Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs

My letter to the State Senators of Indiana

2012-01-28T17:19:00.000-05:00

Today, I have emailed every State Senator in Indiana, including my own Senator Vi Simpson, a democrat serving us in Bloomington. On Monday, SB 89 will be on the agenda. Here is what I wrote.

As a concerned, life-long citizen of Indiana, I am driven to write to you today to express my opposition to SB 89, which provides "that the governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation."

One of the defining qualities of our country is the separation of church and state. The founding of the United States of America was largely rooted in the intellectual revolution of the Enlightenment; modern science is as well. When properly put to use, our government and science both provide a common ground from which people with dramatically different beliefs can coexist, participate in a common society, and communicate effectively for the betterment of all.

This is a precious thing. It is threatened by SB 89. We gain our values from the traditions we were raised in, and those we've explored as we've grown. Living in a country like the United States allows this flexibility. We can test our ideas against those of our fellow citizens. Bills like this are often couched in language which espouses "freedom of choice." And I do believe that we all are free to choose what we believe. But we also have a duty to change our minds in the face of new evidence.

The evidence is firmly in favor, for example, of evolution as a means of explaining the incredible diversity of life on Earth (a fine starting point for this is provided by the National Center for Science Education's evolution page located at http://ncse.com/evolution). The vast majority of the scientific community recognizes this, though it will always be possible to find a minority who disagree, for whatever their reasons. These reasons needn't be because of religious dogma; it's well beyond the ability of scientists to be experts in all fields of science. Of course, SB 89 pertains to the "origin of life," which is quite a different topic than evolution. It is an open question in science. But it is not one that is beyond its purview, and as knowledge progresses, I for one think it is likely that a purely natural theory of abiogenesis, as strongly supported as evolution, will be reached in my lifetime. To invoke a supernatural creator, as creationism, creation "science," and intelligent design do is the opposite of science. It is to quit in the face of a difficult challenge. It is, in my opinion, un-American.

The traditions of the religions of the world, the multitude of creation stories devised by humans, is a fascinating topic worthy of exploration in an educational setting, though I doubt it's one for the K-12 curriculum. But as the espousing of one religion's views is far beyond the purview of the United States government, no creation stories belong in our classrooms as a counterpoint to scientific hypotheses on the origin of life. I believe that allowing the teaching of material that is firmly religious in nature in our schools erodes the integrity of our country, and I cannot stay silent when this is proposed for the state I'm proud to call my home, a state built by fields of science including biology, chemistry, geology, and physics which have provided the knowledge to power its industries.

I appreciate your patience as I take this little detour into the broader topic of science education. And I sincerely thank everyone who has been so kind as to link to our posts and spread the word otherwise. Feel free to distribute this as you wish as well, and of course any fellow Hoosiers can use my set of graphics opposing SB 89, shared via Flickr. For more, also check out Reba Boyd Wooden's blog post for the Center of Inquiry for Indiana.

A bit of levity

2012-01-27T23:32:00.002-05:00

A child's drawing of Chasmosaurus, shred on flicker by Kurt Best. Love the description: "Chasmosaurus was a rhinocerosish dinosaur."

Mesozoic Miscellany 50

2012-01-27T14:00:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've been running at waaaaaay too many revolutions per minute for the last week, so what better way to relax a bit than to share some of the excellent work my fellow dinosaur bloggers have been doing? Maybe indulge in a bit of inspiring dinosaur art while we're at it? The fiftieth edition of our occasional roundup series is here, so pour the tea, light the stogies, put on a bit of Kenny G, and slip into your Forever Lazy. It's chill time.

The prize for coolest paleo story since the last coolest paleo story has to go to the discovery of a Massospondylus nesting site in Africa. In a long in the works paper released online prior to publication by PNAS, a team from the Royal Ontario Museum has described discovery. It's a real one-two punch for the sauropodomorphs after Heinrich Mallison's great paper about bipedal Plateosaurus, covered recently here in a terrific post by Marc. Check out a terrific Julius Csotonyi painting from 2010 about the site at his site. Also covered by Dinosaur Tracking, Palaeoblog, and Chinleana.

Dave Hone on big-ass carnivore battles: "Who cares?"

At Green Tea and Velociraptors, Jon Tennant tackles that perpetually thorny issue: What makes a fossil species?

Stephen Fry has returned to the Mesozoic, lending his vocal talents to a new iPad dinosaur Encyclopedia. Switek has the skinny at Dinosaur Tracking.

I love the stuff Raven Amos has been doing, and yesterday she shared a wonderful Pachyrhinosaurus with booty-quills.

For the serious sauropod nerds out there, Mike Taylor has a puzzler for you: Can you identify these sauropod cervical vertabrae?

Terrific Rubeosaurus by Andrey Atuchin. Go look!

Scott Hartman has shared his thoughts on Eoraptor, with a new skeletal diagram to book. Check it out at the Skeletal Drawing blog.

I was unable to join the good folks at ScienceOnline in North Carolina this year, but Andy Farke was, and he's got some cogent thoughts on the whole affair. Check out his summary thoughts at this post at The Open Source Paleontologist, which includes links to his daily reports.

Newt Gingrich, armchair paleontologist. At DinoGoss, Matt Martyniuk shares his perspective on a debate between Jack Horner and Gingrich, on the topic of whether T. rex was a scavenger.

DeviantArt remains an excellent source of dinosaur art, and a prime example of just how freaking lucky we are to live at this moment in time, when access to the science of paleontology is better than ever and the means to share one's artwork is so readily available. My newest discovery on DeviantArt is Julio Lacerda (H/T to Albertonykus for the introduction), whose portrait of a Gorgosaurus pair in the snow I shared on Twitter this week. Once again, superlatives fail me.

Illustration by Julio Lacerda, via DeviantArt.

I'm still overwhelmed by the amount of artists on DeviantArt, and find the interface less than optimal, so please don't hesitate to share your own favorite artists in the comments, so I can add them to my watch list.

Finally, one last bit of shameless self-promotion: I've been adding items to my Cafepress shop this week, as you may have seen in my Wednesday post. Besides the LITC design, I've added a line of "I Left My Heart in (geological period)" t-shirts. Four geological periods are represented, with more to come. If you do happen to buy one of my shirts, send me a photo of yourself wearing it and I'll post it here! It just so happens that I've been cranking out dinosaur themed designs and Jennie and I have been trying to get some traction with our Etsy shop, so you can expect more cool stuff to be shared here in the coming months.

Indiana's new state flag

2012-01-26T18:32:00.002-05:00

UPDATED! Tweaked my first design, added a second.

UPDATED AGAIN! Using this as a landing page for my efforts to spread the word, so added context.

I've designed two posters to help fight creationism in Indiana schools, after our state senate's "Committee on Education and Career Development" voted to let Senate Bill 89 through (Marc and I have already posted twice about the issue). Forgive the intrusion of this issue here. It's much broader in scope than our usual subject matter here, but I think I speak for both Marc and myself when I say that the reason we write about dinosaurs is that we're passionate about science, reason, and the educated appreciation of nature. So not to use this platform would be wrong. If this doesn't interest you, feel free to disregard it; we'll not be turning this into an Evolution Vs. Creationism blog, and all things saurian will continue to rule here. Anyhow.

The first poster is a play on our state flag - in case you're not familiar with it, there's supposed to be a flame on that torch.

The second is a cheeky travel poster. I flipped the state upside down. How clever!

These are web versions, but I've got them ready to go at 300dpi, 11" x 17" in TIF or PSD. Available at request. Please share to your heart's content.

I feel really crummy that this has gotten this far. I've been so swamped with school, work, and family life that I haven't really stayed abreast of the issue, except to read NCSE's updates and RT them. I doubt I have the eloquence or poise to make a convincing argument to any elected official. Or a fellow citizen, for that matter. But luckily it's not all in my hands. NCSE reports that these fine people have spoken up for our childrens' education:

John Staver, professor of chemistry and science education at Purdue University; Chuck Little, executive director of the Indiana Urban Schools Association; David Sklar, the Director of Government Relations for the Jewish Community Relations Council; the Reverend Charles Allen, a chaplain for Grace Unlimited, a campus ministry in the Indianapolis area; and Reba Boyd Wooden, executive director of the Indiana Center for Inquiry.

I admit to a feeling of despair that their words didn't persuade the seven Republicans and one Democrat who voted this through the so-called "Committee on Education and Career Development" in the State Senate.

But that's as far as it's going. SCIENCE THROWDOWN. For more, please do keep up with the National Center for Science Education, who does excellent work to protect our intellectual future.

Hey, Indiana - REALLY?

2012-01-26T17:22:00.000-05:00

David's already made his anger quite clear, but I wanted a word too, and it wouldn't fit in a comment I'm afraid...

This is a sad day, and I really hope this rapidly evolving religious fundamentalist contagion doesn't spread to other states (see what I did there?), and doesn't pass in the state senate. Perhaps the worst thing about creationism is that, when compared with reality, it's just so bloody boring. Apart from the fact that the notion of a 'divine creator' raises more questions than it answers (and renders invalid pretty much all science ever), the real truth about the history of life on Earth - its constant struggles, the ever-spiralling complexity from simple forms, the beauty of evolution through deep time - is far more glorious than some ancient myth.

Emu skeleton. By Sklmsta, via Wikipedia.

In case you haven't noticed, this blog is about dinosaurs, and they are the perfect ambassadors for the teaching of the truth of evolution - through their pop culture popularity and their living descendants. Avian dinosaurs, with their huge suite of inherited theropod features, and a whole other load of glorious derived adaptations, are one of the most fantastic and evocative examples of evolution over millions of years. Next to that, 'God did it' just doesn't cut it, I'm afraid.

Of course, as a Britisher, I could have a good snooty chuckle and point out how our education secretary recently outlawed the teaching of creationism in science classes in the new-fangled 'free schools'. However, I won't for various reasons - not only because I would sound like a dick, but because we have an established church and a bleedin' monarchy ferchrissakes, so we don't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to rationality and enlightenment and all that noise.

In fact, I've always admired the United States for lacking those things, and for its separation of church and state, enshrined in the constitution. Remember this, and don't let them get away with it. For as David says, "creationism is bullshit".

Indiana's new state motto

2012-01-26T16:55:00.005-05:00

I've got a new state motto for the good ol' Hoosier state, which I've called home since I was born.

Seems about right. Seriously.

I am an Indiana citizen, and Creationism is bullshit.

I left my heart in the Jurassic!

2012-01-25T12:38:00.001-05:00

Shameless capitalism in t-minus 3... 2... 1...

I just uploaded a new line of paleontology tees to my on-line shop, so you can head over there to check 'em out. At the moment, I just have them in white, but I'll be adding designs for black shirts really soon. I pretty much just designed shirts that I'd like to wear, proclaiming my desperate and irrational desire to travel to an ancient era of Earth's history. Here's the (so far, only) Mesozoic representative, based on a Josef Smit illustration of Stegosaurus.

There's a mastodon, dimetrodon, and trilobite available as well. Sorry to interrupt your blog reading with this advertisement. Now back to regular scheduled programming.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Brontosaurus by Rourke

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Well, look who's stomping through our house again, dragging with it heavy baggage of paleontological history, taxonomic confusion, and philosophical hoo-ha. It's ol' Brontosaurus, who in 1981 received the Rourke Publishing treatment in a storybook written by Angela Sheehan and illustrated by Colin Newman. Mr. Newman unfortunately joins the majority of Vintage Dinosaur Art subjects in being fairly obscure; searches are complicated by a contemporary artist of the same name. A Goodreads listing of Newman's publishing credits shows him to have been busy in his day, favoring wildlife titles.

Colin Newman's illustrations are far removed from those of Bernard Long, whose Rourke Iguanodon work was featured here a couple weeks ago. Newman's work is less dynamic, moodier in color, and he seems to prefer wide views that place the titular sauropod within Jurassic panoramas. It would translate nicely to a pop-up book.

As is generally the case for Rourke titles, the flora and fauna are admirably accurate for their time period, in this case the famed Late Jurassic Morrison of North America. You may have heard dim rumors of the controversy surrounding Brontosaurus; this book was published several years before the name's taxonomic obsolecence was popularized by the US Postal Service's use of it on a stamp (a contemporaneous essay on the flap is the cornerstone of Stephen Jay Gould's collection Bully for Brontosaurus). Yes, the head of Camarasaurus had been placed on the original, headless specimen of "Brontosaurus" excelsus, but the real sticker was that eighty years before the publication of today's title, Elmer Riggs of the Field Museum had sunk the animal into the genus Apatosaurus. The public was simply slow to be informed and ultimately unwilling or unable to let go of Brontosaurus. The mistaken head issue seems to have caught on as a preferred explanation for the nomenclatural issue; I believed it up until recently. I imagine this has to do with the public's love of scientific schadenfreude. "Bumbling scientists can't even get the right head on the animal, and that means I have to stop using Brontosaurus? Bah!"

As for the dinosaurs themselves, the artwork is inspired much more by Zallinger, Knight, and Burian than the work of the early Dinosaur Renaissance. Take the title off of the cover, and it would be difficult to correctly ID the sauropod. Compare it to what may be the most accessible and quick primer on Apatosaurus, Matt Wedel's recent review of the Sideshow maquette at SV-POW. It would be nice to see something more accurate, but it's an awful lot to ask of a children's book that came out just as the dinosaur dark ages were mercifully being put to death.

As for the story, well, there are only so many ways a plot for a wildlife book can go that avoid egregious anthropomorphism. Like other Rourke books, the story of Brontosaurus is pretty simple, working paleontological knowledge into a basic story structure. In this case, there's a drought, the dinosaurs have a tough time, blood is shed, the rains come, and the future welfare of the Brontosaurus is insured by the appearance of a glorious rainbow. We all love a happy ending. I wonder how many Brontosaurus die-hards still hope for a happy ending of their story, either by an over turning of Riggs' work or some completely left-field pronouncement of the nomenclatural powers that be? Gould argued for a "common sense" approach to nomenclature in Bully, one that avoids both anarchy and overly strict interpretations of the rules, but Brontosaurus has been so long dead that to bring it back would create a thunder lizard sized mess in the literature. Best to let it lie, a linguistic fossil in its own right.

Previous Rourke books featured here:
Iguanodon (Bernard Long)
Triceratops (John Francis)
Pteranodon (Doreen Edwards)
Allosaurus (Doreen Edwards)

Plateosaurus didn't gallop

2012-01-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Recently, I finally read a paper by Heinrich Mallison entitled 'The digital Plateosaurus II: an assessment of the range of motion of the limbs and vertebral column and of previous reconstructions using a digital skeletal mount'. Yes, it's from 2010, and I should hang my head in shame for not having read it before etc. etc. But bear with me. Reading Heinrich's paper, I was reminded of an e-mail sent to us some time back by Jay Epperhart, one that I referenced in a previous post. As a reminder, it read:

"So occasionally you will make a quip along the line of 'can you believe they ['80s and '90s authors/artists] thought dromaeosaurid theropods had non-feathered pronated hands *snicker*" and I'm like 'wait, what?!' since that it what my 10-year-old self memorized."

It's all about preconceptions, you see. In case you haven't read it (in which case, shame on you, too!), in 'The digital Plateosaurus II', Mallison - utilising a painstakingly-created digital Plateosaurus skeleton - looked at (perhaps predictably, given the title) the possible range of motion of Plateosaurus' spine and limbs, and the implications for a range of reconstructions.

Photo of SMNS wrong-o-mount by Ra'ike, via Wikipedia.

In the past, Plateosaurus was often presumed to be a quadruped - or at least, capable of switching between quadrupedalism and bipedalism, but tending towards the former. Looking at it, it's quite easy to see why - with its long neck and reasonably robust forelimbs, it looks a little front heavy. Furthermore, the more derived sauropodomorphs - the sauropods - were all resolutely quadrupedal, and so it made sense for the lineage to be heading in that direction, evolutionarily speaking. In addition, trackway evidence appeared to show 'prosauropods' walking on all fours.

However, Mallison discovered that far from being a habitual quadruped, Plateosaurus was not even able to rotate its forearm so that the palms of its hands faced the ground (pronation) - in fact, the range of motion was comparable with that of the short-armed allosauroid Acrocanthosaurus. In other words, Plateosaurus was a biped whether it liked it or not.

In fact, Mallison's work had independently confirmed the conclusions of an earlier study, by Matthew Bonnan and Phil Senter, in 2007 ('Were the basal sauropodomorph dinosaurs Plateosaurus and Massospondylus habitual quadrupeds?'). Bonnan and Senter also found Plateosaurus to be an obligate biped, in spite of the great number of quadrupedal Plateosaurus reconstructions that had popped up in the many decades since the animal's discovery.

Plateosaurus gracilis correctly restored as a biped, by Nobu Tamura via Wikipedia.
Note that this species has sometimes been placed in its own genus, Sellosaurus -
Mallison's paper deals only with P. engelhardti.

In his study, Mallison found that some of said reconstructions didn't just snap the forelimbs into an impossible position, but warped much of the rest of the body as well. A quadrupedal mount in the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart (SMNS) is of sufficient sprawling-limbed wrongness that, if the animal were alive "compressive forces on the forelimbs would shear the humerus from the glenoid" (p. 449). Mallison goes on to comment that

"The...overall proportions and limb positions are in direct contradiction to the adaptations to cursoriality visible in Plateosaurus, and require significant disarticulation in several parts of the skeleton."

Mallison ultimately attributes such mistakes to the need for the reconstruction to fit a preconceived notion that Plateosaurus was highly reptilian and lizard-like, with sprawling limbs and a wide ribcage.

In addition, quadrupedal reconstructions by Gregory S Paul were found to feature very significant inaccuracies, and this was especially true of a muscular reconstruction that depicted Plateosaurus in a galloping pose (if you have the 2010 Field Guide it is on page 162). The errors - including limbs in impossible positions and huge gaps in the skeleton - were inconsistent with a reliance on data provided by Friedrich von Huene (Paul had not examined the fossils). Rather, Mallison claimed that

"...the errors seem to result from a preconceived notion that prosauropods were quadrupedal, that their manual digits I were raised off the ground during locomotion...and a desire to depict the animal in as dynamic a pose as possible." (p. 455)

(An important note before I continue: I in no way wish to join in what seems like a bit of a trend for Greg Paul-bashing after his comments pertaining to copyright and skeletals. It just happens to be Paul's work that is described in this way in Mallison's paper.)

How is this relevant to Jay Epperhart's comments about dromaeosaurs? Well, just like Plateosaurus, reconstructions of these animals were long influenced by preconceived notions, leading to the reconstructions we all remember from the '90s that often flew in the face of anatomical evidence and common sense. In fact, people's notions of what these animals looked like continue to be influenced by preconceptions based on what said people think they should look like.

Pronated theropod forearms would be an obvious reference point here. They still appear regularly in art - often commercial art - but are always based on someone's preconceived notion of how a theropod should look. The same is true of scaly or near-bald dromaeosaurs; hopefully I needn't go over the evidence yet again as to why it's far, far more likely that any given dromaeosaur was feathered than not. Those who dream of scaly Deinonychus often seem to resort to the argument that 'it looks like a chicken' when (accurately) depicted with feathers - as if looking like a plucked chicken is less absurd. And let's be quite honest - an anatomically correct, naked dromaeosaur will inevitably look like it's been prepared for the dinner table.

In truth, I think it's down to the '10 year old self' coming through with preconceived notions, borne of nostalgia and a belief in what a dinosaur should look like, contrary to the evidence. But it's not the 1990s anymore, Plateosaurus didn't gallop, and Deinonychus had feathers.

And if you're angry at me now, please placate yourself with this photo of me being a dork (also featuring Plateosaurus).


Photo by Nicole Heins.

SOPA Sauropod sez...

2012-01-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

1.18.2012
#SopaBlackout

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaur Time revisited

2012-01-16T03:00:00.000-05:00

Experiencing feelings of déjà vu? It's quite all right - you're getting on a bit now, and your delicate mind isn't quite what it was. But apart from that, David's looked at this book before - all the way back in December 2009. Unfortunately, owning a fragile hardback edition prevented him from scanning anywhere near as many pages as he wanted to. Good thing, then, that I have come into possession of a similarly historical paperback edition from 1974. Check out Mr Orr's original post if you haven't already, and then join me for more from this intriguing book!

Peggy Parish and Arnold Lobel were (and maybe still are, posthumously) apparently big names in the world of children's books in the USA - David described them as "giants" in his post. However, I hadn't heard of them before acquiring this book. I should probably feel ashamed, but on the other hand I have a feeling that Parish and Lobel might not have made so much of a splash over here - I can reassure you that I did read a lot of books as a child. In any case, this is a book clearly aimed at very young children who are just starting to read, and both that simple text and Lobel's stylised saurian renditions are very charming.

While stylised and a little fanciful, Lobel's dinosaurs still resemble the animals in question and often appear to draw from more 'serious' well-known palaeoart of the time. Zallinger and Burian appear to be major sources of inspiration. The Stegosaurus, Diplodocus and Ankylosaurus (with its light brown colour) in particular are reminiscent of illustrations by Zallinger appearing in Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals.

Where the inspiration for this bronto (below) came from, however, is harder to ascertain - presuming Lobel didn't just draw it from his imagination. Although enormously rotund, it at least doesn't suffer the indignity imposed upon Brachiosaurus...

...which is described, rather bluntly, as "fat". Not just fat, in fact, but "too fat to run from enemies," and hence in need of the protection of water. 'Cos everyone knows that theropod dinosaurs melt upon exposure to the slightest drop of water, a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz or the rubbish aliens from Signs. Have you ever seen a bird in a thunderstorm? No? EXACTLY.

