Dinosaurs and Dragons

New Horned Dinosaur: Two-Ton Plant-Eater Lived 78 Million Years Ago in Montana

2011-02-14T15:33:00.002+08:00

Artist's rendering of Medusaceratops. (Credit: Copyright Luis Rey)

Science Daily (May 30, 2010) — Michael J. Ryan, Ph.D., a scientist at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, has announced the discovery of a new horned dinosaur, Medusaceratops lokii. Approximately 20 feet long and weighing more than 2 tons, the newly identified plant-eating dinosaur lived nearly 78 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Montana. Its identification marks the discovery of a new genus of horned dinosaur.

Ryan, curator and head of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Museum, published his findings on the new genus in the book, "New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium," available from Indiana University Press. Ryan was the book's lead editor.
Medusaceratops belongs to the Chasmosaurinae subfamily of the horned dinosaur family Ceratopsidae. The other subfamily is Centrosaurinae. The specimen is the first Campanian-aged chasmosaurine ceratopsid found in Montana. It is also the oldest known Chasmosaurine ceratopsid.
The new dinosaur was discovered in a bonebed on private land located along the Milk River in North Central Montana. Fossilized bones from the site were acquired by Canada Fossil, Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, in the mid-1990s. The company consulted with Ryan and his colleagues to identify material from the site. At first, the scientists could not make a positive identification.
Medusaceratops had giant brow bones more than 3 feet long over each eye, and a large, shield-like frill off the back of its skull adorned with large curling hooks. Medusaceratops lokii means "Loki's horned-faced Medusa," referring to the thickened, fossilized, snake-like hooks on the side of the frill. It was named after Loki, the Norse god of mischief, because the new dinosaur initially caused scientists some confusion.
"At first we couldn't figure out what we had," said Ryan. "Some of the material looked as if it came from a form related to Centrosaurus, a centrosaurine noted for having short brow horns. The rest of the pieces had giant brow horns similar to Triceratops, a chasmosaurine. That's one of the problems with bonebeds -- even though you can collect a large amount of material, much of it is broken and all of it is disarticulated, so the story is rarely clear cut."
Eventually Ryan found a complete articulated skull of a centrosaur with long brow horns in southern Alberta of what appeared to be the new animal from Montana, and named it Albertaceratops in 2007. At that time, he assumed he was looking at a stray that had literally crossed the international border millions of years ago.
After reexamining the Montanan material more recently, Ryan realized that at least some of the material in the Montana bonebed was not Albertaceratops. Some of the elements were much larger than any other horned dinosaur from the same time period, including Albertaceratops. And even though Albertaceratops and Medusaceratops are superficially very similar, the shape and number of the hooks and ornaments along the edge of the frill actually puts them in separate horned dinosaur groups, with Medusaceratops being a chasmosaur.
"Although the ornamentation on the frill is pretty spectacular, it probably was not used for defense against predators; rather it was more likely prehistoric "bling" used to attract a mate," said co-author Anthony Russell, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences at the University of Calgary in Alberta.
"Medusaceratops is the oldest member of the Chasmosaurinae in North America and shows that the group, like its most famous member, Triceratops, had long brow horns and were fairly large when they first evolved," said Ryan. "But later chasmosaurs that are just a bit younger than Medusaceratops tend to have much shorter horns and have much smaller, lighter bodies.
"Here we have something almost the size of Triceratops, but 10 million years before it lived," Ryan said. "T. rex was not around yet, so what was Medusaceratops squaring off against? That's one of the things we're now looking for in Alberta."
The research was originally conducted when Ryan was a Ph.D. candidate working with Dr. Russell at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Much of the material, including the holotype, is now in the collection of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, Wyoming, with other material curated at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta.

Amazing Horned Dinosaurs Unearthed on 'Lost Continent'; New Discoveries Include Bizarre Beast With 15 Horns

2011-02-14T15:26:00.002+08:00

Artist's rendering of two new species of dinosaur -- Utahceratops gettyi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni -- discovered in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of southern Utah. (Credit: Courtesy of Utah Museum of Natural History)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2010) — Two remarkable new species of horned dinosaurs have been found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. The giant plant-eaters were inhabitants of the "lost continent" of Laramidia, formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America, isolating the eastern and western portions of the continent for millions of years during the Late Cretaceous Period.

The newly discovered dinosaurs, close relatives of the famous Triceratops, were announced in PLoS ONE, the online open-access journal produced by the Public Library of Science.
The study, funded in large part by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Science Foundation, was led by Scott Sampson and Mark Loewen of the Utah Museum of Natural History (UMNH) and Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah. Additional authors include Andrew Farke (Raymond Alf Museum), Eric Roberts (James Cook University), Joshua Smith (University of Utah), Catherine Forster (George Washington University), and Alan Titus (Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument).
The bigger of the two new dinosaurs, with a skull 2.3 meters (about 7 feet) long, is Utahceratops gettyi (U-tah-SARA-tops get-EE-i). The first part of the name combines the state of origin with ceratops, Greek for "horned face." The second part of the name honors Mike Getty, paleontology collections manager at the Utah Museum of Natural History and the discoverer of this animal. In addition to a large horn over the nose, Utahceratops has short and blunt eye horns that project strongly to the side rather than upward, much more like the horns of modern bison than those of Triceratops or other ceratopsians. Mark Loewen, one of the authors on the paper, likened Utahceratops to "a giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head."
Second of the new species is Kosmoceratops richardsoni (KOZ-mo-SARA-tops RICH-ard-SON-i). Here, the first part of the name refers to kosmos, Latin for "ornate," and ceratops, once again meaning "horned face." The latter part of the name honors Scott Richardson, the volunteer who discovered two skulls of this animal. Kosmoceratops also has sideways oriented eye horns, although much longer and more pointed than in Utahceratops. In all, Kosmoceratops possesses a total of 15 horns -- one over the nose, one atop each eye, one at the tip of each cheek bone, and ten across the rear margin of the bony frill -- making it the most ornate-headed dinosaur known. Scott Sampson, the paper's lead author, claimed that, "Kosmoceratops is one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles."
Although much speculation has ensued about the function of ceratopsian horns and frills -- from fighting off predators to recognizing other members of the same species or controlling body temperature -- the dominant idea today is that these features functioned first and foremost to enhance reproductive success. Sampson added, "Most of these bizarre features would have made lousy weapons to fend off predators. It's far more likely that they were used to intimidate or do battle with rivals of the same sex, as well as to attract individuals of the opposite sex."
The dinosaurs were discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), which encompasses 1.9 million acres of high desert terrain in south-central Utah. This vast and rugged region, part of the National Landscape Conservation System administered by the Bureau of Land Management, was the last major area in the lower 48 states to be formally mapped by cartographers. Today GSENM is the largest national monument in the United States. Sampson added that, "Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is now one of the country's last great, largely unexplored dinosaur boneyards."
For most of the Late Cretaceous, exceptionally high sea levels flooded the low-lying portions of several continents around the world. In North America, a warm, shallow sea called the Western Interior Seaway extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, subdividing the continent into eastern and western landmasses, known as Appalachia and Laramidia, respectively. Whereas little is known of the plants and animals that lived on Appalachia, the rocks of Laramidia exposed in the Western Interior of North America have generated a plethora of dinosaur remains. Laramidia was less than one-third the size of present day North America, approximating the area of Australia.
Most known Laramidian dinosaurs were concentrated in a narrow belt of plains sandwiched between the seaway to the east and mountains to the west. Today, thanks to an abundant fossil record and more than a century of collecting by paleontologists, Laramidia is the best known major landmass for the entire Age of Dinosaurs, with dig sites spanning from Alaska to Mexico. Utah was located in the southern part of Laramidia, which has yielded far fewer dinosaur remains than the fossil-rich north. The world of dinosaurs was much warmer than the present day; Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops lived in a subtropical swampy environment about 100 km from the seaway.
Beginning in the 1960's, paleontologists began to notice that the same major groups of dinosaurs seemed to be present all over this Late Cretaceous landmass, but different species of these groups occurred in the north (for example, Alberta and Montana) than in the south (New Mexico and Texas). This finding of "dinosaur provincialism" was very puzzling, given the giant body sizes of many of the dinosaurs together with the diminutive dimensions of Laramidia. Currently, there are five giant (rhino-to-elephant-sized) mammals on the entire continent of Africa. Seventy-six million years ago, there may have been more than two dozen giant dinosaurs living on a landmass about one-quarter that size.
Mark Loewen asks, "How could so many different varieties of giant animals have co-existed on such a small chunk of real estate?" One option is that there was a greater abundance of food during the Cretaceous. Another is that dinosaurs did not need to eat as much, perhaps because of slower metabolic rates more akin to those of modern day lizards and crocodiles than to those of mammals and birds. Whatever the factors permitting the presence of so many dinosaurs, it appears that some kind of barrier near the latitude of northern Utah and Colorado limited the exchange of dinosaur species north and south. Possibilities include physical barriers such as mountains, or climatic barriers that resulted in distinct northern and southern plant communities. Testing of these ideas have been severely hampered by a dearth of dinosaurs from the southern part of Laramidia. The new fossils from GSENM are now filling that major gap.
During the past decade, crews from the University of Utah and several partner institutions (e.g., the Utah Geologic Survey, the Raymond Alf Museum of Paleontology, and the Bureau of Land Management) have unearthed a new assemblage of more than a dozen dinosaurs in GSENM. In addition to Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops, the collection includes a variety of other plant-eating dinosaurs -- among them duck-billed hadrosaurs, armored ankylosaurs, and dome-headed pachycephalosaurs -- together with carnivorous dinosaurs great and small, from "raptor-like" predators to mega-sized tyrannosaurs (not T. rex but rather its smaller-bodied relatives). Also recovered have been fossil plants, insect traces, clams, fishes, amphibians, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and mammals, offering a direct glimpse into this entire ancient ecosystem. Most remarkable of all is that virtually every identifiable dinosaur variety found in GSENM turns out to be new to science, offering dramatic confirmation of the dinosaur provincialism hypothesis. Many of these animals are still under study, but two have been previously named: the giant duck-billed hadrosaur Gryposaurus monumentensis and the raptor-like theropod Hagryphus giganteus.
Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops are part of a recent spate of ceratopsian dinosaur discoveries. Andrew Farke, another of the paper's authors, stated, "The past year has been a remarkable one for horned dinosaurs, with several new species named. The new Utah creatures are the icing on the cake, showing anatomy even more bizarre than typically expected for a group of animals known for its weird skulls."
Clearly many more dinosaurs remain to be unearthed in southern Utah. "It's an exciting time to be a paleontologist," Sampson added. "With many new dinosaurs still discovered each year, we can be quite certain that plenty of surprises still await us out there."

Gigantic fossils of ‘Predator X’ found in the Arctic

2011-02-14T15:23:00.000+08:00

A massive pliosaur has been found in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. The creature’s estimated bite was over 10 times more powerful than that found in any modern animal – and four times the bite of a T-Rex
The giant fossilised Jurassic-era marine reptile was found on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. The sea monster, nicknamed “Predator X”, is a 15-metre-long pliosaur with enormous jaws. The power of its bite would make even T-Rex look feeble, as reported by Reuters quoting scientists from the Natural History Museum of Oslo University.
“With a skull that's more than 10 feet long you'd expect the bite to be powerful, but this is off the scale,” said Joern Hurum, an associate professor of vertebrate paleontology who led the international excavation in 2008.

Pliosaurs are carnivorous marine reptiles from the Jurassic and Cretaceous eras. Some of their species appear to be the largest marine reptiles to have ever existed

The Museum’s scientists reconstructed the predator’s head and, with the help of colleagues from Florida State University, estimated the bite power by comparing it with the similarly-shaped jaws of alligators. Their results were astonishing: “The calculation is one of the largest bite forces ever calculated for any creature,” they said.
Predator X's bite was over 10 times more powerful than in any modern species of shark, crocodile or alligator. Moreover, it was four times the bite of the famous T-Rex – a giant terrestrial meat-eating dinosaur.
The scientists reconstructed the reptile, which belongs to a new species of pliosaur, from a partial skull and 20,000 fragments of skeleton. It had impressive 30cm-long teeth and a body weight of approximately 45 metric tons. Being similar in length to the largest pliosaur species to date found on Svalbard in 2007, Predator X is distinguished by having larger bones.
The scientists believe that the first fossilised pliosaur was big enough to chomp on a small car. Predator X could more likely crush a Hummer, said Dr. Harum, referring to General Motors' massive 4x4.
Unlike its enormous body size, the pliosaur had a small brain shaped like that found in a great white shark, as revealed by Patrick Druckenmiller of the University of Alaska.
Pliosaurs are closely related to plesiosaurs and are characterized by having a much shorter neck and elongated head. Both had four huge flippers to propel themselves. Different species ranged in length from 4 to 15 metres, preying on squid-like animals, fish, and other marine reptiles, including ichthyosaurs and other plesiosaurs.

Dug for Bugs – World’s first one Fingered Dinosaur Found in Mongolia

2011-02-14T15:21:00.002+08:00

Looking more like a science experiment gone wrong, it’s difficult to tell exactly what those two appendages sticking out from the chest area of this little dinosaur are.
According to National Geographic, this parrot-sized dinosaur recently unearthed in north-eastern China, has been discovered with just one enlarged “digging” finger on each hand.
Not including modern birds, which are dinosaurs that have modified the lone claws on each of their hands into part of their wings, this tiny one-fingered bug-eating dinosaur is a first for palaeontologists. The beast marks the only dinosaur known to date to sport just a single digit on each hand.
The new dinosaur was discovered in a fossil-rich rock formation that dates to the late Cretaceous period, between 84 and 75 million years ago. The site is near the Inner Mongolian town of Linhe, which helped inspire the dinosaur’s name…Linhenykus.
Unfortunately the artist’s rendition is utter garbage – if the one-clawed hands were used for digging, they’d at least need arms! The painting makes it look like it’s just really really cold outside (if you know what I mean).
What’s he gonna do, rub its chest on the ground to dig for bugs?

Tyrannosaurus Rex

2011-01-19T19:51:00.000+08:00

Artist: John Bindon

Medium: Acrylic on Board

Date: 1996

John Bindon's image of Tyrannosaurus Rex is foreboding and suggestive of the decline of the giant dinosaurs at the close of the Cretaceous. This extinction of dinosaurs, although scientific dogma for decades, is now recognized as taxonomic illusion. Today it is clear that dinosaurs are not extinct at all. Rather theropod dinosaurs are represented by one of the most diverse lineages of vertebrates--the birds.

"Dinosaur Mummy" Has Skin Like Birds' and Crocodiles'

2010-08-06T22:21:00.000+08:00

The skin of a 66-million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur pokes out of the soil at the Hell Creek formation in North Dakota in 2007. Advanced imaging and chemical techniques later revealed that the dinosaur had skin like that of birds or crocodiles, a July 2009 study says. [Photograph by Tyler Lyson, copyright NGS]

There's no evidence of goosebumps just yet, but a remarkably preserved dinosaur reveals that the prehistoric reptile had skin like that of birds and crocodiles, a new study says.

"This is the closest you're going to get to patting the animal," said excavation leader Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at Britain's University of Manchester.

Advanced imaging and chemical techniques revealed that the 66-million-year-old "mummified" duckbilled dinosaur had two layers of skin, as do modern vertebrates, including humans.

Such a discovery was possible because the dinosaur's skin fossilized before bacteria had a chance to eat up the tissue.

It is "absolutely amazing to be able to identify organic molecules from soft tissue that belonged to a beast that died over 66 million years ago," said Manning, whose work with the fossil was partially funded by the National Geographic Expeditions Council. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

"It's certainly in my top ten all-time fossils."

World-Class Dino

Tyler Lyson, a teenager at the time, discovered Dakota, as the fossil was later dubbed, in 1999 on his family's North Dakota property. (See photos of the "mummified" dinosaur.)

No one knows how the hippo-size animal died.

But scientists do know that the body was probably buried rapidly. The resulting low-oxygen environment and the apparent lack of disturbance to the site made Dakota a "world-class dinosaur" fossil, according to the new study, published July 1 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Building Blocks

With electron microscopes and x-rays, Manning discovered that Dakota had cell-like structures indicative of two-ply skin: a thin surface layer plus an underlying layer of dense connective tissues.

That's just like skin of modern birds and reptiles, which scientists believe are closely related to duckbilled dinosaurs.

Protein-recovery techniques used on the skin and a claw detected amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Proteins themselves, complex molecules that degrade easily over time, were not found, however.

(Related: "Oldest Dinosaur Protein Found—Blood Vessels, More.")

But Manning did identify molecules that would have broken down proteins in Dakota's body.

That's like finding fragments of a broken vase instead of the intact vase, explained Thomas R. Holtz Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland.

"What's really nice" about the new research is this protein-recovery strategy. It's the first time the skin of such a big plant-eating dinosaur has been analyzed so deeply, said Holtz, who was not involved in the research.

That Dakota's skin resembles modern vertebrate skin is not surprising but nonetheless "comforting," Holtz added.

Beyond Bones

Understanding the exact environments that froze Dakota in time may help paleontologists better target future fossil hunts, lead study author Manning said.

"Who knows? The elusive dinosaur mummies of the fossil record might be more common," added Manning, also the author of the new book Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science.

There's even a chance that scientists could find a Tyrannosaurus rex—a major predator of duckbilled dinosaurs—in the same area, the University of Maryland's Holtz added.

The new discovery shows "that there is a lot more to paleontology than just looking at interesting skeletons," Holtz said.

If you're limited to bones, "you lose a lot of what you can find out about ancient creatures."

The Cuélebre

2010-07-08T18:20:00.000+08:00

The Cuélebre is the Spanish variety of dragon, specifically, from the regions of Asturias and Cantabria. Serpentine, winged and with colorful scales, the Cuélebre are immortal and obsessed with pretty, shiny objects. They hoard treasure and fairy-like blonde nymphs. The legend relating how the Cuélebre originated goes like this:

A beautiful but vain young woman disbelieves her family’s warnings against combing her hair as she admires her reflection in a pool of water. Unfortunately, a powerful water nymph living in the pool observes as she neglects her tasks in favor of this activity. Once the girl ruffles the surface of the water, as one of her hairs drops in, the nymph takes the opportunity to teach her a lesson. The nymph curses the girl; she grows huge, her hair is replaced by crests and her skin by scales, and she sprouts wings. In true fairytale fashion the maiden can only be returned to her original state by meeting a knight “who is so brave that he is not afraid of you and has a heart so pure that he finds you beautiful.” The Cuélebre hides in a cave by the sea and waits…

The Zmaj

2010-07-08T18:19:00.000+08:00

The Zmaj comes from the Slavic country Slovenia and has much in common with other Slavic dragons – three heads that may grow back if decapitated, green scaly skin, and fire-spitting abilities. Its name, Zmaj, is a masculine version of the word for snake, which is usually feminine. The Zmaj can also be called by a much older name of murky origin, Pozoj. Slovenic dragons are generally similar in disposition to other European dragons and are featured in Christian stories of St. George as well as pre-Christian stories in which they are tricked into eating sulphur-containing gifts and thus defeated. The dragon of Ljubljana is a notable exception – it once protected the capital city and is depicted on its coat of arms.

The Níðhöggr

2010-07-08T18:17:00.000+08:00

The Níðhöggr is a one-of-a-kind dragon that exists within Norse legend. It lives below a giant ash tree, the Yggdrasil or World Tree, which binds the nine worlds of Norse mythology together. Níðhöggr is usually translated as meaning Malice Striker (sometimes as Striker in the Dark) and lives up to his name as he viciously gnaws at the root of the World Tree that keeps him trapped above Hvergelmir, a seething cauldron, in Hel (the Nordic Hel is roughly equivalent to the English Hell). If Níðhöggr chews his way through the root of the World Tree it heralds the arrival of Ragnarök and the subsequent destruction of the world. The serpent-like Níðhöggr is described in the poem Völuspá as one who ‘sucks on the corpses of the dead.’

The Korean dragon

2010-07-08T18:16:00.001+08:00

The Korean dragons are derived from the Chinese ones, are given very similar cultural status, and look much the same. Where the Chinese dragon has five toes and the Japanese three, the Korean has four – the dragons are said to have lost toes as they moved south. The Korean dragon has a long beard and no wings. Like other Asian dragons, the Korean variety was supposed to be peaceful and kind creatures that were strongly associated with water and agriculture. They are mostly said to live in watery places such as rivers, ponds, lakes, and oceans. Korean dragons differ from others in that history records them as being sentient and capable of understanding concepts like devotion, gratitude, and kindness.

Before a Korean dragon is a dragon it can be a creature called an imoogi. Depending on which account you read, imoogi are immature dragons that must live for 1000 years before becoming a dragon or, alternatively, cursed, hornless beings that are unable to become fully-fledged dragons.

The Yilbegän

2010-07-08T18:14:00.000+08:00

The Yilbegän is more closely related to the Turkish and Slavic dragons of Europe than those of Eastern Asia; consequently it is portrayed as man-eating and ogre-like rather than gentle and kind, despite its Asian home. This reptilian dragon is depicted in the mythology of two ethnic groups living in Siberia – the Turkic peoples and the Siberian Tatars – as a polycephalous monster. In some legends the Yilbegän takes the form of a winged dragon or serpentine creature but in others he is a leviathan who rides an ox with 99 horns.

The Bakunawa

2010-07-08T18:13:00.000+08:00

The Bakunawa is actually a deity that was represented as a serpentine dragon, according to Filipino mythology. He has two sets of wings, whiskers, a red tongue, and a mouth ‘the size of a lake.’ The Filipinos once thought that the Bakunawa lived in the sea at a time when the world had seven moons and that the dragons, being fascinated by their light, would rise out of the sky into the sky and consume the moons. Thus, the dragons were the cause of eclipses. To prevent the world from becoming dark the people would run out of their homes, taking their pots and pans, to make the most noise they could in order to scare the Bakunawa so they would stop eating the moons and give them the moonlight back. Interestingly, the name of the dragons, Bakunawa, can be translated as ‘moon eater’ or ‘man eater,’ the latter being atypical of Asian dragons.

