Science Communication
In addition to his work as a palaeontologist John Long has been prominent as a key science communicator in Australia, mainly through his many popular science books, written for both adults and children, which include works of fiction as well as non-fiction. His book The Rise of Fishes -500 Million Years of Evolution is widely used as a standard reference on fish evolution, and his books dealing with Australian dinosaurs and Mesozoic faunas, and on Australian and New Guinean prehistoric mammals were the first tomes to comprehensively cover these topics. His work collecting fossils in Antarctica was published as a book Mountains of Madness - A Scientist's Odyssey Through Antarctica that gave the first detailed account of a modern scientific expedition to Antarctica as told from the scientist's viewpoint. His work on the international fossil trade, which highlighted problems of fossil smuggling and ignorance of legislation, was made into a 2 part documentary series entitled The Dinosaur Dealers, and published as a book of the same name. He has been active in Australia since the late 1990s dealing with issues of fossil repatriation, legislation and heritage. His books for children include two novels based on cutting edge research that paint vivid pictures of travelling back in time to experience the varied landscapes of prehistoric Australia (Mystery of Devils Roost, Journey to the Dawn of Time) as well as non-fiction works dealing mainly with dinosaurs and prehistory, but also with the environment and climate change and the development of human civilizations.
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