Of course, I don't blame Parish/Lobel at all for this silliness; it was standard fare at the time. Indeed, similar ideas are espoused in DaOPR, while the illustration appears to borrow from Burian.

As was traditional back then, long before the discovery of the more visually arresting Microraptor, Compsognathus is the representative for 'small dinosaurs' in general. I love the unusual composition of this illustration - the rocks simultaneously make the dinosaur seem tiny (by filling most of the space) and help draw attention to it by placing it on a 'podium'. Unusually, Compsognathus is illustrated here with four fingers. It had three in reality, but for many years was widely thought to have two (as in The Ultimate Dinosaur Book), based on an incomplete specimen.

Another interesting entry in this book, and one that seems unusual for a short kids' book, is Teratosaurus. Here the animal is presented as a theropod, as was assumed until the mid 1980s, when it was found to be a non-dinosaurian archosaur, namely a rauisuchian. The skulking theropod depicted by Lobel is reminiscent of many, many depictions of Megalosaurus, including Neave Parker's. From reading around I get the impression that Teratosaurus as painted by Peter Zallinger also looked somewhat like this, but I haven't seen that one (and so cannot verify).

Here we have the animal currently mostly known as Edmontosaurus annectens. This is a fairly standard hadrosaur for the time with Lobel's usual stylistic touches giving it a rather anthropomorphic air (although not as much as his loungin' Ornithomimus) and a very odd neck.

This is probably my favourite illustration in the whole book - and not just because it's that much bigger than the others (although that certainly helps). I think it's mostly down to exactly how pleased with itself this rather toad-like Pentaceratops looks - it's probably because he has the longest nose horn in the whole herd. The head definitely owes more to Triceratops than Pentaceratops (although the frill is too rounded for either). Incidentally, the look of this lumpen, crosshatched creature reminds me very much, for whatever reason, of illustrations from books by British children's illustrator/author team Janet and Allan Ahlberg (now there are names I remember from my childhood).

And finally...that big theropod. You know the one - coelurosaur, atrophied forelimbs but powerful, muscular hindlimbs, quite possibly the only animal alive or dead to be routinely referred to by its abbreviated scientific name among the general public. That's right... C-Casuarius!

Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, from Wikipedia.

Only joking - it's that obscure Late Cretaceous species Tyrannosaurus rex. Lobel's given it a particularly fearsome, bloodthirsty air, with the blank eyes, slit pupils and dragged tail of a cold-blooded killer. Worthy of note is that this is the only dinosaur in the book to be depicted against a background of volcanic activity, no doubt intended to further add to the sense of fear and foreboding.

Dinosaur Time is a charming little book the likes of which we are, unfortunately, seeing fewer and fewer of now. Most kids' dinosaur books these days content themselves with illustrations that are straight knock-offs of those by more accomplished artists, or terrible CG 'reconstructions' hardly worthy of that designation. If only there was an artist out there who was somehow able to mix anatomical accuracy with whimsical charm, quirkiness and a finely detailed, 'fairytale' art style, and if only a publisher would commission said entirely hypothetical person for a dinosaur book...we can but dream...

Today's Geological Google Doodle

2012-01-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

The Google Doodle for today, January 11, 2012, deserves a mention here. It honors Nicolas Steno, the 17th century Danish scientist who refused to simply accept things on faith. He's a main figure in the opening chapter to Brian Switek's Written in Stone, for the very good reason that he was the man who first struck on the idea that the stone shark's teeth found all over Europe had once been the teeth of living sharks, and burial under the sea floor had eventually petrified them. He set us on the path that would lead to the science of paleontology. Very cool to see his place in the history of science given the spotlight by Google today.

Vintage Dinosaur Bots: Dinamation's Dinosaurs Alive!

2012-01-09T17:12:00.000-05:00

All right then, hands up - who remembers these? Of course you do. You're reading Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs.

It didn't feel quite right to slot this in with the Vintage Dinosaur Art posts, so it's getting its own special entry. As you've already gathered, this book was produced to accompany the touring Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit from Dinamation Corp. In 1996, Dinosaurs Alive! came to Brighton and, of course, I wrote a review:

"Come out of busy, bustling Brighton and step one step back in time. See a Tarbosaurus leg and head. Step into an indoor Jurassic jungle and bump into a Pachycephalosaurus." (Dinosaur Footprints magazine, issue 1, September 1996. P. 5)

While Pachycephalosaurus may not have lived in the Jurassic, I was certainly enthused by the big old American robots. Sadly, my memories of that visit have all but been erased by three years of vodka abuse (known as 'university' in common parlance), so hooray for eBay! As an extra pleasant surprise, a lot of the Dinamation robots actually appear to be a lot better than I had previously very dimly remembered. So let's get the weirder ones out of the way first.

If you think it looks creepy here, just imagine encountering this monstrosity as a towering, life-size bot in a dark, dry ice-filled hall. It's like Allosaurus via a nightmarish 1980s latex beastie horror movie. It should have tendrils of gelatinous drool hanging from its maw.

Sticking with the orange-and-black theme, here's a very tiger-like early '90s Deinonychus. Dinamation had a trio of the animals snacking on their perennial favourite food, Tenontosaurus - a dinosaur rarely seen alive or dead in art without any number of dromaeosaurs hanging onto it. Interestingly, the Natural History Museum had a similar, non-Dinamation scene (with somewhat less rubbery-looking robots) installed in the early '90s - makes one wonder which came first...

Near the naked Deinonychus sits a Pteranodon that just looks....plain wrong for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on (knowing little about pterosaurs as I do). Pterosaurs can be pretty creepy anyway, but there's something particularly Chernabog about this restoration. It looks like it should be sitting up high on Notre Dame Cathedral. To make matters worse, its pterosaur fuzz has been rendered as long, whispy strands coming down from its neck. Shudder.

Never mind that, though - here are some outraged sauropods.

The biggest Dinamation Apatosaurus was apparently 'only' half size, but the company had a pretty decent go at the beast (too-thin neck aside). I've no doubt that the juveniles would look somewhat different today. Thankfully, while it seems that the brown stripey brontobots didn't get along too well, the tangerine version (below) was somewhat more serene.

This Stegosaurus is pretty cool - it looks like it only has a few, quite minor anatomical faults. Unfortunately this photo, like many in the book, is less than brilliant - thanks to the strange focus the life-size model looks like a miniature, and those odd speckly bits aren't the result of my scanner having a fit - they were actually on the original page. Shame. The Triceratops (below) is rather good too, although of course it has old-fashioned elephantine hands*, and a rather conspicuous ear opening has been placed in a strange position directly behind the eyes. Maybe they thought the skull opening immediately behind the orbit was an ear-hole. I do love the dimly-lit pine forest setting, though.

Thought I'd save the best 'til last. As I previously mentioned, a lot of the Dinamation bots depicted in these pics surprised me with how good they were - I guess I haven't been giving them enough credit in the past. While the arms are obviously wrong by modern standards, this Tyrannosaurus is generally excellent - there are robots still out there doing the rounds that aren't any better than this one. It's hard to believe that this and the terrifyingly strange Allosaurus were made by the same company - I can't help but wonder if they represent 'before' and 'after' representations of how the models changed when the company sought out advice from palaeontologists. (They may have had different people involved in their production too, of course.)

To wrap this up - it seems a real shame, seeing how good some of their robots were, that Dinamation folded amid all sorts of dodgy financial goings-on (or so sayeth the Wall Street Journal). Various vestiges of their long-lost dinobot empire can be seen all over the world, like bits of town wall sticking out of some forgotten corner of a former Roman city. I've posed next to a few while on my travels. If you've seen anything out there then I'd love to hear about it.

One last thing, actually...D'AWWWWW! And I'm sorry if this post isn't up to standard (which it probably isn't) - I've started a new job recently, and some other stuff's been going on, and I'm not quite on top of everything yet. I'll improve, promise!

*I keep getting comments when I mention this, so I'll explain. In a lot of old palaeoart, ceratopsians were shown with elephantine 'paws' for hands. In fact, the digits were distinct and the hands were turned quite strongly outward (so that the palms faced in). This was actually a rather primitive condition for large, quadrupedal dinosaurs.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Iguanodon by Rourke

2012-01-09T15:40:00.001-05:00

A large share of my to-scan stack is taken up by titles from the Rourke Publishing series of storybooks featuring prehistoric animals. Today, we'll look at their 1984 Iguanodon title, written by Rupert Oliver with illustrations by Bernard Long, a British illustrator who unfortunately lacks much of a web presence. But his national heritage is fitting, as this title takes place in Early Cretaceous England, which we know from the geological feature called the Wealden Supergroup.

First, I am delighted to report the return of the tongue-lolling Iguanodon, which appeared in a recent VDA post by Marc. Here, it accompanies text explaining that the Iguanodon could smell an approaching storm, so I suppose that it's meant to be a scent organ.

When megalosaurs attack, out comes Iguanodon's tongue again.

Ditto for when, in a scene perhaps inspired by Fellowship of the Ring, the Iguanodon escapes the megalosaurs thanks to a flash flood. If only Long had the cheek to shape the surging water into enraged ornithopods.

In other news, those megalosaurs are of the hunchback persuasion.

With that bit of meme-spotting out of the way, we can proceed to the work in general. While the illustrations may not be up to the level of anatomical accuracy of Greg Paul or Doug Henderson, to pick two eighties dinosaur artists out of a hat, they're excellent quality for a children's storybook. And writer Rupert Oliver and the folks at Rourke deserve a mighty tip of the hat for considering the setting in which their prehistoric characters would live. The text describes "a vast green carpet of cycads, horsetails, and rushes," and Long mixes these in with conifers rather than simply slapping green-plant like things and anachronisitic grasses in the background.

The fauna are appropriate, for the most part, including ubiquitous rhamphorynchids buzzing about in the skies (reminiscent of the great flocks of crows now making themselves a noisy part of my town's milieu) and beasts like the nodosaurid Polacanthus.

Its presence here is fitting, as the first fossils of the genus come from the Wealden strata of the Isle of Wight. If written today, this title would be more appropriately called Mantellisaurus, which is the currently accepted name for the former I. atherfieldensis since 2007, when Greg Paul renamed the animal as part of a larger trend of bringing some sense to the traditional wastebasket-taxon status of Iguanodon.

Out of place in the early Cretaceous is Megalosaurus, which will probably always be part of a matched set with Iguanodon thanks to their status as founding members of the dinosauria. Problem is, it's a middle Jurassic beast. The book could be updated to include any of a number of scrappy theropods from the Wealden, perhaps Eotyrannus (I should note that a field guide to the Wealden was recently released, reviewed last month by Darren Naish).

Rourke titles close with brief sections on the scientific background of the story, describing the history of the relevant taxon's fossil discoveries and its place on the dinosaur family tree. Here, Ouranosaurus gets a rare cameo.

Overall, a respectable effort that sets its self apart from the glut of slapped-together dinosaur titles of the eighties. Plus, it gives us this majestic sight: the Iguanodon conga line.

Superb.

Previous Rourke books featured here:
Triceratops (John Francis)
Pteranodon (Doreen Edwards)
Allosaurus (Doreen Edwards)

The inherent humor of great size differences

2012-01-07T03:34:00.000-05:00

I haven't really publicized it yet, but my lady-wife Jennie and I have started an Etsy shop called Terrier Mountain (see, our house is on a hill, and we have 1.5 terriers). We have some linocut and letterpress stuff up right now, and I'm in the process of figuring out a good way to produce high-quality prints of my illustrations. I've had great results with a high-end Epson printer using their line of pigment-based archival quality inks, but it's a school printer and thus not available to me for my "commercial" work. As soon as I figure out a good direction, I'll be adding a bunch of digital illustrations, and maybe photographs, to the shop.

Among this work is a set of cartoony illustrations I conceived as the sort of thing I'd want to hang in a nursery. Although I didn't put this much thought into the project when I started drawing, it sort of makes sense: beyond the simple style and bright colors, they call on that essential component of kids' dinosaur obsessions: they were freakin' big. Here are the first three.

First, we visit the late Cretaceous of Mongolia, where a curious Shuvuuia seems to have awakened a grumpy Protoceratops by jumping up on his back.

Then on to late Jurassic Africa and the Tendaguru formation, where a young Giraffatitan is being buzzed by a lil' rhamphorynchid.

Finally, a pair from the Tithonian: Allosaurus and Anurognathus. This was the first one I did (accounting for the different proportions, which will be normalized for the final product), and my friend Gatis made an observation that it was funny because of the unimpressed expression on the allosaur's face. Because of that, I changed my Giraffatitan so it wasn't smiling. I think he was right about it.

I have some ideas for the next one. But today I had an idea: I've been lucky enough that I've had a few people turn my silly ideas in to illustrations, so I figure it's time to start paying people back. In the comments below, feel free to suggest pairs you'd like to see me do in this style. As you can see, I'm trying to represent a diverse group of animals, and I'm trying to keep them at least roughly contemporaneous. Pairs from the same formation get precedence. I can't promise I'll do every suggestion as my semester starts up this week, but I'll do what I can! Have at it!

Mesozoic Miscellany 49

2012-01-06T16:38:00.000-05:00

This week, we mourn the death of Dan Varner, a regular fixture of the dinosaur mailing list and a fine paleoartist whose work for Mike Everhart's Oceans of Kansas is some of the best work on Mesozoic sea life I've ever seen. Read Tributes from Nobu Tamura, Matt Van Rooijen, Jaime Headden, David Maas, ART Evolved. ART Evolved has also announced that in May, their gallery will be a tribute to Dan. Everhart's Oceans of Kansas website has hosted a Varner gallery for while, which has been updated to include a touching tribute by his friend Bruce Schumacher. Condolences to all of his friends and family.

One thing I love about this brave new on-line world, as should be clear to long-time LITC readers, is the proliferation of all stripes of paleontology-inspired artwork. French artist Alain Bénéteau (dustdevil at DeviantArt) is one of many artists who are generously sharing a great diversity of work. He produces restorations of ancient ecosystems, ink drawings, and comics, all worthy of your attention.

This year, Indiana University Press, as part of their continuing Life of the Past Series, will release Sébastien Steyer's Earth Before the Dinosaurs, illustrated by Alain.

See more of Alain's work at his site, Paleospot, and follow him under that same name on Twitter.Here's the latest in his "Archie Tales" series, which applies a bit of Chuck Jones logic to paleontology, funny little just-so stories that give alternate explanations for strange fossils like Mononykus. Click to make it big enough to read.

Gary of Project Drypto has begun a new blog, Jersey Boy Hunts Dinosaurs. Today, he writes about the odd 1998 Jurassic Park PC game Trespasser. Ah, the joys of trying to stack boxes with Minnie Driver's stiff mannequin arms...

You may recall that Dave Hone and Darren Naish recently teamed up on a paper which looked at the possibility of mutual sexual selection in pterosaurs and dinosaurs. This week, both have addressed the topic on their respective blogs with Hone writing about theropod sociality at Archosaur Musings and Naish writing about the research in general at Tetrapod Zoology.

Obviously confusing me with someone more esteemed than myself, Heinrich Mallison kindly linked to LITC in a recent post at Dinosaurpalaeo, in which he shares some architectural archosaurs decorating, oddly enough, the Berlin Aquarium. He reckons that their use hearkens back to a time when the affinities of dinosaurs were less understood than they are today. Regardless, they're pretty amazing works of art.

Speaking of amazing works of art, you must see Jenn Hall's Auroraceratops, illustrated for Dr. Peter Dodson.

Andy Farke reviewed the new fossil species described in PLoS One in 2011, and shares a wishlist for 2012.

You may recall a recentish bit of research which analyzed the scleral rings of a number of dinosaurs to infer which times of the day they may have been most active. At Green Tea and Velociraptors, Jon Tennant digs into the ongoing debate about the work.

At the blog Raptormaniacs, Albertonykus has posted the results of a poll regarding the favorite new maniraptor of 2010, which went to, little surprise, Balaur. Head over and vote for the best of 2011.

If you're as big of a geek about historical paleontology photos, be sure to stop by the Prep Lounge to see pictures from the '30s when the Works Progress Administration put people to work prepping fossils in Texas.

The recent description of Spinops, based on fossils that had been collecting dust at the British Natural History Museum for years, inspired a satirical Gawker article. Mark Wildman muses on the sometimes long gap between a fossil's excavation and preparation at Saurian. Hylaeosaurus is closing in on almost two centuries, he notes.

The Dinosaur Toy Blog previews new toys the Bullyland company has in store for 2012, including a hilarious, pop-eyed Spinosaurus.

Finally, Brian Switek reviews a book about paleoart icon Charles R. Knight at Dinosaur Tracking. Charles R. Knight: The Artist Who Saw Through Time is both a coffee-table book of Knight art and a biography. It includes humanizing insight into the man, causing me to wonder how well he'd get by in today's web culture. "Knight refused to have collaborators and rejected almost all criticism. He wanted to hear only scientific corrections from Osborn, and he frequently argued with Osborn about critiques others made of his paintings."

Bird Day!

2012-01-05T13:32:00.001-05:00

Today is January 5, and I apologize for not providing advance notice that it is Bird Day. Honestly, I had no idea until my buddy and fellow bird enthusiast Keith Collins shared a link on Facebook. So I'm making up for it by posting here, as well as sharing amazing bird photographs on Twitter via the #BirdDay hashtag. Follow along and I'll keep the pix coming for as long as I'm at my computer today.

Here's a recent illustration of me very own, of one of my favorite extant avian theropods, the Short-Eared Owl.

The Short-Eared Owl is one of the few owls that hunts in fields. Steve Gifford, one of my favorite bird photographers and a fellow Hoosier, has taken some absolutely stunning photos of them at abandoned strip mines, where they congeregate to hunt around dusk.

Photograph by Steve Gifford, via Flickr.

Maybe you're new to this blog, and you're thinking "why in the heck is he posting about birds on a dinosaur blog? What's next, a lemon curd recipe?" Well, no. I'm not going to be posting about lemon curd (unless there's a lemon curd manufacturer who uses a dinosaur as a mascot or something like that). The reason I post about birds here is because birds are the dinosaurs who were lucky / resourceful / adaptable enough survive the end-Cretaceous extinction event. They are the standard-bearers for the proud archosaurian lineage that ruled the planet for hundreds of millions of years.

I've said this before here, and so has Marc. The bird-dinosaur link is one of those things I've begun to take for granted, among other bits of paleontological knowledge, such as "marine reptiles and pterosaurs weren't dinosaurs" and "Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus were separated my as much time as Tyrannosaurus and humans." But this is because I spend so much of my time on-line reading paleontology blogs and perusing paleoart, all made by fellow enthusiasts who make up the tiny percentage of folks who pay attention to this science and retain the knowledge of it. In truth, we can't afford to take any of this for granted.

That last bit sounds a bit dramatic, but I think it's true. The most important aspect of dinosaur paleontology, with the most potential for public education, is arguably the bird-dinosaur link. I recently had a conversation with a fellow student, a really sharp and with it person, about my still-incomplete (sadly) printing project dealing with the fossil record of feathers. I touched on the evidence for the theropod origin of birds, and she said with a nod something like "I've heard about that. Like pterodactyls, right?" This is an isolated incident, but I know for a fact that she's closer to the general knowledge level about paleontology than I am. Next time I see her, I'll try to figure out if she retained any of our conversation. Or if I should just cry into my pillow.

Anyhow. Go hug a bird, or at least look at it admiringly. Donate some money to a bird cause of some sort, for instance the Indiana Raptor Center. Read a bit about dinosaur to bird evolution (here's a great, brief summary from DinoBuzz). Make excruciating use of "making a flap" and "ruffling feathers" in your conversations today. Or come up with your own ways to celebrate birds. I've got more photos to tweet!

Tweet! Get it?

Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Reign of the Dinosaurs

2012-01-02T03:00:00.000-05:00

This New Horizons title from 1992 caught my eye on eBay - I will confess - because the cover illustration is very, very strange. That is one terrifying-looking tyrannosaur - bordering on surreal, actually. Expecting more weirdness inside, I snapped it up only to find that, in fact, it contains a great deal of stunning artwork. Why the publishers chose to stick such a bad piece on the cover (clearly by a jobbing illustrator - spot the Sibbick reference) given what's presented inside the book is anyone's guess.

Alongside some well-worn art from the likes of Burian, Zallinger and Parker (pretty much all of which has been featured here before), this book features stunning work from, in particular, Mark Hallett and Eleanor Kish. A couple of the pieces included - a cryptically-camouflaged Hypacrosaurus by Kish and a rather dead Triceratops being picked over by mammals from Hallett - have already been looked at by David. However, there's a lot here that's new to LITC.

There is one thing I need to get out of the way, however, before we begin with the good stuff.

Wah-waaaaaah. Oh, the 1980s (or, ahem, early '90s)...

Never mind, though - here comes an amazing artwork from Mark Hallett (with apologies for the big ol' page fold - this is a small book).

When I first stumbled upon this in this book I couldn't quite believe my eyes. This is from the 1980s!?! Holy crap! The only possible explanation for such excellence is that Hallett is in possession of a TARDIS. The theropod in the centre of this scene (Rapator - a possible allosauroid known from very fragmentary remains) has correctly-orientated forelimbs, the brachiosaurs have accurate hands and feet, and most astonishingly of all the little theropod in the foreground (Kakuru, again known from very fragmentary remains) appears to have a protofeather coat. Just stunning. I can't quite believe that this painting didn't feature in more dinosaur books in the early '90s.

More recognisable is this piece from 1986, entitled Crossing the Flat. It depicts everyone's favourite disproportionately long-necked sauropod Mamenchisaurus. Not a lot to say about this one - it's beautiful, though.