The Naga

2010-07-08T18:12:00.000+08:00

Naga is a wingless type of Indian dragon found in Hindu and Buddhist culture. Although the word Naga is often ambiguous the Mahabharata (an epic Sanskrit poem that is an important Hindu text) tells us that the Naga possess the traits of both snakes and humans. In Hinduism, the Naga are portrayed in similar fashion to the Chinese family of dragons, being natural spirits that are associated with water sources but can also be European-style guardians of immense treasure. Naga are also found in Buddhist tradition – as polycephalous (multi-headed) serpents that can magically transforms themselves into human shape. Like the Naga of Hindu legend, the Buddhist version prefers watery dwellings. They particularly like to eat frogs and drink milk.

Monster Moby Dick chomped on whales

2010-07-01T11:07:00.000+08:00

An artist's impression of the giant whale, which researchers say gripped large prey with its interlocking teeth. (MNHN/Nature)

Scientists have reported the discovery of an extinct predator sperm whale with jaws and teeth so huge it probably hunted other whales not less than half its size.

Named in honour of Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, Leviathan melvillei lived some 12 to 13 million years ago and was a 14-metre behemoth sharing top billing in the ocean food chain with giant sharks.

The prehistoric sperm whale gripped large prey with its interlocking teeth, inflicting deep wounds and tearing large pieces from the body of its victims, the researchers said.

Palaeontologists have long suspected that some such air-breathing monster once roamed ancient seas, but until now only a few gigantic teeth had turned up in the fossil record.

The new find in Peru's Pisco basin, reported in the British journal Nature, leaves no doubt that Leviathan existed, terrorising major marine fauna of the Miocene epoch.

Olivier Lambert of Belgium's Royal Institute of Natural Sciences and colleagues unearthed the animal's skull and jaw, lined top and bottom with teeth each as long and thick as a man's forearm.

"It must have eaten very large animals, and the most common prey at the site are baleen whales about seven or eight metres long. It was a super-predator," Mr Lambert said.

Present-day sperm whales are also formidable, deep-diving hunters.

But because their teeth are relatively small and restricted to the lower jaw, they use suction to ingest their prey, mainly squid.

Leviathan more closely resembles modern orcas, or killer whales - except it was three or four times as big.

Its tusk-like teeth must have been very robust and resistant in order to hang on to a mega-prey trying desperately to escape, Mr Lambert said.

"Baleen whales have hugely powerful tails, and when they struggle the tension would be enormous for the predator in whose jaws it has been caught," he explained.

Amphicoelias fragillimus

2010-06-21T13:43:00.000+08:00

This elusive fossil was discovered by the famed paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, the same man who competed with Othniel Charles Marsh in the infamous “Bone Wars”. Cope discovered many prehistoric fossils, but this one is, by far, the oddest. The only fossil that exists of it was a single vertebra fragment. It was 5 feet high, estimated to be 8.8 feet high if the entire fossil was intact. Compare that to your vertebrae. Yeah. Estimates vary, but they range from 131 to 196 feet in length, making it, by far, the longest creature ever, competing with the blue whale for being the heaviest creature ever (along with another, very elusive sauropd, Bruhathkayosaurus). But, as luck would have it, the fossil just disappeared. It vanished without a trace. Was it a hoax? A misconception? Or was it really the largest animal to ever walk the earth? Sadly, we will probably never know.

Deinocheirus

2010-06-21T13:39:00.000+08:00

The only fossil of this dinosaur is a pair of arms. These arms look like they belonged to an ornithomimid but they were 8 feet long. This means that either Deinocheirus towered over the rest of the ornithomimids (and most theropods, since, regarding proportions, it would have been 40 feet long!) or it simply had very long arms for its body. The use of its arms is debated: some say it used them to tear apart large dinosaurs, others say that the claws were too blunt, so they were used as defensive weapons. Some have even said that Deinocheirus used its huge arms to climb trees, although this hypothesis is widely disregarded. Once again, the lack of a body leaves many questions unanswered.

Helicoprion

2010-06-21T13:37:00.000+08:00

This bizarre fossil was originally thought to be an ammonite, as the fossil looked like a spiraling, circular shell. However, after some examination, it was revealed that is wasn’t a shell, but a spiraling set of shark teeth, a “tooth whirl”. Unfortunately, due to a lack of a body (cartilage does not fossilize as well as bone), so a guessing game began. It was guessed to be on the shark’s dorsal fin, tail, or even its snout. Thankfully, a skull of a related shark, Ornithoprion, was found to have a tooth-whirl on its lower jaw. The tooth whirl likely contained all of the shark’s teeth that it would use in its life: its older teeth would be moved away to make room for its newer, better teeth. This does not solve the problem yet, however! The tooth whirl was then placed on the tip of the lower jaw but it turns out that that would actually slow down the shark! Perhaps the most accurate representation is one where the tooth whirl existed deep in its mouth instead.

Stethacanthus

2010-06-21T13:36:00.000+08:00

Sharks have lasted for over 400 million years. Although they have remained relatively unchanged throughout the fossil record, there are definitely some odd balls. This particular shark had an anvil-shaped dorsal fin, with small spikes on it, as well as having a very bizarre growth on its head. The fin could have been used for courtship or for defense.

Dunkleosteus

2010-06-21T13:34:00.000+08:00

One of the scariest creatures ever to live in the ocean, this Devonian fish could grow up to 33 feet long, had an armored face, and likely had one of the strongest bites in history! It used a beak-like mouth instead of teeth to devourer its prey. It was one of the largest of the Placoderms, a group of armored fish that are now extinct.

Pterodaustro

2010-06-21T13:32:00.000+08:00

This pterosaur had an unusual set of teeth, similar to the baleen of some whales. It almost certainly used these teeth to eat small, aquatic organisms, similar to the way a flamingo eats brine shrimp. Since flamingos get their pinkish hue from their diet, Pterodaustro might have been pinkish too.

Nyctosaurus

2010-06-21T13:30:00.000+08:00

This genus of pterosaurs is the only one that does not have claws on its wings. Otherwise, most species looked quite average, similar to the famous Pterodon… until a new, currently unnamed species was discovered in 2003. The species had a huge, antler-like crest, larger than any other pterosaurs crest. Some speculated that there was a flap of tissue in between these antlers, like some other pterosaurs, which could have been used like a sail to enhance its flight. However, research shows that a crest that large would actually impair its flight, so it likely just had an odd set of antlers.

Sharovipteryx

2010-06-21T13:29:00.000+08:00

Another gliding reptile, this Triassic critter glided similarly to Microraptor. However, Sharovipteryx had two “wings” on its hind legs and two small “wings” on its front legs. It might have used its wings while jumping from place to place on the ground. Some scientists think it was related to Pterosaurs, but its reversal of wings to its legs instead of arms questions this.

Tanystropheus

2010-06-21T13:27:00.000+08:00

When I describe a long necked reptile, most people think of sauropods or even plesiosaurs. This Triassic reptile was neither of these. This reptile was 20 feet long, yet had a 10 foot long neck! Evidence indicates that this was a fish-eating reptile, since fossils of it have been found in mainly partially aquatic fossil sites and fish scales and Cephalopod tentacles have been found in their stomachs. They might have stayed on the beach, using their long necks to help them devour fish from the sea. It is also thought to have been at least semi-aquatic.

Longisquama

2010-06-21T13:26:00.000+08:00

Living during the Triassic, Longisquama was a small, lizard like creature that appears to have had a series of long feathers on its back. This implies that birds might have not evolved from theropods, but lizard-like reptiles instead. Of course, things are not always what they seem. Some scientists think they are just specially modified scales. Others think that the fossil’s form is an optical illusion: that the feathers are just fern fronds. Due to the large amount of feathered dinosaur fossils, it seems that these two possibilities are more accurate.

Microraptor

2010-06-21T13:25:00.000+08:00

Yet another bird-like dinosaur, this dinosaur had four wings (and a feathered tail), although it could not fly. Instead, it likely glided from place to place, kind of like a flying squirrel. It is likely that this creature is one of the most recent common ancestors between birds and dinosaurs, its gliding ability eventually evolving into flight. Unfortunately for the genus, one fossil was used in a forgery, along with a fossil of a primitive bird, Yanornis, to create a fake fossil that was said to be the ultimate missing link between birds and dinosaurs: Archeoraptor. Although it could have been caught before the public noticed, it was published in National Geographic before it could be peer reviewed. When it was exposed for the fraud it was quite embarrassing to the scientific community. There are two species of Microraptor.

Epidendrosaurus

2010-06-21T13:23:00.000+08:00

Another bird-like dinosaur, this one belonged in the same family as Epidexipteryx. It is currently the earliest dinosaur known to have adapted for life in the trees, an important moment in the evolution of birds. More bizarrely, this dinosaur had an oddly long third finger, twice the length of the other ones. They may have been used to dig for insects.

Epidexipteryx

2010-06-21T13:22:00.000+08:00

This bird-like dinosaur reveals an interesting part about the evolutionary history of birds. This member of the Scansoriopterygidae (“climbing wings”) had no flight feathers, but it did have four long tail feathers. These feathers were likely used in displays. Due to its age (It lived in China around 152 to 168 million years ago), it provides evidence that feathers evolved several million years before flight did (not surprisingly). It was also one of the smallest dinosaurs, reaching just 10 inches in height as an adult (not counting its feathers). That’s the size of a pigeon.

Therizinosauridaes

2010-06-21T13:21:00.000+08:00

This family of strange, mysterious theropods was notable for their long necks and their large claws. However, unlike most other theropods, they were herbivores (or at least primarily). Some of them may have had feathers. The genus that the family is named after, Therizinosaurus, is actually only known from a few fossils, but its claws were quite large, likely reaching a meter in length.

Deinotherium

2010-06-21T13:19:00.001+08:00

This genus of elephant-like creatures was not only huge, but they also had a pair of chin tusks. These odd tusks might have been used to dig up the soil to gain access to roots and vegetables. They also had a relatively short trunk compared to other Proboscideans. They ranged from 12-15 feet high, making them one of the largest mammals to ever walk on the earth.

Newly uncovered dinosaur had 'longest horns of all'

2010-05-29T10:40:00.000+08:00

The 72-million-year-old herbivore has two large horns above its eyes measuring up to 1.22 metres long. (The University of Utah: Lukas Panzarin)

US palaeontologists say they have unearthed a new species of dinosaurs standing some 1.8 metres tall and weighing up to 4.5 tonnes, with the longest horns of all.

The 72-million-year-old herbivore, now named coahuilaceratops magnacuerna, has two large horns above its eyes measuring up to 1.22 metres long - the largest of any other species, providing fresh insight into the history of western North America.

Scientists uncovered fossils belonging to both an adult and a juvenile of the rhino-sized tubby creature at the Cerro del Pueblo Formation in Coahuila, Mexico.

It measured about 6.7 metres long as an adult.

"We know very little about the dinosaurs of Mexico, and this find increases immeasurably our knowledge of the dinosaurs living in Mexico during the Late Cretaceous," said the study's lead author Mark Loewen, a palaeontologist with the Utah Museum of Natural History.

His team is to release a book next week detailing the find, which took place during expeditions in 2002 and 2003 in the Coahuila desert. The study was funded by the National Geographic Society and the University of Utah.

When dinosaurs lived in this corner of Mexico, it was a lush, humid estuary where ocean water mixed with fresh water from rivers, similar to the US Gulf Coast today.

Many dinosaur bones unearthed in the area are covered with fossilised snails and marine clams, indicating that the creatures lived close to the seashore.

The rocks in which the palaeontologists found coahuilaceratops contained large fossil deposits of jumbled duck-bill dinosaur skeletons.

According to the scientists, the dinosaurs likely died en masse in the area due to storms similar to present-day hurricanes.

During most of the Late Cretaceous Period, 97 to 65 million years ago, high global sea levels led to flooding of the central, low-lying portion of North America.

Ultimately, a warm, shallow sea emerged, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean and splitting the continent into eastern and western landmasses.

"We are confident that Mexican dinosaurs will be a critical element in unravelling the ancient mystery of this island continent," said Scott Sampson of the Utah Museum of Natural History.

- AFP

Paleothermometer to take dinosaurs' temperatures

2010-05-26T13:08:00.000+08:00

New technology should shed light on whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded or warm-blooded (www.flickr.com: Diegosaurius Rex)

New technology developed by US researchers should shed light on whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded or warm-blooded animals.

California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers have unveiled what they say is the first method for direct measurement of the body temperatures of large extinct vertebrates using analyses of isotopes in animals' bones, teeth, and eggshells.

The findings were published in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"This is not quite like going back in time and sticking a thermometer up a creature's back end. But it's close," said researcher John Eiler, a geochemistry professor at Caltech.

To study changes in temperature regulation in extinct animals requires knowing what their body temperatures once were. The team's method looks at the concentrations of two rare isotopes - carbon-13 and oxygen-18.

"Heavy isotopes like to bond, or clump together, and this clumping effect is dependent on temperature," said lead author Robert Eagle, a Caltech postdoctoral scholar.

"At very hot temperatures, you get a more random distribution of these isotopes, less clumping. At low temperatures, you find more clumping."

After proving their method on living elephants and sharks, the team turned to the extinct.

They examined a 12-million-year-old fossil from a relative of the rhinoceros, as well as from a cold-blooded member of the alligator family tree.

"We found we could measure the expected body temperature of the rhino-like mammal, and could see a temperature difference between that and the alligator relative, of about six degrees centigrade," Dr Eagle explained.

"When we look at tooth enamel, for instance, what we get is a record of the head temperature of the animal when the tooth grew," Professor Eiler said.

But "if you want to know what his big-toe temperature was two years later, too bad."

With an accurate paleothermometer working, the researchers want to look further back at body temperatures of less-known vertebrates.

"Before mammals and birds, we have no good idea what physiology these ancient creatures had," Dr Eagle said.

Now it is the dinosaurs' turn to get a closer temperature look.

"We're looking at eggshells and teeth to see whether the most conspicuous dinosaur species were warm- or cold-blooded," Professor Eiler said.

-AFP

Sauropod dinosaurs

2010-04-25T22:07:00.000+08:00

Sauropod dinosaurs are familiar to most everyone. It is the group commonly called brontosaurs, and with such creatures as Brachiosaurus, it includes the largest animals that have ever lived on land. Like most all really huge animals inhabiting the landscape at a given time, the sauropods were herbivorous. They ate plants and only plants. They were big, and they were not necessarily friendly, but they were not necessarily ferocious either.

Larger size often conveys certain advantages. It stacks the deck in favor of bigger individuals in the competition with other members of the same species. Larger individuals can obtain the best space, resources, mates, and they may be better able to defend themselves. Thus increasing size through a biological lineage is a common trend in evolutionary history. This trend to evolve larger descendant species from smaller ancestors is known as Cope's rule.

The best-known sauropods are of gigantic proportions. The largest of the sauropods might have weighed as much as fifty, sixty, maybe even eighty tons. Most were probably in the twenty-to-thirty-ton range, still highly respect- able. Early in sauropod evolution there had to be even smaller ones, presumably, if the evolution of larger species followed Cope's rule. The dinosaurian ancestors of the known sauropods, the hypothetical first true sauropod, if we had a complete fossil record, would have been much smaller than the giants. Some or all of the evolutionary lineages leading to different species of sauropod giants became larger with geologic time until they went extinct.

The only animals that have ever surpassed the sauropod size record are the blue whales. They, of course, have an advantage because they live in seawater, which is a dense fluid that buoys up their massive bodies. If stranded on land, whales, even the smaller ones, will suffocate from being crushed under their own weight. The structure of their bodies cannot keep their weight off of their lungs.

The problems of supporting weight for any animal are much greater on land than those encountered in an aqueous medium, such as whales inhabit, but the problems are particularly difficult for those land-dwelling animals of exceptionally large size. Being such large animals as most of the sauropods are, shear bulk places a tremendous strain on them. One reason contributing to why sauropod dinosaurs were able to evolve into such large and heavy forms is that at some time in their early history they began to walk on four legs rather than two. Strange as it seems, dinosaurs started out walking, running, and standing on two legs. Bipedal locomotion is primitive for the group as a whole (and for many of the more familiar dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex). In sauropods, dinosaurs specialized in obtaining large size, four legs provide a more stable foundation for body mass and double the number of pillars supporting the animal.

There are big ancillary problems associated with Cope's rule. The mass of an animal's body increases at a greater rate than the simple increase in a linear dimension. That means that an animal twice as long as another of the same shape and physical appearance will weigh more than twice the second animal's weight. Larger animals weigh proportionately, as well as absolutely, more than smaller animals. Therefore, if a sauropod lineage is to become gigantic, it must be able to support a spiraling increase in weight with each moderate increment in size. The strength of the bones must be great enough to hold up all that bulk, but if the bones are made bigger to be stronger, they will reach a point where they increase in weight faster than they increase in strength. There is the dilemma.

The solution is to evolve structural modifications in the shape and construction of bones so that they are both light and strong. Birds do it by having thin-walled, hollow bones. Pterodactyls do it the same way. From a paleontological point of view, such bones are fragile. That is why both these groups of flying reptiles are uncommonly preserved as fossils, and when they are, they are usually crushed.

Sauropod heads have a particularly nasty habit so far as field paleontologists are concerned. They are not often found. In life they must have been weakly attached to the end of the neck, because in death the head is quickly separated from the body. I cannot shake the image of a sauropod head rolling off like a soccer ball, but of course it was not like that. The light, thin bones of the head are as lightly built and as thin-walled as the vertebrae are. They are insecurely fastened to each other. As a dead sauropod rotted or was dismembered, the head separated from the neck, and the delicate bones became scattered and destroyed. The problem this makes for paleontologists is that many species of sauropods are known only from bones that come from the neck or farther back in the skeleton, and we have no idea what the head was actually like. Heads are known in only a fraction of the named sauropod species. In fact Apatosaurus, the real name of brontosaurus, suffered for decades with the wrong head until the mistake was caught and corrected.

Sauropod skulls that are known show quite a bit of diversity in their shapes. In all, the bony holes through which the nasal passages go appear excessively large. In life these accommodated, in addition to the air passages, tissue and blood vessels that have been considered speculatively at one time or another to control the temperature of blood flowing to the brain, to resonate the sounds uttered by the beast, or to facilitate a flexible proboscis. The issue is still open.

Some sauropods have long heads, others have heads that are almost incredibly blunt. Elongation of sauropod skulls seems to have evolved in at least two different ways. Brachiosaurus was described as having an absurd, toothy duck's bill. The front of the head is long because the bones that hold the teeth, called maxilla and premaxilla, are exaggerated into the shape of a duck's bill. The nasal bones, which support the nostrils, are looped high up and back, doming the skull. Other sauropods, such as Camarasaurus, have high heads, but the jaws are not drawn nearly so far forward as in Brachiosaurus and the nostrils are not so far back and up. Sauropods such as the familiar Apatosaurus and Diplodocus are different. Their nostrils are back and on the top of their heads, but the nasal bones are not looped and the bony opening in the skull for the nasal passage is much smaller. The skulls in Diplodocus and Apatosaurus are oblong-shaped, somewhat like lozenges. The jaws are long, but taper from the back of the skull to the snout gradually, rather than being drawn out into a duck's bill. And the teeth are restricted to the front part of the upper and lower jaws instead of continuing back along the sides of the mouth. In addition, the front of the jaws is squared off and blunt, rather than curving more gently to meet at the midline.

Jaws and teeth are particularly important when considering how the sauropod giants managed to obtain sufficient nourishment. Besides the variation in jaw shape discussed above, there is also variation among sauropod species in the shape of the teeth. Some sauropods, such as Brachiosaurus and Camarasaurus, have teeth with spoon-shaped crowns. Others, such as Diplodocus, have teeth that are shaped like pencils. They are little round cylinders. Both of these shapes of sauropod teeth, when multiplied by a mouthful of them, are adequate for plucking and nipping sprigs, twigs, fronds, and leaves, but they are not good for chewing them up. In addition, they are not held very strongly in their sockets, and they were replaced in life at frequent intervals by replacement teeth growing in from the roots. After a sauropod dies, the teeth very quickly fall out. Since neither tooth shape is adequate for a good, thorough chewing of the food, the teeth were used primarily to obtain food. The processing of it was done by gizzard stones, called gastroliths, that ground foodstuffs into a mash, after which it was most likely fermented by the action of microbes. The gastroliths are rocks that were selectively swallowed for the purpose. Birds and crocodiles do that now. It is not all that unusual in the world of animal digestion. There can be variation in the shape of teeth within certain species of sauropods. In Brachiosaurus, for instance, the teeth in the front of the mouth are more broadly spoon-shaped than those farther back. Still, even in the back of the mouth they are different from the pencil-shaped teeth found in Diplodocus, a shape that is much more simple and less variable because it is basically an uncomplicated cylinder. By comparison with other, more primitive dinosaurs, it seems most likely that the spoon-shaped teeth are less evolved and more akin to the shape of teeth in hypothetical ancestral sauropods. Pencil-shaped teeth evolved from the more primitive spoon-shaped form, but since one simple cylindrical shape looks pretty much like any other simple cylindrical shape, the possession of pencil-like teeth alone, when considered among all the species of sauropods, does not necessarily reflect a common ancestry. In other words, simple teeth may have evolved from more complex teeth more than once.

LINK

Uncovered: How the 100-tonne Titanosaurs stalked Australia

2010-04-25T22:04:00.000+08:00

Fossil bones from the largest dinosaurs ever known to walk Australia have been uncovered.

