Prehistoric Times - 2017 Fall - PDF Free Download

My Life as Paleo Artist Part 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gurche. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Burian’s Pelycosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

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Writers in This Issue:

Phil Hore

Mark Hallett

Mike Fredericks

John Gurche

Mathew Wedel

Tracy Ford

John R. Lavas

Zach Fitzner

Allen Debus

Sean Kotz

Randy Knol

www.prehistorict

imes.com

Robert Telleria

Artists in this issue: Mike Fredericks

Maximo Salas

Dinosaur Dungeon

Diane Ramic

Oh Turok, you

Fabio Pastori

Quentin Brendel Robert Nicholls

Chris Kastner

John F Davies

were told to be more careful with

Nick Paradimitriou Emily Willoughby

Pedro Salas

Jim Martinez

Mark Hallett

Fred Snyder

Peter Thomas

Matthias Wileyto

Keith Strasser

Jakob Klememcic

Samuel T Pickens

Raph Lomotan

Paul Carter

Zubin Erik Dutta

Catherine-Ann Beckford

Tracy Ford John Sibbick

super glue.

John Gurche Luis Rey Doug Henderson Phil Gibson

Andrey Atuchin Joshua Knuppe Clinton Harris Jim Martinez

Roz Gibson

John C Womack

Sergey Krasovskiy

Ryan McMurry

Kevin Hedgpeth

Eivind Bovor

Mike Landry Meg Bernstein Chris Srnka

Chris Rastner Julio Garza Chrissy Spallone

Jeffrey Nevens

Raven Amos

Wade Carmen

Gabriel Lio

Paulo Leite Joe DeVito Julie Ann Kitze Don Dumas

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All payments in U.S. funds. Credit card payment through our site only Or mail your check/MO/cash to our address. Subscription Information below: Prehistoric Times • 145 Bayline Circle • Folsom, CA • 95630-8077 Table of Contents Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017 $35 U.S. Only (one year, 4 issues) third class postage. $40 U. S. first class postage and Canada $50 South of the border & across the Atlantic $55 Across the Pacific Publisher/Editor: Mike Fredericks 145 Bayline Circle, Folsom, Ca 95630-8077 (916) 985-7986 between 8-5 PST M-F business hours only please. FAX (916) 985-2481 [email protected]

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My Life as Paleo Artist Part 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gurche. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Burian’s Pelycosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lavas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Ceratosaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 How to Draw Dinosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Collectors Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Dinosaur Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Knol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Titanosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedel/Hallett . . . . . . . . . . . 28 What’s New in Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

PT logo by William Stout Redone above by Thomas Miller

Ceratosaurus Model Build . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kotz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

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Front cover graphic design by Juan Carlos Alonso

Mesozoic Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Paleonews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Sounds of the Mesozoic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Telleria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

FROM THE EDITOR

year. Exploring Alberta’s Dinosaur Locales While Funding We are very fortunate to include an article Dinosaur Research By Mona Marsovsky from our good friend, world famous paleoartist Dinotour 2018, to be held August 3-6, 2018, is a unique and prehistoric animal expert Mark Hallett. opportunity to discover Alberta's palaeontological treaAlong with paleontologist Mathew J. Wedel, sures with world-renowned scientists Dr. Philip Currie, Dr. their article discusses the last of the sauropod David Eberth, Dr. David Evans, Dr. Eva Koppelhus, Dr. dinosaurs, the titanosaurs as covered in their Michael Ryan, and Darren Tanke. During this four-day beautiful book The Sauropod Dinosaurs from family-oriented event you will: Learn about the dinosaurs Johns Hopkins Press. Our front cover art was of Alberta, Explore several dinosaur locales in painted by Mark Hallett and shows Manyberries, Dinosaur Provincial Park (DPP) and along Rapetosaurus (titanosaurid sauropod) & early the Oldman River, Hike and tour various sites in Dinosaur crocodile (Majungasuchus) from the Early Provincial Park and Drumheller areas, Tour the Royal Cretaceous era of Madagascar. Remember Tyrrell Museum and the Field Station at DPP, Tour the when we were young and we knew most all of Devil’s Coulee Dinosaur Heritage Museum and dinosaur the dinosaur’s names? Well, not anymore and I egg site, See how Alberta’s gemstone Ammolite (fossilized think this article will prove that to all of you ammonite shell) is excavated except the most informed of dinosaur experts. It is also Proceeds generated from this tour support the work of a somewhat technical article at times but while “little the Dinosaur Research Institute (DRI), a non-profit charBilly” might not understand it, I feel that most PT readitable organization that finances dinosaur research in ers will have no trouble following along and will find western Canada. Each participant will receive a Canadian it very interesting. charitable tax donation receipt for a portion of the fees. As promised we include part two from beloved artist Dinotour 2018 is a guided tour scheduled for August John Gurche in this issue. John mostly talks about cre3-6, 2018, which includes bus transportation, 3 nights ating his incredible life-sized (and life-like) anthropoaccommodation, all meals and all museum admissions. logical figures, in which he had to insert millions of Book NOW to take advantage of this unique limited hairs one by one. Hey John, if this “art thing” doesn’t opportunity. For more information, contact Mona work out for you, perhaps you could get a job helping Marsovsky at [email protected]. men with their male pattern baldness problems. Thanks MOVING?? PLEASE let us know your new address so much for the article, John. when you plan to move. The magazine is NOT forwarded I continue to hear from many readers proclaiming and it costs us to resend the magazine later to your new their love for the Burian series of articles in PT that “digs.” Also, if you subscribed to PT by sending your John Lavas has so kindly been writing. This time John payment anywhere except directly to us, please know that covers the pre-dinosaur pelycosaurs. And don’t worry, we only received a small percentage of that payment. The Burian dinosaurs are coming soon in several different people you sent the payment to got the majority of your articles and even the prehistoric mammals after that so money. When you (hopefully) renew your subscription, these are articles to look forward to for years to come. PLEASE do it by sending your payment directly to us. (Do you see how we hook you into buying PT and never Much like a present day robin, fossil eggshells We are a small business and could really use your support. let you go?) from China, show that the omnivorous, ostrich- Thanks so much to many of you who have started renewAnd then of course we have our usual very talented like dinosaur Oviraptor laid clutches of blue- ing directly with us. Would the rest of you please stop contributors who I thank. (And for those of you who green eggs, potentially helping to camouflage your automatic renewal with an internet subscription serread my editorial in the last issue I promise not to introvice? We sure thank you! them in open nests dug into the ground. duce them using the lyrics to The Eagle’s “Life in the ARTISTS! PT does not pay for submissions but many Fast Lane.”) Good old Phil Hore is temporarily stateside artists whose work is seen in Prehistoric Times get paying in the good ‘ole USA from his home in Australia. I was concerned our lazy American work from other sources. Please send jpg files of your artwork scanned at 300 DPI ways might rub off on him but apparently not as he got both his articles in well ahead resolution. Send as an approx 4” jpg with your name in the title of the image-of deadline. Phil covers the dinosaur that famous paleontologist Robert T. Bakker example--Triceratops by John Smith.jpg to our e-mail address or send good copies (that you don’t need returned and that aren’t larger than our 9 x 12 scanner bed) to our once told me was his favorite; Ceratosaurus. And when you are featuring a well mailing address in California. We need your art and info. For #124 Dinosaurs of known, meat-eating dinosaur with a horn on his nose you can expect a lot of artwork Romania and Hateg Island & Sea Scorpions (Dec 10 2017) For #125 Patagotitan to come in, which I did, but not near as much I received. I feel terrible that I could not and Barbourfelis (March 10, 2017) For #126 Wendiceratops and Cynognathus show it all, especially since I went on Facebook and asked for art. Please try to find (June 10, 2017) For #127 Rajasaurus and Platybelodon (Sep 10 2017) Thank you! it in your hearts to forgive me if your art didn’t make it this issue and keep it coming for future issues. (please remind me that I owe you and I’ll try extra hard to get it in next time.) Phil also covers the amazing, giant Azhdarchid pterosaurs; very interesting animals. I could not fit all of this art either but those of you who sent Hatzegopteryx will see their art next time when Phil covers Romanian prehistoric animals. Thanks so much artists for all of your Part 3 of Robert Telleria’s beautiful work. “Sounds of the Mesozoic” is I thank Tracy Ford and Allen Debus yet again inside. for their informative, entertaining articles. Randy Knol again keeps us up to date on new prehistoric animal figures on the market and Robert Telleria continues his fun articles titled “The Sounds of the Mesozoic.” Paleonews, which was bumped from the last issue due to space limitations is back and in the issue after this, paleontologist Steve Brusatte will cover all of the best dinosaur discoveries of 2017 as he does every year. (Just hooked you again.) It is good to have modeler Sean Kotz back who shows you how he builds and paints (appropriately) a Ceratosaurus. Thank you, Sean. There is an article in a recent Smithsonian magazine about an incredible in situ fossil of a Nanotyrannus and a new species of ceratopian dinosaur locked in mortal combat. A MANY MORE DINOSAUR DESIGNS AVAILABLE TOO! dinosaur expert dug it up but because no paleontologist was involved, no museum will ALL COLORS OF SHIRTS PLUS CAPS, MAGNETS, touch it, so it sits unseen. Zack Fitzner writes an article about a similar subject in this WATER BOTTLES, MUGS, BAGS, GLASSES AND MORE! issue. And of course, I, your editor, throw in my two cents with reviews, etc. Believe it or not, this is the last issue before Christmas and I hope you will order many of your AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT WWW.CAFEPRESS.COM/PRETIMES Christmas gifts from the advertisers in this issue. Thanks for that. I will see you next

r s p r o u d ly ! o l o c T P r u o y We a r t d in o s a u r s ! M a n y D if f e r e n

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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the pterodactyl from ALONG THE MOONBEAM TRAIL later appeared in the 1931 Universal documentary MYSTERY OF LIFE (now apparently lost. In fact, scenes from both MOONBEAM and GHOST OF SLUMBER MOUNTAIN appeared in MOL.Also appearing in MOL were shots of the full-size cement dinosaur statues (I believe the first since those at Crystal Palace) still on display at the Hagenbeck zoo in Hamburg, Germany. (Forry Ackerman, despite how many times I corrected him, erroneously proclaimed that these were life-sized mechanical dinosaurs!) Frame blow-up images from SLUMBER, MOONBEAM and the Hagenbeck statues appear in the MOL pressbook. Presumably Dawley just licensed the SLUMBER and MOONBEAM footage to Universal. FYI, scenes from SLUMBER (but not MOONBEAM) and shots of the Hagenbeck figures (appeared earlier in Max Fleischer's silent documentary EVOLUTION (1923), which, thankfully, is not a lost film. Don Glut, Burbank, Shannon Shea, of Jurassic CA

Hey Mike! It took me about two weeks to paint Obie. He is based on a Tegu lizard with some variation in color and pattern. I just wanted to make sure that he looked like a big lizard rather than a plucked bird. I find it fascinating that so many took offense to the publishing of an article proclaiming Tyrannosaurus rex to be "featherless." For me, my stance is this: Unless you were there, how can you REALLY know for sure?! Conjecture is conjecture. Best guesses are still guesses. Why the need for absolutes? Dinosaurs are the bridge between fantasy and reality. They are mythological creatures that left behind evidence of themselves unlike the Griffins and Unicorns of folklore. I love seeing a variety of interpretations. Anything that sparks human imagination is a good thing! Viva los dinosaurs! Shannon Shea

MESOZOIC MAIL

Dear Mr. Fredericks: I see Prehistoric Times at a local comic book shop, House of Secrets in Burbank, California. Every once Park fame sculpted and in awhile, I buy a copy when it contains something of special Hi Mike, I have been meaning interest to me. It always contains unusual, appealing material. beautifully painted his rex “Obie.” to write you for awhile now, The recent serialization of the article on Zdenak Burian caught but things just kept getting my eye because decades ago as Burian's books with Augusta busy. Anyway, I just wanted to now and then appeared in English, I purchased all of them, and write and let you know how later I also acquired the book done with Spinar. I wasn't motimuch I enjoy the Articles on vated to collect the Prehistoric Times articles until you published Zdenek Burian and the wonthe chapter about Burian's work for fiction. So I went back to derful historic articles like the House of Secrets and picked up all of the issues except #116, ones on Alice B. Woodward which was not on the shelves. I am grateful you are able to supply it. and Major Herbert M. Dawley. I'll take a closer look at Prehistoric Times, which always In closing, I really enjoy your magazine. It is great to be able charms. You may turn me into a subscriber. Your coverage of to find all the different topics popular but nonetheless esoteric books and toys always provides about paleontology in one surprises, and it prompts me to ask about an old book on prehismagazine. Aldon Spencer, toric life, mostly, but not exclusively, dinosaurs. I encountered it West Chester, PA as a kid in the early 1950s. I found the book in a local library in suburban Illinois, and it probably was published in the 1930s or Hi Mike, I am selling hand1940s. The book was almost, but not quite, square, maybe eight made leather dinosaur items inches long and 6.5 or 7 inches high. Each page of "text" was accompanied by a facing, full-page, drawn illustration, in color, but framed and thought your readers might like one of their own. I have the men’s in white on the page, I think. It was a "habitat" scene crammed with many, deluxe wallet in different styles & colors: maverick, masterson, trifold, and many creatures, and so many, I think, the text page may also have had a line- the roper(stitched) and also a checkbook(laced). Many choices of colors in drawn key for identification of each animal. The drawing style was primi- thread, lace, and dyes, and a few color choices in kidskin or buffalo skin. tive—a little cartoony, in the sense that the dinosaurs and other animals had Prices are: Men's deluxe 4 pockets, 6 pockets, or with passcase- $33.00, odd eyes, mouths, and shapes but were not intentionally humorous—just Maverick-$40.00, Masterson-$40.00, Trifold-$28.00, Roper-$35.00, and poor, unrealistic, exaggerated drawing. The colors were also a little nuts, all Checkbook-$35.00 E-mail me with questions.Thanks, Tallack Refshaw, talover the map. The density of each drawing was anomalously high, and the [email protected] Sounds like a great Christmas gift or just for yourself - editor color and style made the book a kind of primitive standout from most other prehistoric life books one might see. Should any of this inadequate description call to mind something you may have seen, I'd enjoy hearing from you. Hand made wallet The book still haunts me because it was so oddball. I knew good dinosaur by Tallack Refshaw. art even then, particularly Charles R. Knight and the art in the Bertha Get yours today. Morris Parker museum booklets, which eventually wound up in The Golden Treasury of Natural History. Astronomically appreciative, E.C. Krupp Hi, Mike, #122 came in today's mail! Hooray! Next subscription renewal goes 1st class, fer sure. Bonus...the John Gurche cover art has been on my wall for the past 20 years, on a poster of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, that I bought when I was there (and, saw that incredible lobby exhibit that it's based on). Thankyou thankyou thankyou! Bill Cascaden Hi, Mike -- Stephen Czerkas was indeed correct when he suggested that 6

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

Microraptor courting dance © Fabio Pastori

READER ART

Steve Kelley’s Two-part Aurora Prehistoric Scenes article in PT inspired Wade Carmen to draw this.

