King Tyrant by Mark Witton – review

Does the world need yet another book about Tyrannosaurus rex? Mark Witton’s here to make a good case that it does. As one of the best-known and most well-studied of all charismatic Mesozoic dinosaurs (sorry, hadrosaurs), there’s more than enough to say about this infamous species to fill a coffee table book, and such is the ever-changing world of palaeontology these days that there’ll inevitably have been plenty of exciting developments since the last such book came along. Plus, and as appallingly gauche as I’m aware that it is to say so, Tyrannosaurus is just really cool. As Mark acknowledges in the book, the combination of its sheer size, ferocious appearance, the time in which it lived, and that blockbuster name amount to lightning in a bottle, its pop culture impact unlikely to be repeated any time soon. I’ll always be happy to read about it, especially in a book as impressive as this one.

Lots of children will cite Tyrannosaurus as their favourite dinosaur (when they don’t mention something dumb like “Indominus rex” or Scelidosaurus*), as would I, perhaps because I’m a bit of an overgrown child with an overgrown toy collection. Mark’s explicit aim in King Tyrant (published in May by Princeton University Press) is to cut through pop culture preconceptions and mytholigising and piece together an image of the real Tyrannosaurus rex. That doesn’t mean he ignores the animal’s cultural impact; on the contrary, the history of its discovery, reconstruction and endearing popular appeal is given its due. However, the bulk of the book is dedicated to looking past this and rebuilding the animal from the ground up – in fact, not just Tyrannosaurus itself, but the world around it.

King Tyrant is every bit as comprehensive as you might expect, while remaining completely accessible to the keenly interested layperson (you know, like me, and probably you if you’re not a scientist yourself). The examination and discussion of Tyrannosaurus skeletal anatomy is particularly impressive in this respect, balancing the need to introduce technical terminology with keeping it readable, and I found it especially absorbing. As in the rest of the book, the T. rex skeleton isn’t pored over in isolation, but in the context of its evolutionary history and relationship and similarities with other animals, extinct and extant. This naturally leads to biomechanics and palaeobiology, and the many differing ideas that have been put forth over the years about how exactly tyrannosaurs functioned.

On which note, it’s important to mention that this is a book that always feels even-handed. Naturally, there are some hypotheses and ideas that Mark favours over others, but these are always carefully evidenced and presented, and he isn’t one to beat the reader over the head with them, or make blithe declarations contrary to the consensus established in the technical literature. When it comes to the not-at-all-tedious debate over Tyrannosaurus facial tissues, Mark obviously favours lippy tyrants, but takes the time to explain and even illustrate competing ideas…and why he finds them less than compelling. It couldn’t have been easy to square this careful approach with creating an accessible, popular book, but he manages it well.

Naturally, there’s a great deal here that crosses over with Dave Hone’s The Tyrannosaur Chronicles. The obvious difference is that Dave’s book covers the whole Tyrannosauroidea, whereas Mark’s hones in (arf) on a single species. However, Mark’s book naturally also devotes space to the broader context of tyrant evolution, since one could hardly not do that. I think they’re both worth reading as companion pieces. Mark’s book does, of course, have the advantage of being in a larger format (“My tyrannosaur book’s bigger than yours!”) and featuring a great many colour illustrations by Mark himself.

For you see, Mark’s known as a palaeoartist as well as a palaeontologist, in case you weren’t aware. At its best, his artwork is moody in an understated sort of way, with remarkably impassive views of tyrant reptiles, their beady eyes hidden by shadow and their teeth hidden by soft tissues, brutally ramming each other or tearing the heads off carcasses or chunks out of edmontosaurs. They’re scenes that could easily be sensationalised in the hands of other artists, but are presented here with a quite grim, detached honesty. At its worst, his art can end up a little muddy and indistinct, especially when it comes to details like foliage. Still, there’s far more to like here than not, and no doubt you already have an opinion on Mark’s style, and even if you don’t especially appreciate it, there’s a lot to commend in this book.

As an aside, in its occasionally rather grey-and-brown bleakness, Mark’s art can feel very, very English. Or perhaps that’s just me, appreciating my fellows in the way that comes naturally to us.

There’s an awful lot more to this book, of course – whole chapters on Tyrannosaurus senses, its eyes and ears and sense of smell, its possible hunting behaviours, breeding and brooding behaviours, palaeoenvironments across its whole range, growth cycle and changing ecology during ontogeny. Each chapter is meticulously referenced and, as I’ve mentioned, feels like a balanced overview of where we’re at. It also remains highly compelling and readable (again, it helps if you’re really into tyrannosaurs), without any embarrassing sensationalism or self-aggrandisement, and without becoming dry. It’s richly illustrated with life reconstructions and skeletal diagrams and photography. What’s not to like?

I thoroughly enjoyed King Tyrant, and anyone with a healthy apprecation of freakishly large coelurosaurian theropods with diminished forelimbs and an enviable film career surely will, too. I give it 5/5 Hones.

 

*I’m kidding. (Sorry, Abigail.)

What do you think the P stands for? I like to think that it’s Percival.