Sandra Rendgen

Amazingly Vivid Dino Illustrations Reveal a Brutal Prehistoric World

Over its lifetime, Earth has hosted countless species. But some of those species, like the dinosaurs, have managed to claw their way into a special place in our imaginations. Now, a new book illustrates the dinosaurs — and many of the beasts of millennia ago — in beautiful, spectacular and vicious style.

In one illustration, tiny Utahraptors tear at the flesh of a much larger creature. Another shows a rather unlikely but fanciful encounter between giant megalodon and funny-looking platybelodon. A more serene image depicts a well-camouflaged little dinosaur sleeping beneath a tree in a lush, green forest.

The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi, available on May 20, is a collection of artwork by Julius Csotonyi, an award-winning illustrator whose work lives in museums and in science papers. Csotonyi, who holds a PhD in microbiology, works frequently with paleontologists who need help bringing their fossil finds to life. Sometimes, though, he draws whatever comes to mind. According to Csotonyi’s parents, his first illustration, at age 3, was of a dinosaur. “It appears to have been intended to be a rooster,” Csotonyi says in the book.

Historical Map: East Berlin U- and S-Bahn Map, 1988

Another amazing historical map from that most fascinating of transit map cities, Berlin. This one shows the U-Bahn and S-Bahn networks of East Berlin in July 1988, just over a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. West Berlin is entirely omitted, with the S-Bahn ending at Friedrichstrasse with no indication of what lies further west of that point: not even a sektorengrenze.

The numbers at each station indicate the travel time from the nominal “centre” of each system – Ostkreuz for the S-Bahn and Alexanderplatz for the U-Bahn. A green square at a U-Bahn station indicates an interchange to main line trains.

The map itself is pretty basic and ugly, especially when compared to this map, made just five years previously. Route lines and labels head off in just about every possible direction and the whole thing has a very “thrown together” look. However, it’s a great historical document – one of the last East Berlin transit maps.