In the long history of life on our planet, dinosaurs have pride of place as an evolutionary landmark and have understandably captured most of the press... but what about life before and after the 'monstrous lizards' had their day? How much do we know about the astounding diversity of creatures that first swam, slithered, crawled, ran and flew across the ancient Earth? With concise, jargon-free text and approximately 350 full-colour illustrations and photo-real computer graphics, this book is a definitive reference to the inhabitants of the prehistoric world, and a complete story of life on our planet. The award-winning team at Framestore, of Walking With Dinosaurs fame, bring never-before seen creatures to life, such as Meganeuria, a giant carnivorous dragonfly; the sail-backed killer Dimetrodon; and Gorgonopsid, a sabre-toothed desert predator that looked like a cross between a monitor lizard and a lion. The book covers environments as distinct as grasslands, wetlands, forests, mountains and oceans, and features species dating from the Cambrian Period (c. 50 million years ago) all the way through to the Pleistocene Epoch (c. 1.8 milllion - 11,000 years ago), with in-depth information on their lifestyles, habitats, behaviour and distribution across the prehistoric Earth.