The remains of two Titanosaurs, nicknamed Cooper and George, were uncovered by farmers near the outback town of Eromanga in south-west Queensland state in 2005 and 2006.

Their remains were kept secret to allow investigation by dinosaur-hunting scientist

And scientists claim the discovery sheds new light on the country's prehistoric past.
Farmer Stuart MacKenzie said: "We were mustering cattle on motorbikes when we found fragments of the big one, Cooper.

"My 14-year-old son found the other one."

Fossilised leg bones showed the pair were 6-7 metres longer than the biggest sauropod dinosaur previously found in Australia, Queensland Museum Curator Scott Hocknull said.

The finding is likely to change understanding of how big dinosaurs grew in Australia, and their range across the country, with the latest discovery being further south than previous discoveries.

"The great thing about Australia is that there are always new things being found and it's all new to science. It's the tip of the iceberg," Hocknull said.

Titanosaurs, with their long necks and tails, were among the heaviest creatures to walk the earth, weighing up to 100 tonnes, and were one of the last sauropods of the Cretaceous Period.

They roamed Australia 98 million years ago, when the continent was greener and wetter, living on plants until prehistoric climate change saw their extinction.

They were named after the Titans of Greek myth and lived in mainly southern parts of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana.

Hocknull said Cooper's right humerus weighed 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and was a rare complete bone measuring 1.5 metres (5 feet) in length.

The two dinosaurs would have been at least 26 metres long, but may even have rivalled the largest dinosaur ever found, the 35-metre Argentinosaurus.

Fossil records in Australia are relatively rare because of the country's vast size and low population, which has hampered proper exploration by scientists.

"The fact is it is just not populated enough for people to find things. Almost all of the dinosaur discoveries are made by landowners, and the percentage that recognise they have found something different is pretty small," Hocknull said.

The latest findings could help scientists learn lessons about climate change and a generational drought currently being felt by Australians and blamed on global warming.

"If we don't know what happened to our animals and plants in the past, we cannot tell what happens in the future," he said.

Dimorphodon

2010-03-21T23:13:00.000+08:00

The Early Jurassic pterosaur, Dimorphodon, eats an early relative of the herring, Leptolepus. By Wayne D. Barlowe.

Mosasaur

2010-03-21T23:12:00.000+08:00

A terrible reptile, but not a dinosaur, this Mosasaur devours a nautiloid of the Late Cretaceous seas. By William Parsons.

Australian dinosaurs

2010-03-21T23:11:00.000+08:00

A group of Australian dinosaurs from various parts of the Early Cretaceous. They signify the radiations of dinosaurs into many types and to distant climes. In the foreground are two large Muttaburrasaurs, a Fulgotherium (herbivores), and behind them the ferocious Rapator. By Mark Hallett.

Extinction -Explanation

2010-02-18T23:03:00.002+08:00

Paleontologists generally divide extinctions into two categories. The first are the so-called background extinctions, isolated extinctions of species that occur in an ongoing fashion. The second type are called mass extinctions. The latter certainly have caught media and the public’s attention, and they appear to be something qualitatively as well as quantitatively different than background extinctions.

Background extinctions

Although background extinctions are less glamorous than mass extinctions, they are essential to biotic turnover: University of Tennessee paleobiologist M. L. McKinney has estimated that as much as 95% of all extinctions can be accounted for by background extinctions. Isolated species disappear from a variety of causes, including out-competition (the edge), depletion of resources in a habitat, changes in climate, the growth or weathering of a mountain range, river channel migration, the eruption of a volcano, the drying of a lake, the spraying of a pesticide, or the destruction of a forest, grassland, or wetland habitat. Dinosaur populations had a species’ turnover rate of around 2 million years per species. This means that each species lasted about 2 million years, before a new one appeared and the old one disappeared. 1 Although some dinosaur extinctions coincided with earlier mass extinction events (such as those at the Triassic–Jurassic and Cretaceous–Tertiary boundaries), most dinosaurs fell prey to background extinctions. By far the majority of favorite and famous dinosaurs – Maiasaura, Dilophosaurus, Protoceratops, Deinocheirus, Styracosaurus, Velociraptor, Iguanodon, Ouranosaurus, Allosaurus (to name a tiny fraction) – were the victims of background extinctions. The ultimate dinosaur extinction didn’t wipe out the total number of species accumulated over 160 million years, it killed only the latest-evolved representatives of the group (see Figure 13.1).

Mass extinctions

Mass extinctions involve large numbers of species and many types of species undergoing global extinction in a geologically short period of time. None of these has a truly precise definition, because there are no fixed rules for mass extinctions. Indeed, how do we know that there even were mass extinction “events” and how can we recognize them? A compilation of invertebrate extinctions through time (Figure B15.1.1) shows that, although extinctions characterize all periods (it is these that are termed background extinctions), there are intervals of time in which extinction levels are significantly elevated above background levels. Such intervals are said to contain the mass extinctions. Fifteen such intervals are recognized, of which five clearly towered above the others (Figure B15.1.1). The 15 mass extinctions are classified into “minor,” “intermediate,” and “major” mass extinctions, on the basis of the amount of extinction that took place above background. In the entire history of life, only one extinction qualifies as “major”; that is, the Permian–Triassic (commonly called Permo- Triassic) extinction. The remaining four of the Big Five – including dinosaur extinction – are considered to have been “intermediate.” The rest are considered “minor,” although undoubtedly not to the organisms that succumbed during them.

Dragon Roots

2010-02-02T23:08:00.001+08:00

Researchers have long noticed the universality of dragon lore, and many have tried to explain why this monster is so common in world mythology. Both a Munich geology professor and American astronomer Carl Sagan have suggested that an ancient memory—carried in genes inherited from our mammalian ancestors—is responsible for an inborn fear of large reptiles. Prehistoric memories of dinosaurs seep from our subconscious into our impressions of the world, according to this theory, and turn old nightmares into legend.

These fears may have been confirmed in people’s minds whenever they accidentally uncovered fossilized dinosaur skeletons, seemingly real proof that such creatures existed. Some ancient saurians still live, however. The Komodo dragon, a lizard named after the Indonesian island where Westerners first learned of it in 1912, is the living creature that most closely resembles a traditional dragon. These carnivorous monsters may grow to more than 12 feet in length, and can eat large mammals such as goats. They are related to a fairly recently extinct Australian monitor lizard that could reach three times that length. Although they don’t breathe fire or fly, Komodo dragons still present a very formidable appearance and might easily provoke terror-stricken witness reports of dragons if encountered unexpectedly.

Author Peter Costello believes that human craft may have played a role equal to that of nature in reinforcing the idea of dragons. From the early to late Middle Ages, he says in The Magic Zoo, the custom of using giant, fluttering windsock dragons as battlefield banners spread from Asia to Europe. Each banner held a flaming torch to present the daunting illusion of a flying, fire-breathing dragon, and may have helped turn the tide of many medieval battles. At night, in the heat of battle, the billowing figures may have appeared real, and those who lived to tell the tale probably swore they battled dragons.

Tolkien’s dragons

2010-02-02T23:06:00.003+08:00

Smaug by Angus McBride

By John D. Rateliff

There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light. —J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit

J.R.R. Tolkien’s contributions to fantasy in general and dragon-lore in particular are so great as to place him in a league of his own. The whole concept of the PC party (specialists of different backgrounds working together toward a common goal) derives from Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Rings,” while his own particular “take” on all the major fantasy races — elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. — have become the common currency for a whole generation of successors. He is the most imitated fantasist of all time, and his masterly portrayal of Smaug, “the chiefest and greatest of all calamities,” is the standard by which all other fantasy dragons should be judged.

Whereas after Grahame the tendency had been to treat dragons as witty and cute, Tolkien restored the sense of them as deadly predators. All of Tolkien’s dragons — Smaug from The Hobbit, Glorund from The Silmarillion, the wily but not over-bold Chrystophlax Dives from Farmer Giles of Ham — are clever, unscrupulous, greedy, and exceedingly dangerous. They can be bargained with, but each is capable of wiping out a small army or good-sized town all by himself. Anyone who dares to talk with one of Tolkien’s dragons had better have an escape route planned if he does not want to become the creature’s next meal.

Furthermore, Tolkien’s dragons delight in mischief: rather than kill Turin, a brave but rash and not overly clever hero, Glorund convinces him to abandon the people who rely upon him and sends him on a fool’s errand, while Smaug sows the seeds of doubt in Bilbo’s mind that shortly afterward help wreck his friendship with the dwarves. People who listen to dragons are apt to fall under their enchantment (“Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality”), and any spark of greed inside them usually fares into full life. Sometimes this dragongreed is even contagious, transmitted by contact with treasure “over whom a dragon has long brooded” — as shown in the fate of Thorin Oakenshield and to a lesser extent that of Bilbo himself (whose secret theft of the Arkenstone was a thoroughly uncharacteristic act). Similarly, Fafnir’s treasure, the hoard of the Niebelungs, seems to bring disaster to all who possess or even lay claim to it, while Beowulf’s grieving countrymen wisely decline to take any of the dragon’s hoard after his death, instead placing it all on his pyre and burying what remains in his barrow.

Finally, Tolkien’s dragons are hard to kill. Smaug destroys Dale and the Kingdom Under the Mountain, sweeping aside all resistance, and that was when he was, in his own words, “young and tender.” Later in the book we’re given a vivid description of his attack on the mountainside and burning of Lake-Town. Had he not been slain by Bard’s expert shot with a special arrow to his one secret vulnerable spot, Tolkien speculated that Sauron might have later manipulated him into destroying Rivendell. [1] Likewise, Glorund destroys the elven city of Nargothrond, effortlessly scattering and destroying its battle-tried elven warriors, while other dragons help plunder the great hidden city of Gondolin. For his part, Chrystophlax shows great reluctance to melee with anyone armed with a sword of dragon-slaying like Giles’ Claudimorax (and no wonder), but when faced with the possibility of losing his whole hoard handily massacres the Little Kingdom’s assembled knighthood, then later effortlessly puts a second army to flight. It’s possible to slay one of the Great Worms, but only by careful planning and good luck.

[1] Unfinished Tales (1980), “The Quest of Gandalf’s point of view, telling us how the contrast to Bilbo’s narrative, this bit of “alter- Erebor,” contains a behind-the-scenes look at events appeared to the wizard and the alternate Hobbit” lets us learn more about the opening chapter of The Hobbit from dwarves. In addition to offering an amusing Gandalf’s motives and plans.

CAUDIPTERYX

2010-02-02T23:04:00.001+08:00

Meaning: Wing tail

Time: Early Cretaceous

Size: 2 ft. 3 in.

Diet: Insects

Information: One of the small theropods that show distinctive bird features. It was very lightly built and had feathers on the wings and the tail. However, the wings were too small to allow it to fly. Here it is shown in the bottom, right of the picture.

The discovery of Caudipteryx led to many intensive studies on and debate over the relationship of birds and dinosaurs. The possible positions in the debate can be summarized as follows: Caudipteryx is either a member of the Oviraptorosauria, or a bird, or both, and birds are either dinosaurs or they are not.

Because Caudipteryx has clear and unambiguously pennaceous feathers, like modern birds, and because several cladistic analyses have consistently recovered it as a nonavian, oviraptorid, dinosaur, it provided, at the time of its description, the clearest and most succinct evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Lawrence Witmer stated: “The presence of unambiguous feathers in an unambiguously nonavian theropod has the rhetorical impact of an atomic bomb, rendering any doubt about the theropod relationships of birds ludicrous.”

However, not all scientists agreed that Caudipteryx was unambiguously non-avian, and some of them continued to doubt that general consensus. Paleornithologist Alan Feduccia sees Caudipteryx as a flightless bird evolving from earlier archosaurian dinosaurs rather than from late theropods. Jones et al. (2000) found that Caudipteryx was a bird based on a mathematical comparison of the body proportions of flightless birds and non-avian theropods. Dyke and Norell (2005) criticized this result for flaws in their mathematical methods, and produced results of their own which supported the opposite conclusion.

Other researchers not normally involved in the debate over bird origins, such as Zhou, acknowledged that the true affinities of Caudipteryx were debatable.

Arambourgiania

2010-02-02T22:55:00.000+08:00

Meaning: Named after Camille Arambourg, who first described it in the 1950s

Time: Late Cretaceous

Size: 39 ft. 4 in. (13m)wingspan

Diet: Probably fish

Information: Scientists continue finding bigger and bigger pterosaur bones and announcing that this must have been the biggest animal that could possibly fly. The current record holder is Arambourgiania.

The biggest pterosaurs are not known from complete specimens, so all the figures you see on this subject are only estimates based on extrapolation from smaller, more complete finds. Currently, the record holders amongst pterosaurs (and, indeed, all volant animals) are the giant azhdarchids, enormous pterosaurs that existed across the world in the Cretaceous. The best known of these is Quetzalcoatlus nothropi from the Javelina Formation of Texas. Known from a stupendously big humerus and other fragmentary elements, the wingspan of this animal is estimated at 10 - 11 m with a shoulder height of 2.5 m when it stood on the ground.

However, other azhdarchids known from even scantier material hint at bigger animals. Arambourgiania philidelphae, a pterosaur known from a solitary neck vertebrae and scrappy wing elements from Jordan, may have achieved a wingspan of 11 - 13 m. However, Hatzagopteryx thambema is the current record holder for the largest pterosaur known: with only a few pieces of skull and a couple of scrappy limb elements, estimates for this critter put it between 12 - 14 m across the wings.

Death of the Dinosaurs

2010-01-20T18:11:00.000+08:00

Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia (3D/2D)

2010-01-19T18:26:00.000+08:00

This documentary-style narrative focuses on the history, evolution and extinction of the dinosaurs. In larger-than-life fashion, audiences will explore a subject matter whose mystique and appeal are unquestioned.

Dinosaurs are amongst the most fascinating animals to have ever walked the Earth. We are captivated by their enormous size and intrigued by the fact that they disappeared millions of years ago. DINOSAURS 3D will take audiences on an unprecedented and unique 3D journey into the world of the largest known dinosaurs and, in the process, explore some of the great paleontological discoveries of modern time.

Done in close collaboration with the foremost scientists of the domain, the movie will show never seen before computer generated footage of the Giganotosaurus and the Argentinosaurus to name a few. At the moment of initiating this extraordinary project, one question comes to mind: "Is the giant screen big enough?"

Alternate Title(s): Formerly Dinosaurs of Patagonia

Dinos in D&D

2009-12-28T22:11:00.000+08:00

POPULAR CULTURE AND SCIENCE

2009-12-04T12:08:00.001+08:00

Because dinosaurs are an important part of popular culture and hence are easily recognizable, the study of them serves as an apt vehicle for understanding how science is applied to their study. A starting point for applying the science of dinosaur studies is to understand what is or is not a dinosaur, using a definition as a prompt for asking questions, as a large number of animals regarded as dinosaurs actually are not. A dinosaur is defined initially as a reptile-like or bird-like animal, with an upright posture, that spent most (perhaps all) of its life on land and lived from about 230–65 million years ago. Dinosaurs then can be classified by either a Linnaean or phylogenetic (cladistic) classification system. The cladistic method is preferred because it better expresses hypotheses about evolutionary relatedness within dinosaurs as a group. These hypotheses are best described through a cladogram, a diagram that shows ancestor-descendant relationships.

The two sciences most commonly associated with dinosaur studies are geology and biology, which are also augmented by other sciences, such as chemistry, physics, math, and computer science. Their use illustrates how the interrelation of all sciences can contribute to a field of study. Despite the apprehension of many people about the sciences, especially those that frequently use symbols and numbers, it is necessary to know a minimal amount about them to better understand dinosaurs. Professional paleontologists typically have to know some facets of all scientific disciplines. In many cases they also must be illustrators, writers, public speakers, and deal with the physical and logistical difficulties of performing fieldwork in remote locations.

Popular culture, such as books, TV shows, movies, artwork, and Web pages, reflect public ideas about dinosaurs that may or may not be based on scientific reality but they can follow general scientific trends. Whenever encountering these images of dinosaurs, the question of “What evidence justifies these depictions?” should be asked. However, of all dinosaur artwork, scientific illustration is the most important with regard to dinosaur studies and combines scientific knowledge with artistic abilities to convey accurate information.

Math is an essential tool for dinosaur studies and is expressed mostly through measurements, which are made through the international standard of the metric system. Math can be used in nearly every aspect of dinosaur studies, as demonstrated by the use of some simple calculations of estimated dinosaur weights based on their models. Such step-by-step methods help to show that math has practical uses in dinosaur studies and can be made more understandable in an applicative context.

Warnings

2009-11-28T17:54:00.000+08:00

The dinosaurs, and many other creatures such as the pterosaurs, mosasaurs, and ammonoids, went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. There is considerable evidence that dinosaurs, after reaching a peak of diversity about seventy-four million years ago, began a gradual decline. Unquestionably, though, something delivered the coup de grâce. In Chapter 8 I tell the story of the bitter, vicious controversy that raged over the reasons for the mass extinction that ended the Mesozoic. Many regard the dinosaurs’ demise with sadness. Many a kid has fantasized that somehow, somewhere, there is a lost forest where T. rex continues to prowl. But if the dinosaurs had not gone extinct, it would be most unlikely that we would be here. During the Mesozoic, our mammalian ancestors were small, nondescript, probably nocturnal creatures. While dinosaurs were dominant, there simply was no free ecological space for large mammals to occupy. Only after the extinction of the dinosaurs did the remarkable evolutionary radiation of mammals occur.

The dinosaurs were the lords of the Mesozoic. Their demise offers a deep lesson to us: The earth does not grant tenure. On the contrary, 99 percent of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. Even more sobering is the realization that several different hominid species have lived on Earth. Only one survives—Homo sapiens. We tend to think that the “sapiens” part of that name, our intelligence, gives us an edge that will allow us to escape the fate of other species. Well, we certainly have been successful in the short term—there are six billion of us on the planet, making us by far the most numerous species of large animal. By contrast, only about two thousand tigers survive in the wild. But the deepest lesson of the dinosaurs is the awful, incomprehensible depth of time. Sixty-five million years from now, will any of our descendants be alive? If so, will they be in any sense human? Will they remember any of our literature, our art, our science, our religions? After all, geological time shows that the only thing permanent is the fact of change. Evolution on Earth began with the first self-replicating molecules four billion years ago, and it will continue until the sun dies.

Dinosaurs - Recommended Reading

2009-11-28T17:53:00.000+08:00

These include the anthology The Complete Dinosaur, edited by J. O. Farlow and M. K. Brett- Surman; David Norman’s Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia; John Noble Wilford’s The Riddle of the Dinosaur; and Don Lessem’s Dinosaurs Rediscovered (originally titled The Kings of Creation). Almost as valuable as the Farlow and Brett-Surman anthology is the Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (San Diego: Academic Press, 1997), edited by P. J. Currie and K. Padian. Good books on particular types of dinosaurs include John Horner and Don Lessem’s The Complete T. rex (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) and Peter Dodson’s The Horned Dinosaurs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). Gregory S. Paul’s Predatory Dinosaurs of the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988) is interesting and contains the author’s own excellent illustrations but makes many very controversial claims about how fast these creatures ran and how they lived.

Some of the most interesting recent books on dinosaurs attempt to reconstruct their lives and habits. John Horner’s books can be particularly recommended as works that try to tell us about dinosaur behavior and lifestyles. His book Digging Dinosaurs: The Search That Unraveled the Mystery of Baby Dinosaurs (New York: Workman, 1988), cowritten with J. Gorman, tells about his discovery of dinosaur eggs and nests. These discoveries prompted Horner to name one dinosaur Maiasaura, which means “good mother lizard,” because of evidence that it kept nests and nurtured its young. A more recent book coauthored with E. Dobb, Dinosaur Lives: Unearthing an Evolutionary Saga (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1997), gives evidence for other aspects of dinosaur behavior.

There are two college-level textbooks on dinosaurs, Dinosaurs: The Textbook by Spencer G. Lucas (Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown Publishers, 1994) and The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs by David E. Fastovsky and David B. Weishampel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Both are very good, well illustrated, and considerably livelier than the usual cut-and-dried textbooks.

A word of caution: There are many good books on dinosaurs. I have been able to list only a few of them here. However, there are also many very bad books on dinosaurs, especially books for children. These books are often written by people who do not know much about dinosaurs and who don’t mind making a few bucks by passing on their ignorance to others. Some years ago Don Lessem and other paleontologists formed the Dinosaur Society to safeguard against misinformation. If a book bears the seal of the Dinosaur Society, it will contain accurate information—otherwise, caveat emptor.

ITV1 saves Primeval from extinction after deal with digital channel Watch

2009-10-02T21:48:00.000+08:00

'Groundbreaking' deal to share costs with UKTV channel Watch prompts ITV1 to announce 13 new episodes over two series"

Leigh Holmwood

Dinosaur drama Primeval has been rescued from extinction three months after ITV1 said it would not recommission the programme – thanks to a "groundbreaking" deal to share costs with a digital channel.

MediaGuardian.co.uk revealed in May that producer Impossible Pictures was trying to put together a deal to save the show, in which a group of scientists in present-day Britain fight prehistoric and futuristic creatures that have been transported through time. But ITV announced in June that it would not proceed.

However, ITV today said it had agreed to share the next two series, comprising 13 episodes in total, with UKTV channel Watch after a deal was hammered out by Impossible Pictures and partner BBC Worldwide, which distributes the show internationally.

In the new funding structure BBC Worldwide has overtaken ITV to become the largest partner, with BBC America – which broadcasts the series in the US – joining Germany's Pro7 as a co-production partner.

ITV1 will premiere the fourth series of the show in early 2011. Watch – which already airs sci fi shows Doctor Who and Torchwood – will repeat it soon after and then premiere the fifth series later the same year, followed by ITV1.

