The Beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs and coeditor of Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs.

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The author comes face to face with a Protoceratops in the Gobi Desert. (Photo by P. Taquet)






-------DINOSAUR

IMPRESSIONS

-------POtTCARDt FROM A PALEONTOLOGUT

PHILIPPE TAQUET

Translated by KEVIN PADIAN

; .... ~ ..... CAMBRIDGE ::: UNIVERSITY PRESS






CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org Information on this tide: www.cambridge.org/978052I779302

Originally published in French as L'Empreinte des dinosaures by Editions Odile Jacob 1994 and © Editions Odile Jacob

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published in English by Cambridge University Press 1998 with the help of the French Ministry of Culture English translation © Cambridge University Press 1998 First Paperback edition 1999

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Taquet Philippe.

[CEmpreinte des dinosaures. English] Dinosaur impresssions : postcards from a paleontologist I Philippe Taquet ; Kevin Padian, translator.

p. cm. Includes biliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-58372-1 (hardback) ISBN 0-521-77930-8 (paperback) I. Taquet, Philippe. 2. Dinosaurs. 3. Paleontology. 1. Tide

QE22.T36T37I3 1998 567·9-dc2I

ISBN 978-0-521-58372-5 Hardback ISBN 978-0-521-77930-2 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables, and other factual information given in this work is correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.






(ONTENTS

Translator's Preface Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Gadoufaoua: In the Sands of the Tenere

2 The Ouranosaurus; Of, How to Bring a Dinosaur Back to Life

3 Tracking the Dinosaurs

4 Many Crocodiles, One Continent

5 In Morocco with the Giants of the Atlas

6 In the Steppes of Central Asia

7 A Bone Hunter in Laos

8 Across Europe with the Dinosaurs

9 The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurian Empire

Afterword, by Philippe Taquet and Kevin Padian Bibliography

Index

v

page vii

ix

xi

25

53

73

95

123

147

169

201

219

227

238






Would there not also be some glory for Man in knowing how to broach the limits of time, and through his observations to rediscover the history of this world and the succession of events that preceded the birth of humankind?

Georges Cuvier, Discourse on the Revolutions of the Globe, 1825

It seemed that I had always lived like this, and I wanted it to last forever. I wanted the unknown world to be without limits and, each day for countless years, for the dragons of my tent to rear up in the air of a new land. To travel like this is to live two lifetimes; to stop, to remain, is to live half-dead. In days gone by the voyages were long. Marco Polo's lasted twenty-seven years. Those were the days!

Jacques Bacot, Tibet in Revolt, 1912

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TRANJLATOR'J PREFACE

LATE IN 1994 I received one of those pleasant surprises that seem to occur with uncanny regularity in the field of paleontology. MyoId friend and colleague, Philippe Taquet, had sent me a copy of his new book, L'Empreinte des Dinosaures: Carnets de piste d'un chercheur d'os (literally, The "Imprint" of Dinosaurs: Field Notebooks of a Bone Hunter). I read it through and was delighted by it. My first thought was that it should gain wider exposure than it was likely to get, inasmuch as Philippe's French publisher, Odile Jacob, didn't usually advertise heavily in our field. I called Nick Fraser, who edited the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and asked if I might review it for him. He quickly agreed, and the review was soon published.

Several months later, though, I began to think that Philippe's book might not receive its due attention outside France, and that would be a shame. Unfortunately, even in our field, where people from all over the globe regularly travel and work together, we don't read in each other's languages as much as we used to, or should. Sometimes the newest or the most flashy recent discoveries have a way of dimming the memory of the work of explorers who laid the groundwork or discovered many of the same things long ago - and, as you will quickly see, Philippe has been many places and done a lot of things. Besides, he has some wonderful stories to tell. Moreover, we need his Gallic perspective, and others like his, so that our science and others don't become dominated by the historical accident of anglophonic hegemony in the conferences and publications of the scientific community.