Argentinosaurus © Phil Wilson

Azhdarchid © Douglas Henderson www.douglashendersonehi.com

© John Sibbick www.johnsibbick.com

© Luis Rey https://luisvrey.wordpress.com Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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The PT DinoStore

Vintage dinosaur collectibles for sale from PT magazine 19. hollow dinos 1. “Dinosaur Collectibles” price guide co-written and signed by PT editor $49 1. Collectibles book 2. Linde 1950s Coffee Premium plastic dinosaur figs 7 from Austria. $12ea. 3. Rare 8th Linde figure to complete above set: Rare Rhamphorhynchus $45 4. Marx orig. sm/med 50s/ 60s dinosaur toy figs (green, brown, gray) $5 5. Marx orig. Krono, T-rex (pot-belly or slender) $39, Brontosaurus $34 6. Marx original second series dinos/mammals $12 each, set of 8 - $79 7. Marx 45mm cavemen (6 diff) $7 ea Marx 6” cavemen (6 diff) $15 ea. 8. Multiple (MPC) dinosaur plastic figures many colors $5-10 each (inquire) 9. JH Miller waxy plastic 50s Dimetrodon, Tricer, Sloth, Mammoth/Mastodon or 10. Sinclair banks Stego $49 (all have damage) JH Miller Bronto (complete) $69. 20. SRG 10. Sinclair 1960s green plastic 10” brontosaur bank $19 11. Sinclair 1934 Dinosaur book $25 & Sinclair1964 Worlds Fair booklet $15 16. Sinclair bagged set 12. Sinclair 60s color Hardback “The Exciting World of Dinosaurs” $44 13. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs ‘64 NY World’s Fair dinos - many @$35 28. Palmer 14. Sinclair hollow NY Worlds Fair Brontosaurus looks backward $76 15. Sinclair album and complete stamps set 1935 $40 or 1959 $30 28. Palmer 16. Sinclair 60s solid Worlds Fair dinos (6 diff.) (bagged set $129) 17. Sinclair Oil 1960s dino chrome metal tray $59. 11. 1934 Book 2&3. Linde 18. Sinclair 1960s metal Brontosaurus bank - nice shape (no lid for bottom) $99 19. Hollow, dimestore plastic dinos, 60s/70s six different $8 each (see photo) 20. SRG Small metal dinosaurs T. rex, Tricer, Tracho, Bronto, or Stego $35. SRG sm. Caveman, Dimetrodon, pterosaur or plesiosaur $49 ea. SRG Large metal Dimetro, Stegosaurus, Trachodon, Bronto, Tricer or T. rex $59 each 13. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs 21. Nabisco silver prehistoric mammal cereal premiums 60s $10 ea. All 8 $75 22. Nabisco/Fritos dinosaur premiums, gray (60s) $5 each,50s green & red $10 23. Nabisco 1950s cereal mailaway dino wheel guide for toy figures $49 24. ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)plastic dinosaur figs. $15 ea, Pteranodon $25 25. View Master Prehistoric Animals 1960s comp. 3 reels/booklet $24 33. Abbeon 26. Teach Me About Prehistoric Animals Flash cards (boxed) 1960s $39 21. Nabisco cereal prehistoric mammals Corythosaur & 27. Brooke Bonde 60s dinosaur trading album w/ set of cards attached $44 more 28. Palmer 1960s Mastodon skeleton or Brontosaurus skeleton $49 each - boxed 29. Marx Linemar 1960s 1” metal dinos. T. rex, Stegosaurus or Brontosaurus $19 ea. 30. Golden Funtime 1960s Dinosaur punch out (unpunched in book) $89 8. MPC Multiple 31.Timpo (England) 50/60s plastic 4” Dimetrodon (black or brown) or Triceratops $35 dinos 32. Dinosauriana-The Essential Guide to Collectible Dinosaurs disc $25 33. Abbeon 60s Japan porcelain Corythosaurus, Protoceratops, Dimetrodon $45 34. Wm Otto La Brea tar pits bronze Smilodon sabertooth cat $79 PT back issues 31, 41, 42, 52, 66, 74-76, 78, 93-102, 104-121 $9 each or $13 each foreign. (PT issue prices include shipping) Please add $6 shipping in U.S. • Call or e-mail me about condition.

Mike Fredericks Prehistoric Times 145 Bayline Cir. Folsom, California 95630-8077 (916) 985-7986 pretimes@com30. 1960s Golden Dinosaur cast.net funtime punch out in book

23. 1950s Nabisco cereal dino wheel guide 13. Sinclair 1960s hardback

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29. Marx Linemar tiny metal T. rex, bronto & Stego 26. Flash cards

18. Sinclair metal bank 31. Timpo Dimetrodon or Triceratops

32. Dinosauriana disc 27. Brooke Bond 25. 60’s Viewmaster 7. six inch Marx large cavemen

24. ROM plastic dinos

15. Sinclair 1959 Oil dino stamps & album

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

Living in the Past: My life as a Paleo-artist Part 2 By John Gurche (all artwork © John Gurche)

I love working in the Mesozoic Era. Biology seemed to have a wildly creative spirit then, and the exuberant proliferation of diverse forms is breathtaking; I feel I’m on an exotic vacation. But there is something closer to home for me: human evolution. The origin of humanity represents Earth’s life becoming self-aware; to me, a monumental development. So when National Geographic started asking me to work on ancient hominins, I was thrilled. The first one I worked on was an individual only 5,300 years old. This was the “Ice Man,” discovered thawing out of a glacier by some hikers in 1991. It was a remarkable find. He was found with the accoutrements he traveled with: Clothing, a bow and arrows (some of them not quite finished), an axe with a copper head, medicinal mushrooms on a thong about his neck and a birch bark canister with a (then) live ember in it. As for reconstructing his face, I

thought it might be anti-climactic. My first thought was that he will just end up looking like an average person you may see on the street. But as I studied his skull, I began to realize that he had a number of unusual features that would distinguish him. He had a 4mm gap between his front teeth. The skull

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

had a pushedin look in the mouth area, between a prominent chin and nose. He had a very round skull, with a broad forehead. These features all showed up in the final face, and gave him a distinct look. For this project, I wanted to punch in a beard, hair by hair. I advertised in the Denver Post, saying: I’ll buy your beard. I was amazed, and a little overwhelmed, by the response. Weeks later I was still getting calls: “You still buyin’ beards?” The next National Geographic project concerned some of the oldest known hominins. Would I be interested in going out in the field with Meave Leakey’s team, to a remote area of Kenya where they had found 4 million year old hominin bones? By the time I took the trip, even older hominin remains had been announced from Ethiopia. Nevertheless, it was very exciting to go into the field with this team. I made a portable art kit to take into the field, and did some of the art on site. Part of an upper jaw, thought to belong to a species ancestral to Lucy’s, was found when I was there. Close on the heels of that was a National Geographic project about the discovery of the first fairly complete skull of Lucy’s species, Australopithecus afarensis. Lucy had made her debut in 1974 without her head. She had a nice mandible, but her cranium was represented by just a few bits, not enough to reconstruct a skull with. A composite male skull had been cobbled together, but no complete skull was known for an adult. Now, the team that had discovered Lucy had hit pay dirt once more, with the discovery of a massive skull of an adult male. I was very curious about what its reconstructed face would look like, and this is just what National Geographic asked me to do, along with a painting of a social group in its environment. As the head reconstruction progressed, I could see that it was very apelike, with a small braincase, a projecting face with a flat nose and large chewing muscles. For the painting, I met the most debated aspect of the lives of these creatures head on; locomotion. Nearly everyone agreed that Lucy’s kind had unmistakable signs of being a good biped, but she also had in her skeleton anatomy that is related to climbing ability. The question was, were these simply left-overs from a climbing ancestor, or was Lucy’s kind actually

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climbing? I painted a group that has been foraging in an open woodland, and is just starting to move out in search of another area. They are calling and gesturing to each other, and some are climbing down from trees. One scientist remarked that it looked like a prehistoric bus station. The question for readers was: how often did this scene occur – was this part of their regular routine, or something they only did once in a while? For those who claimed they never climbed, I imagined a cartoon called “Waiting for the figs to fall” with ground-bound hominins looking at their watches, etc. There followed a string of National Geographic projects involving human evolution, most of them based on remarkable new finds. At the same time, I was also working on drawings and sculpture for a new hall of human origins at the Smithsonian, stalled out since the early 1980s, but sure, I thought, to go forward eventually. In the early 1990s, I also began my own project in secret: a series of anatomical drawings with the didactic lid taken off, so that the sheer visual power is allowed to shine through. This is a field of enormous visual power, concerned as it is with the origin of the human form, and I wanted to make drawings that would celebrate it. At this writing, the collection is nearly finished. Almost none of them have been seen by the public. I am looking for a place to have their debut. I call the collection Lost Anatomies. The 1990s and early 2000s were very exciting times in the field of human origins. Fossils were almost popping out of the ground, and nearly every one of them carried with it a surprise or two. Firsts or earliest-knowns were being pushed ever further back in time: the earliest known tools, the earliest known hominins, the earliest known homs outside of Africa. Lucy’s kind had once represented the earliest hominins we knew well. By 2001, the age of the first known hominins had doubled Lucy’s age. Three candidates for earliest hominin cluster around six million years old. New species have been named, up and down the hominin family tree. The spectacular new finds of the early 2000s included a diminutive, archaic hominin skeleton from the Indonesian island of Flores, which had survived until relatively recent times. When National Geographic’s Chris Sloan called to tell me about the find, I had just finished working nearly around the clock for them on a story about the site of Dmanisi, in the Republic of Georgia. This included three head reconstructions and a triple page digital piece. I was exhausted, and needed a break. It was a beautiful autumn in Denver where I lived, and I wanted to take long bike rides and play in the October sunshine with my kids. But the find was so spectacular and so compelling that the two-week vacation I had pictured for myself diminished to one day. National Geographic wanted me to figure out what this creature looked like, to help them introduce it to the world. I could not say no. Thus began a project with a schedule that was truly insane. But what a find! It was about Lucy’s stature, and had similar arm/leg propor10

tions, a Lucy-like pelvis, primitive wrist bones and a small brain. But its skull shape was more Homo-like. It did not follow an Australopithecus pattern, lacking their massive chewing muscles and supporting bony structures. It’s cranial base was flexed as in Homo, and it was Homolike in having a more vertical face. I describe the episode as follows in my book Shaping Humanity: How Science, Art and Imagination Help us Understand our Origins: If it sounds like a rosy project, it was not. I had one month to do what normally takes me four months. Every few days, a National Geographic TV crew would come in and film the progress. The insanity reached a high point during the weekend of Halloween. My wife, Patti and I had long before agreed to take in the three children of some good friends for the weekend so they could attend a wedding in Boston. Then, just before the weekend, Patti had to leave town on a family emergency. With the extra kids I now had six children [age five to nine] under my care. I could not stop working except to cook, eat and sleep a few hours. I had no time for extras. I did not have time to render my home cameraHomo nadeli ready for the National Geographic TV crew that kept popping in to film the progress. If you look closely at the resulting TV program, titled Tiny Humans: The Hobbits of Flores, you can see out-of-focus clutter and Halloween decorations in the background. A few years later I created a whole-body sculpture of Homo floresiensis, to be cast as a bronze figure to go in the new, no-longer-stalled human origins hall at the Smithsonian. As with her skull, her body combines primitive traits with Homo-like traits. She had a short, wide body, with long arms in comparison to her legs, She had bizarre, flat feet with long lateral toes. Her shoulders were positioned more forward than in modern humans. She was decidedly, deliciously weird. This was one of six bronze figures I sculpted for the Smithsonian’s new Hall of Human Origins, finally moving forward after stalling for many years. The time period from the first work I did for the hall until the hall’s opening in 2010 was twenty-six years long. The stall was, of course, frustrating at the time, but it was fortuitous in the long run. Over the years, I had the opportunity to perform dissections of many chimpanzees, bonobos, humans, gorillas and orangutans, and I had a much better understanding of the anatomical commonalities in the faces of apes and humans. All of this anatomical data made for a much more solid scientific basis for the reconstructions. Much thought on the part of the Smithsonian team and I went into the bronzes. What issues did we want each sculpture to address? How best to represent these issues in bronze? The stories behind the creation of the six bronzes, eight head reconstructions, and one Lucy figure are told in my book Shaping Humanity: How Science, Art and Imagination Help us Understand our Origins. In November of 2009, four months before the opening of the new Smithsonian hall, I was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in the Prehistoric Times No.123 Fall 2017

right cerebellum. After surgery at Johns Hopkins, I began a course of heavy radiation. I had finished the six bronze figures and eight head reconstructions, and had been working on the last piece for the hall, a realistic silicone Lucy figure. Molding and casting for the project was finished, and I had only to punch about one million hairs into the figure, many of them one at a time. The radiation made me feel as if I’d been hit by a truck, but it was good to have something to focus on besides how awful I felt. Hair 635,321. Hair 635,322… I finished the radiation treatments and the Lucy figure on the same day, a week before the opening of the hall. I was still feeling too sick to attempt the six hour drive to Washington, D.C. from my home in upstate New York, but a very kind friend, Fred Bonn, offered to drive Lucy and I down to D.C. A week later, I felt better. Patti came down to join me in D.C. for the hall’s opening celebration. It was a joyful time; a time of triumph in difficult circumstances, and

panzees that climb, but not in chimps that don’t climb. The team called it Homo naledi, and concluded that it was a climber. A little over a year after my trip to South Africa, the October, 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine came out, with a close-up of my Homo naledi reconstruction on the cover. Inside the magazine was a painting I had done comparing the body of Homo naledi with Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) and the Turkana boy (a young African Homo erectus). This was one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve ever worked on. It was especially rewarding to be given the job of Neandertals figuring out what this creature looked like. Looking back over my life so far, I’m very fortunate to have Australopithecus afarensis been involved in making connecof seeing old tions to life’s past for nearly all of it. I’m grateful that, seven years after the and dear brain tumor, I am alive and going strong. The secret project I’m nearing friends who completion on, after working on it for twenty-five years, contains some of came for the my very best work among its 120 pieces. I’m selling my original paintings opening. that have appeared in National Geographic and elsewhere, in order to fund That was the completion of that collection, and I’m searching for the right place to seven years debut it. Soon I hope to be able to say; look for Lost Anatomies at a museago. I get um near you. scanned every six months, but so far, there is no sign of the unwanted guest’s return. I’m grateful for the additional seven years. I’m grateful that the tumor was caught early, before any symptoms manifested. The experience has changed my perspectives about living, mostly in positive ways. For one thing, it has made it much easier to see my life as a finite line segment within an infinite timeline. Somehow, it has facilitated the ability to imagine standing outside that timeline. In a moment, I can return to my life. Or I can enter the timeline earlier…just here. Mental time travel, always important to my work, is easier now. In April of 2014, in a Canadian bar, I got my first glimpse of another stunning discovery, from deep in a South African cave. It was an image of a maxilla and mandible, in occlusion, that anthropologist Lee Berger showed me on his phone. He was in Calgary for the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. That summer, National Geographic sent me to South Africa to study the find, in preparation for making a reconstruction of the creature for the magazine. Lee was very kind, throwing the doors to the fossil vault wide and allowing me to work late every day after everyone else went home It was a jaw-dropping find; more than fifteen hundred bones recovered so far, representing a creature with another unusual combination of primitive and Homo-like traits. Its brain was small, like that of Lucy and other Australopithecus specimens, but the shape of its skull is like Homo, lacking the specialized chewing apparatus of australopiths. The trunk is primitive in having a flared pelvis like Lucy’s, and an ape-like conical ribcage, but the feet and hands look nearly modern. One feature of the hand stands out as not like a modern human: the finger bones are curved, as they are in chim-

Prehistoric Times No.123 Fall 2017

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1. Introduction In PT # 122 we reviewed the emergence of amphibians from Palaeozoic rhipidistian lobe-finned fishes, their adoption of terrestrial locomotion, and rise to dominance during what some European palaeontologists justly defined as The Age of Amphibia. Although their U.S. counterparts did not recognise this age (for example in his college texts Alfred Sherwood Romer described amphibians as "little more than a peculiar type of fish which is capable of walking on land"), the amphibians achieved a truly remarkable diversity during their reign from late Carboniferous to early Permian times. But while mega-faunal genera such as Mastodonsaurus and Metoposaurus survived well into the Mesozoic, by the early Permian their dominance had begun to wane in favour of their reptilian relatives. At this time the reptiles were able to extend the vertebrates’ habitat range into semi-arid and upland regions due to the amniotic egg having eliminated the aquatic tadpole stage. One group of reptiles that was particularly successful and important during the Palaeozoic (and early Mesozoic) was the ‘mammal-like’ therapsids, which will be reviewed in part 7 of this series. In this instalment, however, I will briefly review the evolution of the therapsids’ immediate predeces12

sors, the pelycosaurs, as illustrated in selected reconstructions by palaeoartist Zdenék Burian (1905-1981). Again I thank my fellow Burian enthusiasts Paul McFarland (for Fig. 5) and especially Jan Kopecky who provided key pelycosaur publication details as well as the scan of the PermoCarboniferous forest (Fig. 2) which is published here for the first time in the west.

