In October 2023, Extinct Birds 1 and Extinct Birds 2 from the PNSO Animal Museum series have been published in Chinese. The two volumes scientifically and artistically demonstrate fresh understandings of bird evolution over 150 million years. In terms of design, the two books still follow the PNSO Museum format, using 1-meter-long colorful fold-out pages to present abundant details.
In addition to fish, birds are the most numerous and widely distributed group of living vertebrates. Birds with a great variety, various appearances, and vastly different living environments and habits make up a colorful world of birds. The prosperous birds in the modern world are the result of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. The primitive basal birds that flourished in the Mesozoic Era, the more advanced enantiornithes, and the euornithes all played critical roles in the evolution of birds. We already know that dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern birds. So, how did the ancestors of birds evolve to become what they are today?
All works in this series come from the research results of “Darwin: An Art Project of Life Science” of “PNSO’s Scientific Art Projects Plan: Stories on Earth.” Mr. ZHAO Chuang, a scientific artist, strictly follows available scientific evidence throughout his creation, by building his artistic framework based on fossils and scientific data. He restored skeletons, models, and the ecological environment from fossils, to make these both scientifically rigorous and artistically creative. Based on the latest research, YANG Yang, a science writer for children, leads readers to learn about extinct birds that lived in ancient times. When did the earliest birds appear, and what did they look like? How did birds’ tails get shorter little by little? How did birds lose their teeth bit by bit? What are the dietary differences of birds in various ecological niches? What happened to the birds that once lived on this land with humans but are now extinct? Let’s go back hundreds of millions of years ago and explore the mysteries of bird evolution!
The simplified Chinese version of PNSO Animal Museum: Extinct Birds 1 and PNSO Animal Museum: Extinct Birds 2 is published by Enjoy Reading Era and Qingdao Publishing House. Audio and video programs of the same series will be launched soon, aiming to complete the readers’ experience. We look forward to your interesting reading feedback!
