Mesozoic Miscellany #26

New Research

I truly love the itty-bitty ornithischians. They don't get much love, but that just makes me want to proclaim my appreciation in increasingly strident tones. Meet Manidens condorensis. The basal heterodontosaur from Mid-Jurassic Argentina got mentions at Tayler Reints' new Life As We Know It blog and Chinleana.

Research into the phylogeny of lice - a fascinating evolutionary topic that belies the yuck factor we might associate with them - suggests that the first critters they inhabited may have been feathered dinosaurs. Very cool. Covered at the NY Times, Wired, Livescience, and Discovery News.

A new study by John Whitlock has found that the wear traces on the teeth of diplodocoid sauropods reveals a diverse array of feeding strategies, tied to the environments in which the taxa lived. Published at PLoS One, so head over to give it a read.

Around the Dinoblogosphere

April's edition of the Boneyard Blog Carnival was a doozy. Head over to Sorting Out Science to engorge yourself on sizzlin' hot chunks of paleontology.

Saurian wrote a review of last year's New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs, which he feels sets the standard for future volumes.

Philip J. Currie, Canada's legendary dinosaur paleontologist, has been honored by having the River of Death and Discovery Museum renamed in his honor. Read more at Whales, Camps, and Trails (twice), Palaeoblog, and Pseudoplocephalus.

SV-POW contributed two slices of pipin' hot sauropodian goodness this week, with Mike Taylor's fun roundup of theropod stompers and Matt Wedel's reflection on what Walter Coombs referred to as the sauropods' chimaeric qualities.

Bill Parker shared another newly-colorized archosaur restoration from Jeff Martz, Poposaurus, at Chinleana.

At The Bite Stuff, Jaime Headden wrote about the possibility of fuzzy integument in the ornithischians.

Zach Miller wrote a great satirical post about the Greg Paul paleoart debacle of last month at When Pigs Fly Returns.

Building anticipation for his in-the-works Date with a Dinosaur book, which will explore the intersection of dino pop culture and science from the perspective of someone who has seen their childhood image of dinosaurs radically changed, Brian Switek wrote a series on 90's dinosaur comics at Dinosaur Tracking. Paleo, Age of Reptiles, Tyrant, and Dinosaurs: A Celebration.

Trish Arnold offers a characteristically hilarious recap of the 1983 A Field Guide to Dinosaurs in two posts this week (one and two). It's part of her April celebration of 80's and 90's paleoart, so folks who enjoy my weekly Vintage Dinosaur Art posts should bop on over to her blog, if you aren't already reading it.

At his aptly-titled Adventureblog, Michael May gives a shout out to the short-lived Hanna Barbera cartoon Valley of Dinosaurs on DVD. May admits that the power of nostalgia is overcoming the price tag.

Angie Rodrigues shares a sketch which helped her explore color patterns in hadrosaurs. It's a sign of true talent and dedication when a piece like this looks as good as many finished pieces!

Twit Picks

Stuff I dug and tweeted about in the last week:

• "It helps to understand evolutionary theory before you start looking for flaws." - Jeff Martz's new blog, Flying Blind
• A Surf Scoter in Southern Indiana!
• A look at the reasoning behind the restoration of Zhuchengtyrannus at Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings
• Sedimentology and taphonomy and the Ediacaran "mops"
• Anthony Maltese on Campanian ceratopsians, including a possible new species in prep & the group's namesake, Ceratops.
• Leaving an Impression That Has Lasted Forever - NYTimes on a beautiful trace fossil of a Mississippian era mayfly

Paleoart of the Week

I love the crosshatching in this Yangchuanosaurus by Paul Heaston.

Be sure to check out Paul's blog, Three Letter Word For Art. Love that title.

Outrageously Off-Topic Indulgence Last week, BBC period dramas. This week, hard-boiled American cop shows. I'm really enjoying The Chicago Code, the new show by Shawn Ryan. I previously poured out my love of his show Terriers here, and I hope that The Chicago Code gets a chance to build on what it's doing during its first season. Give it a shot!

In the Saddle

I didn't take notes during class when I was in school, and I don't take notes during work meetings now.

A Long and Proud Tradition

It gets so tedious to tsk-tsk at reporters who write bad articles about paleontology that I've gotten away from doing it here, for the most part. In the early days of writing this blog, I imagined that such posts would be staples. I didn't realize how depressing a topic it could become. Just wander through some of the posts tagged science communication at Archosaur Musings to see Dave Hone's personal trials with sloppy, lazy, misguided journalism.

But it's nothing new. I ran across this popular press account of a fossil discovery in an 1825 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, which shows that the media's ability to absolutely mangle paleo stories is part of a long, sad tradition.