2. Dawn of the Reptiles Reptiles are more highly developed than amphibians with regard to a number of features including their skeletal, limb and skull morphology (see later paragraph), central nervous system (more highly-developed cerebral hemispheres), muscular and circulatory systems (the reptilian heart having a division that allows oxygenated blood from the lungs to be partially separated from oxygen-depleted blood returning from the body), and reproductive system (some snakes and lizards carried the reptilian reproductive cycle one step further in that their eggs hatched internally and they gave birth to live young, thus mimicking the reproductive system of placental mammals). Whereas the bodies of many ancient amphibians were covered by an armour of bony scales, today's amphibians only retain a moist, unarmoured glandular skin. In contrast reptiles developed a hard, dry skin that had no respiraPrehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

tory function and was deficient in glands; as a consequence their lungs are far more efficient than those of amphibians. Nevertheless, bony plates or scutes resembling those of ancient amphibians did make a re-appearance in some reptiles including lizards, crocodiles and turtles, as well as many extinct forms. Other than snakes and certain lizards, reptiles have sturdy well-developed limbs, and whereas living amphibians have toes with only two or three joints, primitive reptiles and many of their descendants had up to five toe joints. In addition, reptiles have a distinct and often very flexible neck region, and (usually) a significant tail. Although Romer described all reptiles as ‘cold-blooded’ and totally dependent on environmental temperature, a field study of large Komodo dragons by McNab & Auffenberg (pub. 1976) revealed that body temperature variations in mammals and reptiles converge when reptiles weigh over 100 kg. This is because the heat generated by reptilian muscle activity is retained for long periods due to their bodies’ relatively small surface to volume ratio. Reptiles have traditionally been classified by the number and position of skull temporal openings behind the orbits, through which jaw muscles attach to the skull. These divisions were as follows: Anapsida with no openings. Included the Cotylosauria (basal reptiles), Chelonia (turtles and eunotosaurs), and Mesosauria (aquatic mesosaurs). Synapsida with one opening bounded above by the postorbital and squamosal bones. Included the pelycosaurs and mammal-like therapsids. Synapsids are no longer classified as reptiles given that they have more in common with mammals (which also display variations of the synapsid skull type). Euryapsida with one opening bounded below by the postorbital and squamosal bones. Included the Protorosauria (protorosaurs), Sauropterygia (aquatic nothosaurs and plesiosaurs), Placodontia (aquatic placodonts), and Ichthyosauria (fish-like ichthyosaurs). Diapsida with two openings separated by the postorbital and squamosal bones. Included the Eosuchia (basal types), Rhynchocephalia (including the

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

surviving genus Sphenodon), Squamata (snakes and lizards), and Archosauria (Thecodontia, Pterosauria, Saurischia, Ornithischia, and Crocodilia). A genus believed to represent the transitional stage between amphibian and reptile was the early Permian herbivore Diadectes. This was a heavilybuilt animal of 1.5 to 3 m length with a thick-boned skull, while the structure of its limbs and vertebrae indicate terrestrial habits. Burian rather hastily painted Diadectes in 1970 with an attendant Seymouria, (which Romer had described as a basal reptile but which was actually an amphibian). The oldest known confirmed reptile was Hylonomus (an anapsid), which actually pre-dates Diadectes and is known from the Canadian mid-Carboniferous. It closely resembled the amphibian microsaurs and is not thought to have laid amniotic eggs, as did its descendants. By the late Carboniferous reptiles had become established into the four previously mentioned groups. Early reptilian remains are relatively few compared to those of amphibians, but this may have been partly due to selective preservation (e.g. upland-living reptiles having been less likely to fossilise). The basal (or 'stem') reptiles comprised the anapsid order Cotylosauria. These arose when the amphibians were still at the height of their Carboniferous dominance, and they survived through to the Permian. As soon as the reptiles were distinguishable as a class in the fossil record, they underwent an evolutionary radiation that was largely enabled by their adoption of the amniotic egg and the associated liberation from water-bound reproductive stages. Having said that, early reptiles also included aquatic forms such as the mesosaurs which were highly-specialised (possibly freshwater) fish-eating types. The first diapsids were small, very lightly-built eosuchians, a lineage that survived into the Cenozoic in spite of the Cretaceous extinctions that wiped out many of their archosaur descendants. The earliest types of synapsids were the pelycosaurs, an unofficial grouping of animals that bridged the gap between primitive reptiles and the mammal-like therapsids which succeeded them. Pelycosaurs arose during the late Pennsylvanian (late Carboniferous) and

13

died out by the Capitanian stage of the Permian.

3. Pelycosaurs Although early forms of pelycosaurs were similar to their ancestral cotylosaurs, later types were so close to mammals that their classification into one or other group is debatable. All pelycosaurs were quadrupedal, and their limb bones tended to be more slender and gracile than those of cotylosaurs, which is suggestive of a more efficient and active mobility. Pelycosaur remains are best preserved in the North American Permian sediments of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, although remains are also known from Europe. The first pelycosaurs lacked the distinctive sails of later genera and were classified as ophiacodonts. One member was Varanosaurus, a slim and nimble lizard-like animal around 1.5 m in length that is known from Lower Permian strata. Another ophiacodont was the larger genus Ophiacodon (1.5 – 3 m) which boasted a 50 cm long skull. Originally thought to have been an aquatic fish-eater, recent evidence suggests that Ophiacodon may have been primarily terrestrial. Other early ophiacodont genera included Archaeothyris and Clepsydrops. From ophiacodont stock arose the later pelycosaurs that are split into two groups, the herbivorous Edaphosauridae and the carnivorous Sphenacodontia. The two best-known pelycosaur genera from their respective groups were Edaphosaurus and Dimetrodon. Being rather similar in appearance, both types (especially Dimetrodon) are often ignominiously bundled under the banner of ‘dinosaurs’ in the layman’s view, along with other ineligible candidates such as pterosaurs (which were at least archosaurs) and marine plesiosaurs. Edaphosaurs were moderately large animals, 3 m or more in length, that

arose in the late Carboniferous and died out in the early Permian. There are possibly eight recognised species, five of which have been placed in the genus Edaphosaurus. Edaphosaurs are noted as being the earliest known amniotic-egg laying herbivores. The skull was relatively small and shallow, and unlike the sphenacodonts, their dentition was not strongly differentiated. The most notable feature of edaphosaurs was the tall sail-like structure along their back (an elongation of the vertebral spines), which appeared very similar to those borne by some sphenacodonts. However the spines of edaphosaurs also had the addition of short lateral spikes (tubercles) arranged irregularly along their length. Dorsal sails were not unique to the pelycosaurs, and a similar structure was to be found on the contemporary temnospondyl amphibian Platyhystrix from the Permian of Texas. In contrast to edaphosaurs, the sphenacodonts had relatively larger, deeper and laterally compressed skulls, and strongly-differentiated dentition with one or two pairs of caniniforms in the maxilla, and large incisors in the premaxilla and dentary. They also had long and powerful jaw muscles which enabled a wide gape and a quick and strong snapping action. Among the many theories that have been proposed over the decades as possible explanations of the sail-like structures for which pelycosaurs are famously known, a thermoregulatory function appears to be the most likely. Dimetrodon was an especially successful sphenacodont; at 3.5 m in length it was the top predator of the early Permian and enjoyed a long fossil history. As such, the sphenacodonts are believed to have given rise to the mammal-like therapsids which went on to displace their pelycosaur ancestors, while the therapsid lineage itself would eventually lead to the first mammals.

4. Publication Burian painted at least nine pelycosaur images including the following: Edaphosaurus (1953, 1955, 1961, 1967, 1978); Dimetrodon (1965, 1970); the superseded genus Naosaurus (1941, 1952); and Varanosaurus (with Dimetrodon, 1970). All but the 1970 and 1978 images were produced in collaboration with the palaeontologist Josef Augusta (1903-1968). Burian’s first pelycosaur painting (1941) was an unconvincing restoration of two Naosaurus as published in Augusta’s landmark textbook Divy prasvéta (The Wonders of the Prehistoric World; 1942). This image (listed as ‘Edaphosaurus’ in V. Prokop’s 1990 inventory) was based on a model of Naosaurus sculpted by the U.S. palaeo-artist Charles R. Knight (1874-1953) in 1897. However the skeleton upon which Knight had produced his model had been incorrectly

Concluding on Page 50 14

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

CERATOSAURUS

© Mark Hallett www.markhallett.com

by Phil Hore [email protected]

© Chris Srnka

side as though trying to lever motion into the limbs. Their enormous bulk means they need feet on the ground at all times; so instead of running they produce something more akin to a horse trot and a giraffe’s gait. © Sergey Krasovskiy

Sculpture ©Quentin Brendel

The Art of Hunting Giants The noise could be heard from miles away. Terrified sauropods thunder across the field, with their long necks violently swaying back and forth in a bizarre, almost unnatural rhythm as they try to flee the danger behind them. Thanks to their large gait the fully grown adults soon outpace the struggling juveniles of the clan, which fall farther and farther behind. To say these enormous herbivores are running would not describe the bizarre way these sauropods move. The animals move as though in slow motion, with their heads and long necks pumping up and down and side to © Luis Rey https://luisvrey.wordpress.com

© Maximo Salas

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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The awkward motion of fleeing camarasaurs look even more ungainly when compared to the predator running behind them. Although not so graceful as many of its distant relatives, the Ceratosaurus moves with a fluid grace the sauropods could never achieve. Bipedal, with broad feet to help distribute weight along with a long, flexible tail that whips about to help the predator turn, this all drives forward a large, almost rectangular head sporting enormous teeth and a single, colorful horn on the bridge of the snout. A male in the prime of life has immense muscles that cord and flex underneath a tough, scaly skin topped by a row of crocodile-like scales running directly along the backbone. The experienced eye of the Ceratosaurus picks out one Camarasaurus that seems to be struggling more than the others. Favoring its front right leg, the sauropod has fallen well behind the rest of its crèche and soon has the predator at its heels. The theropod drives the herbivore on, forcing it forward and, with each step, wearing it out. Even a juvenile Camarasaurus was a large, dangerous

Two views of model from Dinosaur Dungeon

Sauropods were not built for a long chase, and the laboring camarasaur slows. Its long neck drops, and the nostrils on its head shudder as it takes deep, exhausted breaths and exhales them loudly. With his victim vulnerable the Ceratosaurus wastes no time. It dodges a clumsy attempt at a blow from the herbivore’s tail, returns the serve by shoulder charging the sauropod, forcing it to stumble. The creature regathers itself, and as its long neck swivels around so that it can look at its attacker, the predator runs forward and bites down, clamping its teeth on the rear of the sauropod’s head and the start of the neck. Teeth almost as large as a tyrannosaur’s puncture skin, muscle, and bone. © Sergey Krasovskiy

Robert Nicholls

Life-sized sculpture by Chris Kastner

animal capable of hurting or even killing the theropod, and so the Ceratosaurus pushes its prey on to the verge of exhaustion when it will be less likely to put up a struggle.

© Pedro Salas © John F Davies

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

They also cut deep enough to © Matthias Wileyto sever the esophagus and the major arteries feeding the s a u r o p o d ’s brain with blood. Death is almost instantaneous, and the s a u r o p o d ’s body slumps to the ground as though a puppet with its strings cut. There is not even a death shudder or a dying moan—one minute it was alive; the next it was dead. If the Ceratosaurus believed it had time to eat, it was incorrect because a new danger soon appears. Jogging along the trodden path the panicked sauropod family had just trampled come four allosaurs. Only one is fully grown; the other three are juveniles of various sizes, yet together they made a dangerous opponent.

© Ryan McMurry

allosaurs keep close behind, more than happy to snap, bite, and snarl at the theropod to drive it away from the kill. Once the Ceratosaurus was gone, only then does the pack return to the dead Camarasaurus and begin to feed. A lost media star Ceratosaurus, the ‘horned lizard’, was part of a larger ceratosaur group, which was once considered the most common theropod type of fossils from the early Jurassic

© Nick Papadimitriou

© Clinton Harris

The Ceratosaurus roars a warning at the intruders and swings its large head back and forth in powerful sweeps of the air, flashing its blood-colored horn as a clear warning. The allosaur pack ignores it and starts to spread out, forcing the Ceratosaurus to move about as it tried to keep all four in view. When one of the allosaurs darts forward and snaps its jaws at the ceratosaur’s tail, he spins to face it, but before he can do anything, another allosaur moves in from another direction. Again and again the intruders repeat this, harassing the rear of the larger theropod and then ducking away and allowing one of its fellows to repeat the move from another direction. Unable to come to grips with its tormentors and driven to the height of frustration, the Ceratosaurus lets go an almighty roar of irritation and steps over the sauropod’s neck and backs away. The Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

© Fred Snyder

and the Late Triassic. This prevalence was that originally Ceratosaurus was placed with the earlier coelophysids, a relationship that has come under much scrutiny recently and largely discarded. This has led many paleontologists to create a second name for the group, the neoceratosaurs. Their remains have been found in both Southern and Northern Hemisphere rocks; so ceratosaurids were diverse before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart into the two landmasses that dominated most of the dinosaur age— Gondwana in the south and Laurasia in the north. The exact relationship of the dinosaurs placed within this group are constantly shifting as new specimens, information, and biological techniques for categorizing related animals improves and develops. Ceratosaurus itself was likely rare or did not spend time in regions where fossils 17

would be formed because there are so few known. How rare? Of the handful of specimens known, only two are near complete—an adult and a juvenile. The original (holotype) is held at the Smithsonian and was named by O.C. Marsh in 1884. He called it Megalosaurus nasicornis, and it would have to wait until 1920 to be renamed Ceratosaurus nasicornis. Since this original find, other subspecies have been named, C. magnicornis, C. dentisulcatus, C. ingens, and C. stechowi, all of which are dubious to say the least because the only real differences are the size of some features or the overall size of the animal, all of which occur as normal differences between any species.