Eleanor Kish, for her part, also contributes a number of pieces that are very beautifully painted, even if they haven't aged as well as Hallett's.

Her reconstructions are excellent for the 1980s, and apparently she went as far as to create models of the animals' skeletons, reconstructing them in 3D before moving on to the painting at hand. Even if this Saurolophus looks a little dated now (and the swan-necked plesiosaur merrily paddling along in the background is particularly unfortunate), Kish is superb at believably placing her animals in environments in such a way that they look like part of the ecosystem, rather than obviously being the centre of attention. The book quotes Dale Russell as saying that Kish creates "images of landscapes [palaeontologists] can never see".

This Daspletosaurus (shown scaring off a champsosaur) does have a notably peculiar head - it's a bit of a shrink-wrapped skull with huge eyes. Still, I wouldn't mind having this painting on my wall - just drink in that lush scenery.

Finally, here's a particularly bleak scene from Kish entitled Chasmosaurus, with the titular ceratopsian's corpse being picked over by two small maniraptoran theropods (it's difficult to tell whether they are dromaeosaurs or troodonts, although they are probably the former). Apart from being naked (of course), the theropods do look very, very skinny, although one could argue that, given the context of the scene, perhaps they are starving. The weird, pointy protuberance of the pubic bones seems to be something common to Kish's dinosaurs. Still, this is a highly evocative and desolate scene. In the book it's included in the chapter on the K/Pg extinction event. Of course the painting could not be set at that time, but rather about ten million years before, given that Chasmosaurus is known from the Dinosaur Park Formation.

My first LITC year: a retrospective & look forward

2011-12-28T17:11:00.000-05:00

Dear cherished readers,

The first year in which I've participated in the Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs jamboree is nearly at an end. As such, I've decided that a short, not-at-all-disgustingly-self-indulgent retrospective is in order.

(You might think it'd have made more sense to do it on the first anniversary of my joining the blog. And you'd probably be right, but now just feels like the right time, damnit.)

Writing for David's blog has been lots of fun, obviously, and I am very grateful for the opportunity. If nothing else, it's given me something to do now that I've left university and my social life has all but vapourised.

When I look back on 2011, it will be with fond memories of such world-shaping events as the Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off, the ultimate example of abuse of hindsight. It's only a matter of time before the competition's winner, 'Zombienychus', becomes the star of his own TV documentary series, motion picture, and toy range (I plan on pitching the latter to Schleich). My graduation ceremony pales in comparison...

The chance to nitpick the fine efforts of CG artists, programme writers and John Hurt ("Des-platter-saurus!") for a wide(ish) audience of internet geeks was one that I truly relished - and I don't think I did too bad a job, with only a few cock-ups (including what was, in retrospect, a completely inexplicable disliking of the term 'oviraptorid'). One of the show's writers and directors even dropped in for the first review, which was a very humbling moment for me (people read my nonsense?!?). In the end I very much enjoyed Planet Dinosaur, and am hoping for a second series - its focus on the Actual Evidence was more refreshing than an ice-cold power shower to the face.

I'll also take credit, if you don't mind, for making Niroot Puttapipat such a blog staple that we should probably introduce a tag for posts that mention him. In case you missed it, his latest saurian work was a rather brilliant festive Parasaurolophus illustration. Also, I got a birthday present that was hand-painted by him and therefore better than yours. Neener-neener-ner-ner.

Most of all, thanks to all of you, the readers, for sticking by, even through posts about toys, crap robots, more toys, more crap robots, my undergraduate thesis, "perversely bizarre" books, and the Netherlands. Hopefully I've provided some decent between-meal blogging snacks to David's main courses.

Here's to 2012, then. What will the new year bring? Well, a few weeks back we received an e-mail from a chap by the name of Jay Epperhart. Quoth Jay:

"So occasionally you will make a quip along the line of 'can you believe they ['80s and '90s authors/artists] thought dromaeosaurid theropods had non-feathered pronated hands *snicker*" and I'm like 'wait, what?!' since that it what my 10-year-old self memorized."

Jay cordially suggested that one of us cough up an article all about how dinosaur reconstructions have changed since the '90s. David suggested that I should handle it. Which I will, as soon as I can think of something to pad out the article that isn't related to theropod feathers and forelimb posture.Your ideas are welcome for that one...

There will also be plenty more Vintage Dinosaur Art from me, of course. My scouring of eBay and charity shops for crummy old books is ongoing.

'Til then, thanks very much once again for all the support and comments since May, and I'll see you in 2012. Here's a photo of me looking confused on a Dutch woman's bicycle for your amusement.

How to Name a Dinosaur (SciAm Guest Blog repost)

2011-12-27T08:00:00.010-05:00

A year ago, I wrote a guest post for the Scientific American guest blog, called "How to Name a Dinosaur." Still kind of tickles me that I have my name associated with SciAm, even if it's such a minor way. So, here it is again.

You had no reason to expect a good weekend as you began a long-dreaded yard project. Come Monday morning’s office discussions of sporting events and parties, you would be nursing an aching back. But with a single strike of your shovel, your yard gave you a story to top any tale of drunken debauchery recounted over cubicle partitions: waiting less than 20 inches under the sod was a fossilized femur that hadn’t seen the sun in 120 million years.

Since plausibility has already been pretty well throttled, let’s say that in the kind of radically simplified form of paleontology children’s books employ, scientists from a local museum immediately recognize the bone as belonging to a dinosaur that is brand new to science. In a savvy move thought up by the museum’s public relations office, you will be given the honor of naming the beast. It’s a heavy burden, and you recognize quickly that it’s going to require careful deliberation. You don’t want your dinosaur to be laughed off of the paleontological stage, after all.

The name a dinosaur is given is subjected to the same scrutiny as the description of its skeletal remains. It’s a minefield, and there are many ways the unwary can go astray. A shaky grasp of latin might result in incorrect pluralization or an awkward suffix. Noble dedications to local culture and language can be misspelled. Worse yet, it might just sound silly. Avoid all of these, and your name still might be brushed off because you were too conservative.

As a first step, you might narrow down your choices depending on the kind of dinosaur you're naming. No matter what kind you've got on your hands, there is likely an informal signifier in the form of a suffix to its generic name. For an ostrich-mimic, you might choose -mimus. A herbivore with a beaked, horned, frilled skull receives a -ceratops. For a dromaeosaur, -raptor works nicely. To get across the tenacity of a predatory theropod, -venator sounds really cool. A relative of Baryonyx or Spinosaurus might pay tribute to the crocodiles its snout resembles with -suchus. Sauropods work well with -titan. To play it safe, choose the truly classic dinosaurian suffix, -saurus.

Generous fellow that I am, I’ll provide further guidance in the form of three broad categories which apply to most dinosaur names. Individual examples can bleed between them, of course. Since we’re about to turn the corner into 2011, I’ll also use the opportunity to employ some of my favorite dinosaur names of 2010 as examples. One note before I start: for brevity’s sake, I'm only giving advice for the generic half of the Linnaean binomial, in other words, the Tyrannosaurus but not the rex. You're on your own when deciding on a specific name. If you're stuck, name it for your mom, and you'll do alright.

Stick with Tradition

The 19th century scientists who founded the discipline of paleontology as we know it often stuck to simple anatomical descriptions of the fossilized creatures they examined. Gideon Mantell kept it basic with his Iguanodon, “iguana tooth.” Since he only had teeth to go on, we can’t fault him for lack of imagination. 1838’s Poekilopleuron simply means “varied ribs.” Joseph Leidy, the founder of American paleontology, chose Hadrosaurus as the name of the world’s first mountable dinosaur skeleton. It means “bulky lizard,” which is accurate, if not terribly evocative. 2010 saw the introduction of a few anatomically-named dinosaurs, such as the abelisaur Austrocheirus, the “southern claw.” Pneumatoraptor, from Hungary, was named for the tiny air pockets infusing its scapulocoracoid.

Considering the classical training of the early paleontologists, many of them had a firm grasp of mythology. Edward Drinker Cope’s Laelaps was named for a tenacious dog of Greek mythology - unfortunately, a mite had already been given the name, and it’s now the “tearing lizard,” Dryptosaurus. One of my favorite mythologically themed dinosaur names of recent years is the brachiosaur Abydosaurus, whose skull was found with four cervical vertebrae near the Green River at Dinosaur National Monument. Its name refers to the town of Abydos in ancient Egypt, where the god Osiris’ own head and neck were buried in the Nile. Instead of providing insight into the anatomy of the great beast it was given to, the name tells a story about its discovery millions of years after it walked.

A third subset of traditional names is to pay tribute to another researcher, fossil hunter, or someone else who was instrumental in the discovery of the dinosaur or the field in general. This is normally done in the specific name, but entire genera are occasionally dedicated to one person, as in the ornithischians Othnelia and Drinker, honoring the prolific rivals of the Bone Wars. Just this month, a North American troodontid named Geminiraptor saurezorum was announced, and both halves of the binomial are dedicated to a pair of scientist sisters named Suarez. If you’re familiar with matters astrological, you might correctly guess that they’re twins.

Go Native

If you want to be cutting edge, jump on to the growing trend of paying tribute to local places, culture, and history. It’s a heartening trend, as paleontologists often rely on locals for support of their work, and it counteracts the old stereotype of paleontologists ripping fossils from the ground for the enrichment of far-off institutions. And it engages cultures in ways that sticking stubbornly to Latin and Greek can’t. While the names of new dinosaurs coming out of China may confound the tongue of someone from Helsinki, Buenos Aires, or Des Moines, Chinese kids probably appreciate having dinosaurs of their own, such as Mei long, the “sleeping dragon.” On the other hand, local tributes can result in clunkers like this year’s dynamic duo Koreanosaurus or Koreaceratops, which recieved a fair amount of web snark.

This year has seen plenty of good newcomers in this category, though. A few of them paid tribute to the cultures who first inhabited the American West. Two of these derive from the Navajo language. Seitaad is named for a mythological beast that swallowed its prey in sand dunes, which also alludes to the manner of the small sauropodomorph's death. Bistahieversor’s name is derived from a Navajo description of local geography. The Zuni people have their own dinosaur as well, a duckbill named Jeyawati, which means “grinding tooth” in their language.

One of the most inspired members of this class of dinosaur names comes from Romania. When I first read about it, it sounded like some beast out of Tolkein’s Middle-Earth. But the island-dwelling theropod Balaur bondoc refers to actual mythology with a decidedly local flavor. It’s standard for descriptions of dinosaurs to include sections on the etymology of their names, but Balaur’s is exceptional, exploring the twisting roots of the word’s various meanings that approach the evolutionary tree of life for richness and complexity. Lead author Zoltan Csiki writes that Balaur’s name is “motivated both by the classical association between dinosaurs (especially theropods) and dragon-like creatures, as well as by the fact that balaur is a mythological creature with links to both reptiles (snakes) and birds (wings)...” Who knew that reading the description of a dinosaur could also be a lesson in Romanian mythology?

Make a Splash

It’s part of a paleontologist’s job to focus on the deep past, but some also think forward to the public impact of their discoveries. Lately, University of Chicago’s Paul Sereno has seemed especially focused on the public-relations side of paleontology; in 2009, he unveiled the controversial Raptorex, which might be mistaken for the name of a Pokemon character, as well as a slew of Mesozoic crocodilians with nicknames like BoarCroc, DogCroc, RatCroc, and the unfortunate PancakeCroc.

This year, even a mild-mannered iguanodont received an impactful name in Iguanacolossus. But 2010 will truly be remembered as the Year of Ceratopsians, and some of the catchiest new names come from the beak-and-horns set, including Medusaceratops, Kosmoceratops, and Mojoceratops.

One of my favorite dinosaur names of this year or any other is Diabloceratops, which describes the fierce twin horns protruding from the back of its frill and is just plain fun to say. If he was writing Jurassic Park today, I imagine that Michael Crichton would be strongly tempted to include a Diabloceratops paddock on the island.

A Final Word of Advice

Go bold. Shoot for a word that will make some emotional impact. A dinosaur’s name is often the first impression it will present to the public. Though the standard pantheon of the most popular dinosaurs - you know, the ones even my grandmother can name - has been in place for a century, it’s always susceptible to invasion by a charismatic newcomer, as was proven by Velociraptor’s leap into the public consciousness in the 1990’s. If a novelist, comic artist, or screenwriter latches onto the name of your dinosaur, it could very well be fast-tracked for celebrity.

Above all, remember that the name you choose for your backyard discovery will say as much about you as it does about the bones in the museum.

Illustration copyright Matt Van Rooijen, used with his permission.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Nebula to Man

2011-12-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

In all of my poring through Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Open Library, Biodiversity Library, and any other source for nifty historical texts relating to dinosaurs, my favorite find yet may well be Nebula to Man, Henry R. Knipe's poetic recounting of the history of life on Earth according to the best scientific knowledge at the turn of the 20th century. As to why he chose to write in this form, Knipe explains,

To attempt a work of this kind in rhyme is, I know, a bold experiment. But, however severely scientific in some of its aspects, the story of Geology is truly the most enchanting story in the world; and rhyme may well be regarded as an appropriate form in which to present it. Indeed it is a fit theme for presentation in a much higher form than this, and we may well hope that some day it will be taken in hand by some great poetic genius.

Accompanying this poetry are a series of black and white and color illustrations by a variety of talented artists, and like last week's feature about Eva Hülsmann's illustrations, they are refreshingly original.

There is not a wealth of information about Henry Knipe online. In a Cambridge University obituary, Knipe is said to have worked for the British Museum, overseeing artistic reconstructions of extinct animals. To illustrate Nebula to Man, Knipe employed Ernest Bucknall, John Charlton, Joseph Smit, Lancelot Speed, Charles Whymper, Edward A. Wilson, and Alice B. Woodward. I'll share illustrations from those who were included in the Mesozoic chapter.

I'll start with Dutch zoological illustrator Joseph Smit, who provides a bunch of dinosaurs for Knipe, including a "Brontosaurus" pair which are presented in a fairly conventional way for the time: tails dragging, bound to the water's edge.

Smit's Iguanodon reflects the new thinking about the iconic ornithopod since the discoveries in Bernissart a couple of decades before this publication. While drawn from a different angle, it bears a debt to an earlier one by Alice B. Woodward.

Knipe would have been remiss not to include Archaeopteryx in the book, and Smit was the man tasked with the reconstruction. He pairs it with Compsognathus, the small German theropod used by Huxley to illustrate the similarities between birds and dinosaurs. This one is pretty tubby. His urvogel wears a vulture-like fringe around a bear head and neck, and for the second week in a row we have an awkwardly rendered wing with feathers extending from the wrist rather than digit II.

Smit's Ceratosaurus is leaving something behind for Tony Martin, as well as keeping the little furry things in check. The influence of Marsh's skeletal reconstruction is evident.

Smit's finest contribution is this new take on a pair of early American dinosaurs: "Laelaps" or Dryptosaurus and Hadrosaurus. His lively theropod is influenced by the Charles R. Knight classic, and I love the way it's throwing itself into this assault against a much larger foe. Kind of like my in-laws' chihuahua Carlos, who has never liked me and never hesitates to give me a piece of his mind.

Lancelot Speed provided a number of color landscapes to the book, but only one for the Mesozoic era. It's a moody Triassic marsh, in which the sauropodomorph Anchisaurus nabs a tasty, if uncharacteristically meaty, snack while the phytosaur Belodon glowers from the shadows.

My favorites are from Alice B. Woodward, already an established book illustrator. Her father worked for the Natural History Museum, and may have been her connection to Knipe. Her Pteranodons are remarkable, especially considering when they were done. A little bit man-in-suity, but still a treat. It looks like she's connected the crest to the rest of the body with muscle, as we've seen John McLoughlin do with Triceratops.

Here's her version of the nodosaur Polacanthus, which is pretty croccy.

Woodward provides the second set of sauropods in the book, in this illustration of Diplodocus and Ornitholestes, which draws on the same instincts that make her book illustrations so compelling. The little theropod is our stand in, amazed at the sight of the two sauropods passing by. This may well be the first life restoration of Ornitholestes, being about ten years before Knight's meme-starting version. The only earlier representation I've seen is the skeletal in Osborn's description. Please do correct me if I've missed another.

Finally, I'll share some illustrations by Charles Whymper, who isn't notable enough for Wikipedia but did some stunning work for Knipe's epic nonetheless. First, one of the most bizarre depictions of Megalosaurus this side of Hawkins. It's positiveley sauropodomorphish.

He contributed two fine pterosaur plates; the first includes Scaphognathus crassirostris in the lower left, in a variation of the classic pose. Dig that hairy soaring Rhamphorynchus, too.

As if that's not enough, Whymper also has a color plate in Nebula to Man, depicting a Dimorphodon swooping in on a Teleosaurus hunting "duckbills." As far as I know, this would have been a completely speculative inclusion a century ago. Since then, monotremes dating back to the Cretaceous have been found, but this is still an anachronistic scene. Still, beautiful stuff.

Regarding the text itself, it probably deserves a post of its own, and maybe it will be lucky enough to get one. I'll end this post with his closing, which is ironically placed right after a section extolling the virtues of the British Empire.

All, all is change, not e'en the studded sky
Has held its jewels from all eternity.
And these, not formed for ever from the past,
Will cease, in time, their lustrous lights to cast:
And other orbs, as bright, will fill their place,
And with new light illumine endless space.
So must our earth, part of a common fate,
Sink in its turn, cold and inanimate;
And to its sun, burnt out, once joined again
Be borne through space, and at Fate's call remain.
And must the spirit of the life here spent
Sink with the scene of its development?
Is all the work around, by Nature wrought,
A passing show, destined to end in naught?
But here to things unknown we vainly press,
And man, bowed down, feels all his littleness.
Yet seeing mystery is in things that be,
He ploughs his way in hope, and reverently.
And though old myths and legends must decay,
And like old forms of life slow pass away ;
Hope still will stand, unnumbered with the dead,
To breathe of worlds, whence pain and death have fled,
Where peace prevails, and Life is perfected.

The rest of the Mesozoic era scans from this title are in the Vintage Dinosaur Art group at Flickr. You can read Nebula to Man for yourself at Google Books or Open Library. The OL scan is much better, but I didn't come across it until I had already ripped these images and uploaded them. And a tip o' the cap must go to Mark Crowell, who has featured this title on his vintage dino book website.

And a Brachiosaurus in a fir tree...

2011-12-24T19:58:00.000-05:00

Niroot missed the deadline for Brian Switek's nifty roundup of dinosaurs on Christmas trees, so I'm posting it here. This is his wonderful Sideshow brachiosaur hatchling, nestled cozily in its egg and surely dreaming of the Mesozoic version of dancing sugarplums.

Why did he miss sending this to Brian? He was busy preparing to BLOW OUR FREAKING MINDS.

Five Unbeatable Last Minute Dinosaur Gift Ideas

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

It's getting late to be thinking about what you're going to tuck under the tree, cram into a big sock, or otherwise present to that dinosaur lover in your life (given that you do the whole Christmas thing, naturally). Never one to plan ahead myself, I feel your pain. And I respond with an appropriately tardy list of saurian gift ideas. You are welcome.

The Hog Wild Dino Popper

"This Dino Popper will have your kids roaring with delight!" exclaims Neatoshop. "Simply load the soft foam ball into the dinosaur's snout and squeeze the Dino Popper's belly - the harder you squeeze the further it shoots!" It goes for $10 at Amazon, and a reviewer writes that it's "very fun for a group get together." So, you'll have to buy a bunch of them unless you just intend on annoying people by shooting them with little foam balls. Which makes this cheap little toy a bit pricier in practice.

Cruncher Interactive Pet Dinosaur

Well, you don't purchase one of these for anatomical accuracy, do you? Though this putative Spinosaurus has a terribly squished-in face, and seems to adhere to the quadrupedal spino hypothesis, it does come with a fish, which is worth a couple or points, since that's what they likely snacked on. $60 at Amazon.

Stegron the Dinosaur Man

Appropriately enough, the amazing Spiderman was once involved in a battle dubbed a "holiday holocaust" with the Lizard and his cohort Stegron the Dinosaur Man. There are many dinosaur dudes in the Marvel canon, but I picked this one. Arbitrarily. I might do a post about Devil Dinosaur, Reptil, and the rest one day, if I can wrap my head around the insane narrative contortions of the Marvel universe. In the meantime, you can get his action figure for a mere $12.89. Or maybe you can offer Luke Porter enough money that he'll make you his far superior custom minimate version.

Luke Porter's Stegron. Photo via flickr.

Kota and Pals
Sort of a mesozoic version of that old chestnut Furby, these dudes are a real steal at only $8.00 from New Egg. They are also kind of terrifying. Here are the Parasaurolophus and pterosaur, for example.

But what the heck. Looks like the tykes love 'em.

Sideshow Dinosauria Maquettes
If you really need to buy someone's love, get them a Sideshow Maquette. For instance, mine. You could buy my love with a Sideshow maquette.

I know you have better ideas, so be sure to tell me what they are in the comments.

A Festive Fin-back

2011-12-22T12:12:00.002-05:00

I'm a selfish little man who doesn't deserve anything nice. Nevertheless, when I asked my lovely wife Jennie - who certainly deserves a stronger and more excellent husband - to make a dinosaur for our Christmas tree, she dove in to the project with gusto.

Of course, our tannenbaum's newest resident can't starve while we shove jello salad, Tofurkey, and sugar cookies down our gullets. Our Spinosaurus is holding, appropriately enough, a gaily sequined fish, which is probably the fanciest thing any spino ever ate.

I think he really completes the tree, and is a reminder that joy, love, and peace are truly timeless.

