The Tyrannosaur Chronicles competition: the contenders

Like undergraduate students everywhere, you lot submitted a flurry of entries for our Tyrannosaur Chronicles competition right before the deadline. But no matter! You still got in. While the final six winners will ultimately be decided by us, I thought (as with previous competitions) it'd be fun to put up a gallery of all the entrants and gather some of your opinions before we dole out the books. So, in no particular order, here's a gallery of T. rex...TRIUMPHING!

Dave Hone's The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: at last, a review

A mere several weeks behind everyone else's, here it is - my review of The Tyrannosaur Chronicles, a book dedicated to the lives and times of the tyrannosauroids, as written by Dave Hone (for it is he). As a rare addition to the canon of popular books on dinosaur palaeobiology aimed at an adult audience, it's already quite an exciting prospect for us mere enthusiasts - but can Dr Dave do Sexy Rexy and friends justice? Of course he can.

Win The Tyrannosaur Chronicles!

Following Niroot's previous post, we have at least 2 SIX copies of Dave Hone's new book, The Tyrannosaur Chronicles, to give away. The book is a superb examination (a chronicle, if you will) of the science surrounding that very sexiest of theropod clades, the tyrannosauroids. Highly accessible and yet detailed and comprehensive with it, The Tyrannosaur Chronicles has plenty to offer for dinosaur enthusiasts of every stripe. It's been met with a flurry of positive reviews, to which we will hopefully add some of our own in the not too distant future. But for now...

...We'd like you to draw something for us. Specifically, we'd like to see T. rex trying (at some anachronistic human activity). And succeeding. Because atrophied forelimbs never really held anyone back, damn it, and as Dave's book will make clear, tyrannosaurs were very successful and intriguing animals. Our favourites, based on some magic combination of originality and humour, will win copies of the book. We'll also be sure to corner Dave down a dark alley and force him to sign them, which is no mean feat, as he's probably as strong as Niroot and I put together.

Please upload your entries somewhere and link to them in a comment on this post. The deadline is June 6. Absolute anatomical accuracy is not essential, but points will be awarded for it. By way of inspiration, here's a wee drawing by Niroot depicting Tyrannosaurus, the artist, being inspired itself by a Troodon. There might be some movie reference in there (what day is it again?). Good luck y'all.

The Tyrannosaur Chronicles book launch

Friday the 22^nd April saw the official launch of Dr. David Hone’s first book, The Tyrannosaur Chronicles (Bloomsbury Sigma), at Queen Mary University London, in the rather lovely book-lined Octagon of Queen’s Building -- which, if the British Museum’s Enlightenment Gallery should fail to become my library, would serve pretty well in its stead. Dr. Dave has written about the book’s publication on his blog, and it has already gained a deservedly positive reception, not least among which is Tom Holland’s glowing review on New Statesman. And we at Love in the time of Chasmosaurs are very much hoping to post one or two of our own in due course.

 
After an introduction by Dr. Steve Le Comber, Dr. Dave read two short extracts from the book. The first, on a method of prey despatch, was especially illuminating and memorable for me simply because the conjecture never once occurred to me, but which once posited made such elegant sense: 

‘The huge caudofemoralis muscles ran from the femur and up most of the first third of the tail in all dinosaurs. The tail gave a huge amount of power to the legs for running, was full of major blood vessels and was not surrounded by bone. A heavy bite anywhere around the thigh or first part of the tail might well have crippled an animal, leaving it unable to run and bleeding badly. Also, the tail was one of the first things a pursuing hunter would encounter in a fleeing animal, so using this technique would have reduced the chase distance, which would have been important especially if the prey animal was fundamentally faster than the tyrannosaur. Notably, there are two fossil hadrosaurs showing injury to the tails from tyrannosaur bites, and another with a wound to the leg; it’s a very limited data set, but it does nonetheless point to this as a strategy.’

 After the readings, the audience was treated to a live link-up via Skype with the book’s illustrator, Scott Hartman, whose trusted, accurate skeletals I’m sure require no introduction here. Dr. Dave prefaced this by pointing out the precision of Scott’s working methods, and recounting how, during the course of writing the book, when Dave was asked whether he had a second choice in mind in the event that Scott couldn’t be procured, his answer was a quite decisive ‘well, no.’

The last of the formalities was the purchasing and signing of copies of the book (all which were brought to the launch sold out), whilst guests also had time to ogle at, photograph, and even handle the various casts that were on display.

Dave points out that the manus here belongs to Albertosaurus rather than T. rex

It was a great pity that Marc couldn’t make it this time, or without question there would have been some choice goofy pictures with the fantastic skull, and you would have had a superior post than this besides (in more ways than one). Never mind. I did at any rate get a picture of another star who also happened to be there.

Luis Rey!

The evening itself was rounded off with the hosts and guests all trooping off to a nearby pub for a celebratory drink. Marc was more than especially missed at this point. On that note, he and I have been chatting over a little competition which we’re hoping to launch very shortly, with copies of this very book as prizes, hurrah! Watch this space, as they say.

    

Project Daspletosaurus 2013

Last Autumn, Dr. Dave Hone approached me with the opportunity to design a logo for a crowdfunding campaign he was preparing to launch, after he had seen my Dinosaur Family Crest designs. I jumped at the chance to help out. I mean, pitching in to help a paleontologist and science communicator I respect do significant research? I couldn't resist, and I'm happy to report that his campaign has begun.

Hosted by the science crowdfunding platform Microryza, Hone's project will see him travelling from the UK to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta to work with Darren Tanke, studying fossils which seem to show evidence of cannibalism amongst the tyrannosaurid Daspletosaurus. Hone wrote about it yesterday at Archosaur Musings, where you can see images of the fossils he'll study. More importantly, kick some money his way via Microryza, and check out the excellent video Hone and Matt Van Rooijen made to promote the work. It is humbling to think of how much we've learned about the mighty tyrannosaurs since I was born; what was a lumbering monster has gained more and more nuance to become a real animal. Hone and Tanke will get to tell more of that story with their research.

A bit about the process of designing the project logo, if you'll indulge me. Dr. Hone and I had a meeting via Skype to discuss the project goals and the sort of graphic he wanted, and I began sketching immediately. It was decided to use two Daspletosaurus individuals facing off in some way, and in general to continue the modernist aesthetic established in my family crest project. Because this graphic would represent a more complex idea than those crests and involve more text, I began sorting out ways to flesh out the extremely minimal forms of the earlier project.

The result is above. The shape is inspired by the crest on Alberta's flag. I accommodated the long forms of the daspletosaurs by posing them on an incline, further amping up the drama of the moments-from-happening battle. The field under the peak is filled with a pattern based on a geological symbol for silty sandstone, inspired by the make-up of the Dinosaur Park Formation. Dr. Hone was very easy to work with, providing valuable constructive feedback. It was a small project, but a great privilege.

So. Let's send Dave Hone to Canada!

Dave Hone on Linhenykus

University College of Dublin has posted a short video with resident paleontologist Dave Hone of Archosaur Musings fame, discussing the new alvarezsaur, Linhenykus.



From the few times I've seen him on video, Hone seems pretty comfortable with being on camera. Maybe one day he'll have the clout to helm a documentary series himself, and all of our gripes with media and pop culture handling of paleontology will melt away...