© John Sibbick

© Fabio Pastori

www.johnsibbick.com

Ceratosaurus was a mediumsized theropod with long legs and reduced arms, which show a wide variation of size between 18 and 29 feet. They weighed up to 2 tons, and their enormous, almost oblong skulls were large and full of sharp teeth, especially the dozen teeth in the top jaw, which were much larger than those below (for example, the smallest top tooth is about the same size as the largest in the bottom), a feature known only in closely related theropods. One specimen has such large top teeth they would likely have protruded underneath the lower jaw when the beast’s mouth was closed, similar to protrusion in saber-toothed cats. Proportionally the teeth were larger than those of Allosaurus, an indication that these dinosaurs were up to something different, perhaps hunting far larger prey. This is not impossible because a juvenile Camarasaurus skeleton was found with varying bite marks over its body, along with a shed tooth that closely matches one from a Ceratosaurus. What killed the sauropod was debated until a large bite mark was found at the base of the neck, one hard enough to break several bones. The bite best matches that of a ceratosaur. The best guess at this point was that the Continuing on Pg. 58

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

How to Draw Dinosaurs By Tracy Lee Ford [email protected]

It was a rough and tumble time: Part 2 Continuing with the last article, this one will be on pathologies in ceratopian’s. First a nomenclature correction. You’ll notice I didn’t put an s in “ceratopian/ceratopidae/ceratopia.” That is the correct way to spell the name, even though just about everyone spells it “ceratopsian.” It’s the same reason why the temnospondyl family Brachyopidae, family Eryopidae does not have an s, the ending -ops, drops the nominative s when made into a family. Why it’s all right in one family and not in another is purely preference, which is wrong. It should all be the same, no matter what, in my opinion. Last year (2016) when I visited the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, my good friend Darren Tanke suggested I write an article on pathologic conditions in ceratopians. I liked the Figure 1. Skulls of Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai. A-B, Normal skull. A, Lateral view. B, Dorsal view. C-E, TMP 1987.55.210. C, Reconstruction of lateral view of pathologic frill. D, Reconstruction of dorsal view of pathologic frill. E, Dorsal view of pathologic frill. F-G, TMP 2989.55.1085. F, Reconstruction of dorsal view of pathologic frill. G, Dorsal view of pathologic frill (G, After Currie et al. 2008). suggestion and decided to make it part of a series. I have had some connection with finding pathologic conditions in ceratopian specimens. Many ceratopians were herding animals, but some were isolated individuals. To think or illustrate all of them without injuries needs to be addressed. Whether unintentional or on purpose, they were injured, with broken ribs, toes, vertebrae, heads with broken bones, horns, frills, cuts, holes, and, not to be forgotten, bone resorption and diseases. Bone resorption is either when the horns are resorbed or when just a small portion of bone. For example, there are several ceratopian specimens that show this. Where there should be a horn over their orbits, there isn’t one, even though other specimens the same size do have one. Did the keratin cover mimic what happened to the bone by shrinking or caving in, or was it just an empty core? Darren Tanke (pers. comm.) believes the keratin would have caved in. This would happen to any horn on the skull, nasals, orbital horns, the horns on the parietals. Then there are resorption pits, which are small to fairly large holes in the head, mainly found on the frill. Where they just visible on the bone, or Figure 2. A-B, Skulls of Centrosaurus sp. A, Lateral view of a normal skull. did the outside skin have an indentation? Did it have a cyst, some B, Dorsal view of normal skull. C-D, TMP 1990.36.411. C, Lateral view of kind of skin infection? Intraspecific combat would have been a squamosal. D, Reconstruction of the skull. E-F, TMP 1995.666.69. E, Dorsal cause for many injuries. People talk about the horns in ceratopians, view of pathologic parietal. F, Reconstruction of pathologic frill. but for me, I believe the beak was just as dangerous. Unlike parrots, 20

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

which have a movable beak, the ceratopian beak was immovable. With the large jaw muscles, it had a very powerful bite, capable of causing severe injuries, which could have been caused by biting, head butting, and so forth. Decades ago (1987), I went to the Pipestone Creek fossil locality in Alberta for a day and started to uncover what Darren and I believed was a juvenile ilium of Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai. It was buried under a large block, and I uncovered it as far as I could. Months later the block was uncovered, and it turned out to be a pathologic frill, and the pointed end was a broken end of the left side of the parietal (TMP 1987.55.2l0) (Figure 1). Part of the middle parietal is preserved and a nearly complete right with the large parietal horn. The right midline curved horn is preserved, whereas the left horn is Figure 3. Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai TMP 1989.55.1234. A, Reconstruction of the left side of curved forward. The large horn on the left has part the head. B, Right side showing pathologic hole. C, Reconstruction of the right side of the of its base preserved. Darren explained that he head. believes the left side of the frill was damaged when it was younger and did not kill the individual, and the animal contin- and just a few with the horn bitten off, and the only dinosaur that could ued to grow. There is a small missing portion on the left side, and so the do that was Tyrannosaurus rex! Denver Fowler has informed me of a left parietal did not connect to the other one. Darren showed me anoth- Triceratops specimen that a Tyrannosaurus rex had tried to bite its head er similarly afflicted ceratopian, a Centrosaurus sp (TMP 1995.666.69) off; this assumption is based on bite marks on the occipital. However, (Figure 2). It also has one side of the frill broken away and missing this damage was done after the animal was dead. Also, some have bite some of the parietal horn. Darren told me that only centrosaurs have marks on their frill, which may have been made by a T. rex shaking the this type of frill damage, and none has been found in chasmosaurs. Another Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai has a major pathologic condi- Triceratops’s head to separate it from its body. Denver also told me that tion (TMP 1989.55.1234), which is a large section of the right side of its skull missing below and in front of its orbit. Originally it was believed to be from a horn-thrust injury, but now it’s believed to be from either bone resorption or some undetermined disease processes (Currie et al. 2008) (Figure 3). TMP 1989.55.188 has a semicircular notch on the left ventral margin below the rostrum, which may be from biting something really hard and breaking part of the bony part of the jaw. And another pathologic frill has both top frill spikes, with the left facing outward with a forward curvature but the right horn pointing upward and forward (TMP 1989.55.1085). A few years after that (1990) I was surface collecting at Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta with Darren Tanke and Hans Larson. They found part of the tip of a parietal coming out of the side of a small cement-hard hill. They went at it with rock hammers and tried to knock it out. I asked what I could do. Darren looked around and saw a small piece of what seemed to be a small squamosal. It was about 3 feet lower and in different geologic horizon. I said OK and took out a brush and started to collect it. Yeah, I had a brush; they had hammers. Turns out the parietal was too fragmentary to collect, whereas the squamosal belonged to an adult with part of its lower edge missing. It also had a large hole (resorption pit) that went from one side to the other (TMP 1990.36.411) (Figure 2). It also appeared to have a few more pits and grooves along the squamosal. Darren also told me about one ceratopian that had the frill broken straight across the midline of the frill across the parietals. There was no healing, and the back end of the frill would have just flopped around.

there are about 25 skulls of Triceratops with tooth marks from T. rex. I’ve heard of a few specimens that have had the pelvis bitten off from their body. So don’t use the same head morphology; throw in some pathologic conditions. Both my volumes of How to Draw Dinosaurs are available on Amazon.com, along with my Generic Dinosaur Skull a Day Calendar (2 volumes), and my novel Dinosaur Isle. And also available only at Amazon.com is Mike Fredericks and my new dinosaur coloring book for all ages, What Color were Dinosaurs? The Prehistoric Times Coloring Book. Don't forget to visit my two websites; my original Dinohunter (http://www.dinohunter.info) and Paleofile (http://www.paleofile.com). Paleofile has several areas and an easy index (just click on the name, and it will take you to the systematic list), or you can go directly to the systematic list (eggs and ichnology included). Click on the name in the list, and it will take you to a more compressive listing: genus, species, etymology, holotype (lecto-, para, etc.), locality, horizon (formation), biostratigraphy (faunal zone if known), age, material, and referred material. There will be two faunal lists, one in which you can check your area or any area in the world to see what animals were found there and the other will be ages. If you're interested in Biostratigraphy, you can see which animals lived with which at that time from around the world.

There are a few Triceratops specimens with broken-off orbital horns, Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

LEFT: Fred Snyder of Hoboken, NJ found this complete set of vintage 60s, rubbery Italian made dino toys by Orsenigo this year at a flea market in upstate New York.

By Mike Fredericks

LEFT: “The

Prehistoric World 10 Million B.C.” play-

set (#1217) by MPC (Multiple). Owner

Below: (2 photos) Metal Messmore

Jeff Pfeiffer believes

and Damon Brontosaurus figure

this beautiful, near

from the 1939 New York World’s

mint boxed set is

Fair

from 1962 and is

sorry he received it

too recently to make it into his book on MPC and Marx dinos.

ABOVE: Metal Messmore and Damon

Dimetrodon figure from the 1939 New York World’s Fair

ABOVE: Tyrannosaurus letter opener souvenir

from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

ABOVE & RIGHT: A collection of eight dif-

ferent, vintage bone china souvenir plates from South Dakota with artwork of Mt

Rushmore, Wall Drug, etc. and of course

Dinosaur Park, the home of life-sized dinosaur statues

LEFT: A 2.5” souvenir paper-

weight with golden Brontosaurus and bones? rocks? embedded

within from Dinosaur Park in Golden, Colorado

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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Dinosaur Collector News

given the dinosaur name recognition with the public. The model has a pair of large spikes that project backwards from the frill. The short frill has smaller osteoderms along the edge. The snout is narrow and pointed. The nasal horn is low, strongly forward and downward curving. There are overthe-eye horns hinted at with bumps over the eyes. The beak is narrow and curved. The mouth is open, displaying a mobile tongue and toothless jaw. [email protected] The skin is brilliant. The classic ceratopsid skin has large tubercles surwww.dinosaurcollectorsitea.com rounded by smaller scales. It is the best presentation I have seen. This is a standard for horned dinosaur reconstructions. This has been a giant Safari Ltd year, with all Moving on, CollectA has steadily added to its prehistoric seas selection the new Wild Safari figures. The Wild Safari every year. This year there are three new marine figures; one for each of the Cretaceous Quartet contains three replacement CollectA lines. The Deluxe series has a new pliosaur, the classic and venerdinosaurs, and one brand new dinosaur. able Kronosaurus. It lived worldwide in the Early Cretaceous, and is the Psittacosaurus from the Early Cretaceous of largest formally described pliosaur. The Wild Safari Parasaurolophus & Einiosaurus Asia is known from hundreds of individuals, including old 1950s Marx version was inaccurate, many complete skeletons. Most age classes are repreand known to be so even at the time. The sented. It is related to the North American Aquilops, CollectA reconstruction is not the usual another early ceratopsian. There are several species of cigar shape based on the Harvard speciPsittacosaurus, and they range in size. Most previous men. The crocodilian head is black eyed, reconstructions became outdated when tubular bristleand has an articulated jaw with a range of like structures arranged in a row down the upper surface large teeth in front and smaller in back. of the tail were identified. The Wild Safari figures detail The figure is brown and counter-shades to the tail bristles in two tones. The face has a parrot-like a tan on the bottom. The addition of the beak. hence the name “Parrot lizard”. The cheeks have a tail fluke makes the figure very cutting flared point. The bipedal posture indicates an adult aniedge. It will be a favorite bath toy. mal, as the juveniles were most likely quadrupeds. The Excalibosaurus is an Early Jurassic paint captures the counter shading with spots on the ichthyosaur with a swordfish-like upper limbs like a modern forest animal. The overall impresjaw. It is an original model; the old Starlux Wild Safari Giganotosaurus & brand figure may have been the related sion is similar to a ground dwelling bird. This makes the figure a high quality teaching tool and attractive collecPsittacosaurus Eurhinosaurus, but nothing else has the table. same look. This is one of the UK’s Bristol Giganotosaurus lived in the Late Cretaceous Cenomanian of South Museum's star attractions, but is not well known amongst children. The figAmerica. It has challenged The North American Tyrannosaurus for largest ure was inspired by the exhibition of pliosaurs and the Jurassic seas exhibit carnivore making it a mandatory figure for modern dinosaur series. Wild organized by Bristol Museum this summer. The figure has an upper jaw Safari has produced its first figures on a base. This is currently one of the twice the length of the lower jaw. The Blue and white coloring is very dolmost effective ways of creating an accurately proportioned bipedal animal phin-like. The body curves to the left in the shark style swimming. This is a without turning it into a “Sasquatch.” The very attractive figure, having a resin tiger-like look is maintained by the brown appearance. CollectA Basilosaurus stripes on the gray upper body. The underbelAnother new addition from ly is white. The skull has a strong line from CollectA is Basilosaurus. My childbehind the eyes to the snout recalling earlier hood Golden Book of Prehistoric allosaurs. The forearms and legs have long white claws. Animals had a page on Zeuglodon; an alias for CollectA Kronosaurus I enjoy the running gait, and I can imagine it pursuing Basilosaurus. This Eocene branch of the whale & Excalibosaurus one of the many sauropods it shared Argentina with. I family is a dead ringer for the mythical sea serexpect it will be a popular model with youngsters and pent. The body is incredibly long and eel-like. collectors. There is a pair of tiny hind-limbs that would not From the Late Cretaceous Campanian, Wild Safari have been functional. The coloring style is influhas one redesigned figure and one new figure. enced by sperm whales, dolphins and dugongs. Parasaurolophus was part of the original Wild Safari The body bears patches of barnacles. The reconrelease and was due a do-over. Parasaurolophus had struction includes a dorsal fin that was probably three species from North America and a close relative present. The mouth is open, displaying unique Charonosaurus. The new model captures all the classic teeth. features, with an open narrow mouth on a skull topped GeoWorld creates some the most diverse prewith a long curved crest. The torso is bovine, the front historic mammals. Eobasileus lived in North America in the Late Eocene. It legs have mittens on the hands, and the back legs are robust with splayed sported three pairs of blunt horns on its skull, and a pair of tusks which were toes. The upper body is yellow with a white belly. The silhouette is broken shielded by bony protrusions of the lower jaw. It with dark brown patches. Female students in was a member of the Uintatheriidae, the first famGeoworld the class I teach are particularly fond of ily of large herbivores to evolve after the Parasaurolophus. The addition of Eobasileus dinosaurs. They are uncommon toys, but have Parasaurolophus keeps the Wild Safari been produced by JARU, Tootsie Toy, Play Vision appeal broad. and CollectA. They appear to be distant relatives Einiosaurus is a new Wild Safari figure and of modern rhinos, horses, and tapirs, along with not the most well-known of the horned the extinct South American notoungulates. The dinosaurs. “Dinosaur Train” the television GeoWorld figure has rhino-style skin that gives it program for kids has featured several an armored look. The figure is tan-colored. The Einiosaurus characters, and I feel this has horns are topped with an ivory color with ivory