With Philippe's acquiescence we urged Editions Odile Jacob to have the book translated, and in due time this was arranged. When Philippe

vii






TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

settled on Cambridge University Press he very kindly asked me if I would finish what I had started. It has been an enormous pleasure to help to bring to a wider audience the exploits and insights of a great scholar, colleague, and friend.

A note on the translation: Sometimes the beauty of French expression lies in allusions to subjects unfamiliar to an anglophonic audience. By adding a handful of footnotes, I have hoped to bring out some of the natural poetry without being overly didactic. The word l'empreinte in Philippe's original title, for example, is almost ineffable. You can read it as "footprint" or "trace," or even "fingerprint," but it has a deeper meaning of "mark" or "stamp," as of an indelible impression. Dinosaurs seem to have that effect on all of us.

The names of French organizations have been translated into English, but their initialisms reflect the original French rather than the translations: For example, the National Center for Scientific Research is abbreviated CNRS (for Centre national de la recherche scientifique).

My own thanks in this endeavor go to Jennie Dorny at Odile Jacob and especially Robin Smith, Peter-John Leone, and Michael Gnat at Cambridge, for their help and encouragement. Above all I must thank Helen Grove, Patrick Lundy, Pierre-Philippe Oriet, and Armand de Ricqles for their best efforts in teaching me what little I know of the French language; and, of course, Philippe Taquet, for all his cooperation and collaboration, and the joy of working together on this. I would like to dedicate my labors on this book to the late Helene Taquet, who was so greatly loved and admired by her family and friends.

Kevin Padian Berkeley, California December 1997

viii






PREFACE

THE PALEONTOLOGIST EXPLORES the archives of Earth to reconstruct the history of life on our planet. In following his (or her) trade, which is also his passion, he enjoys a double privilege: Fascinated by the duration of geologic time and ensnared by the mystery of origins, he's a time traveler; as a naturalist who loves the scents of the scrub and the breath of the harmattan, he's a space traveler - though not yet an interplanetary one.

The paleontologist undertakes what is really a very strange profession: that of sedentary nomad as well as intellectual laborer. He's a nomad, like the Fulani shepherds of the Sahara, who say that "dust on the feet is worth more than dust on the behind." But sometimes he has to be sedentary, like the Hausa farmers of Nigeria, who say that "it takes the body's water to draw out the well's." He's the roadworker of the past, digging, picking, and chiseling to release fossil bones from their matrix. He reconstructs unknown species, bringing them back to life by reasoning and by knowledge of the laws of comparative anatomy. Sometimes it takes a lot of intellectual sweat in the laboratory to penetrate the secrets of the past.

The paleontologist has the exciting job of restoring a presence to vanished worlds from which humans were entirely absent. Baring the skeletons of strange animals before the incredulous eyes of the Tuaregs of Niger, the Berbers of the Moroccan High Atlas, or the vintners of Corbieres, he is fully conscious of introducing into human thought subversive notions as to the immensity of time, our animal origins, and the evolution of species - thereby upsetting myths and beliefs, and calling into question the order of things.

ix






PREFACE

In 1964, my path first crossed the trails of dinosaurs. Since then, my research has taken me from the desert of Tenere to the sertao of Brazil, from the forests of Laos to the steppes of Mongolia. I've had the good fortune to discover a few dinosaurs, as well as the joy of sharing life with a great many fellow earthlings. Recounting some of these expeditions has often brought to mind the memory of a great novel, story, or film; but my aim is to draw the reader into a world that owes nothing to fiction and everything to science.

x






ACKNOWLEDGMENTJ

My APPRECIATION GOES to everyone who has helped me for thirty years, both in the paleontology laboratory of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and far away during my expeditions in the field.

Without the active support of the people of the countries, far and near, where I have had the good fortune to work, without the efficient contributions of workers and researchers, technicians and administrators, I would not have been able to bring all my labors on dinosaurs to fruition.

To all of you, I dedicate this book.

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9780521779302book bcp D - Cambridge University Pressassets.cambridge.org/97805217/79302/frontmatter/...lisher, Odile Jacob, didn't usually advertise heavily in our field. I called