Prehistoric Animals, 1956
By Jane Werner Watson

This popular book contains cropped segments of the preliminary "cartoon" that was used to produce the Pulitzer
Prize winning (1949) mural, "The Age of Reptiles," created between 1943 and 1947 by Rudolph F. Zallinger
(1919-1995).  Information about the mural can be found here.  According to Debus and Debus, all restorations
of the "Age of Reptiles" that appeared in print before the early 1980's were of the preliminary "cartoon" because
the mounted skeletons prevented direct photography of the mural.  Prehistoric Animals also contains segments
from Zallinger's restoration of prehistoric mammals cropped from an early version of his painting, "The Age of
Mammals," and a restoration of an Elasmosaurus cropped from his painting of life in the Cretaceous seas. 

"The Age of Reptiles," "The Age of Mammals," and Zallinger's painting of life in the Cretaceous seas all appear,
uncropped, in a large format Life publication titled The World We Live In (1955).  Prehistoric Animals also includes
some restorations of life in the Pre-Cambrian and Paleozoic seas by the artists Antonio Petruccelli and James Lewicki. 
Again, these restorations were cropped from larger illustrations that were included in The World We Live In.  Do not
bother getting a copy of Prehistoric Animals.  Get a copy of The World We Live In instead, as this book contains
complete copies of Zallinger's paintings in a fold-out format.

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