by Randy Knol

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

Schleich Feathered moment. The figures looked like varnished vinyl tusk-like fangs. I appreciate the effort that went in figures. When I picked them up I realized they were to the detailed texture of the skin. This is one of Dinosaurs covered with a soft PVC skin over PP cotton, a fiber my favorite GeoWorld models. filling material. The Soft and Safe technology is Schleich has committed their “raptors” to very different from the Soft Play developed by feathers for 2017. Utahraptor, Velociraptor and Bullyland and Play Vision. Other than weight, they Microraptor are feathered up and being sold in look like a high quality vinyl figure. Parents and boxed sets. It is easy to see them meeting at the teachers have all had that breathless moment when Schleich waterhole playset to strut their feathers. Utahraptor fossils are fragmentary, consisting of skull fragments, a tibia, you watch a child pick up a large figure and heft it while considering if they claws and some tail bones found in Early Cretaceous North America. There want to whack their neighbor who has a toy they want. No risk with Recur. is enough to suggest a large animal that is closely related to birds. Feathers Recur makes three tyrannosaurs; I have T. rex 1611, the most accurate of the have never been found in association with Utahraptor specimens but we can reconstructions. This is a strong bipedal animal in a golden brown hue with infer traits that exist in a family based on the existence of that trait in the shading. The mouth is in a strong red with very white teeth. It must have earlier, more primitive forms. Utahraptor was the inspiration for the “rap- tempted Recur to go garish for the preschoolers, but this is a serious paint tors” in the film Jurassic Park (celebrating its 25 year anniversary in 2018). scheme. The tail is long and straight off the ground, balancing the large Velociraptor was smaller and lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous. head. The feet are large, but well proportioned. This lighter bodyweight Microraptor from Early Cretaceous Asia was smaller still and is know for allows the proportional legs to support the body without a base. The foot having feathers. The Utahraptor is golden with orange highlights on the claws are sharp looking and the forearms short. The model is built like a torso. There are thick feathers from the back of the skull to the tip of the tail. wrestler, and is well proportioned. Sterrholophus is a very old synonym for Triceratops. The name catches The articulated forearms are feathers. The jaws are articulated. Velociraptor your eye. The coloring is in varied shades of dino green but is based in gray with the upper body armored in Ocher feathers. The Microraptor is a repainted version of one the shadowing makes it look real. The base is light green released last year as part of a playset. All three figures with a darker green that makes the skin folds stand out. The are detailed with claws, teeth, and skin. The scale is beak, shield scallops and horns are bronze. The small bits mixed and the figures are not stamped with the names. are all painted; toes, mouth, eyes and nose. Schleich figures are compatible with Jurassic Ankylosaurus is low-slung with lots of spikes, Recur Ankylosaurus, Park collectables. They look great with the high making the design a little retro. It is brown on top and gold below. The color is conservative and the quality playset accessories. Triceratops & T. rex Recur is a relatively new figure company to detailing is meticulous. It is like something I would the North American market with a longer histoexpect in a museum display. Recur has an interestry in Asia. They have a large range of prehising new technology and is producing safe figures toric toys but also make Ocean Life, Wild Life with educational value. I look forward to getting the and Farm Life models. I first was introduced to full range once they have a North American distribRecur at the New York Toy Fair. I was walking by and had a “what is that” utor. This could be a portent of the future.

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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TITANOSAURS: The Last Sauropods

Saltasaurus loricatus showing dermal ossifications

By Mark Hallett and Mathew J. Wedel During its 4 billion history of living things, Earth had never seen anything like them: living cranes that could, if necessary, tower high into the sky to harvest the succulent foliage and fruits of the tall, dominant trees that reached upward in the race to avoid being cropped. From osteblasts that evolved millions of years earlier to originally give ancient fish protection from sea scorpions, natural selection evolved bioarchitectural marvels of strength and lightness to support vast weight and yet enable flexibility and movement-- the mamenchisaurs and diplodocids were among the most amazing and majestic of dinosaurs. But by the beginning of the Cretaceous, they were all gone. What had happened? Would the other clades follow, or would sauropods continue their long and diverse evolution? GAME OVER Extinction, like the death of the individual, is the fate of all species, no matter how successful they are. Far from being a sign of ultimate biological failure, it’s a normal event, and is usually the result of a complex interplay of outside circumstances to which a species can find itself unable to adapt. If a set of long-term changes in the environment unfavorable to the species occurs, it’s then a race against time: successful new behaviors, sometimes coupled with favorable morphological changes, can give individual populations enough of a chance to reproduce fast enough, and in enough numbers, to outpace the increased attrition from mortality. If adverse conditions occur too fast, however, and over the species’ entire range, both mainstream and marginal populations just run out of time. If specialization towards a particular way of living is too well established, new adaptations generally can’t occur fast enough to allow survivors to gain a reproductive edge, and the species—and sometimes an entire clade—flickers out and becomes extinct. This happened to other vertebrate groups long before, and after, the dinosaurs came and went. The first known major clade of dinosaurs to disappear from the Mesozoic record were the prosauropods, followed by the stegosaurs, which had a feeding ecology bridging the gap between the smaller bipedal, ornithischian low browsers and the high browsing, generally non-selective sauropods. As selective feeders, the plated ornithischians could exploit both feeding zones, but, like the core prosauropods, may have been “edged out of a job” by the ever more finelytuned adaptations of the first and second groups that originally bracketed them. Stegosaurs, except for some late-surviving, relict forms like Early Cretaceous Paranthodon africanus in South Africa, were gone after the end of the Jurassic Period. This is also the case with eusauropod sauropods like Mamenchisaurus and Omeisaurus, and the diplodocids like Diplodocus and Apatosaurus. Diplodocids reached their zenith during the Late Jurassic but, except for the South American Leinkupal laticauda and a few possible survivors in Africa and Proto-Europe, these had also disappeared by this time. Why, and how, could this happen? A VANISHED FOOD SOURCE Like a human crime scenario, we can begin trying to solve the mystery by first looking for patterns. The Late Jurassic (Oxfordian, Kimmeridgian and Tithonian Stages) saw a flowering of sauropod feeding specialists that mainly evolved in parts of former Laurasia. Some of these took the form of the Chinese (Proto-Asian), eusauropod mamenchisaurs and omeisaurs, small to average in body size but possessing tall skulls, hyper-long necks and varying from being narrow muzzled, selective feeders (mamenchisaurs) to broad-headed, non-selective browsers (omeisaurids). Although usually quadrupedal, they also possessed the ability to rear if necessary, and they lived in moist, heavily-forested environments. The mostly North American, open forest-savanna dwelling diplodocids are characterized by highly evolved bipedal ability, broad heads, long necks and anteriorly-located, pencil-like teeth that evolved in combination to reach and efficiently strip or 28

rake quantities of conifer leaflets from stems. Both eusauropods and diplodocids also probably seized and fed on calorierich, fruiting cones from araucarians and other conifers. If these foods were scarce, adults of both clades could browse from more close-to-the-ground vegetation they exploited as juveniles, but it wasn’t likely a primary food source. For diplodocids leaf-stripping was apparently a successful way of feeding, since this clade is represented both by a broad diversity of genera and species. Here these co-existed often as sympatric forms, along with macronarian sauropods. Most of the “classic”, well-known flagellicaudatan diplodocids are found in the 151-145 million year span of the Late Jurassic, when, like the mamechisaurs and omeisaurs, there was an explosive radiation of these forms, followed by an abrupt decline and presumed extinction. While the end of the Jurassic saw the end of the mamenchisaurid/omeisaurid as well as the diplodocid lineages, other diplodocoid families, the dicraeosaurids and rebbachisaurids, survived the extinction. The smallish, mostly African-South American dicraeosaurids are known from the latter continent at least until the AptianAlbian Stages of the Early Cretaceous, while the similar-ranging rebbachisaurids in at least one species, Cathartesaura anaerobica, flourished until the South American Middle Cenomanian Stage of the Late Cretaceous, about 96 million years ago. A critical factor for the above clades, as with all sauropods, was food abundance and availability. Based on this premise, we could consider the possibility that eusauropods and diplodocid neosauropods might have been heavily (even though not exclusively) dependent on a particular group of closely related plant species which flourished during the Late Jurassic and then declined and became extinct in Proto-Asia and North America at its close. Going further, if we assume these sauropods weren’t able to readily adapt to other plant sources, their populations might have become stressed enough to decline and go extinct themselves if this food source failed. Is this Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

likely, and are there any Mesozoic plant groups whose geographic distribu- sively eucalyptus and occasionally some types of gum and tea tree leaves, tion and location in time would fit into this scenario? If we accept the and will quickly starve in captivity if offered any other kinds. Even with hypothesis that these clades and those of other sauropods were primarily these they’re very picky, and eat only a few out of the some 600 known eucaadapted to conifer browse as a main food, we can focus on these plants to lypt species. Koalas’ digestive systems are adapted to handle the extreme see if there might be a broad group of Mesozoic conifers, known to herbi- levels of toxic phytochemicals in eucalyptus leaves, which are actually highvore zoologists as primary browse trees, on which the extinct forms might er in trees growing on poorer soils. For this reason, they’ll sometimes turn have been dependent. The success of the high-browsing eusauropods and down even the preferred species growing under these conditions. If the diplodocids may have possibly been based on harvesting a few types of eusauropods and diplodocids were this specialized in their diets, it’s not hard to see why they’d follow their food plants into extinction. highly abundant conifer browse. At this point we have only a possible scenario, not any kind of proof, for Although several of the Mesozoic conifer families are today represented by living species, one, the Cheirolepidiaceae, is totally extinct. This is very the die-offs. If we could discover more solid evidence, let’s say a predomiunfortunate, not only because we can’t do nutrition tests on them as we can nance of “cheiro” phytoliths among eusauropod and diplodocid teeth as well with extant conifers, horsetails and other plants to measure digestibility and as the microwear patterns these plants might have produced, we’d start to caloric value, but also because some things that are known about them point have a good case. Another clincher would be to find coprolites or fossil dung bearing mostly “cheiro” remains to their being especially good candidates for within the body cavities of or in close sauropod food. For one thing, fossil finds association with articulated skeletons show that this family arose and became of the above sauropods. Finally, a data established world-wide by the Late Triassic, base of extensive geochron sampling, just when the prosauropods and early extending from the latest Jurassic sauropods were evolving. In comparison through the earliest Cretaceous of with other conifer families, the “cheiros” North America and Proto-Asia and display some of the greatest diversity of showing a positive decline of “cheiros” growth pattern, habitat and morphology. At in these areas and at this time, would least one took the form of tall trees with 1 m create a very compelling theory to (3.5’) trunks that grew at least 23.4 (76’ 9”) Manus of Diamantinasaurus matildae showing metacarpals explain the extinctions. For now, we just in height and were long-lived, attested to by don’t know. the discovery of an in situ stand of trunks LIFE GOES ON from the Late Jurassic of England, with individual trees that may have With the passing of the eusauropods and diplodocids, major feeding nichranged from 200 to 700 years in age. This meant that they were likely the dominants in a long-lived forest ecosystem. Besides tree-like forms other es were left wide open for other potential sauropod browsing specialists, types were herbaceous or shrub-like, growing in low, dense stands in a tidal ones that were already well adapted to feeding on conifers. At the very end or coastal marsh setting. “Cheiros” were common in many Mesozoic plant of the Cenomanian and early Turonian, the other diplodocoid clades, first communities, ranging from almost monospecific/low density assemblages the dicraeosaurids and then the rebbachisaurids, also perished, making in brackish (slightly salty) or hypersaline coastal environments to species- available additional new niches for the remaining neosauropods, the more rich communities in mesic (moist) or riparian (streamside) locations. They advanced of the two big original groups. One neosauropod group is also apparently thrived under semi-arid to completely arid conditions, in macronarian titanosauriforms, which include not only the iconic, generally strongly seasonal climates and at low paleolatitudes. Fossil cheirolepidia- huge and tall brachiosaurids, the more derived, also enormous somcaean foliage occurs as two types. One, Brachyphyllum, and another, phospondylans but also the titanosaurs. Titanosaurs shared the Early Pagiophyllum, bears leaves or cuticles that are scale-like or pointing out- Cretaceous with basal macronarians, which were becoming evolutionarily ward, and are arranged in a spiral pattern; the other, Frenelopsis and marginalized by their more advanced close cousins. All these clades didn’t Pseudofrenelopsis, has leaves or cuticles that form tightly around the stem, just suddenly appear full-blown during this time but got their start much earand have a jointed appearance. Despite these differences, characters that all lier during the Mid-Jurassic, when they shared ecosystems with other sauromembers of the family have in common are a distinctive type of pollen, sep- pod groups. As with any evolutionary lineage, our knowledge of sauropod arately named Classopollis, and less typically thick cuticles than other diversity at this time is affected by fossil preservation, and it’s probable that conifers, with sunken stomata (air exchange pores) and papillae (tiny pro- we don’t have close to the true picture of what was actually unfolding. In the jections) that extend over these. Other species probably had had fleshy case of the titanosaurs, however, some very scrappy bone remains but also leaves and some were probably deciduous. Abundant, widespread and some “wide-gauge” trackways show that this group was around in the appearing in many forms, “cheiros” may have been a food source that fueled Kimmeridgian through Tithonian Stages of Proto-South America/Africa, much of the sauropods’ evolutionary radiation, and could have been a par- and even earlier during the Bathonian-Callovian transition of Proto-Europe. NEW HEADS, NEW WAYS OF EATING ticular mainstay of some types in the formerly Laurasian continents of The changing geographies and climates of Proto-South America/Africa Proto-Asia and North America. The “cheiros” went into a drastic decline in worldwide diversity during the very Late Cenomanian and Early Turonian were in many ways a natural laboratory for new sauropod adaptations, and Stages of the Cretaceous of the northern hemisphere. If this had begun dur- titanosaurs, whose early representatives were already present on other coning the earlier Late Jurassic in North America and Proto-Europe and these trees were staple conifer browse for eusauropods and diplodocids, it could have had fatal consequences for these clades. By the Late Cretaceous’ Coniacian Stage the “cheiros” were almost gone in the southern hemisphere continents as well, and with them probably went the last, now relict diplodocoids. Of course, there were lots of other conifer types around then that continued well into the Mesozoic and into our own day, and could possibly have also served as food for these sauropods. Modern day big-bodied mammalian browsers like African Loxodonts (elephants, Loxodonta africana) actually consume up to almost 50 types of plants depending on seasonal availability, as do rhinos, and aren’t dependent on just a certain kind. Others, however, are: Australian koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), although very small-bodied by comparison, eat almost excluPrehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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found in the Lameta Formation, were adapted in tinents, were the outcome of one of these trends. Kristi Curry-Rogers some degree to the greater prevalence of Characteristic was a continuation of the adaptaangiosperms by the Cretaceous’ end. In spite of tion shown by their more basal titanosauriform a general lack of information about titanosaur relatives, the brachiosaurs, in developing more diets, what’s clear is that they innovated in their narrow-crowned teeth than other macronarians, own directions, which are sure to be better producing a distinctive precision-shear bite, for understood as new discoveries are made. orthal jaw action or the cropping/nipping off of vegetation. This was an innovation on both the FLEXIBLE SPINES FOR TAKING THE CURVES robust, spoon-shaped dentition of other As titanosaurs began to fully radiate by the macronarians and the pencil-like, leaf-stripping Early-Mid Cretaceous into the roles vacated by morphology of most diplodocoids. Although the vanished forms, their postcranial anatomy titanosaur morphology is still very poorly also changed. At this time we encounter basal known, this adaptation is present in the betterspecies like Andesaurus delgadoi, preserved skulls of later Cretaceous forms, Ligabuesaurus leanzi and massive which at present fall into at least three known morphotypes, or shapes. One, typified by Nemegtosaurus mongoliensis, is Chubutisaurus insignis. Although as derived macronarians these early very diplodocoid-like, with a long and somewhat broad, but not squared-off titanosaurs are only distantly related to their diplodocoid rebacchisaurid relmuzzle, teeth confined to the anterior jaws and with a high cranium and atives, they show an amazing convergence: like the first clade they’ve retracted nares. The dorsal surface of the premaxillary and maxillary bones evolved more flexible spines, but in a totally different way. Titanosaur verhave foramina and grooves running forwards across the bone surfaces, and tebrae, although like rebbachisaurs lose the hyposphene-hypantrum vertethese indicate that in life the outer coverings of the mouth might have had bral “lock”, differ in that instead of having amphiplatyan (“both flattened”) nerves and blood vessels that supplied an outer skin that was very sensitive, centra, the ends of the centra become wide, ball-and-socket joints, a condiperhaps an aid in selecting tender new leaflets. The second, shown by tion known as opisthocoelous (“behind hollow space”). The posterior end of Rapetosaurus krausei, is also diplodocoid-like, but with a lower cranium, each centrum is a concave or recessed hollow, allowing a convex, or curved, and with upper and lower teeth going much farther back. Another main dif- bulging anterior end from the next adjoining centrum, to fit into it. At the ference is the huge, elongated antorbital fenestra in the front of the skull and same time, the pre-and-postzygopophyseal contacts of the anterior caudal the high, arched postdental emargination. Together with the robust posteri- neural arches become broader, more cup-like and more widely spaced. So or mandible and its high coronoid process, this would have made room for what’s all this for? For one thing, the changes in the dorsals allowed (1) a particularly powerful jaw closing muscles, signaling a very strong bite. greater amount of joint contact between individual vertebrae, (2) torsional Finally there is Bonitasaura salgadoi, whose short skull, wide and squared- or twisting action and (3) overall dorsal vertebral flexibility, first seen to a off at the anterior muzzle and with small, anteriorly-located teeth, is very more limited degree in basal titanosauriforms like Brachiosaurus. As with reminiscent of the rebbachisaurid diplodocoid Nigersaurus, and as in this the rebbachisaurids, it might be an adaptation for moving more efficiently sauropod suggests a close-cropping, perhaps low browsing feeding adapta- over the increasingly hilly, uneven terrain of uplifting western Proto-South tion. Like the African form the postdental emargination is high and the America. Unlike the rebbachisaurids, however, it’s a totally different antorbital fenestra are large, indicating that this small form had a strong bite anatomical solution in meeting the same environmental change. The profor its size, and the narial opening is enormous. Together with the variation coelous condition of the anterior caudals allowed more tail flexibility at its in neck lengths (from 13 to 16 cervical vertebrae), the wide diversity in skull proximal area or base, which would have resulted in shorter, more abrupt forms by the later Cretaceous means that by this time titanosaurs had radi- movements in this spot, possibly for striking at attacking theropods. If this interpretation is correct, it would have paralleled the ated into a number of distinctive types and feeding adaptations. What’s fascinating here is that although the Podozamites probably resembled shorter proximal caudals of ankylosaurids, whose clubskulls have a somewhat diplodocoid look, a macronari- this podocarp foliage and were a tipped tails were effective weapons. Like their rebbachisaurid neighbors, titanosaurs had non-bifurcated, an ancestry is betrayed by the strong, deep jaws. While sauropod staple food unsplit neural spines, but unlike the diplodocoids these some titanosaurs (“Campylodoniscus”) retained the weren’t tall, suggesting a tendency to rely more on wider, macronarian-like tooth shape, some indepenquadrupedal feeding instead of bipedal rearing. dently acquired a very diplodocoid, pencil-like dental WIDE-LOAD SAUROPODS condition (Rapetosaurus, Saltasaurus, Nemegtosaurus In addition to greater flexibility in their dorsal verteand others). These weren’t restricted to the very front of the jaws as in true diplodocoids, but it’s possible that brae, advanced titanosaurs begin to show specializations in other parts of their skeletons as well that make them they were used for a similar leaf-stripping technique in very different from previous sauropods. More derived feeding. titanosaurs share with rebbachisaurids a powerful, masAs with almost all sauropod remains there’s a frussive pectoral girdle, but here it’s due not only to a robust trating lack of gastrointestinal material and phytoliths scapula but also to the combined effects of large, squarthat could give us a clear idea as to exactly what kinds ish coracoids and big, crescent-shaped sternal plates. of conifers and other plants formed their diets, making These provided more strength, and the shape of the sterit necessary to infer heavily from tooth microwear studnal plates may have allowed more fore-and-aft forelimb ies. Another source of potential information, however, is coprolites, or fossilized feces: sauropods had to be very productive, and movement. As they evolve, some titanosaur lineages also develop wider, there should be a lot of these out there. In the case of some titanosaurs we more massive bodies than ever before known in sauropods, and the preachave at least a few clues, with the discovery of plentiful coprolites from the etabular process of the ilium flares out laterally almost at 90% to the main Late Cretaceous Lameta Formation of central India in 1999 by Dahnanjay axis of the pelvis. This meant better belly support, since the process was an M. Mohabey (Geological Institute of India), who described the content of important attachment point for broad, sling-shaped abdominal tendons. The the large (“Type A”) coprolites from the site. These can be up to 100 cm sacrum, limited to five vertebra in earlier sauropods, gains a sixth element, (39.4”) in diameter, and contain a variety of plant remains that in section contributing strength and support for extra weight At the same time, the fore and hind limbs are also changing to become actually contain fragments and phytoliths of conifers as well as angiosperms like grasses, which had now become more common. These coprolites con- even stronger and bear weight, but in a different way. All the articular surfirm that certain titanosaurs, such as Isisaurus colberti whose remains are faces are very broad, and the proximal end of the ulna in some forms in 30

