McGOWAN, Christopher 1942-

PERSONAL: Born March 30, 1942, in Beckenham, Kent, England; son of Wilfred Clarence (a baker) and Gwendoline Daisy (a homemaker; maiden name, Morphew) McGowan; married Liz Gregory, September 4, 1965; children: Claire Louise, Angela Kay. Ethnicity: "Anglo-Saxon." Education: Polytechnic College, London, England, B.S. (honors), 1965; Birkbeck College, University of London, Ph.D. (zoology), 1969.

ADDRESSES: Office—Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queens Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M55 2C6. Agent—Anderson/Grinberg, 266 West 23rd St., No.3, New York, NY 10011. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Royal Ontario Museum, Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, curatorial assistant, 1969-70, assistant curator, 1970-74, associate curator, 1974-80, curator, 1980—, department of palaeobiology, senior curator, 1994-2002; University of Toronto, Department of Zoology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, associate professor, 1972-89, professor, 1990—.

MEMBER: Society for Experimental Biology, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, The Palaeontological Society.

AWARDS, HONORS: Royal Ontario Museum grants, 1997, 1999, 2001; NSERC research grants, 1976-2003.

WRITINGS:

Evolutionary Trends in Longipinnate Ichthyosaurs, with Particular Reference to the Skull and Fore Fin, Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1972.

Differential Growth in Three Ichthyosaurs: Ichthyosaurus Communis, I. Breviceps, and Stenopterygius Quadriscissus, Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1973.

The Cranial Morphology of the Lower Liassic Latipinnate Ichthyosaurs of England, British Museum (London, England), 1973.

A Revision of the Latipinnate Ichthyosaurs of the Lower Jurassic of England, Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1974.

In the Beginning—: A Scientist Shows Why the Creationists Are Wrong, Prometheus (Buffalo, NY), 1983.

The Successful Dragons: A Natural History of Extinct Reptiles, Samuel Stevens (Toronto, Ontario Canada), 1983.

Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1991.

Discover Dinosaurs: Become a Dinosaur Detective, illustrated by Tina Holdcroft, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1992.

Diatoms to Dinosaurs: The Size and Scale of Living Things, illustrated by Julian Mulock, Island Press for Shearwater Books (Washington, DC), 1994.

Make Your Own Dinosaur out of Chicken Bones: Foolproof Instructions for Budding Paleontologists, illustrated by Julian Mulock, HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 1997.

The Raptor and the Lamb: Predators and Prey in the Living World, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1997.

A Practical Guide to Vertebrate Mechanics, illustrated by Julian Mulock, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

T. Rex to Go: Build Your Own from Chicken Bones, illustrated by Julian Mulock, HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 1999.

Dinosaur: Digging up a Giant, North Winds Press, 1999.

The Dragon Seekers: How an Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Discovered the Dinosaurs and Paved the Way for Darwin, Perseus Publications (Cambridge, MA) 2001.

Also contributor of numerous articles to scholarly publications, including Canadian Journal of Earth Science, Palaeobiology, Journal of Zoology, Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, and publications of the Royal Ontario Museum.

SIDELIGHTS: As a researcher and senior curator in the department of palaeobiology at the Royal Ontario Museum, Christopher McGowan is a renowned expert in vertebrate biology of the Mesozoic era. He makes comparisons between living and extinct animals while presenting topics that range from size to intellect. In addition to exploring the natural history of the Mesozoic Era, McGowan draws on science and engineering to explain curiosities such as the similarities between extinct animals and modern machines.

In The Dragon Seekers: How an Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Discovered the Dinosaurs and Paved the Way for Darwin, McGowan turns his attention to the early days of dinosaur hunting and the first paleontologists who hunted them. The book begins in 1811 on the cliffs of England's Dorset coast. Mary Anning, then a twelve year old hunting for fossil souvenirs to sell to tourists, found the skeletal remains of what she thought was a "sea dragon" but turned out to be the world's first ichthyosaur remains. Anning's discovery, according to McGowan, combined with other English fossilists to virtually begin dinosaur research and pave the way for Darwin's theory of evolution. McGowan notes that because of Anning's "humble station" and need to feed her family, she became one of the most productive fossilists of all time. She also possessed a natural scientific curiosity, and read everything she could from borrowed publications and made handwritten copies for her records.

In a review of the book for the Los Angeles Times, Paula Friedman wrote, "The descriptions of desolate digging sites in Lyme Regis and elsewhere in Britain, where fossilists often worked for long stints in near isolation, add an affecting lyrical beauty to McGowan's historical account. Depictions of the often-charged conflict between church and science, as well as those of the scientists sometimes unscrupulous practices, especially evident in fossil reconstruction, bring suspense to the plot line. And by dramatically bringing his tale to the edge of modernity, McGowan culminates his suspenseful buildup with the entrance of Charles Darwin himself."

The Raptor and the Lamb: Predators and Prey in the Living World explains that the predator-prey relationship is symbiotic and necessary in nature. Through a variety of examples the author examines the prey-predator on land, sea and air. A Guardian contributor noted, "Books like this, by stunning us with details we can measure, also alert us to how little we really know." Nancy Bent in Booklist wrote that "The subtle interactions between predator and prey, and how each is evolved to outwit the other, form the structure on which this clearly written narrative is based....the author ties each example to the overall theme of natural selection at work."

In Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons McGowan deals with questions of the mechanics ancient creatures used to move themselves through the air, in the sea, or on land. Using research disciplines methods including structural mechanics, aeronautics, and forensic biology, he reconstructs how the dinosaurs moved. Michael Taylor wrote in New Scientist that McGowan "has certainly found a new niche in what sometimes seem a hopelessly overcrowded dinosaur book market, not just because of the ichthyosaurs, but also because of its adult, reasonable, amiably balanced, and correctly open-ended approach to how we really develop our ideas about them."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Audubon, September, 1997, review of The Raptor and the Lamb: Predators and Prey in the Living World, p. 100.

Booklist, August, 1997, Nancy Bent, review of The Raptor and the Lamb, p. 1861; May 15, 2001, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Dragon Seekers: How an Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Discovered the Dinosaurs and Paved the Way for Darwin, p. 1716.

Guardian (London, England), August 29, 1998, Tim Radford, review of The Raptor and the Lamb, p. 8.

Library Journal, July, 1997, Bruce D. Neville, review of The Raptor and the Lamb, p. 121.

Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2001, Paula Friedman, review of The Dragon Seekers, p. E3.

New Scientist, November 23, 1991, Michael Taylor, review of Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons, p. 54.

Publishers Weekly, July 7, 1997, review of The Raptor and the Lamb, p. 61; May 7, 2001, review of The Dragon Seekers, p. 231.

Science, May 17, 1991, Kevin Padian, review of Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons, p. 1006.

Whole Earth Review, summer, 1995, J. Baldwin, review of Diatoms to Dinosaurs: The Size and Scale of Living Things, p. 21.