The new series will reunite the stars from the previous series, including Hannah Spearritt, Andrew-Lee Potts and Jason Flemyng, alongside the acclaimed special effects created by Framestore CFC. Showrunner Adrian Hodges will oversee the series.

Tim Haines, creative director of Impossible Pictures, said: "I am thrilled that ITV has agreed to this new deal, which will allow Impossible Pictures to produce another 13 episodes of Primeval. The confidence demonstrated in the programme's continued success here and abroad will help us bring more big-screen action and a whole host of new creatures roaring back into people's living rooms."

Laura Mackie, director of ITV drama commissioning, added: "We're delighted to have agreed this new deal with Impossible to return Primeval to ITV1. The innovative nature of this partnership will allow the show to maintain its high production values."

The third run of Primeval launched with 5.3 million viewers in April. Impossible Pictures is developing a film version.

ITV also announced the axing of its other Saturday teatime drama, Demons, in June, saying it wanted to concentrate on its peaktime drama.

Primeval has sold to more than 45 countries worldwide, including Australia, Singapore and South Korea.

What If...Dinosauroid

2009-09-25T22:49:00.000+08:00

A theoretical reptilian humanoid has also been the focus of a widely discussed thought experiment in speculative evolution. In particular, in 1982 paleontologist Dale Russell, curator of vertebrate fossils at the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa, conjectured a possible evolutionary path that might have been taken by the dinosaur Troodon (then called Stenonychosaurus) had they not all perished in the K/T extinction event 65 million years ago. The essence of this thought experiment was that bipedal predators (theropods) which existed at that time, such as Troodon, could have evolved into intelligent beings similar in body plan to humans. Over geologic time, Russell noted that there had been a steady increase in the encephalization quotient or EQ (the relative brain weight when compared to other species with the same body weight) among the dinosaurs. Russell had discovered the first Troodontid skull, and noted that, while its EQ was low compared to humans, it was six times higher than that of other dinosaurs. If the trend in Troodon evolution had continued to the present, its brain case could by now measure 1,100 cm3; comparable to that of a human. Troodontids had semi-manipulative fingers, able to grasp and hold objects to a certain degree, and binocular vision.

Description

Russel proposed that this Dinosauroid, like most dinosaurs of the troodontid family, would have had large eyes and three fingers on each hand, one of which would have been partially opposed. As with most modern reptiles (and birds), he conceived of its genitalia as internal. Russell speculated that it would have required a navel, as a placenta aids the development of a large brain case. However, it would not have possessed mammary glands, and would have fed its young, as birds do, on regurgitated food. He speculated that its language would have sounded somewhat like bird song.

Criticism

Russell's thought experiment has been met with criticism from other paleontologists since the 1980s, many of whom point out that Russell's Dinosauroid is overly anthropomorphic. Gregory S. Paul (1988) and Thomas R. Holtz Jr., consider it "suspiciously human" (Paul, 1988) and argue that a large-brained, highly intelligent troodontid would retain a more standard theropod body plan, with a horizontal posture and long tail, and would probably manipulate objects with the snout and feet in the manner of a bird, rather than with human-like "hands".

Dino is Angry at World

2009-09-22T15:24:00.000+08:00

21 May 07 Today's Kongcept artwork comes from Greg Broadmore, who created a Mr "Angry at the World" Dino for Peter Jackson's King Kong.
Greg explains how this illustration came about:
"This illustration was relatively late in the design process and was actually for what ended up being the quadrupedal crocodile like reptile that attacks Anne in the log: 'Foetodon'.
"At the time we had no idea of the nature of the scene that this creature would appear in, all we knew was that it had to be a new dinosaur. Although we quickly found out that this would be a quadruped, at this point anything was open. I did this guy as a medium to large sized therapod but with a slightly more upright and so 'classic' dinosaur posture. It has huge blades as it's front claws.
"I really enjoyed getting to just make up a dinosaur, I do that anyway for fun, so this was just a great opportunity to have fun with design. I really got into the weight and texture of the skin, I love doing that stuff."
Check out the Kongcept Image Gallery for larger pop ups of this image. If you're a Weta Forum Member, you can leave comments, too!

Weta Artists in Magazine Double-Header

2009-09-22T15:22:00.002+08:00

Weta artists have recently featured in a well organized double feature in design magazines 3D World and ImagineFX.

First, Weta Productions animation director Steve Lambert provided a complete (21 page!) step-by-step guide to animating a dinosaur in 3D World. The contents included:

Modelling a basic blockmesh in Maya
Refining the form and sculpting surface detail in ZBrush
Painting surface textures in ZBrush
Setting up a production-quality full-body rig in Maya
Keyframing basic walk and run cycles
Setting up a subsurface scattering shader network in Maya
Rendering the finished animation

The magazine’s companion DVD included seven hours of screen capture videos showing Steve at work.

ImagineFX followed up with Weta Workshop designer and illustrator Greg Broadmore walking us through the process of creating the Dinosaur used in Steve’s 3D World tutorial.
Greg takes us from basic research into dinosaurs, through deciding on a name to pencil-and-paper sketches, bone models and then detailed colour and texture work in Photoshop.

Spinosaurus and Film

2009-08-28T23:39:00.004+08:00

The fossil bones of Spinosaurus, a large theropod dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous, 95 million years ago. The type specimen was first described in 1915 near Marsá Matruh, Egypt, on the Mediterranean coast. Its most striking feature is a set of dorsal spines that probably supported a sail-like membrane.

The Spinosaurus is one of the most massive predators on land; more than 50 feet long and weighing over ten tons. The massive sail on its back only increases the terrifying impact of this creature. Fortunately, it is not as swift as some other large predators and is generally a scavenger rather than an active hunter.

If a Spinosaurus gets a hold of prey with its bite, it deals bite damage if it maintains the hold, as it shakes its prey violently in its long jaws. Creatures up to three sizes smaller can be swallowed whole

While surfing channels last night, I had come across the second half of "Jurassic Park 3" on TV. It had reminded me of an often misunderstood point when it comes to Tyrannosaurus.rex sized or larger (only slightly though) or maybe only longer but not necessarily heavier (as far as I know for Spinosaurus aegyptiacus which in 2001,to my amazement, seemed to become the most hated dinosaur of every geek on the internet who, upon finding out that it would not only defeat Tyrannosaurus in battle in "Jurassic Park 3",but there would not be a second battle between the two species ending with a Tyrannosaurus victory.) The specialists,(movie versions, anyway)would point out continually that the Spinosaurus (Giganotosaurus would have been more appropriate for most of the Spinosaur's roles, but would likely have appeared to be just another T.rex lookalike to the movie-going public) was bigger than the T.rex, setting up the battle, really giving the impression that T.rex didn't stand a chance against it in any battle, at any time. I would really think of the Spinosaur (if really that big, remains are still too fragmentary to tell) as a potential rival to the tyrannosaur with any conflict liable to go either way. Not that it hurts my feelings to see a Spinosaurus take down a T.rex in an action movie that's not realistic anyway, (I prefer the Spinosaurus over T.rex any day!)I would have tried to make it more of a surprise to the audience if I really wanted the T.rex to get killed in battle, say against another incidental dinosaur like Triceratops, where the outcome of the fight is not important to the rest of the film.

John Bridgman

As far as Jurassic park 3 went, the reason the Tyranosaurus-Rex/Spinosaur battle was so early, was to set the Spinosaur up as a stalking horse for the rest of the film (How a 45 foot animal sneaks up on you I don't know). It was then supposed to have a cataclysmic battle with all those US marines who appeared at the end of the film. But they ran out of money, and the film "just stopped".

The bit that annoyed me most was when the Spinosaur's neck was in the Tyrannosaurs jaws, and it shrugged the T-Rex off. I'd have thought with the bite strength that would have been game over.

David Craven

THE FIVE BIGGEST MASS EXTINCTIONS

2009-07-28T19:58:00.004+08:00

About 3.8 billion years ago, life formed in the oceans as simple soft-bodied microorganisms. There were no other types of life forms on the planet at this time. Life only existed in the oceans. For more than 3 billion years, microorganisms ruled the planet. Then, about 670 million years ago, a mass extinction killed nearly all life. This mass extinction is not very well known. Scientists hypothesize that a change in the ocean level could have affected the habitat of the microorganisms in numerous ways.

After this first mass extinction, millions of years passed. It was as though life was gathering its breath. Then, about 570 million years ago, it seemed as if a gigantic water balloon suddenly burst open. Life exploded across the world. Animals developed hard parts, like shells and skeletons. The first vertebrates appeared at this time. They were the earliest ancestors of all the major groups of animals, including the human animal. Scientists call this the Cambrian Explosion of Life.

Like a gigantic wheel, this cycle of life and extinction continues throughout the history of the Earth. Let us briefly examine the five biggest mass extinctions.

Ordovician Mass Extinction—440 million years ago

The Ordovician mass extinction wiped out about 50% of some groups of marine animals. Some scientists think the most likely cause was an ice age. The Earth has experienced many ice ages over its history. An ice age is when most of the water on Earth freezes into thick sheets of ice. This would have destroyed marine habitats.

Devonian Mass Extinction—365 million years ago

The Devonian Period was known as the Age of the Fishes. The first sharks appeared, as did many kinds of primitive fishes. The Devonian mass extinction wiped out about 70% of tropical animals living in the ocean. Plants and animals on land were less affected. This mass extinction may have been caused by a global climate change, such as an ice age. This would have cooled the warm tropical waters, killing most of the animals that lived there.

The Great Dying: Permian Mass Extinction— 250 million years ago

Life flourished for more than 100 million years after the Devonian mass extinction. Reptiles appeared. These were the early ancestors of the dinosaurs, yet they were not the strongest creatures on the planet. During this time, mammal-like reptiles called gorgons were the most powerful reptiles on the planet. These ferocious creatures looked half-lion and half-dragon.

Then, the largest extinction in Earth’s history took place. It happened at the end of the Permian Period around 250 million years ago and lasted millions of years. It was far more devastating than the Cretaceous mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. It is estimated that as much as 96% of all marine species were lost during the Permian mass extinction. On land, more than 75% of all animals died out.

Not all land animals became extinct at this time. This is lucky for human beings. The mammal-like reptiles did not die off completely during this mass extinction. Scientists have theorized that mammals (including Homo sapiens) eventually evolved from these animals.

Some scientists believe an asteroid hit the planet and caused what is often called the Great Dying. The most recent evidence suggests that a huge volcanic explosion in Siberia may have caused massive climate change, including extreme temperatures and lack of oxygen. We will look at some of these theories in greater detail later.

Triassic Mass Extinction—208 million years ago

The Triassic mass extinction took place about 208 million years ago. About 35% of life, including the mammal-like reptiles, died at this time. Like mammals, dinosaurs evolved from the mammal- like reptiles. The Age of the Dinosaurs began in the Triassic Period, as dinosaurs began to take over the planet. True mammals appeared near the end of the Triassic. They were only as big as a shrew, with a skull several inches long. Scientists think a combination of extremely hot temperatures and a lack of oxygen were responsible for this mass extinction, similar to the causes of the Permian mass extinction.

Cretaceous (K-T) Mass Extinction—65 million years ago

Mass extinction is known by the boundary between one geologic time period and the next. The Cretaceous mass extinction, better known as the K-T mass extinction, happened at the boundary between the Cretaceous Period and the Tertiary Period. The K stands for Kreide, which is the German word for chalk. It describes the chalky texture of the clay found in sedimentary rocks from that time. This clay layer is also known as the K-T boundary.

The Cretaceous mass extinction marked the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs. But the dinosaurs were not the only victims. Around 75% of all species were destroyed. All land animals over 55 pounds (25 kilograms) became extinct.

Some groups of animals escaped this mass extinction. There are many theories to explain why. Crocodiles, turtles, lizards, mammals, and birds were affected. However, they survived with most of their species intact. Many plants either died out or suffered heavy losses. However, the roots of many plants managed to survive and eventually grew again.

Mammals were no larger than a cat at this time. Most mammals lived underground, as if waiting for their turn to dominate the planet. They waited about 140 million years! After the dinosaurs became extinct, the Age of Mammals began. It still took nearly 60 million more years for the first humanlike ancestor to walk the Earth.

The extinction of the dinosaurs has been studied extensively. For the past 25 years, most scientists have thought that a very large asteroid hit the planet. Other scientists think that a massive volcanic eruption in India caused this extinction.

Are extraterrestrial asteroids responsible for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs? Could asteroids have caused any other mass extinction?

Pre-Glacial Dragons/Dinosaurs

2009-06-26T17:29:00.001+08:00

Is it possible to conceive that, surrounded in Nature with such monstrous creatures, man, unless himself a colossal giant, could have survived, while all his foes have perished? HPB.

157. When We dispatch a messenger We wish him success in encountering the dragon. Indeed, this is no harmless, betailed, pre-glacial dragon, but the cruel human egoism. NEC. AY.
126. In place of the Diplodocus, kangaroos leap; in place of the Pterodactyl, bats fly; in place of the dragon, lizards. What is the meaning of this? Can it be degeneration? Actually, it is only adaptation. FWI. HR.
The animals of the first ray are no longer in existence on earth. EPI. AAB.
Equally powerful are saliva and the other secretions of the glands. But one must observe the causes of increase and decrease of the reaction of the energy of these products. The saliva of wrath is poisonous, and the saliva of benevolence is beneficial.. One must be able to oppose the fiery element by Atma, which is incombustible. Hier. HR.
Now we find in the Zohar a very strange assertion, one that is calculated to provoke the reader to merry laughter by its ludicrous absurdity. It tells us that the serpent, which was used by Shamael (the supposed Satan), to seduce Eve, was a kind of flying camel [[kamelomorphon]].
A "flying camel" is indeed too much for the most liberal-minded F.R.S. Nevertheless, the Zohar, which can hardly be expected to use the language of a Cuvier, was right in its description:* for we find it called in the old Zoroastrian MSS. Aschmogh, which in the Avesta is represented as having lost after the Fall "its nature and its name," and is described as a huge serpent with a camel's neck.
"There are no winged serpents, nor veritable dragons," asserts Salverte, " . . . grasshoppers are called by the Greeks winged serpents, and this metaphor may have created several narratives on the existence of winged serpents."
There are none now; but there is no reason why they should not have existed during the Mesozoic age; and Cuvier, who has reconstructed their skeletons, is a witness to "flying camels." Already, after finding simple fossils of certain saurians, the great naturalist has written, that, "if anything can justify the Hydra and other monsters, whose figures were so often repeated by mediaeval historians, it is incontestably the Plesiosaurus."
We are unaware if Cuvier had added anything in the way of a further mae culpa. But we may well imagine his confusion, for all his slanders against archaic veracity, when he found himself in the presence of a flying saurian, "the Pterodactyl" (found in Germany), "78 feet long, and carrying vigorous wings attached to its reptilian body." That fossil is described as a reptile, the little fingers of whose hands are so elongated as to bear a long membranous wing. Here, then, the "flying camel" of the Zohar is vindicated. For surely, between the long neck of the Plesiosaurus and the membranous wing of the Pterodactyl, or still better the Mosasaurus, there is enough scientific probability to build a "flying camel," or a long-necked dragon. Prof. Cope, of Philadelphia, has shown that the Mosasaurus fossil in the chalk was a winged serpent of this kind. There are characters in its vertebrae, which indicate union with the Ophidia rather than with the Lacertilia.
And now to the main question. It is well known that Antiquity has never claimed palaeontography and paleontology among its arts and sciences; and it never had its Cuviers. Yet on Babylonian tiles, and especially in old Chinese and Japanese drawings, in the oldest Pagodas and monuments, and in the Imperial library at Pekin, many a traveller has seen and recognised perfect representations of Plesiosauri and Pterodactyls in the multiform Chinese dragons.Moreover, the prophets speak in the Bible of the flying fiery serpents, and Job mentions the Leviathan. Now the following questions are put very directly:--
I. How could the ancient nations know anything of the extinct monsters of the carboniferous and Mesozoic times, and even represent and describe them orally and pictorially, unless they had either seen those monsters themselves or possessed descriptions of them in their traditions, which descriptions necessitate living and intelligent eye-witnesses?
II. And if such eye-witnesses are once admitted (unless retrospective clairvoyance is granted), how can humanity and the first palaeolithic men be no earlier than about the middle of the tertiary period? We must bear in mind that most of the men of science will not allow man to have appeared before the Quaternary period, and thus shut him out completely from the Cenozoic times. Here we have extinct species of animals, which disappeared from the face of the Earth millions of years ago, described by, and known to, nations whose civilization, it is said, could hardly have begun a few thousand years ago. How is this? Evidently either the Mesozoic time has to be made to overlap the Quaternary period, or man must be made the contemporary of the Pterodactyl and the Plesiosaurus.
It does not stand to reason, because the Occultists believe in and defend ancient wisdom and science, even though winged saurians are called "flying camels" in the translations of the Zohar, that we believe as readily in all the stories which the middle ages give us of such dragons. Pterodactyls and Plesiosauri ceased to exist with the bulk of the Third Race. When, therefore, we are gravely asked by Roman Catholic writers to credit Christopher Scherer's and Father Kircher's cock-and-bull stories of their having seen with their own eyes living fiery and flying dragons, respectively in 1619 and 1669, we may be allowed to regard their assertions as either dreams or fibs. Nor shall we regard otherwise than as a poetical license that other story told of Petrarch, who, while following one day his Laura in the woods and passing near a cave, is credited with having found a dragon, whom he forthwith stabbed with his dagger and killed, thus preventing the monster from devouring the lady of his heart. We would willingly believe the story had Petrarch lived in the days of Atlantis, when such antediluvian monsters may still have existed. We deny their existence in our present era. The sea-serpent is one thing, the dragon quite another. The former is denied by the majority because it exists and lives in the very depths of the ocean, is very scarce, and rises to the surface only when compelled, perhaps, by hunger. Thus keeping invisible, it may exist and still be denied. But if there was such a thing as a dragon of the above description, how could it have ever escaped detection? It is a creature contemporary with the earliest Fifth Race, and exists no more.
We read in the "Memoire a l'Academie" of the "naive astonishment of Geoffrey St. Hilaire, when M. de Paravey showed to him in some old Chinese works and Babylonian tiles dragons, . . . . saurians and ornithorhynchuses (aquatic animals found only in Australia), etc., extinct animals that he had thought unknown on earth. . . . till his own day."
The fossils reconstructed by science, which we know ought to be sufficient warrant for the possibility of even a Leviathan, let alone Isaiah's flying serpents, or saraph mehophep, which words are translated in all the Hebrew dictionaries as "saraph," enflamed or fiery venom, and "mehophep," flying. But, although Christian theology has always connected both (Leviathan and saraph mehophep) with the devil, the expressions are metaphorical and have nought to do with the "evil one." But the word Dracon has become a synonym for the latter. In Bretagne the word Drouk now signifies "devil," whence, as we are told by Cambry ("Monuments Celtiques," p. 299), the devil's tomb in England, Draghedanum sepulcrum. In Languedoc the meteoric fires and will-o'-the-wisps are called Dragg, and in Bretagne Dreag, Wraie (or wraith), the castle of Drogheda in Ireland meaning the devil's castle.
The ultramontane writers accept the whole series of draconian stories given by Father Kircher (Edipus AEgyptiacus, "De Genere Draconum,") quite seriously. According to that Jesuit, he himself saw a dragon which was killed in 1669 by a Roman peasant, as the director of the Museo Barberini sent it to him, to take the beast's likeness, which Father Kircher did and had it published in one of his in-folios. After this he received a letter from Christopher Scherer, Prefect of the Canton of Soleure, Switzerland, in which that official certifies to his having seen himself with his own eyes, one fine summer night in 1619, a living dragon. Having remained on his balcony "to contemplate the perfect purity of the firmament," he writes, "I saw a fiery, shining dragon rise from one of the caves of Mount Pilatus and direct itself rapidly towards Fluelen to the other end of the lake. Enormous in size, his tail was still longer and his neck very extended. His head and jaws were those of a serpent. In flying he emitted on his way numerous sparks (? !) . . . . I thought at first I was seeing a meteor, but soon looking more attentively, I was convinced by his flight and the conformation of his body that I saw a veritable dragon. I am happy to be thus able to enlighten your Reverence on the very real existence of those animals"; in dreams, the writer ought to have added, of long past ages.
As a convincing proof of the reality of the fact, a Roman Catholic refers the reader to the picture of that incident painted by Simon de Sienne, a friend of the poet, on the portal of the Church Notre Dame du Don at Avignon; notwithstanding the prohibition of the Sovereign Pontiff, who "would not allow this triumph of love to be enthroned in the holy place"; and adds: "Time has injured and rubbed out the work of art, but has not weakened its tradition." De Mirville's "Dragon-Devils" of our era seem to have no luck, as they disappear most mysteriously from the museums where they are said to have been. Thus the dragon embalmed by Ulysses Aldobranda and presented to the Musee du Senat, either in Naples or Bologna, "was there still in 1700, but is there no more." (Vol. 2, p. 427, "Pneumatologie.")
Therefore, in saying that we believe absolutely in ancient records and universal legends, we need hardly plead guilty before the impartial observer, for other and far more learned writers, among those who belong to the modern scientific school, evidently believe in much that the Occultists do: e.g., in "Dragons," not only symbolically, but also in their actual existence at one time.
"It would have indeed been a bold step for anyone, some thirty years ago, to have thought of treating the public to a collection of stories ordinarily reputed fabulous, and of claiming for them the consideration due to genuine realities, or to have advocated tales, believed to be time-honoured fictions, as actual facts; and those of the nursery as being, in many instances, legends, more or less distorted, descriptive of real beings or events. Nowadays it is a less hazardous proceeding . . . . . "
Thus opens the introduction to a recent (1886) and most interesting work by Mr. Charles Gould, called "Mythical Monsters." He boldly states his belief in most of these monsters. He submits that:-- "Many of the so-called mythical animals, which, throughout long ages and in all nations, have been the fertile subjects of fiction and fable, come
Vol.II, Page 218 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
legitimately within the scope of plain matter-of-fact natural history; and that they may be considered, not as the outcome of exuberant fancy, but as creatures which really once existed, and of which, unfortunately, only imperfect and inaccurate descriptions have filtered down to us, probably very much refracted, through the mists of time.
. . . Traditions of creatures once co-existing with man, some of which are so weird and terrible as to appear at first sight to be impossible. For me the major part of those creatures are not chimeras but objects of rational study. The dragon, in place of being a creature evolved out of the imagination of an Aryan man by the contemplation of lightning flashing through the caverns which he tenanted, as is held by some mythologists, is an animal which once lived and dragged its ponderous coils and perhaps flew. .
. . . To me the specific existence of the Unicorn seems not incredible, and in fact, more probable than that theory which assigns its origin to a lunar myth . . . For my part I doubt the general derivation of myths from 'the contemplation of the visible workings of external nature.' It seems to me easier to suppose that the palsy of time has enfeebled the utterance of these oft-told tales until their original appearance is almost unrecognisable, than that uncultured savages should possess powers of imagination and poetical invention far beyond those enjoyed by the most instructed nations of the present day; less hard to believe that these wonderful stories of gods and demigods, of giants and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of all descriptions are transformations than to believe them to be inventions."
It is shown by the same geologist that man, "successively traced to periods variously estimated from thirty thousand to one million years . . . . ., co-existed with animals which have long since become extinct (p. 20)." These animals, "weird and terrible," were, to give a few instances -- (1) "Of the genus Cidastes, whose huge bones and vertebrae show them to have attained a length of nearly two hundred feet . . . .
. . " The remains of such monsters, no less than ten in number, were seen by Professor Marsh in the Mauvaises Terres of Colorado, strewn upon the plains. (2) The Titanosaurus montanus, reaching fifty or sixty feet in length; (3) the Dinosaurians (in the Jurassic beds of the Rocky Mountains), of still more gigantic proportions; (4) the Atlanto-Saurus immanis, a femur of which alone is over six feet in length, and which would be thus over one hundred feet in length! But even yet the line has not been reached, and we hear of the discovery of remains of such titanic proportions as to possess a thigh-bone over twelve feet in length (p. 37). Then we read of the monstrous Sivatherium in the Himalayas, the four-horned stag, as large as an elephant, and exceeding the latter in height; of the gigantic Megatherium: of colossal flying lizards, Pterodactyli, with
THE FLYING DRAGONS.
crocodile jaws on a duck's head, etc., etc. All these were co-existent with man, most probably attacked man, as man attacked them; and we are asked to believe that the said man was no larger then than he is now! Is it possible to conceive that, surrounded in Nature with such monstrous creatures, man, unless himself a colossal giant, could have survived, while all his foes have perished? Is it with his stone hatchet that he had the best of a Sivatherium or a gigantic flying saurian? Let us always bear in mind that at least one great man of science, de Quatrefages, sees no good scientific reasons why man should not have been "contemporaneous with the earliest mammalia and go back as far as the Secondary Period."
"It appears," writes the very conservative Professor Jukes, "that the flying dragons of romance had something like a real existence in former ages of the world."** "Does the written history of man," the author goes on to ask, "comprising a few thousand years, embrace the whole course of his intelligent existence? Or have we in the long mythical eras, extending over hundreds of thousands of years, and recorded in the chronologies of Chaldea and China, shadowy mementoes of prehistoric man, handed down by tradition, and perhaps transported by a few survivors to existing lands, from others which, like the fabled Atlantis of Plato, may have been submerged, or the scene of some great catastrophe which destroyed them with all their civilization;".
The few remaining giant animals, such as elephants, themselves smaller than their ancestors the Mastodons, and Hippopotami, are the only surviving relics, and tend to disappear more entirely with every day. Even they have already had a few pioneers of their future genus, and have decreased in size in the same proportion as men did. For the remains of a pigmy elephant were found (E. Falconeri) in the cave deposits of Malta; and the same author asserts that they were associated with the remains of pigmy Hippopotami, the former being "only two feet six inches high; or the still-existing Hippopotamus (Choeropsis) Liberiensis, which M. Milne-Edwards figures as little more than two feet in height."
Sceptics may smile and denounce our work as full of nonsense or fairy-tales. But by so doing they only justify the wisdom of the Chinese philosopher Chuang, who said that "the things that men do know can in no way be compared, numerically speaking, to the things that are unknown" and thus they laugh only at their own ignorance.
Vol.II SD HPB.