Various fossil remains, among which are some bones of a gigantic crocodile, and certain traces of the megalosaurus and pleiosaurus, have been found in the sand stone of Tilgate Forest, Sussex, and also those of an enormous animal thought to be the iguadom. The teeth are evidently those of an herbivorous animal of extraordinary size, not less, according to the proportions of the remains, than 60 feet in length; and it is considered to have been an amphibious species of animal.

That should be followed by one huge [sic]. What precisely did the writer and editors expect people to gather from this account? Typos galore, confusingly worded, and vague. Shouldn't the novelty of paleontology as a field of study have warranted more dedication to reporting this? It almost reads like they simply typed up the hastily-written letter of a local farmer and didn't bother checking up on it.

For shame, The Gentleman's Magazine. The gentlemen for whom your periodical is intended to provide entertainment and information have been poorly served.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Dinosaurier Trading Cards

I recently opened my email to find a lovely gift, spread across three messages: a set of German dinosaur trading cards, simply and appropriately titled Dinosaurier. They were donated generously by reader Olliver Krone, and I hope I make him proud with today's Vintage Dinosaur Art post. I apologize for being two days tardy, but this weekend and Monday were more hectic than usual for me, and I couldn't do these justice. They were released by the publishing company Altenburger Speilkarten, holders of a truly unintentionally hilarious abbreviation and logo (for the English-speaking world at least, and this similar set is even funnier). Olliver received them in the mid-nineties, but was not sure about the original publication date.



One reason I find the work of this unidentified illustrator so delightful is that it is a perfect illustration of how dinosaurs have been unfortunately stained with the word "reptile" since the very beginning. People are slowly, grudgingly accepting the evidence that the dinosaurs were a more bizarre, diversely adapted group of creatures than many of us were led to believe as children. But they will always be branded with the -saur suffix, and in some sense will always be as much lizard as they are terrible.

But these cards take it to the extreme. Witness this hilariously wrong, crocodylian Velociraptor. From the claws of its scaly, humanoid hands to the tip of its nonexistent sickle-claw, this is nearly unrecognizable as the world's favorite dromaeosaur.



At least Velociraptor gets to eat its usual diet. Not so for Compsognathus, oddly marked as a veggie-saurus.



Poorly understood Procompsognathus is depicted similarly, though the icon in the information box is that of a carnivore.



Daspletosaurus, on the other hand, gets to eat its meat, in gruesome fashion.



In countenance and scaly integument, it's hard not to see a bit of Knight's Leaping Laelaps in the mystery illustrator's theropods, also evident in Ceratosaurus and Allosaurus.





I've saved the best for last: what may be the most ridiculous Spinosaurus I've ever seen. A Dimetrodon and a monitor lizard have somehow conceived a chimeric offspring.



I can only imagine that this was inspired by occasional paleontological conjectures that Spinosaurus was a quadruped, but to veer so drastically from the theropod bauplan is folly of the highest order. Please don't be nonplussed by my high dudgeon. This is serious business, folks.

Update, 9:15 PM: A commenter has brought up the possibility that this is a simple case of mistaken identity, confusing Spinosaurus with Dimetrodon. Sadly, this is not the case!



Oopsie doopsie!

Because of the size of the collection, I've chosen to focus only on theropods today. I'll revisit the collection's take on other branches of the dinosaur family tree in the future. Feel free to take a peak at the rest, housed cozily at my Flickr photostream. If you happen to have an idea of who might be the illustrator, please let me know in the comments below.

Again, I thank Olliver for kindly sending me these via email. If you've got old dinosaur artwork you'd like to share, I'll gladly feature it here - just share it at the Flickr Vintage Dinosaur Art pool or email them to me at the address in the sidebar!

Crosspost: The Great Central US ShakeOut

This post originally appeared at my other blog, Under Indiana, yesterday. Happily, it was picked up by Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker, for which I am grateful. I felt it warranted a crosspost here at LITC, as it's a subject not to be taken trivially, and this blog has vastly greater traffic than Under Indiana.

What are you doing on April 19 at 10:15 AM eastern time?

That's when The Great Central US ShakeOut's Indiana drill takes place. No matter what the "psychics" and pop prognosticators claim, there is no sure way to predict an earthquake. It can happen at any time, and with no advance notice. At least when a tornado occurs, we generally have some time to get to a safe place. Earthquake preparedness is not to be put off; it can literally be the difference between life and death for thousands of your neighbors in the Hoosier state.