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armor, as in ankylosaurs. Some workers assign all some species forms a prominent bump, the Opisthocoelicaudia osteoderm-bearing titanosaurs to a subfamily of olecranon process. This probably existed skarzynskyi skeleton advanced forms, the Lithostrotia, which lived from in other sauropods as cartilage and usually the Early Cretaceous until the very end of the wasn’t ossified, and was a major insertion dinosaur era. In addition to osteoderms, lithostrotian for the powerful, forelimb-straightening titanosaurs have even more flexible tail bases, and triceps muscle. In the forefoot, the manual phalanges are becoming more tightly conall the manual phalanges, including the thumb claw, stricted and pillar-like, producing an are absent in known species. almost completely cylindrical form comUNTANGLING TITANOSAURS pared to the semicircular, horseshoeTitanosaurs joined the roster of known sauropod groups when the first, “Titanosaurus indicus” (now shaped foot of earlier sauropods. This considered by some workers as an invalid name), gives titanosaur manus prints a more elewas originally described by Hugh Falconer in 1868, phant-like look. In titanosaurs support, not and as with sauropods in general, ambiguity reigned toe flexion, is now all that matters and the for decades as workers attempted to gain an underphalanges are gradually becoming mere nubbins, in some clades to disappear standing as to how they should be defined and clasentirely, even the thumb claw. In the sified. Like some other enigmatic dinosaur clades, hindlimb, the proximal one-third of the titanosaurs became a “catchall” or “ragbag” taxofemur is also medially-deflected and the nomic group for fragmentary and poorly known distal condyles beveled to 10% dorsomediCretaceous sauropods long after the family was ally. As a result of all this both the fore and established in 1893. Until the late 20th Century titanosaur remains, unlike the well-preserved and hindlimbs splay noticeably out to the sides, reasonably complete diplodocids and camarasaurs creating a “wide-bodied” stance. This reconstructed posture is supported by of the Morrison, were frustratingly incomplete. Very little agreement till recently existed as to how to finds of trackways from the later interpret known specimens, with diagnoses, as in Cenomanian of the Neuquen Basin and other sauropods, being heavily dependent on tradifrom the Upper Campanian/Lower tional comparative anatomy studies focused on a Maastrichtian Stages of Mendoza limited number of then known characters. Now, Province. Here wide trackways occur that are very different from the typically more narrow ones of earlier beginning in the late 1990’s with the increasing attention of sauropod workdiplodocoids and basal macronarians, many of which indicate much bigger ers toward phylogeny, the scores of new specimens (rarely, extensive skeleanimals than some titanosaurs. As with the above spinal modifications for tons and skulls) from almost all areas of the globe, and with the help of comwalking uneven terrain, all these features make sense for supporting greater puter technology in evaluating the flood of new characters based on these bulk: the weight-bearing capability of later, more derived titanosaurs com- discoveries, this is rapidly changing. Any understanding of extinct animal pares to that of other sauropods as a wide-bodied pickup truck with heavy- relationships is dependent on comparing bone characters, and in the case of duty suspension might to a regular pickup. In spite of the fact that some sauropods it frequently focuses on vertebrae, since these are among their titanosaurs, as their name implies, were truly titanic in size, others were most distinctive skeletal features. This is especially true with the usually scrappy material for many titanosaurs. Different workers place different dwarves. interpretations on the same skeletal characters—when the data bases for MINERAL RESERVOIRS IN THE SKIN Yet another distinct feature developed by some titanosaurs, and seen to these are limited, so is the knowledge of what can be inferred from them. date in no other sauropods, are osteoderms, or dermal ossifications. These There is, and continues to be, disagreement regarding titanosaur phylogewere embedded in the layers of the outer skin and were covered in keratin, and also occur in other tetrapods like crocodilians, some modern frogs and Continues on Page 44 extinct ground sloths. The osteoderms in known titanosaur species like the Late Cretaceous Saltasaurus loricatus range from pebble-sized nodules to thick, keeled discs, and like croc osteoderms are made up of an outer layer of dense, compact bone, perforated by vascular cavities. In some species like Rapetosaurus from Madagascar, the osteoderms of both juveniles and adults possess a canal that widens into a hollow, internal chamber, whose volume can be as much as .9 ltr (2pt). This has led Curry-Rogers and her other colleagues to determine that these structures may have acted as stores for the release of the blood-deposited nutrients calcium and phosphorus. In juveniles this would have been vital in fueling rapid skeletal growth, which as in other sauropods took place on a high level. In addition, Rapetosaurus inhabited an intensely seasonal, semi-arid environment on Madagascar that could produce droughts, sometimes ending in the mass mortality for the juveniles of these and other dinosaurs. The osteoderm reservoirs probably released these minerals during times of food scarcity and other high stress situations for Rapetosaurus all throughout life, and helped to supply calcium when needed by egg-producing females. In spite of the many close, pebbled small osteoderms in Saltasaurus and others, the fact that so far relatively few osteoderms of any kind have been found in association with other titanosaur skeletons, even when relatively complete and articulated as in the case of Epachthosaurus. This makes the argument that in titanosaurs the osteoderms were primarily organs of mineral storage as described above, and generally weren’t extensive or close-fitting enough to form protective Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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What’s New in review

Eofauna’s new Steppe Mammoth in 1/40 scale

By Mike Fredericks Eofauna has released a new figure, the Steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii.) This species evolved from the Southern mammoth (M. meridionalis) and was the ancestor of the famous Woolly mammoth (M. primigenius). The Steppe mammoth was probably the largest mammoth species reaching an average body mass of 11 metric tonnes in males and over 7 metric tonnes in females, with the largest specimen on record surpassing 14 tonnes and reaching a shoulder height in life of 4.5 meters (15 feet). The species was widespread throughout northern Eurasia and its favorite environment was the steppe. It was a cold adapted species judging by its short tail and the hard climatic conditions it supported, though its fur may have been considerably shorter than that of Woolly mammoth because of its enormous size. This Eofauna Steppe mammoth in 1:40 replica, is based on the fossil record, and scaled to the largest specimen found (MNHM PW1947/23). A scaled and rigorously made 3D M. trogontherii skeleton was printed for the prototype, and then muscles and skin were added using comparative anatomy of extant elephants. Eofauna says this replica is the first accurate PVC mammoth model to date. The Eofauna Steppe mammoth figure was the official present for the participants in the International Conference of Mammoths and their Relatives 2017 in Taiwan, a conference where Eofauna's porboscidean specialist Asier Larramendi, has participated with other colleagues presenting a work about Eurasian Palaeoloxodon taxonomy. Eofauna plans other prehistoric elephants as well as dinosaurs. Each figure includes a bonus playable/collectable card with a fantastic illustration based on the figure. www.eofauna.com/en/ You have certainly seen me review the many Prehistorix resin model kits here, based upon the 1970s Aurora Prehistoric Scenes styrene plastic model line. Owner Mark Kreiss tells me this latest kit has been 8 years in the making starting with an idea from Steve Ross. And what is the latest kit? Why, it’s a Neanderthal woman resin model. You see, Aurora made a Cro Magnon Man model and a Cro Magnon female model to be his mate and then they manufactured a Neanderthal man but never a Neanderthal woman to be his mate. Well, thanks to Prehistorix, problem solved! Mark says,

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Molemento Pete sculpted the body, which is absolutely wonderful. Steve Ross sculpted the base and small tree. Mark Kaelin supplied the Nameplate and Bill Voyce did his usual great job on the graphics for the box and the retro instructions. (So, as you can see, it’s a group project.) The kit includes; Base, Upper Body, Sitting Legs, Standing Legs, 2 Sets of Arms, Nameplate, Rabbit Carcass, Mixing Stick, Rock Bowl and Small Tree. Also included are Retro Style Instructions. The kit comes beautifully boxed and is $70.00 on Ebay or contact Prehistorix through their website: prehistorix.wixsite.com/prehistorix or through Facebook. There is also an expansion pack that includes another Upper Body and Name Plate Holder for $15.00. The kit is compatible with tools from the original Aurora cave and the other cavemen and woman from the Aurora series. The base fits in the middle of the Aurora Cave and by the Tar Pit and Pteranodon Rock. Prehistorix Flickering Campfire fits perfectly in the stony hearth for a great effect (Sold separately for $22.00.) As you can see, the kit is great looking and maintains the look and feel of the original Aurora kits we all love. You know how much you love your mate. Don’t let Neanderthal man go one more night without his own mate. Contact Prehistorix today. WOW! Just wow! No Dino model collector can survive without this in their collection! Daspletosaurus (das-PLEET-o-SAWR- s; meaning "frightful lizard") was a genus of tyrannosaurid dinosaur that lived in western North America about 75 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period. The genus Daspletosaurus contains two species. Fossils of the earlier type species, D. torosus, have been found in Alberta, while fossils of the later second species, D. horneri, have been found only in Montana., so it’s both a Canadian and American dinosaur and there is a possible third species, also from Alberta, awaiting formal identification. Daspletosaurus is closely related to the much larger and more recent tyrannosaurid Tyrannosaurus rex. Like most tyrannosaurids, Daspletosaurus was a huge, bipedal meat-eater equipped with dozens of large, sharp teeth. Daspletosaurus had the small forelimbs typical of tyrannosaurids, although they were proportionately longer than in other genera. Daspletosaurus was at the top of the food chain, probably preying on large dinosaurs like the ceratopsid Centrosaurus and the hadrosaur Hypacrosaurus. Masterpiece Models’s new Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

Daspletosaurus resin model is sculpted by Darren McDonald in 1/10th scale. I think you can see in these photos how awesome it is. The Daspletosaurus resin assembly kit in the two photos was beautifully painted by Zach C. Coke. https://masterpiecemodels.com/