Featured Website: Dinosaurs and Dragons by Strange Science

2009-06-26T17:25:00.001+08:00

Despised in the West and revered in the East, dragons have a long history in human mythology. How did the myth start? No one knows the exact answer, but some "dragon" bones probably belonged to animals long extinct — in some cases dinosaurs, in others, fossil mammals. Starting in the early 19th century, scientists began to find a new kind of monster, one that had gone extinct tens of millions of years before the first humans evolved. Because the first fragments found looked lizard-like, paleontologists assumed they had found giant lizards, but more bones revealed animals like nothing on earth today. Did these terrible lizards ever coexist with people? No. Although some creationists claim that medieval dragons were really dinosaurs that survived into modern times, this notion enjoys no support from any credible scientist.

True20 Prehistoric Bestiary

2009-06-08T22:36:00.001+08:00

Afrovenator

Type: 12 Level Animal

Size: Huge

Speed: 50 ft.

Abilities: Str +5, Dex +3, Con +3, Int -4, Wis

+2, Cha +0

Skills: Notice 15 (+19)

Feats: Attack Focus (bite), Double Strike,

Improved Grab, Night VisionB, Run, Tough (x1)

Traits: Scent, Snatch, Swallow Whole

Combat: Attack +10 (-2 size, +9 base, +3 Dex)

(+11 bite), Damage +11 (bite), or +8 (claws),

Defense Dodge/Parry +10/-- (-2 size, +9 base, +3

Dex), Initiative +3

Saving Throws: Toughness +10 (+4 size, +3

Con, +2 natural +1 Tough), Fortitude +11 (+8

base, +3 Con), Reflex +11 (+8 base, +3 Dex), Will

+6 (+4 base, +2 Wis)

Skills: An afrovenator has a +2 racial bonus on

Notice checks.

Snatch: An afrovenator can use its Snatch ability

with its claws, targetting creatures up to two sizes

smaller than itself.

Swallow Whole: Creatures up to two sizes

smaller; +8 bludgeoning damage and +3 acid damage per round; gizzard Toughness save +9; an afrovenator’s gizzard can hold 2 Medium, 8 Small, 32 Tiny, or 128 Diminutive or smaller opponents. An afrovenator is a large predator with especially fearsome front claws that it uses to capture its prey. These creatures travel in family groups and chase down any likely-looking prey with their swift pace. More lightly built than other large predatory dinosaurs, afrovenators are speedy and always hungry.

Dinosaurs come in many sizes and shapes. The species detailed and illustrated below are only samples; use your imagination to vary their appearance. Add spikes or sails or frills, colours, feathers and crests as you see fit. Every week newer, more fantastic creatures are being discovered in OUR mundane world, so the possibilities in a fantasy world ought to be even more incredible and spectacular.

These creatures are awe-inspiring in their size and their strangeness. Many travel in immense herds, calling out to each other in rumbling voices that carry for miles. They push over trees and churn the ground to mud wherever they go. The predators are usually speedy and powerful, and hunt in groups. Characters who are discovered by these sharp-toothed animals should be made aware that these are the most terrible hunters ever to walk the land.

Science has little to say on the subject of domesticating these animals, so we've made a bunch of stuff up. If you think that's unreasonable, you probably shouldn't play games about people fighting dinosaurs in the first place.

DINOSAUR COMICS - QWANTZ.COM

2009-05-22T14:44:00.002+08:00

Dinosaur Comics is a constrained webcomic by Canadian writer Ryan North. It is also known as "Qwantz", after the site's domain name, "qwantz.com". It has been online since February 1, 2003, though there were early prototypes. Dinosaur Comics has also been printed in two collections and in a number of newspapers.

Comics are posted on most weekdays. Each comic uses the same artwork, with only the dialogue changing from day to day. There are occasional deviations from this, such as several episodic comics. It has been compared to David Lynch's The Angriest Dog in the World comic, and also made references to it. The strips take on a wide variety of topics, including ethical relativism, the nature of happiness, and the secret to being loved.

Main cast

The main characters' names are each dinosaur's genus (with the notable exception being "T-Rex", an abbreviation of the Tyrannosaurus' full binomial name). Although other dinosaurs have been mentioned in the strip, they are rarely shown.

* T-Rex is the main character. He is a green, 27-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex. His character is portrayed as self-confident, but frequently shown up by other characters, especially Utahraptor. He is good-hearted, but occasionally shows signs of being egotistical or selfish. T-Rex appears to be stomping a log cabin and a woman in the third and fourth panels of the comic, respectively.
* Utahraptor, T-Rex's comedic foil, appears in the fourth and fifth panels of the comic. One early comic says one of his identifying features is that he "frequently debunk[s] [T-Rex's] theories." Utahraptor is gay, as North confirmed in the title of the RSS feed for the December 13, 2007 comic:

“ i received several dozen emails about utahraptor either being a girl or being gay in yesterday's comic! he is gay, guys. only he doesn't talk about it all the time, on account of having interests outside of being gay? ”

* Dromiceiomimus appears in the third panel. She is generally friendly to T-Rex, answering either neutrally or with mild, friendly criticism. She has been a romantic interest of T-Rex's.

Supporting cast

* Several comics take place in a mirror universe. In this arc, the standard comic has been flipped horizontally, as if seen in a mirror. All of the dinosaurs, in addition to being literal mirror images, sport drawn-on goatees to demonstrate that they are the mirror-universe counterparts of the normal characters.
* God and the Devil make frequent appearances in the strip, speaking from off the tops and bottoms of the panels respectively, in bold and capitalized letters and with the Devil's font in red. They also speak with little or no punctuation and can be heard only by T-Rex. Topics of conversation between T-Rex and God vary, but the Devil and T-Rex mostly discuss video games and Dungeons & Dragons.
* T-Rex's neighbors: families of raccoons and cephalopods who talk to T-Rex in unsettling tones, with capitalized italics.
* Morris: a tiny bug, lacking in self-confidence, who mostly appears on T-Rex's nose and speaks in lowercase letters.
* A fictionalized version of 19th-century poet Edgar Allan Poe first appears offscreen, supposedly relaxing on T-Rex's couch, and later as a needy, annoying friend of T-Rex's, following T-Rex around and only wanting to talk about their relationship with one another.
* A fictionalized version of actor Patrick Stewart appears in several comics.
* A fictionalized version of William Shakespeare appears in an intermittent series called "Literary Technique Comics."
* Mr. Tusks: an elephant affected by island dwarfism. He speaks only in the sixth frame and makes puns on the word "short" and its variants every time he speaks. He is the Vice-Mayor of a fictional place known in the comic as Tiny Towne.

Giant trilobites had complex social lives

2009-05-08T18:04:00.001+08:00

The trilobites grouped together to molt, much like modern-day horseshoe crabs (Geological Society of America)

By Heather Catchpole for ABC Science Online

The discovery of giant trilobites in northern Portugal reveals the once ubiquitous marine creature mated en masse and used its numbers for protection, say European researchers.

The new find, published in the current issue of the journal Geology describes giants that grew to 90 centimetres in length, the largest ever found.

Trilobites once roamed the sea floor, but were wiped out in the Permian-Triassic extinction, 250 million years ago.

These marine arthropods, typically less than 8 centimetres long, are distant relatives of modern-day lobsters and spiders.

The researchers, led by Dr Juan Carlos Gutiérrez-Marco from the El Instituto de Geología Económica in Madrid, Spain, discovered trilobites from 15 genera in 465-million year old rocks in Arouca Geopark in northern Portugal.

They found a complete specimen 70 centimetres in length and others whose tail remnants indicated they grew to up to 90 centimetres long.

Most of the trilobite species they collected have been found elsewhere in Western Europe, but never before of such giant size.

Their size was probably an adaption to the polar waters where they dwelt, say the researchers.

"Metabolism of invertebrates is slower in cold water, so it takes longer to reach adulthood and they also tend to live longer. Also if you are bigger you are better able to deter a predator attack," sasy co-author Dr Diego García-Bellido, also of the El Instituto de Geología Económica.

Molt together, mate together

The researchers found clusters of trilobites with up to 1000 individuals, indicating they grouped together to molt, much like modern-day horseshoe crabs.

The researchers assume that like horseshoe crabs, the trilobites may have also mated en masse. The hormones that instigate molting are related to those that induce sexual reproduction, says García-Bellido.

Several trilobites in the deposit were also found in burrows and under the shells of larger organisms, where they may have hidden after molting as their soft bodies made them more vulnerable to predators.

The trilobites are believed to have died when the stagnant seawater became oxygen-depleted, which also helped their preservation as fossils, the researchers say.

Spectacular find

Palaeontologist Dr John Paterson from the University of New England in Armidale, describes the find as "spectacular".

"It's really exceptional in that you rarely find trilobite fossils complete," he says. "Mostly you find a piece of the head or the tail, so to find them in congregations where there are many complete individuals is astounding."

Paterson says his own research in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia has shown that trilobites grouped together during the Cambrian era about 520 million years ago, when the diversity of life really kicked off.

"You've got a better chance of survival if you are [molting] in a group as you've got less chance of being picked off yourself.

Back Lots of the Lost: The Implausibility of the Cliched "Lost World"

2009-05-04T23:52:00.003+08:00

Paul T. Riddell

Since the Victorian period, shortly after the discovery and scientific description of the first recognized examples of the class Dinosauria, individuals have speculated on the possibilities of areas where dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures may still exist. Back before aerial surveys and satellite photographs, the idea of lost continents brimming with tyrannosaurs and pterosaurs fevered the imaginations of fiction writers and readers. After serious exploration efforts turned up no signs of previously unknown saurians, speculation turned toward parallel evolution of dinosaurs on alien worlds, or in isolated patches of jungle unknown to humans. The "lost world" cliché soon became almost universal, demanding a Frank Frazetta canvas: mention "lost world" to nearly anyone and ask for the first images that pop up, and invariably the first response concerns cavemen (and rather shapely cavewomen) watching as a Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops duke it out in a landscape shadowed by giant volcanoes and fern trees.

The perception is popular, and certain lost worlds exist today. However, the prediluvian world of the Galapagos rift vents, with animals and bacteria probably related to the first organisms that left the confines of the vents and struck out for the wide, cold ocean just don't have the same appeal. If we don't get dinosaurs, then at least we need prehistoric mammals (usually saber-toothed cats and mammoths, although titanotheres and creodonts have their possibilities), or maybe some of the reptiles that predated the dinosaurs. They're not as impressive as T. rex, but being chased by a Lycaenops or a Dimetrodon still offers adventure and suspense. For those seeking the less familiar, the creatures of the mid-Devonian are passable, between giant four-meter-long sea scorpions and early amphibians on land and gigantic predatory fish like Dunklosteus in the oceans, and then there's always the singular (if diminutive) animals of the early Cambrian as preserved in the Burgess Shale.

The History of Dinosaur Comics

2009-05-04T23:49:00.000+08:00

A genuine dinosaur comic is a rare thing. A true dinosaur comic is something unique, unblemished by human characters.

So writes comic book artist Steve Bissette in his history of dinosaurs in comic books. The essay appeared in the graphic novel bringing together the first six issues of Paleo: Tales of the Late Cretaceous, but it also was published in nine pieces over at Palaeoblog along with pictures from the comics mentioned in the essay.

It is worth reading if you are a fan of comic books or dinosaurs in general.

Coelophysis bauri

2009-04-15T00:20:00.003+08:00

Artist: Gary Staab
Medium: Acrylic on Masonite
Date:1997
Dimensions: 16-1/2" W x 10-3/4" H

Jurassic Jungle

2009-03-30T14:36:00.001+08:00

Jurassic Jungle is a Massively Multi player Online Role Playing game where YOU are in control of your destiny. The unique world of Jurassic Jungle is ever-changing Rise to the top of your foes with PVP. Defend your Excavation from raiders, devote your career to a life of strength and power, or join in the ranks of the few that balance the economy of the universe YOU decide.

Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear (1998)

2009-03-28T23:46:00.001+09:00

Hardback cover blurb

It’s the year 1947, and nobody’s interested in dinosaurs anymore. Less than fifty years after Professor Challenger’s famed journey to the Lost World, America’s last dinosaur circus is closing down… but the adventure of a lifetime is about to begin. In a dramatic change of pace, multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction master Greg Bear, author of Moving Mars, Anvil of Stars and Queen of Angels, presents a lavishly illustrated thriller that is certain to become a new classic of adventure beyond time…

DINOSAUR SUMMER

Peter Belzoni is dreading summer in Manhattan. Then his father, photojournalist Anthony Belzoni, offers the youth a job, and a byline in National Geographic… and a trip to South America. For Lothar Gluck Circus, once the world’s foremost dinosaur attraction, has gone bankrupt. Left behind is a menagerie of avisaurs, centrosaurs, and ankylosaurs, as well as one predatory raptor named Dagger. And now two filmmakers and the circus trainer plan to return the giants to the wild – with Peter and his dad chronicling the odyssey for Geographic. The task seems impossible. Many have died trying to bring beasts out of the Lost World, the plateau of El Grande in Venezuela, but nobody has ever attempted to transport nearly a dozen full-grown, multi-ton prehistoric creatures across continents, down rivers, through jungles, and up a mountain that has been isolated for 70,000,000 years…

The trek will strain the technologies of trains, cargo ships, barges, trucks… en route lurk robbers and hostile, trigger-happy soldiers… and each miles toward freedom excites Dagger toward an unstoppable, primal killing frenzy. When the unthinkable threatens to strand Peter and the rest of the crew in an uncharted realm, four modern Americans will face all the unknown dangers, mysteries, and terrors of El Grande…

My thoughts

Peter Belzoni gets to live out every boy’s dream: He will accompany his father on an adventure to a remote plateau in Venezuela where dinosaurs still roam. It’s a hell of a way to spend summer break.

It turns out that the Lost World discovered by one Professor Challenger is real. But in the 30 or so years since the discovery, things haven’t gone well. The Lost World was exploited for profit, and many of its animals were captured for zoos and circuses. While the public was at first captivated by the live dinosaurs, it soon lost interest as the fad came and went. King Kong, shot with real dinosaurs, was a box-office flop, and the last dinosaur circus is closing down. The owner of the circus, Lothar Gluck, wants to return his dinosaurs to the Lost World, now a protected sanctuary. Peter and his father will accompany the expedition, but after a bad turn of events, they’ll find themselves stranded in the Lost World, where things far more deadly than dinosaurs roam.

Dinosaur Summer is an unofficial sequel to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World from Greg Bear, a writer better known for hard sci-fi. It’s a fun read that’s really meant for younger audiences. The illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi, while excellent, reinforce that fact. The book is a tribute to the filmmakers that Bear grew up with – stop-motion pioneers Ray Harryhousen and Willis O’Brien, and King Kong creators Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. In fact, all four have major roles in the novel.

A couple critics have complained that Dinosaur Summer was Bear’s overt attempt to write a novel that would be turned into a movie. And yes, it’s true the book was published while Jurassic Park was still all the rage (although, contrary to the cover blurb, the book doesn’t feature a “raptor,” but rather an allosaurus descendant referred to as a “venator”). I think this novel was a labor of love for Bear, an attempt by the author to recapture part of his childhood. It’s light, breezy entertainment and should be accepted as such.

Trivia

Unlike in Doyle’s original novel, there are no ape men or Ice Age mammals roaming Bear’s lost world. However, there are several new creatures not known in the fossil record. Bear imagines a lost world where evolution doesn't stand still, so while there are dinosaurs that have changed very little in 65 million years, there are also animals that have evolved no where else, most noticeably the book’s villain, the Stratoraptor,

The author's web site is http://www.gregbear.com.

The illustrator, Tony DiTerlizzi, is a well-known children's book illustrator. His web site includes several examples of his work, but nothing from Dinosaur Summer, unfortunately..

Dinosaur Summer won the first Endeavor Award, a science fiction award for writers from the Pacific Northwest.

Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick (2002)

2009-03-28T23:42:00.000+09:00

Hardback cover blurb

Paleontologist Richard Leyster has achieved professional nirvana: a position with the Smithsonian Museum plus a groundbreaking dinosaur fossil site he can research, publish on, and learn from for years to come. There is nothing that could lure him away – until a disturbingly secretive stranger named Griffin enters Leyster's office with an ice cooler and a job offer. In the cooler is the head of a freshly killed Stegosaurus.

Griffin has been entrusted with an extraordinary gift, an impossible technology on loan to humanity from unknown beings for an undisclosed purpose. Time travel has become a reality millions of years before it rationally could be. With it, Richard Leyster and his colleagues can make their most cherished fantasy come true. They can study the dinosaurs up close, in their own time and milieu.

Now, suddenly, individual lives can turn back on themselves. People can meet, shake hands, and converse with their younger versions at various crossroads in time. One wrong word, a single misguided act, could be disastrous to the project and to the world. But Griffin must make sure everything that is supposed to happen does happen – no matter who is destined to be hurt... or die.

