For someone who loves the prehistoric times, canines and is very interested by the subject of canine evolution, I'm surprised I never picked up a book on the subject before. So here we go.
In this book, the authors present us with canine evolution, showcasing the many ancestors of our canines nowadays throughout the ages. What they (may have) looked like, how they probably lived, what they ate, and even some speculation on certain behaviors. It is also accompanied by many illustrations showing these canines, and there's even a small subsection dedicated to animals that evolved to look like canines, such as hyenas and thylacines.
Overall a great book. I was a little worried going in that it was going to be a bit hard to digest for me, as books with a lot of jargon and long, cluttered chapters can put me off, but this one was honestly a really nice and easily digestible read. Chapters aren't that long and have many smaller subsections, there's many illustrations and the language used was very understandable even for a non-native English speaker like me. Jargon is used sometimes but always explained, mostly in cases such as anatomical names. The writing voice was also pleasant to me.
I also greatly appreciated the inclusion of (many) illustrations showing the skulls of these critters, plus an interpretation of what they might have looked like. There are a lot of canine ancestors brought up in this book, so it's neat that we're able to see interpretations of them here. Just makes them feel a bit more tangible and real than if the book only included pictures of skulls and bones. There's also a few full-color pages of illustrations in the middle of the book which were a treat to look at.
This was overall a very informative book on canine evolution. It's not the longest book on the subject (only 200 pages or so) but still gives a lot of information in a digestible way, with a good presentation and a lot of helpful illustrations to boot.
Rating: 4/5
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