Masterpiece Models new Daspletosaurus resin kit sculpted by Darren McDonald and painted here by Zach Coker

Just this year a new report says that Tyrannosaurus rex jaws generated 8,000pound bite forces which let the creature eat everything from duck-billed dinosaurs to Triceratops including a smashing of the bones. T. rex expert Gregory Erickson of Florida State University says it was like setting three small cars on top of the jaws of a T. rex — that's basically what was pushing down. Sculpted by Zack Coker, this 1 to 1 scale tooth is amazing. Price is

When I look at the next model for review, I think of a poor, harmless dinosaur frolicking through the forest when suddenly his head is savagely chopped off and uncerMasterpiece Models Life-sized Velociraptor skull emoniously mounted on the wall. Also from Masterpiece Models comes this enormous, life-sized Camarasaurus head to mount. Camarasaurus (KAM- r -SAWR- s) was a genus of quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaurs. It was the most common of the sauropods to be found in North America. Its fossil remains have been found in the Morrison Formation of Colorado and Utah, dating to the Late Jurassic epoch about 150 million years ago. Camarasaurus presented a distinctive Masterpiece Models life-sized Camarasaurus cranial profile of a blunt snout and an arched skull that was surprisingly square. Relatively small for a sauropod, Camarasaurus likely travelled in herds, or at least in family groups. The name means "chambered lizard", referring to the hollow chambers in its vertebrae. The head is a couple feet long or so: huge! The sculpture has a nice pebbly skin with lines of scutes along it and spikes down the back and under the chin. The spikes remind me of those seen on an iguana. The neck is less pebbly and more wrinkled. Looking at photos of camarasaur’s skulls, this appears to be an accurate representation. This is an amazing sculpture that will look great with your paint job. $24.95 at Masterpiece Models. https://masterMy wife wants to place our copy out in the back yard garden. piecemodels.com/ Masterpiece Models also offers a life-sized Velociraptor skull that appears to have been created using 3D printing. I have confessed previously in PT Diamantinasaurus is a that I was familiar with the name but, like most people, I really learned genus of titanosaurian sauroabout Velociraptor when I read Michael Chrichton's book (twice) and saw pod from Australia that the film (uncountable times) Even though it was too large in the movie, the lived during the Late Masterpiece Models Life-sized Allosaurus tooth whole world learned that dinosaurs were not the slow, prodding animals that Cretaceous, about 94 mil(left) and T. rex tooth they had previously been portrayed to be. In reality, there are two known lion years ago. The type species of Velociraptor. The original was found in Mongolia a century ago. species of the genus is D. matildae, first described and named in 2009 by The second was found in China only a few decades ago. Scott Hocknull and colleagues. Meaning "Diamantina reptile", the name is The well detailed and accurate appearing skull is a true assembly kit as it derived from the location of the nearby Diamantina River and the Greek is made up of four pieces that will need to be glued together and then paint- word sauros, "reptile". The species name is from the Australian song ed, if you want. The teeth are all well represented, although flash removal Waltzing Matilda, also the locality of the holotype and paratype. The known will be needed. An ultra kit model that will look good in the collection. skeleton includes most of the forelimb, shoulder girdle, pelvis, hindlimb and Masterpiece Models was also kind enough to send us review models of their two new dinosaur teeth. The Allosaurus tooth is a cast from an actual specimen from the Bone Cabin Quarry in Wyoming so it looks amazing. Allosaurus was one of the apex predators of the Jurassic and had sharp, serrated teeth. Masterpiece’s T. rex tooth is, of course, a tooth from one of the largest land predators in history, the Tyrannosaurus rex. Tyrannosaurus rex teeth are known for being more like railroad spikes with serrations than teeth. When Tyrannosaurus roamed what is now North America 67 million years ago, it had over 60 of these teeth in it's mouth to catch and kill it's prey. Just like sharks, these teeth could be shed with another one ready to replace it. With his enormous banana-shaped teeth, along with many other features, Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the most perfect killing machines in history. Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

Diamantinasaurus resin model by Steven Moncuse

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Robert's original back text was to read someribs of the holotype, and one shoulder bone. Bristol Museums Shop thing like this: "With this educational calendar, Diamantinasaurus was relatively small for a Doris the Pliosaurus is sold at plan your future and relive the past – the titanosaur, possibly reaching 15–16 m www.bristolmuseums.org.uk bygone days of the dinosaurs. Learn about (49–52 ft) in length and 15–20 t (17–22 short groups of 52 related dinosaurs drawn to scale tons) in weight. Some of its relatives are in life and skeletal form – a different genus for known to have possessed armour osteoderms, although is it unknown whether every week of the year with literally tonnes of Diamantinasaurus had these. Our titanosaur facts on these fascinating creatures that remain article in this issue talks about timeless year after year. Prehistory repeats Diamantinasaurus so it is an appropriate itself for 2018. It's out with the new and in with dinosaur model for me to review. the very old!" (For 2017-18 there's also the final zazzle calendar from Greg Paul, celebratRelatively new sculptor Steve Moncuse Thanks to Steve Jarvis ing his 40 years in the paleoart biz called offers his resin sculpture of this interesting sauropod. Steve’s 2D artwork has been seen in PT before but I think this is “Beyond the Dinosaurs”, which is everything BUT dino artwork.) The new about the first model he has sent us for review. Steve beautifully portrays his Peony Press calendar simply called Dinosaurs not only contains the most Diamantinasaurus walking across Patagonia, waving its tail. It has plenty of dinosaurs in a calendar ever but a great assortment of pterosaurs and marine protective scutes and osteoderms across its back and a wrinkly surface on reptiles as well. It is comprised of the multiple artist images from Anness its underside. The assembly kit is 1/32 scale and was wonderfully and pro- Publishing's books by Dougal Dixon. As Robert says, world renown artist Mark fessionally cast by Vincent Marinucci. It comes in eight very detailed parts Hallett, our front cover artist for this issue, including a very nice, realistic ground base and sells for $150 plus postage. has a new calendar out for next year that he Steve lives in California, about an hours drive from me (depending on how crazily I drive) Contact him at [email protected] sent PT a copy of, and it is a beauty. For every month of 2018, After lamenting the premature death of full color dino you will be able to enjoy a different sciwall calendars in PT issue 110, Robert Telleria happily entifically accurate reports three attractive 2018 calendars are available, one and extremely beautiof which he provided art direction and informational capful paleoartwork by tions. The first one is from Pomengranate with art by Mark. In these uncerMark Hallett, including paintings from his latest sauropod tain times, it’s a sure tome. The second is from Smithsonian, part of a new way to help you enjoy the coming year. range of merchandise with field guide art by Greg Paul. Having worked with them on past Rush calendars, the publisher Aquarius typically never dedicates space to elaborate copy on the backs of their calendars, but

Ceratosaurus Model Buildup By Sean Kotz At the outset, let me say that Rader Studios’ 1:20 scale Ceratosaurus kit by Jonathan Rader, is the most perfectly balanced theropod kit I’ve ever worked on. The 17 inch (43 cm) resin wonder represents a Jurassic predator approximately 28 feet long (8.5 meters), definitely an alpha of the species.

of Natural Bone. Over the Natural Bone, from the top down, the kit was layered in transparent paints—Mars Red, Vivid Orange and Amber Oxide. The top ridge and stripes are Jet Black, with a layer of transparent Jet Black to blend the ridge with the Mars Red. The teeth were highlighted with white and the horns were retreated with Natural Bone and dry-brushed with Americana Sandstone craft paint. When all this was completed, the kit was sealed with a couple layers of Testor’s Dullcote and then the entire kit was treated with an oil wash of Burnt Umber mixed at a 1 to 20 ratio (approximately). The eyes were painted using toothpicks with a dot of white, then a smaller line of black and finally a top coat of Tamiya transparent gloss yellow. If you want to know more about the build up, visit my new website, www.mustbethefumes.com

My custom base includes water effects and plants, but space limitations mean a focus on painting here. After assembling and priming the kit, the Ceratosaurus was airbrushed entirely with Garage Kits (garagekitsuscolors.com) paints. The underbelly got a spray of Pure White; the top got a coat

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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Azhdarchid Pterosaurs

By Phil Hore [email protected]

main gate. He is grinning and playing with what looks like a toy at his feet. “Today we get to try something different. I have been keeping one of these babies back, hoping to get a chance like this.” What is at Mike’s feet is a large drone with broad wings covered in solar panels. Three small turbo fans are there to provide lift, and a camera on a gimbal sits on the nose. Retrieving a small

© Jakob Klememcic

Quetzalcoatlus northopi © Sergey Krasovskiy

Payment received Transmission incoming from Time Inc. Entertainment: “Experienced adventurer Mike Hatcher has taken on the expedition of a lifetime: to survive a year by himself deep within the Mesozoic. More than just reality TV, while testing new technologies for future visitors of the past—like Mike’s base camp, the secured environmental habitat called the Compound—he will face the challenges of this new world alone, with only the dozen state-of-theart microcameras tracking his progress at all times for companionship. Thanks to the sponsorship of Time Inc. and the Imago Mundi Society, join us now as Mike Hatcher lives through . . . Mesozoic Days.” Mike is standing in Slenderdactyl an open field in front of the Compound’s © Zubin Erik Dutta 38

© Mike Landry handheld screen, the explorer touches a symbol, and the engines whir to life and lift the drone a foot off the ground. Symbols and information scroll across the screen, all seemingly positive; so Mike touches the largest of the symbols, triggering the whirring sound to increase and the small vehicle to shoot off into the sky. “I noticed a flock of these guys entering the region a few days ago and so got the drone ready and waiting in case they returned.” Mike gestures to the sky and the image suddenly swings up. High above are numerous dark silhouettes circling the Compound. Mike’s voice cuts over the image: “Quetzalcoatlus, one of the largest creatures to ever fly. By the Cretaceous, pterosaurs had been replaced Art from “Primitive War” by Raph Lomotan

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

Zhejiangopterus © Sergey Krasovskiy

Life-sized sculpture by Chris Rastner mostly by avian theropods and primitive birds. . . .” The image fades into a new perspective showing Mike growing smaller and smaller, looking up into the sky. The image then pans ahead, revealing the distant flying figures in a dark blue sky. © Roz Gibson

It is a high-pitched whistling, made from the machine’s wings cutting through the air. This is slowly drowned out as a louder, deeper whistling begins. What had been a small speck now grows into the body of a pterosaur as the drone pulls into station alongside and slightly behind. The Quetzalcoatlus seems to not notice the intruder and continues on, with its 10-foot head and beak twitching from side to side in short movements as it scans the landscape below. Small hairs along its body and wings rustle in the wind, relaying information about the minutest change in air pressure or wind to help the enormous reptile stay aloft. The aerodynamic drone has no trouble staying in position because its on-board sensors relay information to its CPU in a hauntingly similar way to the animal it’s following. “These pterosaurs are more than capable of powered flight, but to travel vast distances they prefer to catch and soar on updrafts from the ground below,” Mike explains as the drone’s camera zooms and starts panning along the wing. “Though the skeletons of these animals are enormous, they are surprisingly lightweight because the bones are made much like a honeycomb, with numerous hollow chambers inside to

© Douglas Henderson www.douglashendersonehi.com “If this was a bird or smaller pterosaur, this would be a terrible idea. Drone owners quickly learn that birds—and dogs, crocodiles, and just about anything with a heartbeat—really do not appreciate having large buzzing alien creatures entering their personal space. Like so many of those overambitious fools, I am hoping the sheer size of the pterosaur means it will ignore the drone.” The image flicks back to over Mike’s shoulder as he crosses his fingers in an overly exaggerated way. He then returns to the remote control. Back in the sky the drone swings, banks, and pivots, placing itself behind the last pterosaur, which

make the bones durable and light.” The drone sticks with the pterosaur as, with an almost imperceptible twist of its wrist, the animal begins a long, slow pivot in the air. The motion is to help the wing catch an updraft so that the animal can begin to climb higher © Eivind Bovor

it then starts to approach. “I have turned the drone’s engines as low as I can to cut down any disturbing noise. The pterosaur is enormous and glides more often than flies, and without the noise of flapping wings to disguise its approach I’m afraid the animal might still react badly if it hears loud buzzing.” Mike’s voice-over cuts out, and the live noise from the drone takes over. Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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the wing, where the smaller digits of the hand can be clearly seen. This also gives a close-up of the membranous wing and the fine hairs covering the skin as the animal rolls sideways in one smooth movement. “These majestic creatures control almost everything by manipulating the air with flexes and stretches of their hand and elongated fingers.” Together vehicle and pterosaur fly over a landscape of forests, crisscrossed with open plains and wide streams. Over the last ten minutes the animal has lost a large amount of height and seemingly is now in danger of crashing. It is only as the pterosaur gets close to the treetops whipping past beneath that a true sense of the speed the Quetzalcoatlus was traveling at can truly be appreciated. A whirring noise cuts across the scene as Mike starts up the drone’s engines again. “The big guy may be under total © Jeffrey Nevens control at this height, but any sudden downAerotitan © Sergey Krasovskiy draft could send us into the ground; so I’m just going to get a little more height here.” The ground again on the screen drops away, and we catch sight of the pterosaur as its left wing closes over a pile of sundrenched boulders lying at the John C Womack bottom of an eroding mountain. The animal nonchalantly follows the curve of the cliff, turning away when the boulders protrude and then leaning in when their paths start to diverge. Almost immediately the pterosaur gains height, rising nearly 100 feet in minutes without once beating a wing. It continues to follow the cliffs, surfing the heated air risRare Tyco toy Fig. and higher. The machine’s engine cuts back to life, and it ing off the rocks, until it soars climbs even higher as its camera sweeps to catch the over the height peak, pivots, pterosaur in perfect frame with the ground below as a backand leans into a spiral motion to drop. ride the updraft higher and Under Mike’s control the drone darts forward and then higher, passing the drone that is behind before rising high over the animal. This gives a specnow at the very edge of its tacular view of the pterosaur as it continues on its way, range. seemingly oblivious to the harassment of the vehicle. The image cuts back to Mike. “Unlike large soaring birds, such as petrels and condors, “Wow!” these pterosaurs have no broad tail feathers to help them staThe giant flyer continues its bilize and control their flight.” The drone’s camera zooms in on a section of journey, nonplussed by the intruder because it is the king of these Mesozoic © Raven Amos