From the ShakeOut site:

Indiana has several faults, but, unlike California’s famous San Andreas Fault, nearly all of our faults are buried and can’t be seen at the surface. Researchers have been able to map some faults in Indiana using evidence found in rocks from oil and gas wells and by employing a method called reflection seismic profiling. This method involves recording man-made vibrations reflected off layers of rock below the surface. Most of the faults that have been mapped in Indiana are located in the southwestern corner of the state. These faults extend into Illinois and are collectively known as the Wabash Valley Fault System.

The Indiana Geological Survey also offers an EarthQuake Hazard Map, showing which areas in Indiana are at the greatest danger of liquefaction. Unconsolidated sediment proves to be an effective medium for amplifying the waves of an earthquake, increasing the potential for damage. The soil which seems so solid under our feet starts to act like a liquid. A nifty demonstration of this, using a wheelbarrow, was created by a denizen of Christchurch, NZ after their recent earthquake.

The ShakeOut site also includes this video, illustrating how a drill is executed.


Relevant Links:
Indiana Department of Homeland Security's earthquake preparedness page
The Great Central US Shakeout's Indiana site

Boneyard 2.8 Arrives

This month, the Boneyard Blog Carnival pulls into Sorting Out Science, where host Sam Wise has risen to the challenge to organize more than two dozen posts into another solid outing. I'm pleased that there's such a great diversity of subjects. Thanks to everyone who submitted.

If you're new to the Boneyard and want a good crash course in what makes blog carnivals tick, I will refer you to the best explanation out there, written by the blogfather himself, Bora Zivkovic. Will the Boneyard grow and help to build the paleoblogging community? I hope so. Paleontology is an easy sell, being a discipline full of charismatic people and fauna. But it doesn't have the presence in the blogosphere that, say, astronomy and neuroscience has. I'm not quite sure why this is. I hope it changes.

Are blog carnivals contributors to the continued growth of small blog communities? Or are they ways for established communities to connect in a different way? At the moment, I lean towards the latter, but hopeful for the former.

I want to thank Sam again for doing a wonderful job as host, and for letting folks know that more hosting opportunities open. Here's what the hosting schedule looks like for the next few months:

May 3: Life As We Know It
June 7: Project Dryptosaurus
July 5: Laelaps
August 2: ART Evolved
September 6: Open
October 4: Open
November 1: Open
December 6: Open

I'm waiting to hear back from a few high-profile bloggers to get them in the mix for the last quarter of the year, but if you're a blogger and you'd like to take a month for yourself, let me know at boneyardblogcarnival(at)gmail(dot)com.

A Slow, Horrible, and Fascinating Death

Last week, G4 featured a brief post about the upcoming Jurassic Park: The Game, including this new trailer:

Xbox 360 Games - E3 2011 - Jurassic Park: The Game

Folks may quarrel with the accuracy of the dinosaurs, but the real point here is to continue the franchise, and these are unmistakably denizens of Jurassic Park. I've waxed nostalgic about the film here before, and can imagine how much time I would have spent playing this game had it come out around the time of the first film. Unfortunately, I don't think I have a system that will be able to run it, so I'll play vicariously through Youtube.

My guess as to the nocturnal mystery dinosaur? Troodon. Those big lantern eyes seem to give it away. I like the silent nod towards the Compsognathus of the Jurassic Park novel, which had a venomous bite with narcotic qualities. But maybe the developers have something else up their sleeve. What do you think?

Dinosaur Laffs on Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

Two episodes ago, the saber-toothed therapsid Tiarajudens made an appearance on the popular science and skepticism podcast The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. During the "Science or Fiction" game, in which one panelist tries to stump the others by mixing one fake story in with a group of strange-but-true reprorts, Rebecca Watson chose to use the bizarre, decidedly non-dinosaurian anomalodont as one of her stories. Unfortunately, the media reportage she had read was less-than-accurate, misidentifying Tiarajudens as a dinosaur.

The most recent episode corrects this little taxonomic snafu. Watson cops to the mistake up front and regrets that had she realized what was wrong with the reporting, she would have had the perfect item to stump the panelists. Host Dr. Steven Novella takes it one delightful step further by playing a game of "Is It a Dinosaur?" Starting on the easy side with Tyrannosaurus rex and pterodactyls, Dr. Novella pitches them a series of curveballs. No one gets Iguanodon or Diplodocus, but Bob Novella does pretty well by getting Archaeopteryx, Dimetrodon, and Ambulocetus correct. Tune in to hear the rest of the game, as well as coverage of the Kachina Bridge "sauropod" petroglyph and a great interview with archaeologist Kenny Feder about the new evidence for pre-Clovis habitation of North America.