Happy holidays!

Mesozoic Miscellany 48

2011-12-21T02:04:00.000-05:00

High time for another roundup, methinks. Just finished my first semester of studenthood in seven years, and the weeks since the last Mesozoic Miscellany have been packed with rushing to finish up my coursework. It's done now. Mostly. Of course, the paleontology world didn't do me the courtesy of holding back the good stuff while I was engaged in all of this nonsense.

Dave Hone, Darren Naish, and Innes Cuthill have a new paper released on-line via the journal Lethaia. It explores the possibility of mutual sexual selection in dinosaurs. Hone wrote about it today at Archosaur Musings, and Marc did the same here at LITC.

At Tetrapod Zoology, the aforementioned Naish got his 'pod on with a review of Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: Understanding the Life of Giants, a product of the big research consortium which recently put out an overview of sauropod evolution, freely accessible.

Spinops sternbergorum, a new ceratopsian named from fossils discovered a century ago, has recieved coverage at Paleoexhibit (including a new Nobu Tamura illustration), Saurian, Secrets of the Horned Dinosaurs, Green Tea and Velociraptors, and Dinosaur Tracking. Naturally, as this was a description by Andy Farke, he wrote about it at the Open-Source Paleontologist. And the cheeky monkeys at Gawker had a laugh over it, which Andy was quite tickled by.

Doodle of Boredom is really worth a subscription, BTW. Best dinosaur-Titanic mash-up I've ever seen.

At Pseudoplocephalus, Victoria Arbour shared photos from a very chilly tyrannosaur capture.

The Sideshow Collectibles Apatosaurus is a beauty, and Matt Wedel did us the service of providing a seven-part review. Here's the final, with links to the entire series.

There's "only one place to go to see a hill full of dinosaur bones." Dan Chure writes about the history of tourism at Dinosaur National Monument.

Brian Engh has returned to the Dinosaurs Reanimated blog with a little update about how the project is coming along.

At his blog Green Tea and Velociraptors, Jon Tennant provides a great overview of fossil preservation.

Stu Pond checked out a bunch of footprints in the desert and lived to tell about it.

The Kitteh is grapplin'!

At the Skeletal Drawing blog, check out Scott Hartman's new Falcarius skeletal.

Sometimes dinosaurs aren't sexy, but Anthony Maltese still gives Thescelosaurus some love.

ScienceOnline 2012, which I sadly won't be attending this time around, is going to feature a Science Art slideshow to be shared during the conference. Let's make sure they're stocked with dinosaurs. More from Glendon Mellow.

Finally, Scott Sampson wrote about Dinosaur Train at Whirlpool of Life. He also recently joined twitter, and unlike the troll Dave Hone that popped up, it's legit!

P.S. Anatotitan forever.

Illustration by Paul Heaston, via Flickr.

On crests and feathers

2011-12-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

People have long wondered what exactly the quite weird and wonderful head crests of both dinosaurs and pterosaurs were doing there. Why did they evolve - what were they for? Today Lethaia published (online) a paper by David Hone, Darren Naish and Innes Cuthill entitled Does mutual sexual selection explain the evolution of head crests in pterosaurs and dinosaurs? In the paper, Hone et al propose that a potential key evolutionary factor has so far been largely overlooked - that of mutual sexual selection.


Citipati, an animal unusual in combining a large, bony head crest with feathers. While the display feathers here are speculative, similar structures are known from the oviraptorosaur Caudipteryx. Art by Niroot Puttapipat.

'Mutual sexual selection' is pretty self-explanatory. While 'sexual selection' is a one-sided process, with one sex selecting for highly dimorphic traits in the other (Hone himself gives the "endlessly repeated" example of peacocks), 'mutual sexual selection' is, well, mutual. As such, it is likely that both genders of the animal concerned will have ornamentation, or similar sexually selective traits. As is noted in the paper,

"An instructive example is the crested auklet, Aethia cristatella...in which both sexes bear feather plumes on their heads [and] both sexes prefer mates with longer crests" (p. 3)

The authors contend that palaeontologists are largely ignoring this idea and failing to realise its changing status in behavioural ecology. They propose that since "there are many circumstances under which male mating time and effort are limited", and given the varying quality of females, it makes sense that males should be selective rather than simply trying to copulate with everything in sight (pp. 11-12).

In formulating this hypothesis, the authors run through a number of others that have been proposed down the years. Some, such as the evolution of crests as weaponry or thermoregulatory devices, can obviously be ruled out for a lot of species. However, what's probably going to raise people's heckles is the authors' rejection of the 'species recognition' hypothesis, that is to say the idea that (some) crested dinosaurs and pterosaurs evolved their displays so that members of the same species could recognise one another. As the authors point out, this idea doesn't explain why "lambeosaurine hadrosaurs required large crests for species recognition, when...members of [the] closely related iguanodontian lineage did not" (p. 10). They also note that a lot of animals today don't require such obvious signals to be able to differentiate between even very similar species. For example:

"...tyrant flycatchers notorious for showing little to no morphological variation exhibit clear boundaries between species, despite sympatry" (p. 9)

Mutual sexual selection also neatly solves a problem as regards ceratopsians - that although sexual dimorphism has been proposed for certain species, "the proposed degree of sexual dimorphism is weak" (p. 5) with all mature individuals in a species seemingly being near-equally well-adorned with fancy head ornaments. The same has been found to be true of certain pterosaurs and theropods. As far as theropods go, the authors note the prevalence of crests in relatively basal clades (like the coelophysoids and ceratosaurs), but hypothesise that feathers might have replaced head crests as a sexual display in more advanced coelurosaurs and especially maniraptorans (the clade that includes dromaeosaurs, troodonts, oviraptorosaurs and birds). The known presence of display feathers on animals like Caudipteryx and Epidexipteryx would appear to back up this claim (pp. 12-13).

Of course, one problem with this is that some oviraptorosaurs have well-developed crests, but were presumably fully feathered. While acknowledging this as an "anomaly", the authors point out that the clade is very unusual among coelurosaurs in this respect. Furthermore, they also contend that modern birds that possess bony head crests - like cassowaries and certain hornbills - are also very unusual in having them (p. 13).

Noting that ornithodirans (dinosaurs and pterosaurs) likely relied heavily on vision - with a great deal of evidence backing this up - Hone et al also propose that

"...the evolution of the flight-capable feather and of flight itself may well have its roots in the evolution of ornithodiran sociosexual display." (p. 14)

It's an idea that's been proposed before, but here it's presented in the context of mutual sexual selection. Could it be that, in maniraptoran dinosaurs, it was a case of both sexes trying to impress each other that sped along the evolution of the flight feather?

Obviously, this is really just scratching the surface of what's in the paper and, knowing me, I've probably cocked up somewhere along the line (cf. some of the Planet Dinosaur reviews). I'd urge you to get hold of a copy of the paper for all the information - it's actually very accessible for laymen (I should know!).

Vintage Dinosaur Art: I-Spy with David Bellamy: Dinosaurs

2011-12-20T03:00:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! In the true spirit of this season of giving - and by no means through sheer coincidence, or because I have nothing else to write about - Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs is bringing you two Vintage Dinosaur Art posts this week. It's something we've never done before, except that one time. Furthermore, this book stars David Bellamy, otherwise known as Father Christmas, the original British equivalent of the Dutch Sinterklaas and American Santa Claus, who has subsequently effectively merged with the latter, much to the chagrin of traditionalists throughout the country.

Say, the top half of that tyrannosaur looks familar!

According to British tradition, David Bellamy (or Father Christmas) is an elderly, bearded gentleman who is very keen on wildlife. On Christmas Eve he visits the houses of well-behaved children and leaves them books on nature spotting and anthropogenic climate change denial. He also hit the charts once, but the less said about that, the better - although it should be noted that this book appeared at about the same time in 1980. The illustrations (by Jenny Halstead) aren't fantastic, but then neither are they particularly bad, falling somewhere closer to 'mediocre'.

Take a look at this Allosaurus, for example. By 1980 standards, it's not bad at all - even if it's missing a toe on each foot (perhaps a result of the artist taking the text a bit too literally), at least the tail's elevated and the head's only a little misshapen. The text is interesting in that it claims that Allosaurus was "closely related to...Megalosaurus", which according to modern analyses it wasn't particularly, although this is just a relic of the time when every theropod was lumped into Megalosaurus.

Writing by the original owner of this book. D'awwww.

This Iguanodon is very similar in appearance to the Invicta toy, but that aside it is, again, not bad (for 1980). This page is more notable for the claim that Megalosaurus "probably preyed" on Iguanodon, in spite of the two being separated by a good 40 million years. This error - which pops up in old dinosaur books with alarming frequency - can probably be traced back to the two being depicted as living together back in the 19th century. However, back then they had no way of telling how old they really were. Some jokers even thought that they might haved lived alongside the earliest humans but, of course, no one in their right mind thinks that anymore.

Remember when Supersaurus and "Ultrasauros" ended up being conflated into one chimeric creature? I don't, obviously, but I've seen enough of these sorts of illustrations to get the impression that it happened quite frequently prior to Supersaurus being 'officially named'. Obviously, Supersaurus turned out to not be a brachiosaur, and as such modern weight estimates are considerably lower - around half of the 80 tonnes stated here. Meanwhile, "Ultrasauros" was at least partly a brachiosaur - in fact, its scapulocoracoid was from a Brachiosaurus altithorax. The rest of it was just more Supersaurus. Ah, well...

Here's an interesting couple of pages. On the left we have a profile of Mussaurus, which Bellamy (or whoever authored the text, if not him) seems to mistakenly believe was very tiny. Of course, the remains that have been found are very tiny, but that's only because they're juveniles. On the right we have a more promising page, pointing out the similarities between the skeletons of modern thrushes and nonavian theropods, which was a brilliant thing to include in a kids' book back in 1980. (A note to non-Eurasian readers - the blackbird referred to here is Turdus merula. Which I'm sure you already knew but, y'know, just in case.)

Unfortunately, there is a dropping of the ball later in the book. Birds as descendants of ornithischians? Noooooo! Still, this page deserves merit for being pretty progressive for 1980. At the time the idea of birds being dinosaurs was still frowned upon by members of the palaeontological establishment, including good old Alan Charig (for no very good reason). It's remarkable that, these days, claiming that birds (and often other maniraptorans) aren't theropod dinosaurs is the 'outsider' view, although that'll be because it doesn't make any bloody sense.

Finally, on 'spotting' everything and completing the book, kids could send off for a certificate from Father Christmas himself, declaring them to officially be a "Dinosarologist". I hope to receive mine forthwith...

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Eva Hülsmann

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of the recent uploads to the Flickr Vintage Dinosaur Art pool, thanks to the valiant efforts of geoblogger David Bressan, is a set of Eva Hülsmann illustrations from an Italian book titled Trecento Milioni Di Anni Fa, which Google translates as Three Hundred Million Years Ago. Yes, that means that we're dealing with a topic that invariably sends the masses into fits of ecstatic blabbering, the late Carboniferous: chock-full of hot, hot arthropod and lycopsid action.

Well, no. Contrary to what the title would have you believe, the book is about the good ol' Mesozoic, which isn't nearly as popular an era in Earth's history, but that's what we're stuck with.

The cover is graced by a flaming red Scolosaurus - er, Euplocephalus as it is now known - beckoning the reader to crack open the book. Its warm smile belies the fact that it's somehow lost its ankylosaurine tail club. The artwork inside is presented in similar fashion, with each animal isolated against a white background rather than integrated into a natural environment. Refreshingly, she doesn't rely heavily on the work of earlier artists to pose her animals, offering a nice variety of postures and angles, as demonstrated by these three illustrations:

Dimorphodon, the classic "hatchet-headed" rhamphorhynchoid, which here has a dangling fifth toe, commonly used by other illustrators to anchor the uropatagium, the membrane connecting the feet and tail.

Camptosaurus, that ubiquitous ornithopod of the Jurassic Morrison formation in the US.

And this dashing fellow is Triceratops, a ceratopsian of no small renown.

Published in 1974, Trecento Milioni Di Anni Fa came out during that transitional period when Ostrom's ideas were gaining traction among the scientific community, and just before Robert Bakker began spreading the new ideas about dinosaur biology to the public with his 1975 "Dinosaur Renaissance" article for Scientific American (an issue I own, and have yet to scan, shame on me). They argued that dinosaurs were monophyletic - both the ornithischians and saurischians shared one common ancestor; that they were active animals with high metabolisms; and, of course, that theropods were the ancestors of birds. This places Hülsmann's art just before the revolution this brought out in paleoart, which proceeded fitfully throughout the eighties and nineties as we've seen in this series time and time again.

She illustrates the "big two" theropods, Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, in the familiar man-in-suit posture that has persisted for so long. What's remarkable are the correctly oriented forelimbs of Allosaurus. No pronation! Ken Carpenter's 2001 study Forelimb biomechanics of nonavian theropod dinosaurs in predation did much to dispel this misconception from high-level paleoart, but "lay" dinosaur illustrations will probably get this wrong forever, because we want our dinosaurs to have dextrous little hands so we could play Nintendo 64 with them and high-five them without great struggle.

And check out the pterofuzz on Pteranodon!

My favorite from this selection has to be Hülsmann's coy little Archaeopteryx, brightly colored but not to sparkleraptor extremes. In penance for the time I did the same damn thing, I am forced to note that the primary feathers should be extending from this sexy little Archie's middle digit. The feet, too, are a bit off, with a hallux that's more reversed than it should be.

FACT: The Vintage Dinosaur Art pool is inching ever closer to 1,000 images! You can see more Mesozoic critters from this book there, including a plesiosaur that looks like it's walking on dry land due to the white background.

Deinonychus, a Cretaceous Rodeo Rider

2011-12-15T10:12:00.000-05:00

"Gaaaar! I'm gonna hold you down and eat you alive! While flapping!" Photo by Dominique Pipet, via Flickr.

What did Deinonychus really do with its feet? John Ostrom initially painted the picture of a fleet-footed predator, chasing down prey animals and slashing at them with the enlarged claw on its second toe. To take it from Crichton, they were slitting bellies and dancing in spilled viscera. A few years ago, Phil Manning of the University of Manchester suggested they were more likely "climbing crampons," allowing them to cling to the panicky tenontosaurs they were attacking. In a new PLoS One paper, Denver Fowler, with Elizabeth Freedman, John Scannella, and Robert Kambic, puts forward another option: they were grasping tools for holding down smaller prey (or, in typically colorful science-speak, prey of "subequal body size").

To come to this conclusion, Fowler and team compared the feet of Deinonychus to other animals: a diverse group of extinct theropod genera as well as living birds. When compared to dinosaurs, the proportions of their feet differed strikingly from ornithomimids and alvarezsaurs, both groups whose leg proportions strongly suggest a cursorial lifestyle. They were runners. As Matt Martyniuk recently wrote in an excellent DinoGoss post, the sticky assumption that dromaeosaurs were particularly quick animals, chasing down prey, isn't really supported by the evidence. Noting that Ostrom's first ideas changed once he took full stock of the proportions of Deinonychus's metatarsus length to its tibia length, Matt writes, "Not only was Deinonychus not particularly fast, it probably could not have been nearly as fast as most other small theropods, including modern flightless birds, let alone cheetahs."

To test his hypothesis that Deinonychus was instead using its feet to hold onto prey as it killed it, Fowler compared its foot proportions to living birds who use their feet in diverse ways, including accipiters, owls, falcons, passerines, vultures, osprey, woodpeckers, and pheasants. Accipiters, AKA hawks and eagles, are adept at holding down prey, using second toes which have larger claws than the others. This second claw was the closest analog to the dromaeosaur "sickle-claw" yet found. The metatarsal bones were short and stocky like those of owls, suggesting that they were just as good at grasping small prey, if not built to constrict around prey and squeeze the life out of it the way accipiters can.

Also assisting Deinonychus in subduing and keeping a grip on its prey, Fowler suggests, is that feathered forelimbs could have been used the way accipiters use their wings, flapping to maintain stability on top of a struggling prey animal. He writes,

Even if Deinonychosauria were not capable of a full avian-like flapping ability, they may have been able to perform a rudimentary flight stroke during stability flapping. Similarly, long feathered tails are conspicuous in accipiters and aid in maneuverability and balance during stability flapping. Basal Paraves and Deinonychosauria possessed long bony tails which are shown to have been well feathered... and would have assisted balance during predation and stability flapping.

This suggests another use for flapping, feathered forelimbs other than flight. The dromaeosaur would ambush its prey, hold it down by plunging its enlarged second claw into it, holding it down by its own weight, flapping to keep its balance and maintain its grip. Those long forearm feathers and fiercely clawed hands would have also been useful to "mantle" their meal, protecting it from rivals and further preventing escape. Fowler writes,

An important part of our interpretation is that ground-based predation need not necessarily be conducted at high speed. It is commonplace for extant terrestrial predators to employ surprise ambush techniques; goshawks and other forest raptor species commonly hunt on the ground, employing ambush and maneuverability as strategies, rather than outright pursuit

Troodontids also figure into this, as Fowler notes their common presence in ecosystems alongside dromaeosaurs. Comparitively, the feet of troodontids were better suited for chasing down their prey. As dromaeosaurs went for larger prey, troodontids may have been specialized for hunting small mammals, for example, perhaps in darkness as suggested by their famously large eyes.

Noting that extant avian theropods such as Golden Eagles aren't afraid to go after much larger prey, Fowler writes that his research here doesn't necessarily preclude the long-inferred habit of dromaeosaurs to pick on animals their own size or larger. Had they worked up the gumption to have tenontosaur for supper, the "climbing crampon" quality of the second toe claw noted by Phil Manning would certainly come in handy for prey riding. In a sort of Cretaceous rodeo, the dromaeosaur would have leaped onto the back of a passing tenontosaur, holding on for dear life as it thrashed about until blood loss and exhaustion finally brought it down.

This research is rich with possibilities for future studies, and it will be fun to see what comes of it. There are the biomechanical implications of stability flapping to look at, as well as plenty of argument over how this hypothesis impacts the early evolution of flight. Lots of meat on this bone.

Also published in PLoS One yesterday: Scannella and Jack Horner continue to strike genera from the books, this time adding Nedoceratops to the list of ontogenetic phases of Triceratops. Another deals with how reproductive strategies affect body size in a variety of animals, including dinosaurs.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs Discovered

2011-12-12T16:16:00.000-05:00

Most readers of this blog will already be familiar with The Great Dinosaur Discoveries, Darren Naish's excellent book about, well, people discovering dinosaurs through the decades. Dinosaurs Discovered by John Gilbert has a very similar theme - double-page spreads profile historical palaeonotological findings - but is 30 years older, dating as it does from 1979. In addition, while Naish's book features gorgeous artwork from a number of the best palaeoartists around today (Luis Rey, Julius T Csotonyi, and Todd Marshall to name three), Gilbert's is illustrated solely by Guy Michel.

Apparently, Michel really had a thing for tongues. I'm not sure you can say that about Luis Rey.

The artwork is of a decent enough standard from a purely aesthetic, rather than scientific point of view; the animals are well-detailed, while landscapes appear lush and believable (even for all the oddly anachronistic grass).

However, there are a few very strange ideas that just keep on popping up (or rather, out). By far the most predominant among these is the tongue-lolling, Gene Simmons Iguanodon. It's first seen in a sort of 'parade' of dinosaurs from different periods:

(A few other things to note here: the extremely squat, no neck Ankylosaurus; the very stooped brachiosaur with even-length limbs; and the fact that the Stegosaurus with upright plates is significant for reasons I'll come to later. Also, I feel obliged to point out that the labels of Coelophysis and Cetiosaurus were clearly swapped by accident, but I've cropped out the former.)

A later page shows a whole herd of razzing Iguanodon stumbling blithely into a ravine in Belgium:

And here's another one...

And another one. (Note also the Stegosaurus with the seldom-seen 'flat plates' configuration, and the highly sauropod-like Plateosaurus, both of which jar with other illustrations of the same animal in the same book by the same artist.)

Quite why Michel thought that Iguanodon would be sticking its tongue out everywhere, I don't know. Obviously, the last image shows it using its tongue, giraffe-like, to manipulate foliage (an idea that Louis Dollo had), but in the other images it's just sort of...hanging there, like the animal's lost control of it. Or maybe it's catching flies, I dunno. Iguanodon isn't the only animal in on the drooling, tongue-dangling action, either.

Plateosaurus? What the hell? I've got a feeling that giraffe-like Iguanodon were a bit of a palaeoart meme back in the day, but this is surely the only time the idea's been applied to sauropodomorphs. (And if you know otherwise, I want to know too. Comment please!)

Protruding tongues aside, most of the art in this book conforms to what you'd expect from the 1970s, with a few particularly quirky highlights. Once again, Tyrannosaurus suffers a really rather undignified interpretation by the artist - not only frog-eyed, but in a really strange pose. It looks like the Struthiomimus has just let one rip and run off, and the Tyrannosaurus is throwing up its oversized arms in disgust. Something's really up with that Parasaurolophus skull, too...

Ah, good old Bronto. Obviously, the animal looks really retrograde and horrendous (shall we say 'phylotarded' again? Yeah, let's) and comes complete with a blunt wrong-o-skull, but there's still something I quite like about this scene. It's probably just because there isn't enough palaeoart set in a rainstorm. Reminds me of holidays in Norfolk. As an added bonus, in spite of apparently being of 1970s origin, both sauropod and accompanying pterosaurs look like they've been sent through a portal from the nineteenth century.

And finally...Michel clearly found arranging the animals in this scene a bit of a headache (geddit?), so he gave up. The ankylosaur has a very fetching pair of little horns in addition to not being at all bothered by the situation. Wonderful.

