Bernard Grzimek's Encyclodia of Evolution

 



When I was around 13 years old, my dad used to take me every three months to my doctor in Indianopolis who a specialists for a disorder I had. 

I'd have my blood test, then return after a few hours time to get the results and meet with the doctor. During that time, my dad took me to the mall, the zoo, the museum, or wherever I wanted to go. 

That time, at the mall, (and this was before I discovered the local comic book store, Comic Carnival, and Nostalgia Emporium, where I found the first Callisto book by Lin Carter) the B. Dalton Book seller had the entire series of Bernard Grzimek's Encyclopedia of Wildlife series on sale. Grzimek was a famous zoologist its who authored the book Four-Legged Australians. There was a single chapter in that book devoted entirely to the destruction of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger where he made the prediction, correctly I fear, that though a few thylacines might still survive, they were totally unadapted to the forests where they'd been driven, and would shortly die out. In the volume on marsupials, he repeats that prediction. 

But that I found a (supplementary?) volume that was devoted to evolution. Basically it was natural history tome chornicling life on earth through every prehistoric age. 

This was an incredible book, featuring heretofore unknown paintings by Czech artist Zdenek Burian. I'd checked out Life Through the Ages from the La Porte library many times, but I'd never seen these. Plus, there was a wealth of other illos, cladistic tables, and info on paleontology. 

But because of the price, my parents refused to buy it for me. 

That was the time, I also found the latest issue of the new series Ka-Zar the Savage by Bruce Jones and Brent Anderson, and my folks bought me a children's book on prehistoric mammals, with great pictures drawn by Peter Zallinger, brother or son of the more famous paleopartist Rudolf Zallinger. 

Over the years, a began to wonder that Grzimak book even existed; the library had a full set of his encyclopedia, but not the one devoted to prehistory. The volume on reptiles had a one-page painting of ancient sea reptiles, and I wondered if that could have been the one. Only I distinctly recalled a two-page by  Burian, that included, among other things, a beached tylosaur. And there were other such panaoramas through the book. Hadn't there been? 

It was only when I was in graduate school, that I finally found the REAL volume once again. And there were all those gorgeous paintings, including the one I recalled the most, with the beached tylosaur. 

I finally found it on ebay, and here is just a sample of the primeval wonders to be found within: 










And this is issue of Ka-Zar I bought that day, drawn by Brent Anderson, who frequently used the paleo art of Burian as a reference: 





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