And then there's Dr. Gertrude Salley – passionate, fearless, and brutally ambitious – a genius rebel in the tight community of "bone men" and women. Alternately both Leyster's and Griffin's chief rival, trusted colleague, despised nemesis, and inscrutable lover at various junctures throughout time, Salley is relentlessly driven to screw with the working mechanisms of natural law, audaciously trespassing in forbidden areas, pushing paradox to the edge no matter what the consequences may be. And, when they concern the largest, most savage creatures that ever lived, the consequences may be terrifying indeed.

My thoughts

Few dinosaur novels came out with as much promotion as Bones of the Earth received when it was released in 2002 (the Jurassic Park novels being an obvious exception). Michael Swanwick already had won the Hugo award in 2000 for his short story, “Scherzo with Tyrannosaur,” which was something of early incarnation of “Bones of the Earth.” The publisher, Eos (a division of HarperCollins), heavily advertised the book though its web site, even allowing web users to e-mail a series of dinosaur-themed short stories to friends and family.

Bones of the Earth lived up to the hype. It’s easily one of the best dinosaur novels ever written. The story focuses on three protagonists: paleontologist Richard Leyster; his occasional lover Gertrude Salley, a woman who doesn’t like playing by the rules; and Griffin, Gertrude’s occasional lover and the man in charge of enforcing the rules. A mysterious race of beings has given humanity the gift of time travel, but there are complications. It turns out changing the past isn't so hard. Griffin’s job is to ensure that history stays history or the gift will be taken away. That’s not so easy, especially when creationist terrorists are determined to prove themselves right at all costs, and when Gertrude has plans of her own.

To give away more would be spoiling the fun of the novel. Bones of the Earth takes a little time to get going. It’s not until about halfway through the book that a story starts to materialize. But it’s a wonderful story, filled with believable characters and intriguing speculation about dinosaur ecology. The prose is a little lazy – sometimes the book reads more like a movie script than a novel. Yet that’s the only shortcoming I can come up with about this excellent work.

Trivia

The cover art for "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1999) features the author with his wife.

A novel excerpt is available at the author's web site: http://www.michaelswanwick.com.

Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker (1995)

2009-03-28T23:37:00.001+09:00

Hardback cover blurb

A pair of fierce but beautiful eyes looks out from the dull green undergrowth. The eyes follow every movement in the great herd of plant-eating dinosaurs that mills around the open meadows, moving back and forth with the rapid scanning of a hunter who is thinking about everything she sees. She is an intelligent killer…

So begins one of the most extraordinary novels you will ever read. The time is 120 million years ago, the place is the plains of prehistoric Utah, and the eyes belong to one of the most unforgettable heroines you will ever meet. Her name is Raptor Red, and she is a female Utahraptor dinosaur.

Raptor Red’s tale begins with tragedy. She and her mate are stalking prey, a giant astrodon feeding in a nearby meadow. They approach silently and attack with deadly force. But at the moment of triumph, something goes terribly wrong and Raptor Red’s mate is killed. It is the beginning of a yearlong odyssey of survival, a thrilling story told by leading paleontologist Robert T. Bakker. Now, in Raptor Red, he dramatizes his revolutionary theories in a one-of-a-kind tale.

Raptor Red strikes out on her own, and before long she has rejoined her sister’s clan. Together they will hunt and devour iguanodons, brave a monstrous storm and the ensuing flash flood, migrate toward the western ocean to escape powerful predators, and eventually move north to a snowy mountain region in a desperate attempt to escape the threat of the deadly acrocanthosaurs.

At the same time, Raptor Red must obey nature’s command to find a new mate. But when a bold and graceful young male presents himself, she is stymied by her conflicting loyalties to her sister’s brood and her own powerful impulses to mate and produce chicks of her own. On a snowy mountaintop in the frozen north, Raptor Red’s search for a new home and a new mate will culminate in a thrilling climax.

Painting a rich and colorful picture of her lush, exotic prehistoric world, the novel is convincingly told from within Raptor Red’s mind, revealing the powerful instincts and Darwinian forces that shape her remarkable consciousness. Her story is filled with a unique cast of characters that includes a white pterodactyl, a giant prehistoric crocodile, a small furry aegialodon, hulking astrodons, and an incredible range of other exotic creatures.

Raptor Red is a completely unique and utterly compelling story of a year in the life of a dinosaur – and is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.

My thoughts

The above cover blurb pretty much gives away the entire plot of the book, so there really isn’t any need to summarize it again. Raptor Red is told from the point of view of a female Utahraptor as she struggles to survive in her early Cretaceous world. Bakker, a famous paleontologist, is aiming for realism so this isn’t Watership Down with talking dinosaurs instead of rabbits. His animals behave more or less like the real thing, although Raptor Red herself comes across as a bit too smart and emotional at times.

One result of Bakker’s approach is that Raptor Red’s story is pretty simple as far as novels go. There are no plot twists or any attempts at grand themes. It’s simply a tale about an animal living in her environment. The exotic nature of the setting keeps the novel from becoming trite after the first few chapters, and Bakker’s quirky sense of humor comes across in several passages.

More than anything, Raptor Red serves as a vehicle for Bakker to give science lessons in a user-friendly format. The paleontologist is well-known for championing the idea of active, warm-blooded dinosaurs. It probably should come as no surprise then that the very first illustration in the novel features Raptor Red on a snowy mountainside, a place you wouldn’t find cold-blooded reptiles. Many of Bakker’s more radical theories are far from universally accepted, but other than in a few places, he doesn’t really delve into them.

Chances are you will still find Raptor Red in the science fiction section of your local bookstore, the paperback sporting a holographic cover. The book has had a remarkable shelf life for a work of paleofiction. It’s worth picking up a copy if you’re a fan of dinosaurs.

Trivia

There seemed to be a time, not long ago, when every TV dinosaur documentary had to feature at least one interview with Bakker. He is instantly recognizable with his beat-up cowboy hat and his long hair and beard. He also served as the inspiration for the character of Dr. Robert Burke in the movie The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Burke meets a rather nasty end in the jaws of a T. rex in the film.

The Utahraptor was co-discovered by paleontologist James Kirkland, who has also authored a work of dinosaur fiction. He co-wrote the Star Trek novel First Frontier with Diane Carey.

Return to Eden by Harry Harrison (1988)

2009-03-28T23:35:00.002+09:00

Note: This is the final book of the West of Eden trilogy, starting with West of Eden. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t read the first book, reviewed below.

Paperback cover blurb

In West of Eden and Winter in Eden, master novelist Harry Harrison broke new ground with his most ambitious project to date. He brought to vivid life the world as it might have been, where dinosaurs survived, where their intelligent descendants, the Yilane, challenged humans for mastery of the Earth, and where the human Kerrick, a young hunter of the Tanu tribe, grew among the dinosaurs and rose to become their most feared enemy. Working in collaboration with an international team of scientific experts, Harrison created a believable, richly detailed world rivaling Frank Herbert’s Dune and Jean Auels’s The Clan of the Cave Bear in the majesty of its scope and conception.

Now, in Return to Eden, Harrison brings the epic trilogy to a stunning conclusion. After Kerrick rescues his people from the warlike Yilane, they find a safe haven on an island and there begin to rebuild their shattered lives. But with fierce predators stalking the forests, how long can these unarmed human outcasts hope to survive? The small band of humans have no choice but to confront their fate head on. And, of course, Kerrick cannot forget Viante, his implacable Yilane enemy. She’s been cast out from her kind, under sentence of death, but how long will her banishment last? For her strange attraction to Kerrick has turned into a hatred even more powerful than her instincts – an obsession that compels her to hunt down Kerrick and kill him.

My thoughts

Return to Eden is the “threequel” that can be easily skipped without any worries that you have left the story arc started in West of Eden incomplete. Most of the plot threads are resolved in the second book of the series, Winter in Eden. The result is the characters in Return to Eden have nothing to do, and the book lacks any real plot, instead reading like a grossly bloated epilogue of the first two novels. Kerrick, having made the world safe for humanity, now focuses on raising his family and finding a home for his tribe. The Daughters of Life slowly build their peaceful society in the Amazon. And Viante, now an outcast, plots her revenge. These separate storylines are drawn out over a tedious 400 pages, coming together in the end in a whopping anticlimax.

By now the alternate world of the Yilane has lost its charm, and the lack of any real story makes this book a difficult one to read through to the end. The science, which was dated when West of Eden was first published six years previously, was even more dated when Return to Eden hit bookstores. And Harrison seems to have lost interest in the setting he created. The novel feels like it was written mainly to fulfill a contractual obligation to the publisher to turn out a trilogy. Unless you have a burning desire to learn about the ultimate fates of many of the characters to the first two books, there is no reason to pick up Return to Eden.

Trivia

The entire trilogy was recently republished, although I’ve never had any trouble finding the original books in used bookstores.

The author’s web site is www.harryharrison.com

Return in Eden has a short Wikipedia entry.

Winter in Eden by Harry Harrison (1986)

2009-03-28T23:35:00.001+09:00

Note: This is the second book of the West of Eden trilogy, starting with West of Eden. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t read the first book, reviewed below.

Paperback cover blurb

TWO BOLD CULTURES STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL…

WINTER IN EDEN

Harry Harrison, an acknowledged master of imaginative fiction, broke new ground in West of Eden. He brought to vivid life the world as it might have been, where dinosaurs survived, where their intelligent descendants challenged humans for mastery of Earth, where a young hunter named Kerrick grew among the dinosaurs and rose to become their most feared enemy.

Now, the awesome saga continues in Winter in Eden… A new ice age threatens Earth. Facing extinction, the dinosaurs must employ their mastery of biology to swiftly reconquer human territory. Desperately, Kerrick launches an arduous quest to rally a final defense for humankind. With his beloved wife and young son, he heads north to the land of whale hunters, east into the enemy’s stronghold, and south to a fateful reckoning with destiny.

Not since Dune has there been a work of such majestic scope and conception – a monumental epic of passion, courage and triumph.

My thoughts

Winter in Eden starts almost immediately after the events of the first book, with the humans celebrating their victory in driving the Yilane from their shores. Kerrick, however, is troubled with the knowledge that it will be a short-lived celebration. The Yilane will return in full force, and despite their initial success, the Stone Age humans still are no match for the technologically superior reptiles. So Kerrick takes off on a journey to the Yialne homeland, hoping to find some way of single-handedly turning back their invasion.

Meanwhile, the Yilane Vinate is plotting her revenge against Kerrick, and hopes to lead the invasion force that will reclaim the lost territories. And while all this is happening, a group of peace-loving Yilane flee to the Amazon basin, where they seek to found a society radically different from that of the rest of their xenophobic species. Once there, they make a surprising discovery.

Winter in Eden is an entertaining sequel that nonetheless suffers from some of the “been there, done that” syndrome that plagues most sequels. This time, however, the story lets the reader to explore a larger portion of the world Harrison created, allowing the exotic setting to remain fresh. The story itself isn’t as well-paced as the one in the first book, so even though Winter in Eden is 100 pages shorter, it feels like a longer read. And the author had to once again rely on a dues ex machina ending to resolve the desperate situation he put his humans in. Many of the problems with the science in the first book remain in the sequel, although Harrison does introduce some interesting twists in evolution this time around.

Nitpicking aside, Winter in Eden remains a worthy follow-up to West of Eden. Most of the plot threads started in the first book are resolved in the sequel, so even if you never read the third book in the trilogy, you won’t be left feeling the story is incomplete.

Trivia

The entire trilogy was recently republished, although I’ve never had any trouble finding the original books in used bookstores.

The author’s web site is www.harryharrison.com

Winter in Eden has a short Wikipedia entry.

West of Eden by Harry Harrison (1984)

2009-03-28T23:32:00.000+09:00

Paperback cover blurb

IMAGINE THE WORLD AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN…

THE WORLD WEST OF EDEN

From a master of imaginative storytelling comes an epic tale of the world as it might have been, a world were the age of dinosaurs never ended, and their descendants clashed with a clan of humans in a tragic war for survival.

It is the tale of Kerrick, a young hunter who grows to manhood among the dinosaurs, escaping at last to rejoin his own kind. His knowledge of their strange customs makes him the humans’ leader, the dinosaurs’ most feared enemy.

My thoughts

West of Eden is the start of a trilogy of novels set on an alternate earth where the dinosaurs never went extinct and have survived to the modern day. The asteroid (or comet) that killed off the great reptiles missed entirely, so mammals never got the chance to take over. One group of reptiles, the mosasaurs, have evolved into the intelligent but cold-blooded Yilane. However, humans also have evolved in North America, where the chilly climate has allowed mammals to out-compete the cold-blooded dinosaurs of Harrison’s world. A coming ice age is forcing the Yilane to spread out to find new territory, resulting in a violent clash between the two species.

West of Eden is essentially a more literary take on One Million Years B.C., although Harrison would probably loathe hearing it described it as such. Nonetheless, through the genre of alternate history, he managed to figure out a way to place dinosaurs and cavemen side-by-side and still keep some measure of plausibility in the story (more on that in a bit). The plot isn’t as original as the setting, but it serves its purpose. Kerrick, the main character, is captured by the Yilane as a small boy after the intelligent reptiles wipe out his tribe. He grows up among them, learning their language, their customs and some of their technology, before he is rescued by the leader of another human tribe. The Yilane want to exterminate the humans, seeing them as little more than vermin. Only Kerrick’s special knowledge of the reptiles will be able to save the human race.

What works best about the novel is the Yilane. Harrison spent a great deal of time crafting the species and actually sought out the help of two scientists in designing their biology and their language. Females are dominant, with the males giving birth. Their entire society is defined by their cold-blooded physiologies: They have no concept of metallurgy, because their bodies can’t stand the heat of an open flame, so their civilization is instead based on millions of years of selective breeding and genetic manipulation of other organisms. They make fascinating villains. Still, from a purely scientific point of view, it should be pointed out that the Yilane are impossible given it takes a warm-blooded metabolism to support human-like intelligence. And the species seems a little too alien for anything that could have evolved on earth. Why Harrison chose to have them descend from mosasaurs rather than a land-dwelling dinosaur is a mystery to me.

Given the effort he put into his villains, it’s too bad Harrison didn’t spend any time fleshing out the rest of his alternate world. Instead of having dinosaurs evolve in new and weird forms after 65 million years of evolution, he just plops in creatures known from the fossil record, even if they were already extinct by the time the asteroid came crashing down. The same is true for the mammals, which have evolved into their ice age forms rather than into forms fitting the alien environments they live in. The dinosaurs of Harrison’s world also are depicted as sluggish and cold-blooded despite the fact that other science fiction writers had already embraced more modern theories about active dinosaurs by the time the author was penning West of Eden. Harrison shows a remarkable disinterest in paleontology given the subject matter of the novel, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of his research of the science came from reading a couple children’s books about dinosaurs.

That said, West of Eden still works as an old-fashioned adventure story with a good sense of wonder. The Yilane are appropriately evil (although they do have good individuals), and it’s easy to sympathize with the Stone Age humans who are trying to avoid genocide at the hands of a technologically superior race. The only let down story-wise is the deus ex machina ending. It’s a book worth reading, even if more science-literate readers will be left wishing Harrison had used a little more imagination in crafting his world.

Trivia

West of Eden was republished in 2004, although I’ve never had any trouble finding copies of the book in used-book stores.

The author’s web site is www.harryharrison.com

West of Eden has a Wikipedia entry.

Apparently, All the Interesting Dinosaurs Have Been Discovered

2009-03-16T20:29:00.001+09:00

By: Michael Swaim

As a child of Jurassic Park, I still get a rush of adrenaline when one of my pals from the San Diego Junior Archaeological Society calls me on the phone I had installed just for the purpose (it’s shaped like a Dimetrodon) to tell me about a new species.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I was informed by a decidedly glum Tommy Franklin (Junior Dino-Cadet, Pteranodon Unit) that scientists have just discovered a dinosaur dubbed “the cow of the Mesozoic era.” I was so upset I dropped and shattered the commemorative Dr. Hammond glass I’d been holding.

A cow?! Dinosaurs are meant to strike awe and fear into the hearts of man, not remind them to pick up some brisket on the way home. Lest you think I’m overreacting, above’s a side-by-side comparison of the Nigersaurus and some other, more deserving animals granted the title “Dinosaur.”

7 Dinosaurs You Could Take In A Fight

2009-03-16T20:20:00.001+09:00

By: Michael Swaim

So, you’ve traveled back to the age of the dinosaurs, and monsters that time forgot (but nerds remember) are towering over you. What’s a scientist, bumbling lab assistant or transdimensional God-being to do?

The important thing to remember is that ancient history is just like prison: to survive, you’ve got to either make someone your bitch, or become someone’s bitch. And unless you like the thought of gobbling down velociraptor dongs for 65 million years (and remember, there’s no fossil evidence indicating that they weren’t barbed), I suggest you start kicking some dino-tail.

Assuming your iPhone’s still got coverage, here’s a handy shopping list of dinosaurs to start beating with a mop handle posthaste.

7. Compsognathus

Why You Could Take It: Better known as “compys,” these are the little guys from Jurassic Park II that are basically the only dinosaurs in the movie the humans don’t consider a threat at all. In fact, in the video game version, you ate them for health. That’s how pathetic they are; they were relegated to the status of a power-up. To further their humiliation, Compsognathus were even the stars of their own childrens’ book, Pernix and Viva, which taught kids that it’s okay to be small as long as you have love (and don’t get devoured alive by bigger kids). Killing a mess of compys won’t do tons for your reputation, but at least the other dinosaurs will know you’re willing to crush those weaker than yourself.

Preferred Method of Dispatch: Boots. A club. Some dried mud. Basically anything you’ve got laying around.

Dino-Bonus: Compys are believed to have had a strong pack mentality, so there’s a good chance that if you can kill their leader the rest will follow you and do your bidding. Again, not really a formidable fighting force, but they could certainly fetch things for you or carry you around as a living throne.

6. and 5. Archaeopteryx and Microraptors

Why You Could Take It: These are a couple of winged dinosaurs, one with two wings and one with four. Together, they’re considered part of the evolutionary bridge between dinosaurs and birds. The downside of being an evolutionary bridge is that, while you’re good at getting creationists to shut the hell up, you’re not so good at any of the things your various component parts are good at.

It’s not like these are airborne stegasauri. No, these guys are basically dinosaurs with feathers instead of protective scales, who can’t fight and don’t really fly very well either. It’s thought that they probably just glided, and if they did fly, they did so clumsily. So in the end, you’re left with a dinosaur the size of a pigeon warbling drunkenly through the air a few feet off the ground.

Preferred Method of Dispatch: There’s something especially poetic about knocking one out of the air with a two-fisted hammer blow, stopping its vain quest for the sky and driving it back into the primordial ooze from whence it came.

Dino-Bonus: At four wings a pop, it should be fairly easy to gather enough feathers to make your own gliding outfit, or at the very least a kite.

4. Epidendrosaurus

Why You Could Take It: Take an Archaeopteryx and pluck all its feathers out, and you’ve basically got an Epidendrosaurus (plus you’ve given an Archaeopteryx a lot of pain; kudos!). Instead of flying, they climbed, probably to hide the fact that they look like boiled monkeys who are perpetually flipping you off as emphatically as possible. One of their finger-like claws was a third the length of their entire body, although in fact it’s not their middle fingers which were elongated, but their pinkies, meaning that they were also the fanciest dinosaurs of all time.

Preferred Method of Dispatch: Unlike the other birdlike dinosaurs on this list, Epidendrosaurus would actually be difficult to catch, because it didn’t waste all its time trying to fly like an asshole. You’d probably have to make a net or burn the trees down. I suggest the latter, as they fall pre-cooked.

Dino-Bonus: Their hands make perfect garden claws. Just be glad it wasn’t any other appendage that’s a third the length of their bodies.

3. Nigersaurus

Why You Could Take It: The Nigersaurus’ name means “Niger Lizard,” which qualifies it both as having the least imaginative dinosaur name ever and being only one letter away from having the most offensive dinosaur name ever. Although an herbivore, the Nigersaurus had 50 rows of teeth that got replaced at a rate of one a month per row. Luckily for you, those teeth were all oriented around a flapping, rubbery hole through which the animal sucked up its food, earning it the nickname “the vacuum of the dinosaur kingdom.” Not jet engine. Not Sarlacc pit. Vacuum.

Preferred Method of Dispatch: As many young boys have learned through erotic, but ultimately tragic run-ins with the pool intake, a vacuum is no place to wedge delicate body parts. But really, that’s all this thing’s got. Roll a grenade or two in front of it, let it suck them up and enjoy the grimy fireworks. If you didn’t bring grenades, you could always try clogging its vent with a few pinecones or some dead Compys.

Dino-Bonus: The Nigersaurus skull is believed to house the most teeth of any dinosaur, so they’re basically a one-stop shop for all your necklace and slingshot ammo needs.

2. Therizinosaurs

Why You Could Take It: Yes, they were huge (they can’t all be Compys). When you’re fighting dinosaurs, you’re going to have to down some big fellas. It’s all part of the game; ask Turok. In fact, Therizinosaurs grew up to 30 feet in length. Plus, they had giant claws and their name means “scythe lizard,” which conjures the image of a cloaked Grim Reaper with foot-long teeth and a reptilian tail.

Yet none of that changes the fact that these were basically giant turkeys. Or zebra-turkeys, depending on what tactic the illustrator used to try and make them look less awkward.

Preferred Method of Dispatch: As the geeky fatasses of the late Cretaceous, Therizinosaurs don’t have much going for them in a fight besides those ungainly claws and their ability to fall on you. My advice would be to hurl some rocks at their tiny heads, then run in a zig-zag pattern until they topple over or clothesline themselves on a low-hanging limb.

Then all it takes is one well-placed kick to their pipe cleaner-sized throats.

Dino-Bonus: They’re excellent stuffed with bread crumbs, apple chunks and cinnamon. For a crisp skin, bake at 400 degrees for 96 hours, or until golden brown. Serves everyone.

