Home > Categories > Books > Kids - General > Lost Worlds of Aotearoa review
This stunning illustrated book describes the animals and plants that once thrived in New Zealand, but have now become lost to us for a variety of reasons.
Covering the last 120 million years, this book is divided into three sections: the reign of the dinosaurs: after the dinosaurs; and the ice ages and beyond. Within these sections, there are several vivid double page spreads illustrating related animals and plants in an active setting - either the coast, plains, swamp, bush, forest or the sea.
The Lost Worlds of Aotearoa stars the dinosuars that would have lived in NZ - including megalosaurs, sauropods, ankylosaurs and pterosaurs among others; the New Zealand crocodile, the giant gecko, the giant shark, several species of moa, the Haast's eagle, as well as some more recent extinct species such as the huia, the Northland skink and the bush wren.
Simply and directly written, this book opens up a window into New Zealand's far-distant past, tracking its evolution from being part of Gondwanaland to its present state.
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This picture book gives detailed information and fantastic double page illustrations of New Zealand's dinosaurs of coast, land, and sea, as well as details in the same format of the animals shortly after the dinosaur's reign, and later, after the ice ages, including more recently extinct New Zealand moas and huia, and the giant Haast's eagle.
Each double page illustration showing animals together in their environment is followed by a fainter version of the same illustration, with interesting descriptions of each animal.
Each section, the reign of the dinosaurs, after the dinosaurs, and the ice ages and beyond, includes a two-page article on the species of that time, as well as details and illustrations on how New Zealand broke away from the super-continent Gondwanaland and changed over time.
There is also an introduction, with a handy time chart spanning 600 million years and illustrating when dinosaurs were on earth (225-65 million years ago), and when the ice age occurred (2 million years ago), and final chapter, which briefly discusses issues of today and tomorrow, including deforestation, climate change, and the adaptation of species to these changes.
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