Bad Dinosaurs' Paradise

2011-12-11T13:56:00.001-05:00

What's the logical next step from owning a chain of successful garden centres? Why, opening a taped-together, homebrew natural history museum adjoining to one of said garden centres, of course. And what really draws legions of screaming kids to a natural history museum, cash-cow parents in tow? Easy - model dinosaurs. Especially moving, roaring ones. One caveat - because of the DIY nature of your new attraction, all the dinosaurs have to be really, really weird.

It's time for another dinosaur safari. Journey beneath the half-tyrannosaur and we'll begin.

Remember the Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off - my occasionally unduly mean bad palaeoart contest? Well, if you've ever wanted to see some of the strangest early '90s ideas of what dromaeosaurs looked like as man-sized robots, you're in luck. Presenting: Velociraptor, Paradise Park-style.

Oh yes - there's nothing I like doing more on a Sunday than heading down to a dreary warehouse in Newhaven and gawping at someone's eccentric idea of what dinosaurs looked like writ large. Such is the rock-'n'-roll lifestyle that I lead. Fortunately, I had artist and (surely, by now) LITC stalwart Niroot with me to share the nerdy giggles.

An aside: the above pictured model could be controlled by a button panel. Niroot was having a go and watching the results when, apropos of nothing, the monster's jaw flopped open and it emitted the Godzilla roar, which had me in absolute stitches.

Still, Paradise Park haven't limited themselves to oddly-proportioned, lizardy dromaeosaurs with stolen sound effects. They also have oddly-proportioned, lizardy troodonts.

When was this ever what a Saurornithoides looked like? Teeth limited to the front of the mouth - really? The explanatory sign is brilliant, too - "their slashing claws wearing down their victim to provide a meal for all".

A word of advice for the owners of dinosaur-related attractions - when you buy your huge moving Styracosaurus, make sure the manufacturer knows what they're doing and hasn't done something really dumb, like stick the nose horn between its eyes.

Actually, this Elasmotherium-style gigantor Styracosaurus seems to get around, although - perhaps in an effort to top other attractions in the shoddily-reconstructed ceratopsian stakes - Paradise Park have two of the bloody things. (Although the red head is attractive.)

This exhibit (yes - really) about dinosaur eggs speaks for itself, really, so I'll just let it sink in and then we can move on. Actually, it's almost tempting to find the brazen attitude towards creating cut-price dioramas quite laudible. Although on the other hand, it's just utterly laughable.

In a similar vein...I don't think this has been touched since the early '90s. Hopefully most of you will recognise these!

What's the most wrong-looking plesiosaur restoration you've ever seen? Forget it - it's just been instantly topped by this hugely fat, inexplicably land-borne monstrosity. It's looking very relaxed - perhaps even suave - about it all though.

And from the other way!

Speaking of things that are just perversely bizarre...

AAAAARRRRRGGGHHH *inhale* AAARRGGGHHHHH *black out, fall over*

Say, did someone order a 1960s Iguanodon with extra mammoth? Perhaps my favourite feature of this model - another one that has, as I'm afraid to admit that I know, made it into multiple attractions - is the pair of rather spindly humanoid arms it has attached to it. Bless.

That's enough heartless mockery for today. While I haven't even covered half of the abysmal, ugly, surreally anatomically incorrect dinosaur train-crashes present at this attraction, the whole thing is clearly a labour of love. Yes, even the text is frequently flat-out wrong (Jurassic Styracosaurus, anyone?), but someone has spent an absolute fortune gathering into one place what is undoubtedly one of the most repulsive collections of gigantic dino-gnomes in the UK, if not the world. For that, I salute them.

Also, this rather baffling, outsized version of one those wooden skeleton kits you used to get back in the '80s and '90s is cool for reasons that I am unable to put my finger on. Who made it? Why is it based on a cheapo, long-obsolete slot-together children's model? I guess we'll never know.

Many thanks to Niroot for letting me use his superior photos.

Welkom in het DinoBos!

2011-12-08T11:50:00.001-05:00

I happened to be back in the Netherlands earlier this week. As a bit of an early birthday present, my girlfriend (yes - really) paid for my entry into DierenPark Amersfoort, a zoo in, er, Amersfoort. Although I always do like a good zoo, DierenPark Amersfoort had another draw for me - a large area dedicated to life-size fibreglass dinosaurs known as the 'DinoBos' (or 'Dino Forest'). What self-respecting dinosaur geek could possibly resist such an attraction? And so off I went, taking far too many photos. Fortunately, the place was pretty empty. Unfortunately, it was also bloody cold. Still, some of the models were really rather impressive.

I get acquainted with a Triceratops/umbrella stand.

The DinoBos is arranged as a circuit, the models being presented in roughly chronological order (that is, according to when the real animal was alive) starting in the Devonian. Or Devoon, as it apparently is in Dutch. Of course, the only animal from the Devonian present was the weirdo evil fish Dunkleosteus, with a model of a shrunken (or juvenile) fishy plonked rather unceremoniously in a small pond. Except the pond had filled with leaves, so the rather surprised-looking creature had the appearance of having been dumped in the middle of the woods and left to die. It's one of those occasions where one can't help but imagine that the attraction bought a load of models, noticed one of them was a fish and thought "what in holy hell are we going to do with THIS?"

Of course, things picked up when it came to the dinosaurs themselves (for one thing, they look a little more suited to their woodland habitat). As a kid, I visited Blackgang Chine and the Dinosaur Park in Norfolk on a number of occasions. I can't speak for what the latter's like these days, but it's safe to say that whenever anyone mentions fibreglass dinosaurs (as they are often wont to do at the trendiest parties) I always picture the hilariously bad, 1970s creations from Blackgang. Therefore, the rather more modern-looking models at DierenPark Amersfoort (or DPA, as I'll be calling it from now on, thanks) came as something of a pleasant surprise. Particularly impressive were the sauropods because, well, they were life-size sauropods. And one of them was Giraffatitan.

"It's...it's a dinosaur!"

Blimey, that's big. And look - it doesn't have elephant feet! Equally awesome was the Diplodocus. Perhaps they were a little overzealous in giving the animal a slimline neck, but otherwise the model was quite beautiful, from its dermal spines to its whiplash tail and graceful poise. The neck was erect, too (something that would no doubt make the SV-POWsketeers happy).

There was one serious plague upon these models - BUNNY HANDS. Unfortunately, every theropod had its hands orientated in the 'classic' palms-down style, which was a real shame as they were often rather good otherwise (see Albertosaurus and Tyrannosaurus below).

Bizarrely, while Coelophysis was modelled with a funky hairstyle, a Deinonychus pair were completely naked. This might have something to do with the old palaeoart meme of depicting "Syntarsus" (aka Megapnosaurus) with a 'badass mohawk' - some have argued that Megapnosaurus is a junior synonym of Coelophysis. In any case, it's a bother that the Deinonychus weren't feathered as they featured in the only scene with dinosaurs properly interacting - in this case, attacking Iguanodon. Rather anachronistically, it should be said (what happened to good old Tenontosaurus, the obligatory long-tailed buffet?), but it was executed quite well.

Interspersed among the nicely-sculpted static models were a smaller number of shabbier, rubbery-looking things that ocassionally spasmed with movement. I suppose it's good for keeping kids interested, but they inevitably ended up sticking out like a whole sad bunch of grey sore thumbs. Particularly goofy-looking was the Herrerasaurus (below), although it was also one of the most mobile. Just look at those eyes. The eyes alone!

Nevertheless, terrible and broken animatronics couldn't sour what was otherwise a very pleasant woodland jaunt beside a series of looming recreations of extinct animals. There's a surprising variety of them on offer here, too - besides the usual suspects, there are such unusual subjects as Maiasaura and Scelidosaurus (below), while the forest setting gives a suitable air of adventure and discovery. Of course, the rest of TPA is excellent too, with a surprisingly wide range of (actual living and breathing) animals that even includes Rhinoceros unicornis (with a baby born this year). It's well worth a visit.

And finally...here's one for Heinrich Mallison. (Sorry it's a quadruped, Heinrich...)

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Reptiles

2011-12-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Way back in April, when I was supposed to be finishing my undergradaute thesis, I wrote my first ever post for Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs - a Vintage Dinosaur Art guest post looking at an amusingly crap 1960s book named Dinosaurs of the Earth. When this book - simply titled Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Reptiles - arrived on Saturday, I was immediately struck by the similarities. Originally published in 1966 (with this fifth edition arriving in 1972), DaOPR similarly takes readers on a colourful journey through time from the origins of life on land in the Palaeozoic through to the end of the Mesozoic. The key difference is that the art here is much, much better, and that'll be down to the talents of one Rudolph F Zallinger, who surely needs no introduction to anyone reading this blog (but just in case).

Many of the animals in this book are obviously similar to their counterparts in Zalinger's The Age of Reptiles mural, but - and in spite of the book still being firmly 'Dino Dark Age' in style - they actually look a little more modern, and anatomical improvements have been made. Still, it seems that even Zallinger wasn't above ripping off (or more generously, 'paying homage to') other artists' work, in this case (below) Charles R Knight's bird-grabbing Ornitholestes which, as David has examined before, ended up turning into a meme. It never did seem to bother anyone that Ornitholestes and Archaeopteryx lived in rather different parts of the world...

Ah, the swamp-bound sauropod trope. Just as in Dinosaurs of the Earth, the text here (by Jane Werner Watson) is more interested in telling a story that conveying lots of facts about the dinosaur's anatomy and possible behaviour. Still, we are told that Brachiosaurus lives in the water much of the time not only to support 'his' (yes, the animals are always described as male) weight, but because for this gigantic animal "the safest thing to do is to hide" in a lake. Looking carefully, it's possible to see the nasal crest of one brachiosaur just poking out of the water in the middle, presumably where there is a sheer drop in the lake bed. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - how did this idea persist for so long without people realising how utterly barmy it was?

More memes! This time, Allosaurus sinking its teeth into the neck of "Brontosaurus". Both clearly draw on Zallinger's previous work, but Allosaurus looks leaner and meaner than in the AoR mural and no longer has its forelimbs growing out of its neck. Outdated as it obviously is, Zallinger's skill ensures that this remains a highly striking and evocative scene to behold - just compare it with the same scene in Dinosaurs of the Earth. (And then have another good laugh at the latter.)

Stegosaurus is still looking very old-fashioned here, as it did even into the '90s. Not a lot to say, really, other than the colour scheme is rather different to that featured in the AoR mural (unlike the Allosaurus and "Brontosaurus" which are broadly similar), and is if anything more typical - a green body with orange plates. I'd love to know who exactly invented that, and if other artists were copying them or just happened upon the same colours independently. There's an Ankylosaurus featured too, which I haven't scanned, but rest assured it is the same weird, super-squat, no-neck creature so prevalent in art of the time.

There's a very peculiar trope in old palaeoart that leads to Protoceratops having an unduly sprawling, lizardlike appearance for no good reason. Zallinger carries on the tradition here. Bizarrely, Oviraptor has transmorphed into an ornithomimosaur, although unlike the bigger theropods its tail is very clearly elevated above the ground.

There's something I quite like about this Gorgosaurus - maybe because depicting theropods squatting down at the water's edge still remains quite unconventional. Zallinger's also given it a lot of character, and it looks a little tense, as if it's eyeing something beneath the surface. Which it is, although not what one would expect - a Corythosaurus and Parasaurolophus have turned scuba diver, the text describing how "they fill their hollow skulls with air [like an aqualung], and down they go to the bottom". A lovely illustration and a totally nutty one based on a long-discarded idea on the same page - that's why I love old dinosaur books...

This Triceratops manages to combine the lovely and the nutty in the same animal. It's as beautifully painted as ever, and (quite literally) has a huge presence on the page. On the other hand...what's up with the head? The neck frill appears to fold out, fan-like, in a semi-circle behind the animal's head. Still, I love the way a lone Triceratops completely dominates this scene, and the surrounding environment just looks gorgeous.

It's Tyrannosaurus time. Sexy rexy puts in his (oh dear, now I'm personifying them) inevitable appearance near the end of the book, wading in and baring his fangs from stage right. Triceratops looks unimpressed. When compared with the AoR mural, this T. rex is notably nothing like as pot-bellied, while the head too looks somewhat more modern (although, as was seemingly typical for illustrators of this time, the animal's characteristic cranial lumps and bumps are smoothed out into a neat arch over the eye). In spite of its sleeker appearance, however, T. rex is still firmly a 'man-in-suit' tail dragger here, and the text describes it as such - when it loses its battle with a Triceratops, it's described as 'shuffling' away. We are also told that "like all cold-blooded animals, [T. rex] tires quickly". Strangely, although this is typical of the way dinosaurs are portrayed in the book, pterosaurs are described as probably being endotherms.

Although 'he' comes off worse in his fight with Triceratops, all is well for T. rex in the end as a rather alarmed Pachycephalosaurus is plucked from the ground and devoured. The T. rex looks stranger here, if still very muscular, but I just like the fact that it's in a scene with Pachycephalosaurus. Although the two species (T. rex and P. wyomingensis) lived contemporaneously, it seems like they're hardly ever seen together in palaeoart.

Overall I'd say the art in this book remains impressive, especially technically. Although the ways that the animals are portrayed are hopelessly out of date, Zallinger's characterful, intricate work remains beautiful. Like all the best palaeoart, even as they age to the point of scientific obsolesence one is still able to believe these creations as living, breathing animals.

Why Thai zoos win

2011-12-01T15:59:00.005-05:00

Recently, Niroot (yes! Him again!) went back to Chiang Mai in Thailand and visited the Chiang Mai zoo, where he found the below information board - among others - explaining how birds are dinosaurs.

Admittedly, I can't read most of the text since, well, I don't speak (or read) Thai. So the main text could contain complete nonsense, for all I know. But the diagrams! The wonderful diagrams! I've been to a reasonable number of zoos in my life and have never seen anything quite like this. Another sign even featured some of Matt Martyniuk's restorations of feathered nonavian theropods.

Zoos: more of this, please.

One other thing: if you're thinking that it's been a little quiet around here recently, you're right. David's been very busy with his degree work and I've just been rather short on cash, so unable to get out there and find interesting stuff as much as I'd like. Hopefully things will pick up again soon, though. If nothing else, I have a fantastically geeky day out among some awesomely terrible life-size dinosaurs planned for next weekend, as well as more Vintage Dinosaur Art from the '70s on the way. Stay tuned.

Until then, here's a photo of a cassowary's (Casuarius casuarius) big behind that Niroot took while at the zoo. Cassowaries are perhaps some of the birds that are most evocative of their nonavian theropod relatives, as was explored in the Inside Nature's Giants episode 'The Dinosaur Bird'. Enjoy.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Ultimate Dinosaur Book

2011-11-28T13:40:00.013-05:00

I've been avoiding using this book for a long time since, well, it was very good at the time and remains pretty good today, in spite of how much the science has moved on since 1993. However, while very dated/plain bad books are the best for yucks, it seems only fair to sometimes include those that were, you know, actually put together with a great deal of care and attention to detail. This was also by far and away my favourite dinosaur book as a kid (I turned six near the end of 1993), even if some of the more complicated anatomical terms sailed over my head at the time.

As a child of the '90s, what is most fascinating about dinosaur books from the era is comparing exactly what has stood the test of time and what hasn't. This is particularly (although not solely) true of theropod restorations, quite a few of which have subsequently been subjected to a huge paradigm shift. Tellingly, many of the beautiful models and illustrations featured in The Ultimate Dinosaur Book actually stand up to modern scrutiny very well, with only a few comparatively minor faults (for example, the pronated forearms on the front cover Allosaurus). As always, because of the huge choice available, I've tried to go for some of the more dated, quirky and therefore interesting models/illustrations in the book. Like this one...

Say hello once more to early '90s 'carnosaur' Spinosaurus, whom we have encountered before. In fairness, however, David Lambert's text does note that this restoration is based on the work of Stromer, and that "the head may have been lower than Stromer thought" - other illustrations on the page show a more modern-looking, long and low snout. They all have the bizarrely four-fingered hands, though, likely based on Stromer's original monograph. I don't know why Stromer originally restored the animal with four fingers rather than three, but have a few ideas - if you happen to be a bit more informed then (as always) please do drop us a comment.

Poor old T. rex always seems to get a bit of a bum deal in these '90s books. While the model is mostly very good for the time, even as a kid the eyes struck me as being bizarrely huge. This, combined with the big ol' cute-puppy pupils, makes the big toothy one look all cuddly wuddly. Aww, bwess his piddly li'l twiggy arms. The same applies to the 'front view' head on the left, too. A look straight down the business end of Tyrannosaurus is intimidating enough when one is just looking at fossil bones (or, er, casts), but the oversized peepers make it look positively adorable.

Obligatory 'tee hee! They thought dromaeosaurs were scaly in the '90s!' Deinonychus pic for you. This model can actually still be viewed in London's Natural History Museum, where it's correctly placed in context with a lot of other outdated models, unlike certain other inaccurately naked Deinonychus. This image gains extra poignancy for having a 'scaly skin' label attached to it in typical Dorling Kindersley style. Of course, much like the miniature Crystal Palace-style Iguanodon figures that it sits next to in the Natural History Museum, this is still a beautifully sculpted work of art.

Speaking of outdated scaly deinonychosaurs, The Ultimate Dinosaur Book features a Troodon profile and, oh yes, that daft anthropomorphic freak from a David Icke slideshow is present and correct.

This one's especially for Trish. Poor old Dale Russell - apparently he feels a bit embarrassed if one brings this up with him nowadays. We forgive you, Dale. This image and its accompanying text are funny for a couple of other reasons - firstly, because a lot of the labels seem somewhat superfluous (toe? Foot? Really?), and secondly because the text literally describes Troodon as 'bird-like' before going on to say that Russell (sorry, sorry!) believed that this bird-like animal might have evolved into a humanoid creature. Oh dear. Time to move on to something a little less cringeworthy.

Yes, there are a number of things wrong with this picture of the therizinosaur Segnosaurus by modern standards (for one thing, it's another bald maniraptor), but for 1993 this is amazingly good. The foot with four well-developed toes - none of which are webbed - long neck with small head, and large hand claws are all present. Lambert even accurately speculates that the animal was most likely a strange, herbivorous theropod. Given that therizinosaurs were so poorly known at the time, I think The Ultimate Dinosaur Book is remarkably prescient. Its only bizarre slip-up is in placing this guy at the end of the sauropodomorph profiles section. Huh.

Two-fingered Compsognathus! That particular idea stuck around for quite a long time, with even the creatures in The Lost World: Jurassic Park having only two digits per hand. While, of course, the animal is now known to have the more usual three fingers, this model is notable for having the hands oritentated correctly. Whether by chance or not, I don't know, but it's still a plus point.

Oh dear - it appears that I've been far too biased in favour of theropods again. Typical. Here, have a ceratopsian.

This, of course, is Styracosaurus - and it's a rather good one at that. I've included this to draw attention to something that was acceptable back in the day. but isn't anymore - namely, giving ceratopsians elephantine feet. As I pedantically pointed out just last week, this is actually now considered inaccurate - ceratopsians had quite distinct, separated digits on both their hands and feet, actually retaining quite primitive characteristics in this respect. Still, I will once again say that the model pictured above remains quite lovely - I am especially fond of the colours, which I believe have been ripped off in dinosaur toys (and quite right too).

And now for an unceremonious end to this post. That's your lot for the time being! Although there's bound to be more in the future, unless DK's lawyers send me threatening e-mails. Given that these models were actually used across a range of DK books, I've hopefully brought back a few fond memories for you nonetheless.

An oddball Iguanodon

2011-11-24T11:32:00.008-05:00

Here's a curiosity from my local, small town museum. East Grinstead (a town I live but a couple of miles away from) is located on a ridge in the Weald, a large area in the South East of England where Cretaceous formations have been exposed. A number of important dinosaur fossils have been unearthed here, including Mantell's "Iguanodon anglicus", the original Iguanodon type species (the type is now the Belgian Iguanodon bernissartensis) and Baryonyx walkeri.

It's only natural for any local museum to trumpet dinosaur discoveries made in the vicinity (even if they were, in fact, made some miles away), which the museum have done by putting the cast of what they claim is an Iguanodon footprint on show. Of course, there's no way of telling if an Iguanodon species really did make the footprint, but given its age it's pretty safe to say that an iguanodont did. In any case, they also have a weird, weird Iguanodon statue on show that as far as I'm aware is completely unique. Check it out.

One of my favourite features of this statue is the little man included for scale, wearing as he does a double-breasted jacket, waistcoat, flat cap and handsome moustache (although he could do with a dusting).

Exactly how old it is I don't know, but judging by the attire of the tiny man and the dinosaur's bizarre anatomy it must date back at least 50 or 60 years. Perhaps the strangest part is the head, with its crazy-looking, bulging eyeballs and what appear to be tiny, fleshy ears.

Strange stuff, but a lovely little bit of vintage art all the same. The photo below shows the statue in the context of the museum's display, with the footprint cast alongside. Also worthy of note is that "Iggy" (yeah, really) is the museum's mascot. If you ever visit the town for whatever reason (which is pretty unlikely, granted, unless you live nearby or are a...shudder...Scientologist) entry to the museum is free, but do check the opening hours!