First Look at the Oilsand Ankylosaur

The Calgary Herald has produced a video covering the removal of the Ankylosaur discovered in the oilsands of the Suncor Millenium mine recently. It's going to be a beautiful specimen. Donald Henderson, the Royal Tyrrell's dinosaur fossil curator, says it's one of the best fossils he's ever seen.

Mesozoic Miscellany #25

And we're back. April's here, which for me means the return of some of my favorite mimids. It seems the first on the scene is the Brown Thrasher. But you're not here to hear about my backyard birding exploits, are you?

New Research

ZT is here. Dave Hone of Archosaur Musings fame is the lead author on the description of a new giant tyrannosaur from China, Zuchengtyrannus. Described from a maxilla and dentary, this broadens our understanding of the tyrannosaur's range. How long before some wisacre paleontologist names one Darthtyrannus? More at Archosaur Musings, naturally, and at Dinosaur Tracking.

A smaller tyrant is in the news, too; the Nanotyrannus skull at Cleveland Museum of Natural History has been CT scanned. More at Palaeoblog, written by CMNH's own Michael Ryan, and Saurian.

Around the Dinoblogosphere
Everything Dinosaur: The ED team has written a good summary post of Oxalaia, the new Brasilian spinosaur.

Rappy's Review Board: Rappy Winters watches the Dinotopia TV series... so you don't have to.

Other Branch: For a more enjoyable trip to Dinotopia, read Ian's review of Journey to Chandara.

Project Dryptosaurus: Keep up with new happenings with Gary Vecchiarelli's quest to bring back Dryptosaurus, and a partnership with Terry of JP Legacy!

Tetrapod Zoology: Darren Naish has a bit of April Fool's fun with Mokole-Mbembe.

Chinleana: Bill Parker does the same, reporting the cancellation of the Triassic, that woefully neglected period when the earliest dinosaurs evolved.

Paleo Illustrata: Check out Stu Pond's new Allosaurus sketch.

The Great Cretaceous Walk: "Professional fossil collectors, looking to sell the tracks to a buyer, went to the site and cut out the tracks with a rock saw." There's a teaser for you! Read Tony's harrowing tale of scientific scandal at the Great Cretaceous Walk.

Saurian: Meet Misty Bluff, home locality to Baryonyx.

ART Evolved: Andrey Atuchin shares some incredible pieces he's done of Permian reptiles from Russia. Typically gorgeous work from one of my favorite young paleoartists. Also, David Maas contributes a great promo image to Ask A Biologist.

The Guardian: Brian Switek explores the evidence for pack-hunting behavior in dromaeosaurs.

Laelaps: Switek also announced his new book Date with a Dinosaur, which will surely be of interest to all of us dinosaur lovers, no matter what our knowledge level is.

Clever Apes: As reported yesterday here, WBEZ Chicago's Clever apes, hosted by Gabriel Spitzer interviews Paul Sereno of University of Chicago, who thankfully slams the "bunny hand syndrome." And he drops a hint about his current research... into a burrowing carnivore! Spitzer also gets a healthy dose of the funnies from plucky up-and-coming Windy City comic Dan Telfer, who has honed his "The Best Dinosaur" bit. Really, if you haven't purchased Telfer's Fossil Record yet, you're a buffoon of the highest order.

Skeletal Drawing: Scott Hartman pleads for artists not to subject theropods to horribly broken tails!

Dinosaur National Monument: Dan Chure announces the date for the Quarry Visitor Center's grand re-opening.

New blog alert! The Dinophile: Swiss Edition is a new one written by Yale student Ariel Revan. Check out her adventures in Switzerland with the holotype of Stegosaurus.

Twit Picks
Assorted gems from my week of tweeting:

• Reading the most epic - in the strict meaning of the word - autobio in all of dinosaur paleontology.
• From earlier this month, my post on the Utah "dinosaur" petroglyph that's been in the news this week.
• A eudicot from the Early Cretaceous of China, new in Nature.
• Really enjoyed this musing on creationism by @johnhawks. Great perspective regarding belief systems.
• Chinleana: Middle Triassic Lobsters from the Netherlands
• Louisville Fossils and Beyond: shares a beautiful Plumulina "Mystery Animal" Fossil
• You don't see this bird and just shrug and shuffle off into another day of tedium. It *changes* you. Forever.

Paleoart of the Week
Matt Van Rooijen's new Quetzalcoatlus is a no-brainer for this spot in the roundup. I love the humor implicit in the great difference of scale between the titanic pterosaur and its lunch, Champsosuchus.


Copyright Matt Van Rooijen. Used with the his permission.

Outrageously Off-Topic Indulgence
I'm a sucker for well done period dramas, and Downton Abbey is a great one. It starts just before World War I and deals with the massive societal changes in England and how they affected members of all classes. Check it out.