Mesozoic Miscellany 46

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?