Sketchbook: The Challenges of the Smoking Brachiosaurus

Sexy rexy's got nothing on the nicotine-craving Brachiosaurus. My doodles always have at least one wonky limb.

Shooting fish in a barrel with a gatling gun

A billboard for Kenny Ham's creationist fantasyland in Kentucky, USA was shared by Hemant Mehta on Twitter yesterday. It's an easy target, but one I can't resist. After all, while we do share some rather derpy dinosaurs in our Vintage Dinosaur Art posts, we typically try to be fair.

But we don't have to be fair to this! Click to brachio-size.

I'm pretty disappointed. I hold Hambone to a high standard, and this just doesn't cut it. I mean... the features that make Brachiosaurus recognizable as Brachiosaurus just aren't there: the distinctly macronarian noggin, the notably longer forelimbs than hindlimbs. They've given this poor beast a set of human-like teeth, and just look at those feet! Ghastly. They couldn't be bothered to look at even a poor illustration, let alone any of the decent ones that are freely available.

I mean, even this LEGO model looks pretty much like Brachiosaurus...


[Hewkii9]

...as does this origami version.


[Juston]

For crying out loud, this is more recognizable as Brachiosaurus!


[Geoffrey Kehrig]

Really, I'm relieved that Hambone isn't able to hire someone with the chops to accurately illustrate Brachiosaurus.

Now, send some traffic these folks' way...
NCSE
Panda's Thumb
Understanding Evolution
Stupid Dinosaur Lies

And if you're ever tempted to visit his little sideshow in Kentucky, be a dear and donate double the entrance fee to an organization that defends our responsibility to teach evolution in science classrooms.

Hold Your Head High, Brachiosaurus

One of the recent debates in paleontology has concerned the neck posture of the sauropods. Such titanic creatures are completely absent from land today, so it's natural for them to be puzzled over.

Walking With Dinosaurs, the 1999 documentary, featured herds of Diplodocus with their heads held basically parallel to the ground, reflecting some paleontologists' supposition that for the beasts to raise them much higher would have been an unbearable strain, requiring blood pressure too high for their hearts to bear. The SV-POW! team has weighed in with a strong argument to the contrary, based on the evidence provided by living animals - a fantastic summary is available here. Rather than a straight horizontal line, they argue that it made more sense for sauropods like Diplodocus and Apatosaurus to hold their heads at a gentle curve, with the heads well above their bodies.

Examining the Chinese early Cretaceous sauropod Euhelopus, Andreas Christian from the University of Flensberg has concluded that it was especially adapted for high browsing, a conclusion that likely bears true for similar sauropods, notably the ever-popular Brachiosaurus.


Euhelopus, via wikimedia commons.

As you can see in the above reconstruction, Euhelopus is similar to Brachiosaurus in its marked differences from the standard-issue, Flintstones-style "brontosaur." The front legs are longer than the back, and the tail is shorter. In all, the profile is more giraffe-like. Christian's paper suggests that this posture, while requiring considerable effort to pump blood up through the neck, was less expensive than grazing over a broader area - holding its head at a 90 degree angle from the horizontal for five minutes required only about half of the energy expenditure as walking a hundred meters. He also found that the stresses on the neck vertebra were lower in as Euhelopus held its neck more erect. Christian concludes that "raising the neck... may have been less expensive for a sauropod like Euhelopus or Brachiosaurus than walking a long distance. During a food shortage, raising the neck was probably even essential for surviving: it is better to get little than nothing at all." Not an earth-shattering discovery, but one that adds to our understanding of how such a magnificent adaptation made sense for these animals.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: High-Kickin' Allosaurus

Here's a two-page spread from a 1979 Scholastic book called the First Picture Encyclopedia. It's a pretty sweet piece, complete with a gaggle of erupting volcanos, anachronistic fauna, Rudolf Zallinger-inspired Stegosaurus, and one heck of a high-kickin' Allosaurus, which I find particularly amusing. Not only would it be a crazy way for a big theropod to attack its prey, the stance looks pretty implausible.

The book credits four illustrators: Roy Coombs, Cliff Meadway, Mike Atkinson, and Graham Allen, with Coombs' name most prominent. None of them are particularly visible on the web. Mr. Atkinson has a website, but the style doesn't quite match what we see here.

Paleo Plushies

Solid. Cartoonist, illustrator, and toymaker Megan Baehr, who runs an Etsy shop called Nonesuch Garden, has begun creating a series of dinosaur plush dolls. The first two are a Stegosaurus and a Triceratops, and she says that she is working on more, inluding a Brachiosaurus. I'd love to see how she pulls it off. They really are more works of art than toys.


Jenski the Stegosaurus, via Etsy


Tertia the Triceratops, via Etsy

Megan has crafted a menagerie that ranges across the animal kingdom and beyond, including mythical creatures. Bully to her for digging into the Mesozoic! You can also check out her creations on her Flickr stream. Her comics and illustrations also reflect a major paleo interest, so be sure to take a good, long gander.