The (not quite) Ten Commandments for Dinosaur Collectibles

2011-11-22T11:11:00.016-05:00

Dinosaur collectibles (both toys and more expensive, breakable, resin creations) have made huge strides forward in recent years, especially in terms of anatomical accuracy. While it's easy to dismiss the interests of us man- (and woman-) children, actual kids who know their dinosaurs are also more likely to plump for models that look 'real' just because, hey, a convincing-looking dinosaur is just that much cooler than one that looks like a goofy 1970s (or even 1990s) throwback. Obviously, certain concessions still need to be made, particularly for the toy market - for example, I don't think anyone's blaming manufacturers for truncating awkward sauropod tails.

Nevertheless, there are still persistent goofs - a lot of them stemming from palaeoart memes or good old pop culture inertia, but some of them from plain laziness - that could easily be avoided. With that in mind, I've drawn up this here list - the (not quite) Ten Dino Toy Commandments, if you will. As a bonus, these rules handily apply to other forms of palaeoart too! Hooray.

1. Thou shalt not be stingy when feathering thy maniraptors

Above: the Safari 'Great Dinos' Velociraptor is well-proportioned, and the head is excellently sculpted, but it's probably a little chilly owing to its lack of a warm feathery coat. Promotional pic from Safari's website.

Self-explanatory, really, and still an area where there's masses of room for improvement on all sides. It's space-year 2011 now - we've got to the stage where dystopian visions of shiny advertising screens in our public transport systems have become a nightmarish reality, but more positively we have also entered a new 'golden age' of discovery in palaeontology. The Mesozoic world becomes more fascinating, more outrageous, more colourful, and more vivid with each passing year. And yet still, damnit, manufacturers are inexplicably churning out scaly maniraptors like it's 1993.

What's more, anyone who isn't an idiot will agree that feathered maniraptors invariably look more attractive and far cooler than their inaccurate, scaly counterparts - when they're done properly, anyway. There's no need to worry about people being turned off by a feathered Velociraptor.

2. Thou shalt not demean thy theropods with rabbity hands

Another mistake that just won't go away, and typically the result of people copying out-of-date palaeoart, or simply making assumptions based (presumably) on human or mammalian anatomy. While it's very easy for us, as freaky primates, to rotate our forearm so that the palm faces the ground, in theropod dinosaurs this was actually a physical impossibility; the forearm would have been 'locked' with the palms facing inward. This is still true of modern birds. Theropods with rabbit/zombie hands aren't only wrong, they often look completely ridiculous.

3. Sauropods were NOT elephants

Above: the Schleich Replica-Saurus Apatosaurus, suffering from a bad case of 'elephant's foot'. Photo by Stefan Schröder, from the Dinosaur Toy Blog.

This one is presented as a simple statement in the hope that it will forever hang around in the minds of dino-sculptors, manifesting as a sinister whisper in their ears whenever they think about giving a sauropod elephant feet, or elephant nails, or elephant skin, or an elephant torso etc. etc. Once again: sauropods were NOT elephants. The only similarity is large size and in that regard even medium-sized sauropods make the largest elephant alive today - Loxodonta africana - look a little bit small. In fact, sauropods were radically different to elephants, and that includes their feet - especially their forefeet (or hands), which were a concave collonade of digits with only one claw. So no more sauropods with five elephantine nails on their round hands, please.

4. Ceratopsians were NOT rhinos

See 3. Ceratopsians actually had differentiated digits on their hands and feet - they were not united in a single paw.

5. Fear not interesting colour schemes, for they bring great beauty

Above: the Collecta Torosaurus might have a few anatomical flaws, but the striking colour scheme on the head is to be commended

Too often dinosaur toys continue to be rendered in the same earthy greens, browns and greys, a palette that can become quite monotonous over time. Although the problem of sauropods inevitably being painted in 'elephant grey' is slowly disappearing, manufacturers often show a sad lack of imagination when it comes to ceratopsian frills. Since they were almost certainly involved in display, there's a great opportunity there for showy, dazzling patterns and colours that's often missed. Collecta are starting to cotton on to this (their Torosaurus stands out a mile), and I'm hoping that other companies will follow suit.

6. Thou shalt render ankylosaurs in all their insane glory

Above: the Papo "Ankylosaurus", lovingly and admirably detailed but, alas, totally tubular. Dude.

Ankylosaurs are quite popular subjects for dinosaur toys, and yet they are very rarely got right. Perhaps the best one in the 'serious' toy market is the Favorite "Ankylosaurus", which is actually a Euoplocephalus. A very good Euoplocephalus, as it happens. The most common mistake made when sculpting ankylosaurs is giving them a rather 'tubular' body, when in fact the very wide hips meant that it flared out crazily over the rear end. This rule can also be applied to the neck of one sauropod in particuar - Apatosaurus, with its barmy neck o' fatness. Very few Apatosaurus models are anatomically correct in this respect, and when they are even palaeontologists find them weird to look at. When dinosaurs are strange, don't hold back on the strangeness!

7. Thou shalt consult with palaeontologists

This applies especially to 'museum' or 'scale replica' lines. Toys they may be, but anything with that tag - for example the Schliech Replica-Saurus, Bullyland Museum Line and Carnegie collections - deserves serious scrutiny, as they profess an educational remit. Granted, when there is a lot of reference material available for an animal and the sculptor knows what they're doing, this might not be necessary. However, most palaeontologists will be happy to offer their expertise in pursuit of a well-crafted figure, and they'll usually do it for free. (I nearly said 'always', but...you never know.) This entry goes out in particular to Papo, who make some of the most finely sculpted and painted dinosaurs out there - that also happen to be riddled with frustrating inaccuracies most of the time. If they got hold of an expert or two their dinosaur line could be a world-beater.

8. Thou shalt not rip off Jurassic Park...yet again

Seriously, people. Especially the T. rex. Bored already. I can see the obvious incentive when it comes to sales, but come on! More imagination, please.

9. Er...

10. That's it. If you can think of any more, or disagree with some of mine, or think that this blog has gone way downhill recently with all this toy-related stuff, then comment! Heaps of geek points available to the person who knows which magazine I've ripped off (although theirs was a rip-off too).

It's a Paula Deen-O-Sawr!

2011-11-19T15:01:00.001-05:00

Submitted this to Paula Deen Riding Things today. Deen is an American celebrity chef of note. Apparently, she used to be an agoraphobe. Now she's an internet meme. That's a transition that should give hope to us all.

Feathered Dinosaurs coming to ART Evolved

2011-11-16T09:35:00.001-05:00

Our close comrades at the paleoart blog ART Evolved have announced that the next gallery, coming in February 2012, is dedicated to feathered dinosaurs.

For the first time since the pink dinosaur breast cancer drive in October of 2010, I know for sure that I'll actually have work to submit. I've begun work on a series of illustrations dedicated to the various intriguing critters who muck around at the base of the bird family tree, thwarting anyone who needs perfect clarity in the delineation between "bird" and "dinosaur." This is all in preparation for next August, when I will be exhibiting my illustrations at the Bloomington, Indiana children's museum Wonderlab. I'll also be doing a little educational presentation on dinosaurs and birds, and building on my current studies, every child will get to go home with their own "feather fossil," which I'll help them print. It's going to be a lot of fun, and I'm grateful to Wonderlab for inviting me to do this.

As a sneak peak... look into the eye of Buitreraptor, an unenlagiine dromaeosaur from Argentina whose greatly elongated snout made it irresistible to me when jotting down illustration subjects.

I'll have more information on my Wonderlab presentation closer to the date; in the meantime, get your favorite art utensil and start on some feathered dinos of your own. Head to ART Evolved for more information, and to learn about their retooled gallery schedule.

Give them a big hand

2011-11-15T14:29:00.006-05:00

More Deinocheirus goodness for you (and also toy news, ahem). The good people at Collecta, who make respectable animal figurines for us discerning collector-folk (or toys, if you prefer), have unveiled their new sculpt of Deinocheirus mirificus - hitting the shelves in 2012. D. mirificus, as any fule kno, is only known from a single pair of partially complete giant arms. Hypotheses as to what the whole animal looked like have varied over the years, but the most plausible idea currently appears to be that it was a giant ornithomimosaur, although a primitive one. Collecta have run with this idea, and produced what appears to be one of the best ornithomimosaur toys to date.

Not only is it bipedal (rather than leaning on its tail), it has a lovely covering of 'protofeathers' and a suitably attractive colour scheme - I particularly like the head. Being a primitive ornithomimosaur, the animal still has a first toe (or hallux) on each foot.

Perhaps most importantly, this figure marks the zenith of what has been a stunning turn-around by Collecta. Until quite recently they were widely derided as being producers of crudely sculpted, anatomically incorrect, child-friendly dreck, but now they're really upping their game, just as other manufacturers appear to be losing it. They're definitely one to watch for dino figures in 2012, especially if their other recently-announced (and somewhat less hypothetical) theropods can match this one.

This article was by no means just an excuse to use that pun-tastic headline. Also, apologies for bringing toys up once again. You can blame Taranaich for encouraging me. Kidding, kidding...

Not Vintage Dinosaur Art: If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today

2011-11-14T13:53:00.013-05:00

Last week, freqent commenter Hadiaz alerted me to the existence of the book If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today, describing it as the "last straw" that made him cease taking Dougal Dixon seriously. Trish then said that she had purchased a copy of said book from Amazon for a penny. Already curious, my interest was stoked further when I caught a glimpse of the dreadful front cover (see below). It's in my hands now, and oh boy - it's what you might dub 'a doozy'. Especially if you love terrible Photoshopping and inaccurate, cheapo-looking CG dinosaurs.

That's a truly gigantic and monstrous-looking Tyrannosaurus there, chasing some cattle while being buzzed by a helicopter. You might think the exaggerated size is the result of the composition of the image being altered for the front cover but, alas, that's not the case; the image inside also depicts a whale-sized tyrannosaur (that looks like it's straight out of Peter Jackson's King Kong remake). Ah, but we're just beginning our journey into the Dougal Zone. If you were wondering what the point of this book is, well, there isn't much of one. It's a mixture of a fairly conventional dinosaur book interspersed with some very strange sights that reminded me of Dinosaurs Attack!, but less fun. Like this:

Unfortunately this coffee table volume is somewhat too large for my scanner, but I've done my best to try and cram as much of each bizarre spread in as possible. In any case, here we have a group of skeleton-faced Diplodocus hallorum (="Seismosaurus") moseying rather unconvincingly around an airport in the middle of nowhere. Speaks for itself, surely? If you thought the animals in the above picture looked reasonable (except for the feet and heads), then worry not - there is some properly embarrassing stuff in here.

Merry skipping Troodon kangaroo attack! The troodonts in March of the Dinosaurs and Planet Dinosaur came in for some criticism (mostly for being scantily feathered), but they are masterful works of palaeoart when compared with this thing. Damn, it's ugly. There's another one on the other side of the 'roo, but the camp hand gesture exhibited by this one makes me laugh a lot more. Oh, and according to Dixon's text, Troodon has "steak knife-like teeth". Ah, that old cliché. Of course, if your steak knife looks like this, it's probably time to buy a new one. If it's hyperbole you're after, however, then nothing beats...

...LIOPLEURODON! ITS HEAD WAS BIGGER THAN AN ORCA! ITS BODY WAS BIGGER THAN WEMBLEY STADIUM! IT WAS TEH BIGGEST EVAR PREDATORY ANIMAL OF ALL TIME!!!1! Yes, it really is Liopleurodon, and yes, the book really does claim that it reached some 24 metres long and weighed 90 tonnes, and so would be snacking on killer whales if alive today. Never mind the fact that there's no way a 90-tonne animal would ever get that close to the shore without beaching itself - just drink in the sheer insanity of that image. And then prepare to guzzle down the utter madness of the next one.

That'll be Cryptoclidus sunning itself alongside some sea lions. Because, apparently, they are quite alike (but of course!). Enough plesiosaurs, though - I worry for the sanity of certain people who might be reading this. Back to the dinosaurs it is. And you know what would be cool? If a dinosaur fought a tiger.

Cheers then. Yeah, take that, kitty! That's a Plateosaurus tail-slap in the face for you, my friend. Nevertheless, Dixon informs us that "it would not be well equipped to defend itself against the main[?] meat-eaters of today". Unfortunately, we are not shown the bloody aftermath in which the tiger is enjoying a tasty slab of sauropodomorph. We are shown a pride of lions tucking into a Ceratosaurus, but I just couldn't bring myself to scan that madness. Have a perfectly sensible image of three Archaeopteryx mobbing a bald eagle instead.

"As the earliest known bird," Dixon tells us, "Archaeopteryx shows features of both modern birds and its ancestors, reptiles - it appears to attack its descendant so that it can eat its ancestor!" Hnnnngggghh. Ouch. To be fair, Dixon does unequivocally state elsewhere in the book that birds are dinosaurs, but that is one awkwardly-worded sentence. In what seems to be his typical style, Dixon mixes a lot of solid facts with some real oddities (oh, and 'macronarian' is spelled "macronian" - whoops).

The art, though, is just unbelievable. It's bad, and yet at the same time it's so batshit mental that it transcends its own shoddiness. In short, it's so bad it's good. This is definitely worth buying for a penny from Amazon. And with that, I'll leave you with a Baryonyx playing tug-of-war with a grizzly bear.

Mesozoic Miscellany 47: SVP Edition

2011-11-11T14:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a very eventful month since I last gathered up a heapin' passel of links from around the dinosaur blogosphere, so why am I wasting time with a belabored introduction? Let's get to it.

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting for 2011, held in Las Vegas, has come and gone. This year's conference has seen the most extensive online coverage yet. The hashtag #SVP2011 was handy, if not exactly widely used by attendees. That will likely change as more rowdy youngsters come up through the ranks. Plenty of blogs provided coverage, however.

Brian Switek was there, natch. He provides great posts on the presentations at Dinosaur Tracking under the SVP Dispatches tag.

H2VP has begun a series on the conference with a post about blog co-author Mike Habib's a new paper he collaborated on, dealing with friggin' huge birds, "Flight Performance of Giant Pseudodontorn Birds." It's published by PLoS One.

Jenn Hall hands out a bunch of SVP-themed awards at Clever Girl, including "Best Dinosaur Bosses" to Bob Walters and Tess Kissinger.

Mark Wildman has been writing about his experiences at SVP at Saurian, starting with his highlights, continuing with a post about sauropod presentations.

David Tana's blog Superoceras features three posts about the conference, with a prologue, Day 1 round up, and another about the networking opportunities for students at SVP. David promises more to come, so stay tuned.

Susan Drymala provides a roundup of archosauromorph presentations at Crurotarsi.

Heinrich Mallison was able to post a dispatch on the conference's third day, as well as a short summary afterwards. He's also posted about his own talk at SVP, "Fast moving dinosaurs: why our basic tenet is wrong." It's gotten a bit of press, as well; from Nature, which was mirrored by SciAm and another piece at the Atlantic.

At PhD in the Land of Enchantment, Mel provides another take on the conference, discussing the good and bad points. Anyone who's been to Vegas and not particularly enjoyed it may know where this is going.

Jazinator was pleasantly surprised by the overall friendly environment at SVP, having been warned about a higher D-bag population than is healthy.

For a post that matches its subject for massiveness, pull up a a chair and get comfy for Nima Sassimi's piece at The Paleo King about the hoary subject of what taxa can truly be considered the largest dinosaurs of all time.

You can also check in with the SVP at Twitter. Speaking of which, I curate a list of dinosaur tweeters, which you can check out whether you have a Twitter account or not. As always, feel free to suggest folks I'm missing.

The 'Montana Dueling Dinosaurs'

2011-11-10T10:33:00.004-05:00

There's no way anyone who reads this blog hasn't heard about this yet. But just in case...here's a very interesting interview with Peter Larson who describes this find as - without undue hyperbole - "one of the most exciting dinosaur discoveries that's ever been made".

While you're at it, be sure to check out some of the other recently-uploaded videos from the Black Hills Insititute, featuring (among others) Bob Bakker and "Dino-Cowboy" (cringe) Clayton Phipps.

Update: Brian Switek (for it is he) has authored a blog post calling into question some of the more senstational claims made by Larson and the others. Go forth and read!

This Thursday, learn dinosaur sculpting from David Krentz

2011-11-08T11:58:00.000-05:00

David Krentz at Comic-con, discussing Dinosaur Revolution. Photo by Peter Csanadi, via Flickr.

David Krentz, one of the major talents behind Dinosaur Revolution, has announced that he's hosting a free webinar on dinosaur sculpting this Thursday. From an email to the Dinosaur Mailing List:

I'm hosting a FREE webinar on THIS Thursday November 10 at 10 AM Pacific time on sculpting dinosaurs with the artist friendly software ZBrush. This will be a preview of a longer class set for the 18th of November where I'll cover the creation of a digital dinosaur from start to finish. This is the same program I created over 70 dinosaurs for Dinosaur Revolution. Its basically sculpting digital clay!

If you've ever been curious about new methods of digital sculpting and how it can be applied to paleoart or research for free this is the perfect opportunity.

The webinar will be held at

http://www.creatureworkshops.com/

You can register there. The preview will be live and will be about 1 1/2 hour long.

This is a really cool opportunity! He is a true master. Check out his Antediluvia Collection at his website, and be sure to browse his Shapeways store, where you can buy resin models of his work.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs: Questions & Answers

2011-11-07T12:36:00.008-05:00

I was drawn to this book (full title: Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals: Questions & Answers) on eBay thanks to its Bernard Robinson cover. As you'll recall, Robinson's work is notable for being simultaneously very outdated and very gorgeous; while his lizardy, man-in-suit theropods (like the Tyrannosaurus below) wouldn't pass muster today, they remain a marvellous accomplishment artistically. The pebbly skin textures look almost touchably real, the glassy eyes veritably alive.

Unfortunately, the cover is the only one of Robinson's illustrations to feature in this book - probably because, by the '90s, they were already looking historic and scientifically obsolete. First appearing in 1993 under a different title, the book was first published in this form in 1995, and then again in 1998 as part of a Weetabix promotion (hence the logo). Rather boringly, the illustrations that are inside are, for the most part, competent and accurate enough for the '90s (with the usual quotient of John Sibbick rip-offs). As such, there aren't too many that really stand out, so forgive me if this is a short entry.

By way of example, the above Troodon is actually pretty good - you know, for the early '90s. Of course it's buck naked and bunny-handed - as all contemporary maniraptors were - but it's clear that the illustrator (one Steve Kirk) knew what he was doing. This is hardly surprising, as the venerable Dougal Dixon was behind the text, and I doubt he'd want his name stuck to any old muck. Another pleasing aspect of this Troodon is that it doesn't resemble anything sculpted by Dale Russell (look ma, round pupils!) and there's no mention of the bloody 'Dinosauroid' travesty, which as Trish has noted (here, for example) was a near-obligatory inclusion in '80s and '90s dinosaur books for no good reason whatsoever.

Here's one that's good for a giggle. It was revealed at this year's SVP that Archaeopteryx was, in fact, rather black, thus ending the long reign of the 'sparkleraptors'. The above Archaeopteryx isn't the worst ever anatomically, but wow - those colours. Those searing, horrifically clashing colours. It reminds me of Quentin Blake's illustrations of the Roly-Poly Bird. Interesting to note, Archaeopteryx is included on a spread alongside a gathering of different pterosaurs, but none of its dinosaurian relatives - an example of the strange old trend of keeping Archaeopteryx apart from other dinosaurs.

Finally, here's one that I've included because it's the exception that proves the rule (and because peculiar illustrations are a lot more fun to look at than blandly good-enough ones). Once again, poor old Tyrannosaurus is subjected to sub-par treatment, in this case adopting a very peculiar 'BOO!' pose while its cranium and mandible go in different directions. Dixon's text takes an odd turn here too, speculating that the forelimbs of Tyrannosaurus were "possibly used for picking its teeth". This in spite of the fact that, as every kid who's read a dinosaur book knows, T. rex had 'arms so short that they couldn't even reach its mouth'. What the hell, Dougal? At least the long-snouted Spinosaurus here is impressively forward-thinking.

Still, all in all I need to look a lot harder to find antiquated, interesting and/or amusing dinosaur books. Preferrably not from the '90s, and preferrably cheap. We'll see where my efforts get me!

One in the eye

2011-11-05T14:56:00.004-04:00

Back in October, David featured a wonderful illustration of Gallimimus by Paul Heaston in his 46th Mesozoic Miscellany. Paul remarked that "ornithomimids are being ignored in the dino-media and paleoart" - and David agreed, adding that he'd like to see "an ornithomimid triumphant over a tyrannosaur". I then jokingly remarked that perhaps an artist could draw "Deinocheirus jabbing a tyrannosaur in the eye", adding that regular deviantArtist 'Durbed' might oblige, as he is known for wince-inducing and occasionally slightly unlikely scenes in which prey items exact bloody revenge on popular giant theropods (like Daspletosaurus). 'Durbed' (also known as 'Arioch' - I nearly asked him what his real name was, but quite liked the mystique), who is no slouch, duly obliged. Some time ago.

So, here it is, with apologies for the delay on my part! (I've cropped out a little white space here - be sure to check out the original on deviantArt, where of course it can also be viewed hi-res).

Durbed has a style that I really like - very bold, black lines mixed with vibrant colour schemes. It's 'comic book', although in the best possible way, and the animals remain anatomically sound the vast majority of the time. He also doesn't skimp on the plumage when it comes to rendering maniraptors, and dromaeosaurs in particular, and his work has improved dramatically in just a short amount of time. I'm hoping he goes back and adds a background for the above scene. (If nothing else, I like the way he subverted my expectations by having Deinocheirus use its foot, rather than its infamously terrible hands, to show the tyrannosaur who's boss!)