1. Carnotaurus

Why You Could Take It: The Carnotaurus is what happens when a T. Rex just kind of wanders off halfway through the dinosaur assembly process. While superficially resembling their more deadly cousins, Carneys are much smaller (only nine feet tall) have Gandalf-caliber eyebrows that they try to pass off as bull horns and were stuck with arms somehow even more retarded than Rex’s.

Not only are they smaller in comparison to their body (seriously, we’re talking Q-Tips here), but the hands are facing the wrong way, palms out, as if pathetically awaiting a high five that will never come, eternally left hanging by its less laughable counterparts.

Preferred Method of Dispatch: The Carnosaur is legitimately threatening, and, as its name suggest, carnivorous. It’s probably the highest level dinosaur you’re likely to kill without a minigun or a Timecop backing you up, so I’d only recommend tackling one after you’ve had plenty of experiencing wiping out the other species on this list. If you are going to go for it, my advice would be to capitalize on your natural advantages by challenging it to a sword fight or juggling competition. Then when its weeping in impotent frustration, stab it in the gut with a sharp stick.

Dino-Bonus: You can probably get away with telling the other dinosaurs you killed a T. Rex. They’re not that bright.

Final Note: Whatever you do, never fight this.

READING MATERIALS

2009-03-04T19:49:00.001+09:00

There are two college-level textbooks on dinosaurs, Dinosaurs: The Textbook by Spencer G. Lucas (Dubuque, IA:William C. Brown Publishers, 1994) and The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs by David E. Fastovsky and David B. Weishampel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Both are very good, well illustrated, and considerably livelier than the usual cut-and-dried textbooks.

A word of caution: There are many good books on dinosaurs. I have been able to list only a few of them here. However, there are also many very bad books on dinosaurs, especially books for children. These books are often written by people who do not know much about dinosaurs and who don’t mind making a few bucks by passing on their ignorance to others. Some years ago Don Lessem and other paleontologists formed the Dinosaur Society to safeguard against misinformation. If a book bears the seal of the Dinosaur Society, it will contain accurate information—otherwise, caveat emptor.

EXTINCTION?

2009-03-04T19:48:00.002+09:00

The smell of rotting flesh travels far on the breeze, through the woodlands and valleys a young male Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the first to pick up the odour and begins to follow the scent.

The dinosaurs were the lords of the Mesozoic. Their demise offers a deep lesson to us: The earth does not grant tenure. On the contrary, 99 percent of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. Even more sobering is the realization that several different hominid species have lived on Earth. Only one survives—Homo sapiens. We tend to think that the “sapiens” part of that name, our intelligence, gives us an edge that will allow us to escape the fate of other species. Well, we certainly have been successful in the short term—there are six billion of us on the planet, making us by far the most numerous species of large animal. By contrast, only about two thousand tigers survive in the wild. But the deepest lesson of the dinosaurs is the awful, incomprehensible depth of time. Sixty-five million years from now, will any of our descendants be alive? If so, will they be in any sense human? Will they remember any of our literature, our art, our science, our religions? After all, geological time shows that the only thing permanent is the fact of change. Evolution on Earth began with the first self-replicating molecules four billion years ago, and it will continue until the sun dies.

Subterranean by James Rollins (1999)

2009-02-23T16:27:00.002+09:00

Paperback cover blurb

TRAVEL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH…

to a place you never dreamed existed.

BENEATH THE ICE…

a hand-picked team of specialists makes its way toward the center of the world. They are not the first to venture into this magnificent subterranean labyrinth. Those they follow did not return.

OVER THE ROCKS… ACROSS THE YAWNING CAVERNS…BEYOND THE BLACK RIVER…

You are not alone.

INTO THE DARKNESS…

where breathtaking wonders await you—and terrors beyond imagining…Revelations that could change the world—things that should never be disturbed…

AT THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH IS THE BEGINNING.
KEEP MOVING…

toward a miracle that cannot be…toward a mystery older than time.

My thoughts

It takes a lot of nerve to write a lost world story set in the modern day, particularly one that borrows heavily from Journey to the Center of the Earth. But that’s exactly what we have in this techno-thriller.

Subterranean opens when the two main characters, paleoanthropologist Ashley Carter and expert caver Ben Brust, are recruited by the U.S. military to investigate an enormous cavern in Antarctica. There are archaeological ruins inside the cave dating back before humankind had evolved. Who -- or more precisely, what -- built the ruins? The answer lies deeper in the cave system. Carter and Brust will lead an expedition into the depths of the Earth to find out, a journey that a previous team attempted, but never returned.

The monsters populating Subterranean are not prehistoric survivors in the strictest since, but the plot and the setting rely heavily on paleontology, so I'm not bending the rules too much. The novel is about finding out what creatures inhabited Antarctica in the 30-million-year gap between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the coming of the ice. Many authors would've used aliens to explain away the pre-human ruins, and I will give Rollins credit for coming up with a more imaginative and more interesting idea.

That said, Subterranean isn't a good book by any stretch of the imagination, with boring characters and frequent action sequences that defy logic. The main villain will offend some readers because of the ethnic stereotyping, and the monsters will feel very familiar to anyone who has seen Jurassic Park. Still, for some reason, I liked it. Why? I'm not quite certain. Perhaps because it is an old-fashioned lost world story with an appropriate sense of mystery and wonder. Or maybe because I read it at a time in my life when I was looking for some popcorn-movie escapism, and it fit the bill.

Subterranean is a good "bad book" -- not one I could recommend if you prefer your literature to be, well, literary, but a fun one as long as you don't take it seriously. Be warned that it does weigh in at a whopping 430 pages, which is about 130 pages more than the author honestly needed to tell the story.

Trivia

James Rollins is the pen name for veterinarian and amateur spelunker Jim Czajkowski. He has written several thrillers where evolutionary biology and archeology are the main focus.

The author's web site is www.jamesrollins.com

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864)

2009-02-23T16:24:00.001+09:00

This is where paleo-fiction started.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne was first published in 1864. The famous story is the first major work of fiction to feature prehistoric creatures surviving to the modern day.* Ironically, there are no true dinosaurs in the novel, since the beasts hadn’t captured the public’s imagination at the time the book was written.

The novel is narrated by Axel, a young man who is apprenticing under his geologist uncle, Professor Otto Lidenbrock. The two come across a cryptic manuscript alleging that a passageway to the center of the Earth exists inside an extinct volcano in Iceland. It’s a crazy claim, but Lidenbrock is open-minded -- or gullible -- enough to mount an expedition to the volcano in hopes of making the greatest scientific discovery of his time. The two are joined by a guide, and together the trio descend into the bowels of the Earth, finding a lost world hidden for millions of years. Getting out will be a different matter, however.

That’s admittedly a short description of a novel that has had a profound influence on science fiction, but the story is so well-known that most people know it by heart. A Journey to the Center of the Earth has been adapted into comics, cartoons, video games and movies numerous times, although few have been faithful to the source material. The best-known adaptation is probably a 1959 movie starring James Mason and country gospel star Pat Boone. (Boone recently called evolution a “false religion” in an opinion column, apparently forgetting that he once starred in a dinosaur movie.)

The book itself is one of Verne’s more famous titles, but I’ve never really considered it one of his better works. It’s a bit sluggish in parts, and it lacks any particularly memorable characters such as Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The humor seems forced by modern standards, and the whiny narrator can come across as annoying rather than funny.

Nonetheless, it would be unfair of me to leave you with the impression that this is a bad book. While it may not be Verne’s best, it’s still fun. There is a terrific sense of wonder in it missing from most of today’s science fiction. Verne just throws wonder after wonder at the reader, so much so that it isn’t until you’re near the end of the novel that you realize it doesn’t have much of an actual plot. No adaptations have really captured the full extent of Verne’s imagination, so even if you have seen two or three versions of the story, you’re still likely to be surprised by what the explorers find in the underground world they discover.

Also, how many science fiction novels are there where the authors write so lovingly about geology? It’s a topic that most writers find drab compared to quantum physics or space travel, but is just as fascinating in its own right. Paleontology really isn’t the central focus of A Journey to the Center of the Earth, and it’s pretty clear from reading the novel that Verne considered it a branch of geology rather than a separate science. The prehistoric creatures here are just window dressing, although when Verne does use them, he does so for maximum effect.

The novel is available for free on many places on the Internet, including this Web site.

* Some of the above information about the novel came from Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction by Allen A. Debus.

DINOSAUR ARTIFACTS

2009-02-16T10:28:00.003+09:00

A gold figurine from Ashanti Province in Ghana, West Africa, and now located at the University of Pennsylvania Museum seems to depict a sauropod dinosaur. It was made as a trademark representing a particular family of gold dealers and resembles an Apatosaurus (bulky body, four legs, long tail), except for a relatively large head that looks more like a Tyrannosaurus. Some researchers see it as a representation of the Mokele-Mbembe. Margaret Plass, African Miniatures: The Goldweights of the Ashanti (London: Lund Humphries, 1967); “An Iguanodon from Dahomey,” Pursuit, no. 9 (January 1970): 15–16; Bernard Heuvelmans, Les derniers dragons d’Afrique (Paris: Plon, 1978), pp. 336–337.

In October and November 1924, an expedition led by archaeologist Samuel Hubbard and paleontologist Charles W. Gilmore explored the Havasu Canyon area on the Havasupai Indian Reservation west of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. Near where the Tobocobe Trail intersects Lee Canyon, they discovered pictographs on the red sandstone along the trail, one of which seems to show a bipedal ornithopod dinosaur. Oakland Museum, Discoveries Relating to Prehistoric Man by the Doheny Scientific Expedition in the Hava Supai Canyon, Northern Arizona (San Francisco, Calif.: Sunset Press, 1927); A. Hyatt Verrill, Strange Prehistoric Animals and Their Stories (Boston: L. C. Page, 1948).

In July 1944, German merchant Waldemar Julsrud discovered a cache of clay and stone figurines depicting dinosaurs, weird animals, humans, masks, and vessels on El Toro hill near Acámbaro, Guanajuato State, Mexico. By the mid-1950s, he had found some 33,500 separate objects, which filled his twelve-room mansion and, it is said, forced him to sleep in the bathtub. The collection is no longer open to the public, and it is suspected that only a fraction of the original number of objects exist now. Though apparently seven distinct artistic styles are represented in the collection, none are typical of artifacts found elsewhere in Mesoamerica. Most, if not all, of the dinosaur-like figures are fanciful or composite animals, though some have seen resemblances to the sauropod Brachiosaurus, the ornithopod Iguanodon, and an Ankylosaurus. Other figures resemble such extinct Pleistocene fauna as Camelop s. Radiocarbon dates for the artifacts range from 4530–1110 b.c., though in some cases, laboratories have retracted these findings upon learning of their controversial nature, referring to suspected contamination or even “regenerated light signals.” William N. Russell, “Did Man Tame the Dinosaur?” Fate 5 (February-March 1952): 20–27; Charles C. Di Peso, “The Clay Figurines of Acambaro, Guanajuato, Mexico,” American Antiquity 18 (1953): 388–389; William N. Russell, “Report on Acambaro,” Fate 6 (June 1953): 31–35; Ronald J. Willis, “The Acambaro Figurines,” INFO Journal, no. 6 (Spring 1970): 2–17; “The Julsrud Ceramic Collection in Acambaro, Mexico,” Pursuit, no. 22 (April 1973): 41–43; Charles H. Hapgood, Mystery in Acambaro (Winchester, N.H.: Charles H. Hapgood, 1973; Kempton, Ill.: Adventures Unlimited, 2000); Dennis Swift, Dinosaurs of Acambaro, http://www.omniology. com/3-Ceramic-Dinos.html.

In 1966, Peruvian physician Javier Cabrera obtained a rock on which was a picture of a fish, seemingly carved thousands of years ago. He found where it came from and eventually amassed a collection of thousands of volcanic rocks with pictures of dinosaurs, kangaroos, mastodons, winged humanoids, telescopes, open-heart surgery, and other fantastic images. Now housed in his Museo de Piedras Grabadas in Ocucaje, near Ica, Peru, Cabrera claims they were made 1 million– 250,000 years ago by an unknown culture. Others have accused Cabrera of producing the stones himself or at least turning a blind eye to local forgers. Ryan Drum, “The Cabrera Rocks,” INFO Journal, no. 17 (May 1976): 6–11; Javier Cabrera Darquea, El mensaje de las piedras grabadas de Ica (Lima, Peru: INTI-Sol, 1976); David Hatcher Childress, Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries of South America (Stelle, Ill.: Adventures Unlimited, 1986), pp. 29–31, 48–52; Michael D. Swords, “The Cabrera Rocks Revisited,” INFO Journal, no. 48 (March 1986): 11–13; Robert Todd Carroll, “Ica Stones,” in Skeptic’s Dictionary, http://skepdic.com/icastones.html.

DINOSAURS (LIVING)

2009-02-16T10:27:00.002+09:00

Until the 1980s, there was ongoing controversy (occasionally reflected in cryptozoological literature) over whether dinosaurs had a single ancestor or many different ones. In the current view, it appears that Richard Owen had it right in 1842 when he invented the name Dinosauria (“terrible reptiles”), based only on three known fossil genera that he thought had one common ancestor. The defining characteristic of the Dinosauria is now considered to be (along with a few other minor skeletal characteristics of the femur, humerus, ankle, and foot) a ball-andsocket joint at the hip, like the mammals, that supports the body weight and allows for an erect, bipedal gait in certain types. As a group, they flourished for 160 million years, from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (225–65 million years ago). The most primitive dinosaur yet found is the 3-foot-long Eoraptor, discovered in northwestern Argentina in 1991.

Not all huge fossil reptiles were dinosaurs. The flying pterosaurs, the marine plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, the diapsids Tanystropheus and Champsosaurus, the mammal-like therapsids— none of these are classed with the dinosaurs.

The Superorder Dinosauria is subdivided into two orders, the Saurischia and the Ornithischia.

The Saurischia included carnivorous, bipedal therapods such as Tyrannosaurus and the herbivorous, long-necked sauropodomorphs such as Apatosaurus. They had in common elongated necks, long second fingers, and skeletal cavities housing air-filled sacs connected to the lungs. It was this type of dinosaur that survived extinction at the end of the Cretaceous in the form of Birds.

The Ornithischia included dome-headed and horned cerapods (such as Iguanodon and Triceratops) and the armored thyreophorans (such as Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus). They shared key characteristics of the jaws and teeth that enabled them to chew plants efficiently.

Giganotosaurus may have been the largest carnivorous animal that ever lived on land. A theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Argentina that was first described in 1995, it was at least 42 feet from nose to tail tip. Vertebrae from a related species yet unnamed that was discovered in Patagonia in 2000 indicate an even greater length of 45 feet. The largest Tyrannosaurus rex was only 40 feet long.

At 110–120 feet, the herbivorous sauropod Seismosaurus of the Late Jurassic of New Mexico is the longest land vertebrate yet discovered, weighing in at 33 tons. Its tail alone was about 50 feet, and its head and neck were nearly that length. The Cretaceous sauropod Argentinosaurus of Patagonia may also have attained this size, though it is only known from vertebrae and limb bones. In late 1999, some vertebrae from a possibly even larger sauropod were discovered in southern Patagonia; preliminary estimates gave it a length of 167 feet.

Different species of dinosaurs went extinct throughout the Mesozoic, not just at the end of the Cretaceous. For example, more time elapsed between the death of the last Stegosaurus and the hatching of the first Tyrannosaurus than between the extinction of the last dinosaur and the birth of the first modern human.

There is no unambiguous evidence for dinosaur fossils after the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Dinosaur teeth mixed with mammalian bones in Paleocene deposits have been found in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, but it’s not clear whether they had originally come from earlier, dinosaur-bearing levels. Redeposition of older fossils into younger sediments by rivers or streams is not uncommon.

Surviving dinosaurs are not a zoological impossibility, especially in areas that have been geologically stable for the past 60 million years (such as Africa). Large dinosaurs that are coldblooded (ectothermic) would have a better time surviving in hot, equatorial regions than warmblooded (endothermic) animals with high metabolic rates. Ectotherms also require only 10 percent of the amount of food taken in by full endotherms. However, determining dinosaur energetics and thermal biology without living models is, at best, a speculative endeavor.

The two major types of African dinosaur in this section are the Mokele-Mbembe, which might be a surviving sauropod, and the Em ela- Ntouka, which some think might be a ceratopsian survivor such as Monoclonius. Both are known by many different local names. The others in the list are much less documented.

Mystery Dinosaurs

Em ela-Ntouka;

Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu;

Mokele-Mbem be;

Partridge Creek Beast;

Row;

Silwane Manzi.

SOUTH AMERICAN DINOSAURS

2009-02-16T10:26:00.002+09:00

Percy Fawcett

A few rumors of huge, amphibious beasts in South America are on record, but no local Indian names have surfaced.

In 1882, an odd, 40-foot saurian was killed on the Río Beni, El Beni Department, Bolivia. It was said to have two additional, doglike heads sprouting from its back, a long neck, and scaly armor. “A Bolivian Saurian,” Scientific American 49 (1883): 3.

The explorer Percy Fawcett mentioned dinosaur- like animals briefly on several occasions as occurring in the Río Guaporé area on the border of Bolivia and Brazil, in the Madidi region of La Paz Department in northwestern Bolivia, and in swamps around the Rio Acre in Acre State, Brazil. Percy H. Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett (London: Hutchinson, 1955).

In late 1907, Franz Herrmann Schmidt and Rudolph Pfleng allegedly encountered an aquatic, dinosaur-like monster, 35 feet long, in a swampy area in the forested swamps of Loreto Department, Peru. It had a tapirlike head “the size of a beer keg,” a snakelike neck, and heavy, clawed flippers. Their bullets seemed to have no effect on the animal. Franz Herrmann Schmidt, “Prehistoric Monsters in Jungles of the Amazon.” New York Herald, January 11, 1911.

In 1931, Swedish explorer Harald Westin saw a 20-foot lizard walking along the shore of the Rio Mamoré on the border of Brazil and Bolivia. It had an alligator-like head, four legs, and a body like a distended boa constrictor. Harald Westin, Tjugu års djungel- och tropikliv (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1933).

Leonard Clark heard rumors of an animal resembling a sauropod dinosaur from Peruvian Indians around the Río Marañón, Peru, in 1946. Leonard Clark, The Rivers Ran East (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1953).

In 1975, a Swiss businessman hired a seventy-five-year-old guide named Sebastian Bastos, who told him that the Amazonian Indians knew of animals 18 feet long that overturn canoes and kill humans. Bastos himself had survived an attack several years earlier. Liverpool Daily Post, January 3, 1976.

Australian Giant Monitor

2009-02-15T18:09:00.001+09:00

AUSTRALIAN GIANT MONITOR seen in 1979 by herpetologist Frank Gordon in the Wattagan Mountains, New South Wales. (William M. Rebsamen/Fortean Picture Library)

Unknown LIZARD of Australia.

Variant names: Burrunjor (in Northern Territory), Mungoon-galli, Murra murri (in the Blue Mountains), Whowie (in Riverina).

Physical description: Length, 20–30 feet or more.

Behavior: Attacks cattle.

Distribution: Northern New South Wales; Arnhem Land, Northern Territory; Cape York, Queensland.

Significant sightings: In 1975, a group of bushwalkers found large tracks and tail marks at the edge of the Wallangambe Wilderness in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.

On December 27, 1975, a farmer near Cessnock, New South Wales, saw a bulky, 30-foot monitor lizard moving through scrub brush. It was mottled gray in color, with dark stripes along the back and tail, and stood 3 feet off the ground.

In early 1979, herpetologist Frank Gordon was driving his Land Rover in the Wattagan Mountains in New South Wales south of Canberra when he saw a reptile 27–30 feet long by the side of the road. It rose up and ran away on all four legs into the neighboring woods.

In July 1979, cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy was called to a freshly plowed field by a farmer. Across the field were thirty or so tracks that seemed to have been made by an enormous lizard. While most of the tracks had been ruined by rain, Gilroy was able to make a plaster cast of one that had been preserved.

Possible explanations:

(1) The Perentie (Varanus giganteus), Australia’s largest lizard, grows to 8 feet long; some individuals might attain 10 feet. It is cream-colored, with dark-brown speckles, and it occurs from western Queensland to the coast of Western Australia.

(2) Surviving Megalania prisca, a 15- to 21- foot lizard that lived in central Australia in the Pliocene and Pleistocene (2 million–20,000 years ago). At 1,300 pounds, it weighed ten times as much as the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) and was probably an active predator and scavenger. Its teeth were nearly 1 inch long. At least some specimens had a sagittal crest.

Sources: Rex Gilroy, “Cessnock’s Fantastic 30 Ft. Lizard Monsters,” Strange Phenomena and Psychic Australian, March 1979; Rex Gilroy, “Australia’s Lizard Monsters,” Fortean Times, no. 37 (Spring 1982): 32–33; Rex Gilroy, “Giant Lizards of the Australian Bush,” Australasian Ufologist 4, no. 4 (2000): 17–20.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (2008 FILM)

2009-02-02T13:38:00.003+09:00

Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) is a Bostonian volcanologist whose 13-year-old nephew, Sean (Josh Hutcherson), is supposed to spend ten days with him. Trevor has forgotten that Sean is coming until he receives several messages from Sean's mother. When Sean's mother drops him off, she leaves Trevor with a box of items that belonged to Max, Trevor's brother and Sean's father, who disappeared 10 years before. Sean suddenly takes interest in what Trevor has to say after he tells him about his father, whom he never really had a chance to know. Trevor discovers in the box Max's old baseball glove, a yo-yo, and the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Inside the book Trevor finds notes written by his late brother. Trevor goes to his laboratory to find out more about the notes. There he realizes that he must go to Iceland to investigate for himself.