In addition, the ever-reliable Niroot produced a wonderful piece in which a gaggle of Ornithomimus are mobbing a threatening Albertosaurus. Well worth a look.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Victor Meunier

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

Of the three founding members of Sir Richard Owen's dinosauria in 1842, Hylaeosaurus is easily the most obscure. Iguanodon is a classic, giving a spiky thumbs-up in dinosaur illustrations for well over a century. Megalosaurus is a fairly well-known wastebasket taxon, and was selected as the taxon of Earl Sinclair, blue-collar patriarch of the sitcom Dinosaurs. Hylaeosaurus? Despite being represented at the Crystal Palace exhibition, it barely rates a mention in most dinosaur books.

Hylaeosaurus, now known to be a primitive nodosaur of the Early Cretaceous, is probably best known from two artistic representations: The Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins sculpture and the set of German Tiere der Urwelt trading cards from about a century ago.

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' illustration of Hylaeosaurus for his Crystal Palace Exhibition sculpture. From Paper Dinosaurs.

F. John's Hylaeosaurus from the Tiere der Urwelt cards, obtained from Copyright Expired.

This latter illustration, like the other illustrations in the card set by F. John and Heinrich Harder, is based on an earlier one, which I've traced back to a French publication from about forty years prior.

Hylaeosaurus from Meunier's L'Animaux d'Autrefois (1869).

In 1869, french science writer Victor Meunier wrote an overview of extinct animals called L'Animaux d'Autrefois (Animals of the Past). Three years later, William Henry Davenport Adams published a translation of Meunier's text, expanded and revised for his English audience, called Life in the Primeval World. Adams writes that he believes it to be the first paleontology book published in English for a lay audience. I think he may well be correct in this. Samuel G. Goodrich published his Illustrated Natural History of the Animal Kingdom in 1859, but Adams focused exclusively on extinct creatures.

I presume that these woodcuts were done by Meunier himself, as neither the Meunier nor the Adams volume credits anyone else. Some are clearly based on earier works, such as this Megalosaurus, which owes a clear debt to Owen and Hawkins.

Meunier's Iguanodon is based on Mantell's and Owen's ideas of a quadrupedal, spike-nosed beast, but is one of the more fearsome of the early depictions, likely influenced by Louis Figuier's version which predated it by two years.

Of course, those flying dragons who so excited the minds of writers made an appearance, too, with Pterodactylus striking a pose and an awkwardly rendered Rhamphorynchus.

The watery world got some love too, with the rarely illustrated thallatosuchian Teleosaurus and the de rigeur Plesiosaurus, rearing swan-like upon the waves.

If these can be sourced to someone other than Meunier, please enlighten me, as I'd love to be able to dig even deeper. As always, you can find these in the Flickr Vintage Dinosaur Art group, along with hordes of other dinosaur images. For your convenience, you can even add it as a feed in your reader of choice. Easy peasy mac n' cheesy!

Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off: THE WINNER

2011-11-01T14:45:00.005-04:00

There can be only one. The 'croco-raptor' certainly had its fans, but our champion ended up attracting over twice as many votes. This may have had something to do with Traumador pointing out that, hey, the croco-raptor wasn't actually that bad for the time, and blowing raspberries at outdated/misguided art is plain mean (which I concede). However, the whole contest is meant to be in the best spirit of fun; of course it's important to realise the context this art was produced in, and far too easy to sneer with the benefit of hindsight ("fun, too"). That said, some of the art was just dreadful, and perhaps our valiant winner fits into that category.

Here's to you, Zombienychus.

Well, that's the end of that. If nothing else, this tournament has surely taught us an important lesson - namely, that a lot can change in 20 years. Perhaps, two decades from now, some young twerp on a holo-blog will be lambasting the ludicrous palaeoart from 2011. On the other hand, will we ever see such a paradigm shift in the depiction of, in particular, maniraptoran dinosaurs again?

Also, it's been a giggle. Maybe, as I rapidly run out of ideas and money, I'll give it another whirl. Or perhaps we could look at terrible tyrannosaurs, diabolical diplodocids or plain offensive oviraptorosaurs? The possibilities for childish mockery are almost endless...I like the idea of examining palaeoart 'memes' too (even if it's been done).

One last thing: Vintage Dinosaur Art will return tomorrow, with another from me next week (updated following David's comment).

Alas, poor Papo

2011-10-28T13:27:00.005-04:00

As some of you may already be aware (and if not, then sit up straight and pay attention at the back), I have a certain hobby that involves collecting certain plastic/resin figures and sometimes reviewing them for a certain website based on their aesthetic qualities, anatomical accuracy and so on. It's a fun way to acrue a large collection of colourful tat and fritter away money that, let's face it, I'd probably just be splurging on booze otherwise.

Anyway, one of the most popular manufacturers of dinosaur collectibles is the French company Papo. While they make no claim to scientific authority or accuracy, their models are nevetheless stunningly sculpted and painted, and often pretty decent anatomically anyway (I particularly like their Styracosaurus). There have been some howlers, but in those cases it's easy to see where they've gone wrong - basically, the sculptor has followed popular, but mistaken palaeoart memes.

And then recently, this was announced.

Oh boy.

The question I wish to put to you, o Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs readership, is this - where on Earth do you think the inspiration for this thing came from? This wouldn't be an issue if Papo were just churning out lazy, poorly-made figures - but they're not. In fact, the fine details and immaculate paintwork on most Papos can't really be matched at their price point. Even when they produce anatomically dubious figures, they at least look pretty.

But this one - it looks like a Crystal Palace plesiosaur with a mosasaur head grafted on, Frankenstein-stylee. Some people have excused it on the grounds that it's 'retro', but Charles Knight was painting more accurate Tylosaurus restorations back in 1899.

Naturally, the figure has sparked off a lively discussion among the prehistoric-animal-toy-collecting community (stop laughing), with some even questioning why Papo are bothering to attach scientific names to figures like this.

However, I'd like a little outsider opinion, especially as I know a number of artists read this blog. As always, please do comment.

Finally, I'm sorry for dragging this silly toy nonsense over to Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs. Superior content (from David) will resume shortly.

Thanks to Christophe for acquiring the catalogue scan.

D-Pro Goes Crypto

2011-10-26T09:54:00.001-04:00

Photo of cryptozoology skeptics from this year's TAM9 conference. From left to right, Sharon Hill, Blake Smith, Ben Radford, Donald Prothero, Joe Nickell, Matt Crowley, Karen Stollznow, Daniel Loxton. Photo by Crowley, vi a Flickr.

I've shared Donald Prothero interviews here. I've shared MonsterTalk episodes. Today, like creamy peanut butter and the finest chocolate, they come together and we are so much the richer for it. On episode 43 of MonsterTalk, D-Pro and hosts Blake Smith, Karen Stollznow, and Ben Radford talk about stories of living dinosaurs, specifically the Mokele-Mbembe of the Congo Basin, a putative surviving sauropod. It will come as no surprise to readers here that I'm pretty suspicious of these "reports," but when D-Pro lays out just what the evidence is, I was shocked by just its flimsiness, considering the relatively high profile of Mokele-Mbembe in the cryptid menagerie. They also touch on a human trait that likely plays into the continued prominence of cryptid sightings in general: skrilla.

Smith: I've also heard the suggestion that the frequency of modern sightings can be directly tied to the fact that the locals have learned that if people come up the river asking to see Mokele-Mbembe, they'll spend a lot of money and time...
D-Pro: Once people discover that there's money to be made by telling you what you want to hear, they'll tell you what you want to hear.

There's plenty of good discussion of why it's so extremely unlikely that a sauropod could have survived the K-Pg extinction, escaped detection in the fossil record (while their probable competitors for resources, giant mammals, did not), and stayed hidden away in a tiny pocket of the world. There's even a bit of ichnology!

This installment of MonsterTalk was voted in as the podcast's special Halloween episode by listeners. People love dinosaurs! they really do! Also, keep your eyes peeled for Prothero's forthcoming cryptozoology book with Daniel Loxton, due next year.

A baby Apatosaurus in Oklahoma

2011-10-26T00:30:00.004-04:00

NewsOK has this video report from the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, about a baby apatosaur specimen which was recently revealed as part of an exhibit called "Clash of the Titans."

Adorable! Thanks to Brian Hathaway for sharing this on the Dinosaur Mailing List.

A morbid little piece of me thinks it would be funny to mount a big theropod with a juvenile's bones in its gut.

Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off: THE FINAL

2011-10-25T13:37:00.003-04:00

So it's come to this. Let's get on with it, shall we?

In the blue corner: the much loved Neil Lloyd Deinonychus-mummy (or "mutant '80s allosaur") from The Humongous Book of Dinosaurs and the Dinosaurs! magazine series. Perhaps the most remarkable feat achieved by this turd-brown shrivelled aberration in the tournament was seeing off an adorable, orange-hued lookalike in the semi-finals. It's almost certainly down to fond memories of the aforementioned magazine series and, in particular, just how hit-and-miss its illustrations could be.

In the red corner: the croco-Velociraptor from those Dinosaurier trading cards that David discovered. The lively pose and haphazardly assembled body parts have made this Frankenstein's monster of dromaeosaurs a popular contender. But will it be able to hold its own against the powerful nostalgic pull of the prune-o-nychus?

It's all down to you, o readers! Let voting commence! The winner will be announced on the first of November (although Halloween would probably be more appropriate), and I'll make sure I'm suitably inebriated before writing it in order to ensure a fitting send-off for the winning piece of lamentable palaeoart. Hurrah!

The Eocene Birds of the Field Museum

2011-10-21T12:25:00.000-04:00

Right now, I am buried in feathers. In my independent study of typography, I've created a project that will use Indiana University's amazing type shop in creating a history of feathers. When I first started learning the letterpress and concocting my projects, I knew I wanted to do something that plays the printing process against the process of fossilization. Weeks of brainstorming and sketching later, I arrived at doing something on the history of feathers.

My reading list has been fun to assemble: I've got the Feathered Dragons volume put out by IU Press, Chiappe's Glorified Dinosaurs, Long and Schouten's Feathered Dinosaurs, Taking Wing by Pat Shipman, The Jehol Fossils, edited by Mee-Mann Chang, our own Brian Switek's Written In Stone, and the brand new book by Thor Hanson, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle. This last one in particular has been invaluable in providing a good overview of feather form and function in extant species. I already knew that feathers were marvels of evolutionary engineering. I had no idea. I mean, a tiny Golden-Crowned Kinglet looks from the outside like it should just freeze to the branch when it's braving frigid winters in the northern forests of North America. But its downy insulation means that it can be 140 degrees fahrenheit warmer under its feathers than the outside air.

This studying reminded me of the photos I took this spring when I visited the Field Museum again - a visit I've somehow managed to not cover at all here! The Field has a nice variety of fossils from Fossil Lake in Wyoming, including these gorgeous Eocene birds:

Unidentified bird

Parrot skull

Parrot, Cyrilavis

The Eocene frigatebird Linmofregata azygosternum

Another unidentified bird

Yest another reason to make visiting the Field a high priority if you haven't been there already. Forgive the quality of the photos. It's dark in there, so I had to sacrifice resolution to avoid a bunch of blurry pics on my memory card. I'll keep sorting through my photos and share more as I can.

Das Rad

2011-10-21T08:30:00.000-04:00

A geological fairy tale. I was reminded of this animation when a friend posted it on Facebook.

Das Rad (The Wheel) from myloo on Vimeo.

Yeah, I know. No friggin' dinosaurs. But it's one of my favorite short films, and its geological themes are relevant to this blog. If you really must have some dinosaur action, I submit the following:

16bit - Dinosaurs (Official Video) 1080p from ljudbilden on Vimeo.

Kind of wish Terra Nova was a little more like that.

We'll have fun, fun, fun, until daddy takes the dinosaurigami away

2011-10-20T13:00:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I shared origami dinosaurs here. Enough time for a lot of new photos to be posted at the origami groups I follow at Flickr. I've also noticed that origami enthusiasts are doing a better job of telling what designer's models they are working from, if it's not their own personal design.

Here is a Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus, identifiable as such by that neck frill which was completely a work of ~~Michael Crichton's~~ Jurassic Park screenwriter Matt Groening's imagination. It's folded by Daniel Brown, working from Juanfran Carillo's design. Not a scientifically-accurate dilo for sure, but quite fetching nonetheless.

This set by Joseph Wu is folded from some of origami master Fumiaki Kawahata's early dinosaur designs. There's something endearing about that frog-mouthed theropod.

This set reflects Kawahata's later designs, and as you can see, they are much more intricate than the Joseph Wu set above. Shuki Kato folded these, all of which are designed by Kawahata, except for the Spinosaurus, which is Kato's own.

Stephen O'Hanlon designed this Deinonychus, folded by Xin Yan Yang. The elongated skull looks more like Velociraptor, and its smile makes me think of a certain crocoraptor...

Brian Chan folded this Barosaurus designed by Satoshi Kamiya, and I like the way its drab colors play against the green paper and psychedelic color of the trees on the horizon.

Like the Dilophosaurus above, this is a work of fantasy. I like the monochromatic, oatmeal-colored sculpture against the model landscaping. It's folded by Nicolas Terry based on a Hyeon-Jae Jeong design.

Earlier posts in this occasional series:
Dinosaurigami
More Dinosaurigami
Further Adventures in Dinosaurigami
Deeper Into Dinosaurigami

Planet Dinosaur, episode six - review

2011-10-19T16:00:00.003-04:00

Planet Dinosaur drew to a close tonight with an episode entitled 'DINOGEDDON'. Well no, not really - it was 'The Great Survivors'. Nevertheless, the series ended, inevitably, with the extinction of the nonavian dinosaurs, but we were allowed a little therizinosaur and terrifying pterosaur fun along the way.

Above: "What the hell just happened?" © BBC

The episode began with a look at the dwarf dinosaurs of Hațeg Island, including the titanosaur Magyarosaurus and some unnamed deinonychosaur, but sadly not Balaur (now THAT would've been a cool animal to feature). While the terrifyingly authoritative voice of John Hurt explained island dwarfism, the main stars of this segment were not dinosaurs, but pterosaurs - specifically, the honkin' great Hatzegopteryx, which is the disputed holder of the title of 'biggest pterosaur'. The show might not have been absolutely accurate in its depiction of the animal (not that I would know - there have been mutterings from the experts), but it did a wonderful job making them look like something from your worst nightmare.

I mean, can you imagine? "Hey kids, look at that magnificent soaring beast! I think it's coming in to land...HOLY SHIT RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" Once again, the giant pterosaurs were depicted picking off juvenile titanosaurs, this time in increasingly grizzly fashions that even topped the previous episode. Low camera angles helped emphasise the intimidating height of the pterosaurs as their creepy, triangular heads came snapping in, gulping down little sauropods whole. To make them extra disturbing, the animators gave their necks marionette-style, herky-jerky movements as they stalked forward. Put these in the next Jurassic Park movie, please - they'd be exactly one hundred times scarier than ridiculous cartoon Pteranodon with teeth.

Returning to the world of, you know, dinosaurs, the episode had a look at the therizinosaurs and Nothronychus in particular. In keeping with the theme of dinosaurs' often extraordinary evolutionary adaptations, much was made of how the therizinosaurs represented an offshoot of a quintessentially carnivorous dinosaur clade turned herbivorous. The therizinosaurs looked good for the most part (fear not - there was protofuzz), as did their primitive tyrannosaur antagonists. There was even time for an enjoyable sojurn into the merry world of mass death by botulism, as once more commendably supported by fossil evidence.

Just as Carcharodontosaurus was recycled in the previous episode, so Gigantoraptor made a comeback here, flapping its arms about and looking ridiculous while battling Alectrosaurus (which was actually one of the better of the usually poorly animated dino-on-dino scraps). The main point of this section was to present the extraordinary brooding oviraptorosaur fossils, and every good dinosaur nerd will have recognised the Citipati specimen 'Big Mama' in the lineup. The programme introduced a little schmaltz (if you'll pardon the Americanism) with a pair of beak-nuzzling lovey-dovey Gigantoraptor, but made up for it by duly burying the male alive under an enormous collapsing sand dune. The repeated use of the term 'oviraptorid' and the incorrect feather placement did niggle, but it was entertaining overall, and did introduce the audience to some of the most amazing fossils to come out of Mongolia.

Finally, then, we came to DINOGEDDON. Sixty-five million years ago, blah blah, asteroid, dust cloud, starvation. The end of the Cretaceous as depicted in Planet Dinosaur didn't quite have the same gravitas as in Walking With Dinosaurs (although maybe I'm a sucker for baby T. rex puppets), and if anything just felt a bit...unnecessary. Unlike Walking With Dinosaurs, the show was not at all in chronological order and did not need wrapping up in the same way - and did we really need to be told all about how the nonavian dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid yet again? Some of the graphics shown were helpful - especially when it came to demonstrating how clades besides the Dinosauria were hugely impacted by the extinction event - but there was an odd separation of 'dinosaurs' and 'birds'. Dinosaurs - 100% gone. Birds - 95% gone. Hey, wait a minute...

Ultimately, what bothered me about the end of the show was that it was not made clear that the pterosaurs and plesiosaurs shown during a montage of footage while John Hurt spoke of the evolutionary success of the 'dinosaurs' weren't dinosaurs. Granted, the show never referred to them as 'dinosaurs', but this sequence certainly implied that they were, and the last thing anyone needs is for that confusion to be perpetuated - never mind the idea that birds are so special that they transcend being dinosaurs. I like birds, I really do, but look at them - they're dinosaurs, one and all.

At the very end of the show, Hurt spoke of the 'end of Planet Dinosaur'. Of course, the truth is it didn't end. Today dinosaurs are represented by over 9,000 species of birds, outnumbering mammal species two to one. Walking With Dinosaurs, to its credit, pointed this out, so it's a shame that Planet Dinosaur, given its excellent adherence to scientific evidence, didn't do the same.

Still, that won't impact too greatly on what was otherwise an excellent series. The animation could be ropey at times, but the makers of this series tried really hard - moreso than anyone before them - to present a show that was both educational and a spectacle. It was a real breath of fresh air to see the fossils, and an absolute joy to think that many people were being introduced to them all for the first time. Bravo Planet Dinosaur.

Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off: Semi-Final 2

2011-10-18T08:15:00.003-04:00

It's nearly time - just one more semi-final round, and then it's onwards to the final and the chance to crown our king of the badly-drawn dromaeosaurs.

Before that, though, I can reveal that our first entrant into the final will be the "mutant '80s allosaur" (Hadiaz), the "gnarly, wrinkly dude (David), the one that reminded The Defective Brain of a "dessicated corpse" - or in other words, Deinonychus from The Humongous Book of Dinosaurs/Dinosaurs! magazine. Imhotep! Imhotep!

Time to introduce this week's semi-final contenders. In the blue corner, the deformed croc-faced Velociraptor from the Dinosaurier trading cards:

And in the red corner, the bafflingly wrong Velociraptor from Spotter's Guide to Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Animals:

This should be a tough one! Ladies and gentlemen, cast your votes! And remember - you needn't vote for the worst one (as such), just your favourite. If it's your favourite 'cos it's the worst, then, fair enough...

Naris, the (wildly profitable) magazine about vultures

2011-10-13T17:05:00.000-04:00

One reason for my visit to the Indiana Raptor Center last week was to photograph a Turkey Vulture up close, to have some reference material for a publication design project for school. I completed it and presented it to my seminar yesterday, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and the feedback I received from my classmates. The project began with a one word prompt, selected from an arbitrarily chosen dictionary page given to me by my professor.

I chose "naris." It sounded cool, jargony without being intimidating, and I immediately knew the subject of the periodical.

Mind you, my professor expressly forbid us from taking any financial considerations into account. Market viability was not an issue. So I lived in a perfect world where a periodical devoted to themed issues about the sense of smell would be a profitable enterprise.

To see the three interior spreads I created, feel free to visit my flickr set. Just don't take any of the content as factual - it was a design project, not a writing assignment, after all, so I made up facts willy-nilly. It felt dirty.

Planet Dinosaur, episode five - review

2011-10-12T15:59:00.006-04:00

At long last, Planet Dinosaur brought us sauropods this week - in an episode entitled 'New Giants'. In particular, the episode featured the mighty titanosaurs of South America and Africa, Argentinosaurus and Paralititan, and the huge carcharodontosaurs that lived alongside them.

Above: titanosaurs on parade. Copyright the BBC.

A few dubious facts and figures were bandied about in this episode. Tedious as hyperbole-laden 'my dinosaur's the biggest!' contests tend to be, Argentinosaurus might not have been the heaviest sauropod, and Mapusaurus might have rivalled Tyrannosaurus in size, but was not definitely bigger, as described in the episode. (Admittedly, they may have been talking about Giganotosaurus instead, but that animal was not named.)

Unfortunately, the sauropods continued the tradition of looking a little hollow - especially when it came to their heads - and certain details about them were wrong, but overall the convincing impression was given of just how massive they were. Furthermore, the show did a good job of emphasising just how ridiculously quickly sauropods had to pile on the pounds as they grew up (if only they'd had access to packets of biscuits and the internet), and presenting sauropod breeding strategy as essentially being 'birth fast, most die young' (they were r-strategists, in other words). No sentimental scenes of mummy Argentinosaurus cooing over her hatchlings here, either - most of the poor, abandoned little sods ended up as cutesy-faced morsels for giant pterosaurs (Mark Witton-style) and the abelisaur Skorpiovenator.

Still, all did not go the predators' way. While the interesting theory of 'sauropod grazing' behaviour for charcharodontosaurs was presented, that didn't mean the big old dears were content to sit idly by while their allosauroid neighbours tore chunks from them. In one particularly gruesome scene, an Argentinosaurus killed a Mapusaurus by, well, stepping on it. Squish. I could almost hear the cheering coming from SV-POW.

Once again, the show did an absolutely tip-top job of showing off some wonderful fossil finds. In particular, I was bowled over by the fact that sauropod trackways in South America had been found to contain the bones of numerous other animals. I know I keep saying this in these reviews, but the importance of showing the fossils to the general public cannot be over-emphasised. In fact, having spoken to a few people outside of the wacky world of the dino-blog-o-sphere about Planet Dinosaur, this is definitely the aspect of the show that is most drawing in the general public. From a geek's perspective, this engaging with people using the actual science can only be good thing (and I'm sure my scientist friends will agree). The important thing about this show is that it is clear the makers are often trying really hard to make a highly entertaining, yet educational show, rather than just make something that's "RAR! DINOSAURS IN YOUR FACE!".

Also, that time-lapse segment was a pretty nice idea, don'tcha think? Reminded me of that bit in Life in which a whale carcass is stripped bare by freaky starfish and crustaceans. But with dinosaurs. Excellent. It made up for all those repetitive shots of twitching eyeballs (could they even do that? I didn't think they could, but now I'm not sure).

And, yes, the recycling of Sarcosuchus and Carcharodontosaurus did feel a little cheap. At least we got to see a little more of the former this time, and the scene in which the two partake in a tug-of-war contest using a subadult Paralititan was rather amusing. How awful. (Although it did get away in the end.)

Overall, a few irksome details aside, I enjoyed this episode. It feels churlish to expect every little thing to be perfect in these shows, and this series continues to do a good job of not over-sentimentalising its subject matter and presenting a suitable amount of scientific evidence. Roll on next week.

Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off: Semi-Final 1

2011-10-11T12:53:00.004-04:00

The first Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off tournament - surely the most exciting contest ever to feature ill-informed, misjudged, and/or lazy palaeoart - has finally entered the semi-final stages.

But first, let us applaud the winner of last week's face-off - yes, it's the awful Wrong-o-raptor from Spotter's Guide to Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Animals. Expect to see this guy again in the second semi-final! After all, it's "evolving into a dinosauroid" (Tomozaurus), "sleazy looking" (tnthielen) and "an abomination" (The Defective Brain).

On to the first semi-final bout. In the blue corner, Velociraptor from Know the World of Dinosaurs:

And in the red corner, Deinonychus from The Humongous Book of Dinosaurs and Dinosaurs! magazine:

Let voting commence! One last thing: while this tournament may have reached the semi-final stages, rest assured that any suggestions you make for future competitors will be taken into consideration for future tournaments. Because I'm definitely not above flogging a dead horse.

Gallimimus by Paul Heaston, revised

2011-10-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

On Friday's Mesozoic Miscellany roundup, I included a particularly fetching digital illustration of Gallimimus by Paul Heaston. In the comments on the post, the presence of pennaceous feathers was discussed after Marc inquired as to the reasoning behind their inclusion. Paul had decided to adorn the forearms with pennaceous feathers after seeing that, among other researchers, Dr. Thomas Holtz has classified ornithomimids as maniraptoriformes, and thus it was a plausible move. Seemed so to me, as well. Albertonykus, who has written reams about feathered theropods at Raptormaniacs, had this to say:

Pennaceous wing feathers are known only in aviremigian maniraptors (oviraptorosaurs, deinonychosaurs, and avialians); even therizinosaurs appear to have only had long protofeathers (or plumaceous feathers) on the arms. As ornithomimosaurs weren't maniraptors proper, it looks as though they didn't have pennaceous feathers either, but protofeathers on the arms are deep within the realm of possibility (even probability).

Very nice image regardless; has to be one of my favorite Gallimimus depictions now.

Based on this, here is Paul's revised Gallimimus.

This was a little thing, but the kind of little thing that makes me happy. An example of constructive criticism and responsive artistry, an ideal to aim for as science and art proceed into a future made uncertain by the revolution in communication we're living through.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs: A Pop-Up Book

2011-10-10T11:42:00.016-04:00

Can a dinosaur book ever just be...adorable? Not in a twee, cute-and-cuddly-characters sort of way, but simply through being wonderfully designed and a clear labour of love? Well, I think that, at the very least, this one can.

Firstly, just look at the word 'DINOSAURS' on the cover - it's so evocative of a certain era in dinosaur pop culture (and reminds me of the poster for When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth every time I look at it). The book dates from 1977, and as such features dinosaurs that are decidedly old-fashioned (although still beautifully painted by Dot and Sy Barlowe). Open up the cover, and you're greeted with this:

A pop-up Tyrannosaurus skeleton! And, given the difficulties of creating such a complex object in pop-up paper form, not a bad one. You can certainly see that the artist did their research - check out the carefully detailed Centrosaurus in the background, too. I suspect that that one (if not everything here) was based on a museum mount.

On the above page, pulling the tab on the left causes a baby Protoceratops (I presume) to break out of its egg. Alright, so this is adorable in a slightly twee, cutesy way. But I love it - it's a fantastic idea! It's also a wonderful way of teaching very young children about dinosaur life.

When I first looked through this book, what immediately struck me was the scarcity of theropods. Normally the stars of the show ('cos kids love scary predators with big teeth), they have here been sidelined in favour of their herbivorous bretheren, and it's actually quite refreshing - it lends the book a genteel, relaxed air, which is aided by the high quality of the illustrations. The fact that none of the animals are depicted tearing each other limb-from-limb probably also helps. There are a fair number of clichés (check out the volcanoes in the above picture) but the book finds a number of interesting, inventive ways to introduce kids to new dinosaurs. For example, flipping over the Monoclonius above reveals the closely-related Styracosaurus (below). It's a good way of making clear the similarities between them, without having to spell it out in the text.

It's unfortunate that a rather lizardy-headed Diplodocus is anachronistically on the same spread as the centrosaurs, but there we go. To emphasise its length, the whole animal must be folded out from the page. It may be rather oddly shaped, but at least it's firmly on dry land.

...Which is more than can be said for this Brachiosaurus, bobbing about in the river. Pulling the tab leads to the animal rising up to the surface. Swamp-dwelling sauropods stuck around a long time after their sell-by date. Still, having the tab action reveal more of the animal is a decent trick, and keeps things interesting. I also like the use of additional wildlife to set the scene (notice the small turtle on the rock).

One of the most impressive pop-up pieces in the book is this Stegosaurus (below). Every plate along the animal's back has been individually inserted, which prevents it from looking a little too two-dimensional, and once more it's beautifully painted (if old-fashioned as ever).

The book finishes back where it began - in the museum. This has got to be my favourite pop-up in the book - a 3D museum scene with skeletons, museum workers, curious guests and even a tiny sign reading "BRONTOSAURUS". In addition to showing off the sheer size of the dinosaurs when compared with people, the 'Bronto' skeleton is, again, remarkably well drawn.

In a word - charming. Many thanks to Niroot for letting me borrow it.

Mesozoic Miscellany 46

2011-10-07T14:00:00.000-04:00

Serving up a generous slice of what's hot in the dinosaur blogosphere, it's another edition of Mesozoic Miscellany. Tally ho!

If you're in Alaska, or can get there, tonight is the opening of "Dinosaurs and Robots," an art show from friends of LITC Raven Amos and Scott Elyard. Some really cool stuff from both of them, including paleoart that looks like none other you've ever seen. Click their names for more info and to take a look at what they've been working on.

The Paleo Tourist writes about one of his favorite fossils, Microraptor gui, including recollections of his time as a docent for the Field Museum hosting of the AMNH's Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries exhibition in 2007.

At Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week (affectionately known as SV-POW!), Matt Wedel shares his experience this week at the Los Angeles County Museum to examine a special alligator skull fossil. He also has praise for the museum's recent renovation, calling it "frankly phenomenal: spacious, well-lit, loads of actual material on display, skeletons you can walk all the way around, informative but unobtrusive signage, tasteful integration with existing architecture." Cannot wait to see it with my own eyes!

Another newly renovated site I can't wait to see with my own eyes: the visitor center housing the famous quarry wall at Dinosaur National Monument, which Brian Switek calls America's "real Jurassic Park" in his splendid recounting of opening day at Dinosaur Tracking. Dan Chure, who has been telling the story of the monument's visitor's center over the last few years, also writes about the day at the visitor center's blog. I was at DNM about 20 years ago, when on vacation with my dad, one of the experiences that helped make me the hopless dinophile I am. I read Jurassic Park three times during the trip and fell in love with the Rockies and the desert. Congratulations to everyone who worked on this renovation.

I'd also like to visit Triassic Park. Bill Parker writes about a trip to Argentina at Chinleana.

At Paleo Illustrata, Stu writes about one of his treasured books, Mantells' Petrifications and their Meanings, sharing many of its fine illustrations.

Albertonykus reviews the third episode of Dinosaur Revolution, which I sadly have yet to see. It's favorable review, and it sounds like a lot of good stuff to chew on for maniraptor fans.

Also regarding episode three of Dinosaur Revolution, Mike Habib writes about the portrayal of the pterodactlyoid Anhanguera in the program.

Here at LITC, my main man Marc Vincent has been writing terrific reviews of Planet Dinosaur, now airing on BBC. If you haven't checked them out, you really should.

Recently added SciAm blogger David Bressan writes about the history of the kangaroo-dinosaur analogy and the iconic status of T. rex at History of Geology, and does me the very great honor of a citation to one of my posts from last year. Great read, and thanks for the link, David!

I could write a long paragraph about one of Heinrich Mallison's recent posts at Dinosaurpalaeo, but two words will certainly suffice: Plateosaurus butt.

At the new Project Dryptosaurus site, Gary shares a hilarious vocal version of the Jurassic Park theme. One thing: I couldn't help but think of a much smaller scale, potty-mouthed version that's gone around the web. You know the one.

Mark Wildman is teasing us with a detail of a pterosaur fossil. Can't wait to see the full post about it.

72 pages after Jim Lawson began sharing his unpublished tyrant lizard tale, Paleo: Loner is done.

Dave Hone does us the immense favor of collecting all of the links to his long list of interviews with paleontography luminaries at Archosaur Musings. His latest: master Doug Henderson.

Arkansas has produced some exciting dinosaur tracks, and ReBecca Hunt-Foster has the skinny at Dinochick Blogs.

Finally, here's a very nice Gallimimus digital illustration from Paul Heaston. He writes, "I feel like the ornithomimids are being ignored in the dino-media and paleoart these days. They're cool! I gave this guy a confetti streamer tail because I wanted to."

You know, he has a point (though it must be noted that in the Archosaur Musings link above, Hone shares one of Doug Henderson's beauties which features Struthiomimus). The "bird mimics" don't seem to get an overwhelming amount of love right now. You know what I'd like to see? An ornithomimid triumphant over a tyrannosaur. They deserve some good PR, don't they?

Great Horned Owls in Flight

2011-10-07T09:15:00.000-04:00

Another bit from Raptor Sunday:

As a commenter wrote on Flickr, I'm sure Sandy meant to do that! Owls can become pretty strongly attached to humans, and I'm sure it was just Sandy's way of making us feel less jealous about her ability to fly. This video was taken in the Indiana Raptor Center's flight barn, where their Great Horned Owls are becoming accustomed to flying, and where their progress can be monitored. Next year, they'll be adding on to it substantially, in addition to other renovations on their property in Nashville, Indiana.

Planet Dinosaur, episode four - review

2011-10-05T16:02:00.008-04:00

This week, Planet Dinosaur served up some plesiosaurs. Now, this creates a problem for me - while I have just enough knowledge of dinosaurs to occasionally convince people that I know what I'm talking about, my knowledge of plesiosaurs amounts to exactly the square root of bugger all cubed. I interviewed Adam Smith once and tended to just sit there dumbfoundedly, nodding and making sure my dictaphone was working. Fortunately a few dinosaurs from the Morrison formation were also included - so don't mind me for focussing on those.

Above: Allosaurus and Camptosaurus from Planet Dinosaur. Copyright the BBC.

Entitled 'Fight for Life', the theme of this episode was predator-prey relationships in the Late Jurassic. The terrestrial star of the show was good old Allosaurus, which (a few too-hollow fenestrae aside) was rendered very well; unlike in Walking With Dinosaurs, the animal's horns were correctly positioned, while its enlarged thumb claw was present and correct. Nice colour scheme, too. Pleasingly, the show drew on research from recent years when talking about Allosaurus' bite, noting that it likely used its head as a sort of 'hatchet' when attacking its prey.

Allosaurus was depicted hunting Stegosaurus and Camptosaurus, which were themselves portrayed as living together for mutual benefit (plausible). Stegosaurus was one of the more poorly rendered dinosaurs in the show, lacking throat ossicles and having 'old-fashioned' hands. Camptosaurus was mostly fine, although it did display a side-to-side chewing motion similar to a mammal, which was something that no dinosaur could do.

Still, it was a thrill to see Allosaurus tracking its prey, and the "incredible" evidence for Stegosaurus-Allosaurus interactions was duly shown to us. We even got a brief glimpse of Saurophaganax, scaring Allosaurus away from its kill. Even if you're of the opinion that Saurophaganax should be lumped into Allosaurus, it was great to see a non-Allosaurus fragilis Morrison predator get a look in.

To the plesiosaurs, then. Ah. Erm. Um. Well. Yes. Naturally, the show lavished attention on 'Predator X', the gigantic pliosaur that has yet to be named (it's a shame that there are only three plesiosaur researchers in the world*). And hey, both it and Kimmerosaurus looked pretty decent. To me. As in, there were no major howlers like swan necks and overly floppy flippers. There were, similar to the Allosaurus, recessed areas of the head that shouldn't have been, but based on my very very limited knowledge of plesiosaurs they looked acceptable.

And blimey, those above-water shots looked stunning, didn't they? Yes they did.

The best parts of these scenes, as is so often the case with this show, were when we were shown various fossils that provided evidence for plesiosaur feeding behaviour and predator-prey relationships. Being not normally so concerned with marine reptiles, most of it was brand new and therefore fascinating to me; it made it easier to appreciate what a good job the show is doing when it comes to educating non-enthusiasts about dinosaurs. In the future, if any documentaries about prehistoric animals don't provide the fossil evidence, they are going to receive howls of derision and a shower of rotten fruit for sure.

Overall, a good episode; while it's unfortunate that the fact that plesiosaurs were not dinosaurs was not explained, enough people hopefully know this by now. Hopefully. The restorations were also pretty good, the Stegosaurus aside. Keep an eye on Adam Smith's Plesiosaur Bites blog, as he may well be reviewing it soon.

*Not literally true.

UPDATE: Adam has now uploaded part 1 of his review of the show's plesiosaurs.

More reflections on Raptor Sunday

2011-10-05T07:55:00.000-04:00

Talking with Patti and Laura at the Indiana Raptor Center this week, I couldn't help but reflect on how dinosaur paleontology and bird conservation relate to each other as outreach efforts. I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of months pondering my role as a graphic designer and what I want to do with this fancy degree I'm working for. As I explore ideas for my thesis project, I feel that the core of it must be my dedication to environmental conservation and my desire to communicate the reason it's so vital: the deep, unbreakable tie we have with our fellow earthlings, human, animal, and otherwise. That's where paleontology's relevance is, too. Just read Scott Sampson if you need convincing. It's not the slight hobby of collectors, merely hoping to fill drawers in museums. It's an important way to reveal life's history. I don't think I've hit on any ground-breaking insights, but I've always found that writing helps me distill my thoughts and help direct them into action. When it's relevant, I hope you won't object to me sharing these posts here.

As a schoolboy, I remember learning about Indiana’s prehistory. Being a northerner, I mainly heard stories of the native cultures who hunted and fished before the arrival of European settlers. I heard stories of farmers discovering the bones of Mammoths when digging ponds. I heard of glaciers, the creation of Lake Michigan, the shaping of the land around us, the layers of till that created the farmlands my family drove across when driving southbound through the state. Ever since, I can't help but look into the prehistory of a place before I travel there.

One thing I learned quickly: Indiana is not dinosaur country. No, those bragging rights belonged to Western states where I heard of rocks that every year gave us new dinosaurs to study. It would take years before I matured enough to get over this slight. But eventually I learned to consider the prehistoric tales told by my home state just as fascinating as those coming from Montana, Utah, and other Western states. I especially appreciated the Carboniferous ecosystems evident in the south of the state, where ancient coal forests were mined for electricity and the remains of tropical seas provided world-famous limestone for sculpture and architecture.

Of course, by the time I had a deeper understanding and appreciation of non-dinosaur paleontology, the slight had been mitigated greatly by the realization that even though the great bulk of dinosaurs had perished many millions of years ago, a slim branch of their family tree survived the end-Mesozoic extinction and flourished: birds, of course. When I was dreaming of fantastic Mesozoic tableaus populated by great monstrous tyrants and outlandishly ornamented behemoths, I was simultaneously watching their distant kin at the feeders hanging in my family’s backyard Magnolia tree. I was collecting their feathers, gazing at their exotic relations in magazines and field guides, and learning of the diverse roles they played in their ecosystems. Two seemingly independent interests that had been traveling their separate ways intersected and reinforced each other.

Patrick the American Kestrel, one of the Indiana Raptor Center's residents That's Jennie and me reflected in his eye!.

So these birds - songbirds, shorebirds and raptors, woodpeckers, blackbirds and thrushes - are Indiana’s dinosaurs. And they deserve no less appreciation, no smaller measure of wonder than what we give to the beasts of the Mesozoic who live only in the mists of the dream time, where we can freely imbue them with as much monstrous character as we like. Likewise, looking into the keen eyes of a kestrel to see its peculiar intelligence and observing its finely honed behaviors, we can start to see the mundane beauty of the animal kingdom that must have been the true way the dinosaurs lived. Hadrosaurs are sometimes called the “cows of the Cretaceous.” Ceratopsians are compared to buffalo and rhinoceros. Sauropods to elephants. But these rough and inaccurate comparisons only serve as masks for creatures that we’ll never know.

In birds, however, some strand of the theropod’s nature persists. I believe that the power of that realization can be a potent force for education that brings people face-to-face with the long and surprising journeys evolution has taken over our shared planet’s billions of years orbiting the Sun, and that's what I want to be at the core of my identity as a designer. Thesis ideas, start dropping into my lap any time now...

Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off: Round 4

2011-10-04T12:34:00.004-04:00

It's finally time for the last round before the semi-finals. Last week's runaway rinner was Velociraptor from the Dinosaurier trading cards - described as a "Croco-raptor" (Ryan de Luca), "hideous mutant alligator man" (Tomozaurus) and "bipedal crocodile with ostrich legs" (Henrique Niza). Shine on, you crazy diamond!

Both of this week's entries come courtesy of Vrahno, who was able to provide a double helping of spectacularly bad dromaeosaurs in a single comment. It should be a tough one!

In the blue corner - Velociraptor from Spotter's Guide to Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals:

And in the red corner - Velociraptor from 100 Things You Should Know About Dinosaurs:

Which one wins? And on what criteria? You decide! The winner will appear in the second semi-final in two weeks' time. Best of luck.

Extant Theropod Appreciation #9: Raptor Sunday

2011-10-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

Patrick, an American Kestrel and stealer of hearts.

This past Sunday, Jennie and I visited the Indiana Raptor Center in Nashville, a small tourist town about a half hour from Bloomington and the IU campus. Situated on a ridge in Indiana woodland, backing up to a ravine, the Raptor Center is home to dozens of species, both local and exotic. The center's president and executive director, Patti Reynolds, along with education director and master falconer Laura Edmunds, showed us around the facilities and introduced us to some of the resident raptors. I think we made friends of both the feathered and non-feathered kind, and I hope that the sentiment is mutual.

Barred owl with something yummy.

I occasionally get bushwhacked by the beauty of an avian critter and do posts in the Extant Theropod Appreciation series. This week will certainly be in that vein as I share some of my feelings about the visit. I have never really interacted with raptors in this way, save for the odd presentation in grade school or nature centers. This was a whole different ball of wax: learning the animal's names and stories, seeing the relationship they had with their keepers and rehabilitators, dodging them as they flew inches above my head (an experience I commend Jennie for enduring). You look into the eyes of an owl or a falcon, and even though I'm as skeptical and non-spiritual as they come, you can understand how mythologies spring from these animals. You can understand why we might project human qualities onto them, and either aspire to the nobler ones or personify our fears.

Oliver the Peregrine Falcon, with a quail for lunch.

Mowgli, a female Great Horned Owl.

To me, though, you must set those poetic and mythic associations aside and focus on the inherent value of an animal. An owl is not wisdom. A bald eagle is not righteousness. They are instead integral parts of their habitats. There is a reason they live where they do: they are living components in ecosystems. Those ecosystems in turn have evolved to become the environments which first sustained our ancestors, and to alter that system is to impact our own lives in ways we can't always predict. The Indiana Raptor Center and related organizations don't just rehabilitate the broken and needy, they help us understand how we can correct broken environments and see just how needy we are.

Thunderin' Ben the Bald Eagle, making that distinctive Bald Eagle cry.

If you have a local raptor rescue center, I'd encourage you to see if tours are available and, if you're looking for some way to contribute, donate time, talent, or money. This was such a huge honor for me, and if you've also had little experience with these animals up close, you owe it to yourself to look them in the eyes, examine their plumage, and see them in flight up close. Thanks to Patti and Laura for being such obliging hosts (extra thanks to Laura for keeping me on my toes - when we first arrived, she said "So, you're here to see the... pickling operation?" and I, gullible dope that I am, fell for it, wondering if I'd come to the wrong address. Even after this, she pulled five or six more fast ones on me before I became more alert). I'll have one or two more posts about this visit, but you can also check out photos and a video in my Flickr set.