He intends to have Sean flown back to Canada but relents at Sean's protest and brings Sean along for the adventure. They start by looking for another volcanologist and find his daughter Hanna (portrayed by Anita Briem), the scientist having died years earlier. It turns out that he and Trevor's brother Max were Vernians, a small group who believe the works of Jules Verne to be fact. Hannah offers to help them climb up to the Stag Mountain which has suddenly started sending data again. While hiking the mountain, a lightning storm forces the three into a cave that collapses, leaving them trapped. The group then explores the cave looking for an exit, and they find it is an abandoned mine which was closed after an accident that killed 81 people. They then venture deep into the mine until they reach the end of the tunnels and enter to the bottom of a volcanic tube which is full of precious gems. As they are admiring the gems they realize the floor they're standing on is actually muscovite, a very thin rock formation. Due to their weight, the muscovite breaks and the group falls (for about 2 minutes) thousands of miles through the volcanic tube to the center of the earth, surviving only because the volcanic tube eventually turns into something like a "water slide" which drops them into a lake. There they find that the center of the earth is actually another world but in the same planet, "a world within our world", and they set to explore the place.

Along the way, they find evidence that someone was there 100 years previous. Trevor remarks that the instruments found are Lindenbrook's (a character from the book), hinting that his views of the events of the book being real are changing. They find some of Max's (Trevor's brother and Sean's father) things as well. While Trevor and Sean are going through what they've found, Hannah wanders off and unfortunately discovers Max's body. They bury him on the beach of the underground ocean. Trevor reads a letter to Sean found in Max's journal; they say their goodbyes and embrace.

Trevor figures that they must find a geyser that can send them to the surface, which is located on the other side of the underground ocean, or otherwise the temperature will raise up to 200 degrees, making it impossible to survive. They must reach the geyser in 48 hours or all of the water to create the geyser will have evaporated. They also figure that they must get out before the temperature rises past 135 degrees, which is the limit that the human body can withstand. They begin by crossing the underground ocean, and then the two adults become separated from Sean. Sean's guide is now a little bird who has been present since the trio entered the Center, and it takes him towards the river. After he goes through a path of floating magnetic rocks, he encounters a Tyrannosaurus and Trevor - who desperately is searching for him - finds him. The beast pursues him until he discovers that the ground beneath them is muscovite, the same type as earlier. The Tyrannosaurus falls through the muscovite, creates a massive hole and dies in the process. When they arrive at the geyser, it is all dried up. But they find water on the other side of a wall.

Trevor uses a flare to ignite the magnesium in the wall and causes a geyser to shoot them through Mount Vesuvius in Italy. When they destroy the vineyard of an Italian man, Sean gives him a diamond which he found earlier. Trevor sees that he has many more in his backpack, and he uses them to fund his brother's laboratory. Throughout the adventure, Hannah and Trevor gradually become close and even share a kiss. The film ends on the final day of Sean's visit with Trevor (and now Hannah). As he is leaving their new home, which was purchased with some of the diamonds Sean took from the cave, Trevor hands Sean a copy of the book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly, suggesting they could maybe hang out during Sean's Christmas break, alluding to a possible sequel

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm

2009-01-29T14:23:00.002+09:00

A third-person driving and shooting game, based on a popular "alternative" comic series by Mark Shultz. The game is a rail-shooter, similar to Rocket Science's earliest game Loadstar.

You find yourself in the so-called Xenozoic Age - after a cataclysm in 2020 A.D., mankind was forced to hide beneath the surface. Once it could come out again, it found the world terribly changed, with dinosaurs roaming freely once again. A mysterious mutant-like race, called the Grith, believe the cataclysm was caused by the upsetting of the natural balance. Now, the leader of the restored City in the Sea, Scharnhorst, is using old technology and disrupting the balance again. The Girth chose you, Jack Tenrec, and your partner Hannah Dundee, to rid the world of Scharnhorst. And you get to do it in a red '53 Cadillac with mounted machine guns.

While you're at the task, you must battle hungry, mean dinosaurs, but also be careful not to upset the balance of nature. Also, try not to upset your volcanic-energy fueled caddy by hitting too much obstacles along the way.

Graphics are a mix of 3D objects and environments and comic-like 2D sprites, but captures much of the original comic book's style.

Reign of Fire (PS2)

2009-01-26T23:39:00.002+09:00

The fiery premise of man versus dragon is lost in this movie-to-game license.

By Douglass C. Perry

US, October 23, 2002 - For a publisher looking for movie licenses, Reign of Fire is theoretically a perfect choice. It's got everything: A clear battle between two distinct foes -- brutally fierce, fire-breathing dragons, and a rag-tag group of post-apocalypse military rednecks angry, desperate and armed with enough fire-power to make a difference. But despite the Mad Max hints of outlaw tragic madness, the movie Reign of Fire went down in flames.

Which isn't the case with the game by the same name, BAM's second big movie-based game (the first being Driven). Reign of Fire is filled with every evolutionary phase of dragons you can imagine, and you get to fight them all. And then, later you get to fight as the dragons. Which all sounds good and fun. But Reign of Fire is a difficult game to recommend, since the development team never really crystallized the finer aspects of the gameplay, and as a result, players find themselves trapped in a series of military missions neither inspiring nr fun. Tedious and laborious, yes, but fun? That's arguable, at best.

Gameplay
Having finished playing Reign of Fire, I've re-checked my preview of the same game (from July 25), in which I had written rather glowingly about it. The feeling of playing as a dragon was really thrilling then (which was the focus of my preview), and it still is now. But the big change in my feeling toward this game comes down to execution. Nearly every aspect of the final version of Reign of Fire is delivered without a feeling of finished, polished exciting gameplay. Where I saw potential before, I now see missed opportunities, where I saw possibilities in the vehicular combat, I now see an unpolished combat system.

The premise has huge potential, in fact the concept is loaded, but the game's execution never really hits top gear, and it never really delivers the visceral impulse to freely play 'til the late night hours. It's not a total loss of a game, but Reign of Fire is neither great nor miserable. It's just a tick above average.

Following the theme from the movie, players start as part of a remaining human community, struggling to stay alive as a powerful breed of dragon grows rampant across the earth, feeding on humans in their quick ascension up the food chain. The Englishman Quinn and his followers have captured a castle in which they find a certain level of comfort and protection, and the American Van Zan and his military brigade of dragon killers have joined up with Quinn's people, but with a slightly different purpose. The game follows a thin outline of the movie at best, focusing instead on the straight up defense of their lands and offense movement against dragon attacks and upon their lair, respectively.

Reign of Fire plays like a lot of console-based military games, with objective-based missions and a recognizable tricks of the trade, such as a giving players variety of vehicles, scenarios, and numerous dragon types with which to fight. With nine human levels and nine entirely different dragon levels, Reign of Fire seems like a relatively large game, too. But starting with the training mission and moving into convoy, rescue, and collection missions, players find their main concern is not strategizing how to beat a level, it's getting to grips with the controls.

There are two controls setups, one for face buttons (simple) and the other for two analogs (advanced). In the human missions (using advanced controls), players use the left analog controller to move forward or backward, while the right analog aims the turret on the vehicle and also steers. This is an interesting, often confusing, sometimes frustrating mechanic, and it's at the very crux of the game. It functions like a first-person shooter in theory, and mimics Halo's vehicle controls, but it doesn't work as well. Or at the very least, it's a long learning curve to get to a level of comfort. On the flip side, the game isn't on rails, and it gives you full 3D views of the wide-open terrain, so you have nearly complete control. But with a mechanic such as this, which gives you such freedom, it has to be very tight, smooth and easy to use, and this isn't. It's a chore.

Given four vehicles -- dune buggies, fire trucks, pick-ups and tanks -- players roam the plain, fire-torn landscapes in search of dragons to kill. When the mechanic works best is when the vehicles move slower and more deliberately. The tank works best because it's slow enough to enable you to keep a focused line of fire on the constantly moving dragons, but as the vehicles decrease in size, the more difficult they become to control. While I truly enjoyed the freedom of movement, I cannot say, however, that I love this aiming system. Tracking faster flying dragons is challenging and if you're stuck in a flock of them -- and you haven't grown very accustomed to the controls yet -- you're in for a frustrating time.

It's really the dragons that are most interesting in this game. All the while you are defending or chasing dragons, they're circling and firing at you. They appear in several forms, not just the two I mentioned in my preview. The smallest of them are called Jackals, and they are wingless little creatures resembling Raptors. Apparently, as the dragons grow in size, they evolve from land-based creatures to massive winged beasts, which doesn't make too much sense because there are larger land-based dragons than some of the flying ones. The second land-based character is a massive, fledgling, fire-breathing dragon that quickly crawls around and exhumes deadly fire on you. There is a small, quick airborne dragon as well as a massive, monster vulture attacker as well. You will find variations on all of them as you progress through the game, and all are well modeled and textured.

But what it really comes down to is control and mission design. The game's controls aren't titillating, and depending on your patience level, they could very well be hateful. I felt that a slightly more interesting set of weapons, guided missiles, and a better tracking system would have assisted this aspect of the game greatly. I could throw some arguably painful camera issues in to boot, which there are, but I'll leave it that. And as for the level design, it's strict, by the book stuff: Rescue, defend, attack, repair, you know the drill. It just feels uninspired. It's also interesting to note that since I've been playing so many games in which there are various ways to beat a level, these kinds of recipe-style missions feel incredibly limited and restrictive.

On the other hand, the dragon levels are more fun to play. They control relatively well, with a bit of a learning curve, and they revolve around destroying a whole lot of stuff. Dragons deliver straight lines of fire for closer range attacks or they spout out long-distance fireball attacks. Dragons can also pick up human vehicles, which is a blast! They pick them up and drop them, a tactic around which a few levels are built. The dragon levels are undoubtedly more fun, yet still not explosively great -- just moderately good entertainment.

Reign of Fire makes adequate use of movie materials. It's a mixed bag of good expected stuff and missing stuff. For instance, while Matthew McConaughey's likeness and voice aren't available, the game features the likeness of Christian Bale is (he played the role of the leader of the UK forces in the movie). There are DVD-style extras, too, such as cutscenes from the movie, extra footage, and interviews with the director and footage showing the making of the movie.

Graphics
On the one hand, Reign of Fire shows visual promise, while on the other, it's incredibly stripped down and dull. Using grim, apocalyptic landscapes savaged by fire and destruction, the environments show essentially large polygonal stretches of land, with few details to cover them. The human structures are much more detailed, especially the military barracks, castle remains, and the vehicles themselves. The texture palettes generally show earthen colors revolving around the colors brown and tan, and the special effects, for the most part, are also spare.

The dragon models and textures, however, are excellent looking. The animations are nearly perfectly implemented. They don't move quickly, but they flow smoothly and with a captivating, unearthly grace. It's just cool watching the dragons move and to see them up close.

The fire particle effects are also great. The special effect isn't the best fire in the world, but the blazing stuff appears in various forms, from small patches on the ground to giant walls of it. Also, streaming from the dragons' mouths in either jet form or in fireball form, the fire looks even better. The dragons' fireballs rumble the Earth with varying degrees of impact, too.

Sound
For the most part, Reign of Fire neither offends nor excites with its sound qualities. The human voices, no matter how loud you adjust them (effects, music and voices can equally be adjusted in options), are low, as if badly mixed or produced into the game.

The sound effects are adequate, though several of the sampled effects are used ones. I don't know how many times I have heard the special effect, used here to simulate a dragon casting down a spray of fire, in a movie or TV show. The music, however, does have a lingering affect, and I enjoyed the energetic, soaring score it was given.

Closing Comments
Reign of Fire is one of those games I wanted to like more than I did. I truly believe that all sorts of cool dragon games could be made, but that few have really nailed it. The closest one, to me, was Drakan: The Ancients' Gates, which was more of an action-adventure game that included a dragon.

Bam's game is unfortunate in a couple of ways. First, the movie didn't light up the box offices, which means that most people are going to think that the game is just like the movie. And while I find it hard to entirely dispute that, if you can bear through the human missions, you may very well enjoy the dragon missions. But the linear missions, oftentimes frustrating controls and general dreariness of the gameplay, which makes it all feel more like chore than entertainment, may prevent you from that entirely.

In the end, Reign of Fire is a very, very average game, with a few little gems that just barely lift it from the norm.

5.0 Presentation
Average delivery. Better than decent load times, OK, menus, not incredibly high production value movie clips.

6.5 Graphics
While the dragon models and textures are excellent, the rest of the game isn't so visually impressive.

5.0 Sound
Megh. Not great, not horrible, just there.

6.0 Gameplay
Pretty good dragon levels, pretty mediocre human levels (which you have to play to get to the dragon levels).

6.5 Lasting Appeal
Eighteen levels, and pretty interesting dragon ones at that. But I don't foresee playing this game more than once.

Dinosaur Battles Full Version Download By Knowledge Adventur

2009-01-25T23:23:00.003+09:00

Dive into real-time 3-D action with fighting dinosaursCustomize different dinosaurs with thousands of fighting power combinations Six interactive, ever-changing levelsUse logic, problem-solving and strategy skills.

What a game and what a game idea. I really impressed with this game. Here we can control the world's most dangerous dinosaurs. Dinosaur Battles is an awesome fighting game. I am crazy to play this game. - By Connie

We have to build-up our dinosaur army, take over our enemies and become the dinosaur fighting champion. It has outstanding and unbelievable features. I am very delighted to suggest this game to all of my friends. - By Catherine

Dinosaur Battles is a different and challenging game. In my view, this is the best way to get more fun and more enjoyment. What can I say about this game, completely rocking and terrific!! - By Franz

Windows 2000/XP/VistaProcessor: PII 266 MHzDirectX 8.064 MB RAMFree hard drive space: 400 MB3D Accelerator with Hardware T&L and Pixel Shading 16MBDirectX-compliant Sound Card

Rifts® WB 27: Adventures in Dinosaur Swamp™

2009-01-24T23:20:00.001+09:00

Kevin Siembieda joins forces with the intrepid Todd Yoho to present more descriptions, dinosaurs, and adventure in Dinosaur Swamp.

Dinosaurs the likes of which have never been recorded in our fossil record.

Dinosaurs with powers nobody would ever have expected.

New menaces, villains, mysteries, struggles and adventures.

Written by Todd Yoho and Kevin Siembieda.

Spectacular cover by Scott Johnson.

160 pages. Cat. No. 866.

TWG Review: Rifts World Book 26: Dinosaur Swamp

2009-01-24T23:18:00.000+09:00

Overall score:

In the complex, chaotic world of Rifts, Dinosaur Swamp is refreshingly simple: there are no alien intelligences, no evil empires, and no convoluted historical recreations. In this sense it gets back to the good old days of the core Rifts book, by defining its corner of the world based on post-apocalyptic speculation instead of stereotyped regional memory. Dinosaur Swamp begins with the simple premise that unchecked nature has reclaimed the southern states, and goes on from there to create a brutal wilderness where human survivors maintain a precarious position in the circle of predators and prey.

Is it cheesy for the whole area to be overrun by dinosaurs? Sure, but no cheesier than anything else in the game, even with the unexplained magical abilities manifested by many of them—some allosaurs, for example, can become invisible as long as they remain motionless. Rifts-era biologists disagree as to whether the dinosaurs have always had such powers, or if they mutated in the magic-rich environment, or if they simply evolved that way through some kind of super-fast genetic defense mechanism. Regardless of their origins, the dinosaurs thrive in the swamps and forests of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas as the dominant species, held back from the rest of North America by the Appalachian mountains.

Everything about the area says “primitive.” Far from the enormous technological empires that dominate so many World Books, Dinosaur Swamp is populated by regressed tribes of barbarians. The largest city in the region, known as Char, is still tiny by Coalition standards and is more of a trading camp than anything else. Even the level of magic technology is low, with very few of the “big” magic OCCs like Shifters and Line Walkers, and a preponderance of Eco-Wizards instead. Eco-Wizardry is an interesting form of Techno-Wizardry in which you enchant the bones and teeth and hides of animals to create weapons and armor. Combine this with some pretty interesting plant-based resources (such as the oddly-capitalized SteelTrees) and you get a culture that can work entirely with caveman-level technology and still manage to go toe-to-toe with giant MDC monsters.

So let’s sum up the book’s good points: it has a solid post-apocalypse base mixed with a lot of cool flavor perfect for a book called Dinosaur Swamp. It avoids some of the bad Riftsclichés while embracing some of the good ones. It offers a unique setting with plenty of new bad guys and fun characters. On those grounds, I would recommend it.

Now for the book’s bad points: what it really lacks, if I may condense the problem into a single word, is urgency. There’s no pressing need to go there—no vital prize to be gained or evil to be destroyed. There are plenty of ruins to explore (the book makes special mention of NASA and Disney World), so you could mount an expedition for purposes of salvage or scientific exploration, but there are no great evils to destroy, nefarious villains to fight, or all-powerful artifacts to recover—just a lot of dinosaurs to hunt and man-eating plants to escape from. This is not to say that such things don’t exist at all in Dinosaur Swamp, merely that the book doesn’t mention them; a GM will have to do a lot of that work himself.

If you do a campaign that starts in Dinosaur Swamp, completely populated by barbarians, the problem gets even stickier. Barbarians have no interest in any of the tech buried in the ruins, and so the games could quickly devolve into dinosaur hunts and tribal wars with no escalating conflict—the book doesn’t contain so much as a war-hungry barbarian chief with dreams of conquest. Once again, all of the heavy lifting will have to be done completely by the GM and he characters.

In short, the book contains a great setting with very little story to back it up; this is bad on one hand because it leaves so much work for the GM, but good on the other hand because it gives GMs a wide-open palette to play with. If you can think of a good reason to visit,Dinosaur Swamp is a wonderful edition to the Rifts line; if you can’t, it’s just an interesting footnote to the rest of the world.

Written by Fellfrosch on September 13th, 2004

Rifts® World Book 26: Dinosaur Swamp™

2009-01-24T23:07:00.003+09:00

This book will surprise and delight readers, as a portion of the east coast of North America is outlined and described for the first time. The imagination of Todd Yoho will take players to places they never imagined even existed. And if you're looking for dinosaur and general weirdness . . . look no farther.

Mega-Damage Dinosaurs galore.

Mutant Dinosaurs and Random Mutations.

New O.C.C.s, including Wilderness Barbarians, Eco-Wizards, and others.

The secret of the Swamps – Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas all outlined.

More world background, adventure and adventure ideas.

Cat No. 862
Page Count: 160 pages.
Cover by: John Zeleznik.
Interior Art: Perez, Dubisch, Okamura and Drunken Style Studio.
Written by: Todd Yoho.

Breathing Life into Tyrannosaurus rex

2009-01-23T13:54:00.001+09:00

By analyzing previously overlooked fossils and

by taking a second look at some old finds,

paleontologists are providing the first glimpses

of the actual behavior of the tyrannosaurs

by Gregory M. Erickson

Download PDF

DINOSAUR PLANET: BRONCOSAURUS REX REVIEW -- JULY 2, 2002

2009-01-22T20:08:00.002+09:00

Scenic New Savannah

By Steven Creech, Exec. Chairman

**Available at FRP Games for only $15.95!!**

This review is for Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex by Goodman Games. This d20 core rulebook is a 96-page excursion to an alien world where dinosaurs exist. It retails for $20.00.

Broncosaurus Rex has some good points to it, especially if you are a fan of dinosaurs and want a d20 alternative to the usual magical fantasy fare. The basic premise in this setting is that a resource hungry and culturally divided Earth is colonizing space and has discovered Cretasus. The year is 2202 and two major factions exist as a result of the Civil War, the Federation Union of Planets and the Confederacy. The Federation, which is the more technologically advanced culture, wants to exploit the world for its natural resources and leave it barren. The Confederacy, however, wishes to colonize Cretasus and live in peaceful co-existence with the indigenous life, some of which is intelligent (yes, smart dinosaurs).

There are six possible character classes to choose from, but only one race - human. Bronco Riders are your stereotypical cowboys except that dinosaurs are their mounts as opposed to horses. Machinists are tinkerers and inventors, coming up with all manner of contraption. Soldiers are the fighters of this world with a good understanding of tactics. A Spy also falls into stereotype with espionage, stealth and disguise as their forte. Two-Fisters are the rough and tumble warriors who prefer using their fists rather than fancy weaponry. These guys are tough as nails. Finally, the Wild One is a type of ranger/hermit who prefers the company of dinosaurs to his fellow man.

Most of the existing skills and feats from the Player's Handbook are available for use, but some have been modified. This book also comes with its share of new ones that, for the most part, are balanced and have a good purpose. New skills include Drive, Pilot, and Repair Device. New feats include Death Wish, Dinopathy, Dinosaur Presence, and Great Lover, to name a few.

Of course in 2022, equipment will be considerably different. Broncosaurus Rex does a great job listing, describing and giving balanced stats for such equipment.

Chapter three is all about the dinosaurs of Cretasus and how they are actually intelligent and social creatures. True paleontologists will probably take issue with how the dinosaurs are presented statistically and described, but let's face it, this is a game designed for fun, not a scientific journal. The different listings are one of the real strengths to this book and complement the listings from the Monster Manual nicely.

The remainder of the book contains information for GMs to develop adventures on Cretasus. The various faction names are listed, the motivations of the settlers and major political issues discussed, and the treasures that may be found are covered. Another nice touch is the One Hundred Adventure Ideas that give you plenty of excellent adventure hooks.

In conclusion, Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex is an excellent choice for the dinosaur lover. It represents a very good alternative d20 game and is a fun change of pace from your typical Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I liked it and recommend it. It's a good buy at $20.00.

The Critic's Rating: (maximum 5 pts for each category)

Amount of Open Game Content: 4.0
d20 Compliance: 5.0
Originality: 5.0
Playability: 5.0
Value for the dollar: 5.0

Overall Rating: 4.8

Final Grade: A