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Prehistoric Times No.123 Fall 2017

skies. Quetzalcoatlus © Julio Garza Note: Because of the enormous amount of artwork to be added to this issue, this will be only a brief outlook of the family. We will do more extensive articles on individual species later. For many of us, we grew up with the Mesozoic skies filled with pterodactyls and Pteranodon. Things were fun and innocent in those days, with bat-like pterosaurs swooping about the heads of dinosaurs and catching fish in paleoseas like some form of reptilian pelican, and then things got weird, not Therizinosaurus weird—it’s hard to go that far - but weird enough to give small children nightmares. I’m not kidding: we were selling the Planet Dinosaur DVD at the National Dinosaur Museum and had one family ask if they could return it as the scene of the Hatzegopteryx eating the midget sauropods had given Little Timmy nightmares (truth: no idea if the kid was called Little Timmy). In Persian mythology the ashdaar (or azhdahåka) means ‘dragon’, but properly it is aži ‘dragon’ + Dahåka (an evil figure), which underlies the Greek " ch-” (and, as an adjective, Greek specified-descent suffix -id). It was a dragon-like creature that lived in the was land, sea, and air, which is almost a perfect description of the largest crea- one of the largest and by far the most famous of these pterosaurs. A lot of tures to ever fly, the azhdarchids. Their enormous wingspan indicates they work has been done on this species, and I promise we will cover this all later likely glided most of the time, and computer modeling has revealed they because it really does deserve its own article. were more than capable of powered flight. These animals weighed between Hatzegopteryx (‘Hateg [basin] wing’ of Romania) was perhaps even big150 and 550 lb, yet those same computer programs showed they were heav- ger, with the (possible) distinction of having the largest skull of any nonily muscled and capable of leaping into the air and getting a few decent flaps marine animal ever at nearly 10 feet long—the skull alone was longer than in to pull their bulk into the sky. that of most other pterosaurs—and it was robustly For such large animals it was surprising built. The neck was also heavily built, and these feato discover that almost all were unearthed tures, along with a total lack of theropods in the only in the last two decades or so. From one Cretaceous archipelago that once covered Romania, astonishing but vastly incomplete specimen has led to an amazing theory, that these giant found in the 1970s, we now know of at least pterosaurs were the apex predator of the region. This 15 species, possibly even as many as 20. actually makes a lot of sense. These animals were as They range from the 2.5-meter tall as a giraffe, and so they were more than capable Montanazhdarcho, which may no longer be of moving across shallow waterways between an azhdarchoid but a bizarrely crested tapeislands, snapping up in their enormous jaw anything jarid. This is also true of other pterosaurs, they found. They were then also capable of flying if such as Navajodactylus and Bakonydraco, the water was too deep or to search for prey. whose scattered, fragmentary remains indiThe only comparable creature today are the largest © Ryan McMurry cate they could belong to several groups, storks and the shoebill; large birds that stalk waterand that is the tragways catching prey, which they dispatch with their © Chrissy Spallone ic story of the azhweapon-like bills. Imagine if you will a creature that darchoids. There is looks part giraffe, part bat, striding out of the ocean very little material and snapping at prey like small dinosaurs and turfor almost all of tles. What an amazing sight it would have been! Although them. Until we revisit this group I suggest you head over they were large aniand check out Mark Witton’s blog. He covers these mals, their bones pterosaurs (and so much more) and it is a great read. are fragile—long and thin—so easily http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2013/08/9destroyed soon after things-you-may-not-know-about-giant.html death. The fact that any fossil survived http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/persian-roundtable/wpastonishing, is content/uploads/sites/395/2017/02/Garshasp.jpeg much less as many as nearly two dozen species. Quetzalcoatlus Prehistoric Times No.123 Fall 2017

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Cretaceo us Cl assif ieds Free to subscribers but must be updated each issue WANTED: Thinking of selling your dinosaur collection in whole or in part? Contact me first for options. I may just be interested. [email protected] or 412-901-8982

For Sale: Complete set of twenty 1950s Shreddies dinosaur premiums from UK: $400. I’m thinning out my 30+ year collection of vintage dinosaur figures and memorabilia. Also available are a complete set of original Timpo prehistoric figures, including the rare unbroken stegosaurus, which was never recast. Other available sets or figures include a few Messmore and Damon 1933 World’s Fair figures as well as the original decorative box they were sold in, World’s Fair triceratops bottle opener and WF brontosaur paperweight, Chialus, SRG, Cherilea, Alva, Brumm and other European metal flats, Sterling Lanier (Smithsonian) bronzes, William Otto prehistorics, Flintstone Hunting Party dinosaurs in various colors, a near complete set of rare Kaiyodo Dinoland figures, including the rare Quetzalcoatlus, and much more. Contact Larry at 703-5270910 or [email protected] WANTED: David Krentz's bronze pieces and 1/72 resin apatosaurus, Michael Trcic's 1/35 T-Rex from Meso-Zoo series, Tony McVey's Deinonychus "birdwatcher" Contact me at: [email protected]. For Sale or exchange: Australian dinosaur related figures and publications. Its not a vast collection, but includes figures that have never been released widely and obscure publications from Australia's small but perfectly formed scientific and dino enthusiast community. Please email me for a full list. [email protected] Wanted: I am looking to purchase a Sideshow Collectible Apatosaurus. There were two different sculptures released. Please let me know asap. My email is [email protected] For Sale: Large Collection of plastic prehistoric figure. Hundreds of different Marx, MPC, Invicta, Safari & other generic figures and accessories plus prehistoric related books and comic books $260.00. Issues of Prehistoric Times #60 - #99 - $240.00 Asking $499.99 for all. Please contact Gregory Flanagan, 268 7th St., Brooklyn, NY 11215, (718) 499-1939 FOR SALE from FRANCE : WM OTTO La Brea Tar Pits (American cave bear, ancient bison, Smilodon, Colombian mammoth, Teratornis ), HENKEL / OVOMALTINE numerous figures including rare Scolosaurus, Pterichthys and Pteranodon , YOPLAIT (yellow scolosaur), STARLUX (possible complete set and many figures), very rare CAFE BOCA (= mini Starlux 35 millimeters : Brontotherium, Deinotherium, Baluchitherium, Saltoposuchus), PANINI, SCHLEICH (classics series), LINDE (several complete sets with the Rhamphorhynchus from Austria), BASEL MUSEUM Tsintaosaurus, WAGNER dinosaurs (like Shreddies), NABISCO cereals (complete sets of mammals & dinosaurs). Please contact me (Jean-Marie LEONARD) at: [email protected] WANTED: Bullyland Dire Wolf figure. If you have one I shall offer you a higher price. Contact: [email protected] Zdenek Burian souvenirs- Post cards, coffee mugs, posters and more! See website at- http://www.zdenekburian.com/en/ e-mail: [email protected] SHREDDIES FOR SALE - I have the following U.K. Nabisco Shreddies (1950’s) prehistoric animals for sale. A full set of 20 in perfect condition (white) $650. A full set of 20 in perfect condition except that the Tyrannosaurus has the usual missing tip to the tail (mainly pale cream) $620. Single items all perfect except for Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Plateosaurus, Brontosaurus, Protoceratops, Palaeotherium, Mastodonsaurus, Tyrannosaurus (tip of tail missing), Woolly Rhinoceras, Iguanodon. $25 each. I can provide cream or white so please state preference and I have others with slight damage for $10 -20 each. The two time-wheels given with the ‘sendaway for’ sets $100. For Sale or Exchange: UK dinosaur toys and cards from the 1950's to the 1970's Timpo, Cherilea, Shreddies, etc. I will exchange for Sinclair, SRG, etc email Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

[email protected] for my list. WANTED: offering $600 for the SRG large Neanderthal woman. Also looking for certain of the original descriptive cards that came with the SRG dinos. I am also interested in any magazines containing ads for SRG products. I have for sale some of the small SRG figures, including some of the rarer pieces. Please respond to [email protected] FOR SALE: Complete collection of Prehistoric Times #1 113 plus the next eight issues. Collection of Indian Artifact Magazines 1982 - 2012; all in binders. Complete collection of Dinosaurs The Encyclopedia Vol. 1 plus all seven supplements (Don Glut). Complete set of Dinosaurs (Atlas Addition) All 103 volumes in original binders plus 3-d glasses. Many books on dinosaurs, fossil and other dinosaur magazines. 80 volumes of National Geographic magazines that cover dinosaurs and origins of man. Complete collection of CollectA dinosaurs 2006 - 2014. All standard and deluxe models plus plants, all new. Please contact Bobby Goodman at 727-424-7881 or email me at [email protected] if you are interested in anything. Prehistoric Planet Store. “The Museum Where You Can Purchase Every Exhibit”. We have over 1000 dinosaur skulls, skeletons, models, fossil, rock and mineral items at PrehistoricStore.com. Like our Facebook Page and post on our wall why you like dinosaurs.....We’ll enter you in our monthly drawing for a free replica dinosaur claw. https://www.facebook.com/prehistoricplanetstore.com. WANTED: Aurora Prehistoric Scenes model kit pink instructions from Canada (litho in Canada): Neanderthal man (729), Cave (732), Tar Pit (735), Cave Bear (738), Jungle Swamp (740), Three-Horned Dinosaur (741), Wooly Mammoth (743). Please send infos to: [email protected] Wanted: Louis Marx 6” cavemen, Miller dinosaurs, MPC World of Prehistoric Monsters playset, any MPC dinosaurs, Marx Prehistoric Times #3988 playset, Marx Prehistoric Mountain playset, Marx Prehistoric playset #3398 w/ waxy figures, Marx World of Dinosaurs Storage Box set, Marx #2650 Prehistoric playset (The holy grail) and Ajax dinosaurs. James J. Berger, 3515 Howard St., Park City, Il 60085 1-847-625-1807 For Sale : I'm downsizing a very large collection of various pieces amassed over 20 years of collecting. I have many unique and extremely hard to find dinosaurs and mammals that are no longer in production. Call and or e-mail for more information on what's available. [email protected] 513-737-6695 For Sale or trade: I offer all the large J H Miller prehistoric animals/dinosaurs, caveman, cavewoman and cave. I have many SRG, both large and small, including the caveman, a complete set of Linde dinos, complete set of Battat (Boston Museum) dinos, Castagna dinos, Alva Bronto, Marx, Chialu, Starlux and more. Call Jim Van Dyke 616-669-3897 [email protected] WANTED: RAY HARRYHAUSEN & STOP-MOTION RELATED 'ZINES Colossa #1 (1993) / Hollywood Horror Classics #4 (1996) Cinemagram #1 (1964) / Cinefantastique #2 (Mimeo - Apr 1967) Mystification #6 (1965) / Animals Magazine (Aug 1969) - British Wonder #2 (Summer 1989) / Box Office Vol. 90 #16 (Feb 6 1967) Spectre #18 (Mar/Apr 1968) / Photon #1, 7, 13 (1963, 1965, 1967) Vampire's Crypt #8 (Dec 1963) / Amazing Screen Horrors #6 (1966) Just Imagine #4 (1977) - British / Cosmos Aventuras #9 (May 1964) Ray Harryhausen Journal (1973) / Animation Journal #4 (May 1965) Stop-Motion Monsters of Filmland #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 Japanese (1990’s) King Kong: Unauthorized Jewish Fractals in Philopatry (1996) Contact: Scott McRae ([email protected]) Wanted: PT issues 1-22 & later back issues no longer available through PT, Marx dinos in metallic green and gold, Pom Poms candy boxes w/ Aurora Prehistoric Scenes art on them, Revell Quick Snap tiny dinos Allosaurus and T. rex, SRG metal Dinychthys fish, Chialu (Italian composition) Brachuchenius & Pteranodon, La Brea (Wm Otto) T. rex, For Trade/Sale: vintage dinosaurs of most manufacturers. I’ve got a ton of old dinosaur figures for sale. I’m always buying pre-1970s dino collectibles --Please contact Mike Fredericks 145 Bayline Cir, Folsom, Ca 95630-8077, (916) 985-7986 [email protected] WANTED: Prehistoric Times issues 79, 81, 83, and 84. Also looking for any books, magazines, and/or DVDs on whale evolution/extinct whales/dolphins, ancient marine reptiles, elephant evolution/extinct elephants, and shark evolution/extinct sharks. Will pay by money order only. Also looking for any information on fossils in Alabama, Mississippi, and the rest of the southeastern US. Please call 205-269-7054. For Sale: 3/4'” cloisonne lapel pin that states: REUNITE GONDWANALAND and depicts Pangea and Laurasia united in one huge continent. Only a limited number are available. $8 includes the pin and postage. Contact Lynne Dickman, (406)

728-5221, [email protected] Wanted: Hobby Trading Post (Nu-Card) DINOSAURS cards (B&W, post-card size) #'s 7, 13, 15, 28. I will gladly purchase these but I also have many duplicate cards available for trade. I would prefer "nice" condition cards (e.g., VG+ to Mint) without major creasing or other significant defects. Please contact me (Mike Riley) at: [email protected] or at 303-566-1267 (weekdays, 7:00 am to 4:00 pm, MDT). MODELERS: PT build up writer, Sean Kotz, now has a national hobby column on line at the Examiner. I am committed to bringing paleo models, sculptors and kits to the forefront on a regular basis, as well as all other forms of modeling from plastic kits to rocket ships. Go to www.examiner.com and search for "Model Building Examiner" or my name and bookmark or subscribe. You can also search on Facebook Playset Magazine Plastic heaven, America's best info on vintage playsets by Marx and others from the Atomic Era and Beyond. Battleground, Zorro, news, classifieds to buy, color glossy. Complete website listings too! www.playsetmagazine.com, email [email protected], or call (719) 634-7430 J H Miller repaired - your broken and incomplete vintage J H Miller plastic figures -expertly repaired. Ask for Nick Lamanec (484) 274-0315 TOP DOLLAR PAID for prehistoric animal postcards including diorama scenes, statues, fossils, museum displays, etc. I also would like to purchase prehistoric animal museum or excavation site brochures and posters. If you have vintage dinosaur or prehistoric animal books or photographs from the 1900's up to 1980 please let me know since I also collect these. I have lots for trade if that is preferable. Please contact Stephen Hubbell (253) 851-7036 or email me at [email protected]. PALEODIRECT.COM Your direct source for the finest and rarest fossil specimens along with tools and weapons of primitive man. With several thousand pages of fossils and primitive man artifacts displayed online, PaleoDirect.com is truly one of the largest online paleontological suppliers across the globe. Categories include a BROAD DIVERSITY of both INVERTEBRATE and VERTEBRATE fossils. We also specialize in genuine TOOLS and WEAPONS of PRIMITIVE HUMANS from the Lower PALEOLITHIC through the NEOLITHIC Periods up to and including the Iron Age. PALEO DIRECT, Inc. is a full-time, professional supplier and a member of the American Association of Paleontological Suppliers.We acquire specimens direct from the source regions of the world through exclusive affiliations with the diggers and their management as well as conduct several of our own international collecting expeditions each year. Furthermore, many of our rare specimens are prepared in-house by our own conservation facilities and staff. New material from around the world is constantly being added. If you wish to be added to our email list for when new specimens are updated to the website, please email or call us and let us know. PALEO DIRECT, INC. P. O. Box 160305 Altamonte Springs, FL 32716-0305 (407) 7741063 www.PaleoDirect.com [email protected] Supplying museums, educational facilities and collectors around the world.

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nies, but let’s look at most complete of these is the Madagascan Rapetosaurus krausei, extenwhat seems to be gain- sively studied and described by Curry-Rogers from an adult skull and a ing acceptance in what small juvenile. Like the Rosetta Stone whose discovery opened the way to we think we know about these remarkable sauropods. deciphering Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, this species has given us so far TALENTED NEWCOMERS the most information about titanosaurs Titanosaurs were built for wide loads Although still very incomplete, the picas a group. Along with the equally comture that begins to emerge of titanosaurs plete and well-preserved skulls of is that of a small but anatomically Nemegtosaurus mongoliensis and advanced sauropod clade that began in Tapuiasaurus macedoi, nemegtosaurids the Mid-Jurassic as a minor group but form a family with a worldwide, Late swiftly radiated into many forms during Cretaceous distribution. Among the nemegtosaurids are wide-mouthed the early Mid-Cretaceous, coming to fill forms like Antarctosaurus wichmannithe ecological niches left by the disapanus, the low browser Bonitasaura and pearing eusauropods, diplodocoids and also some truly strange, highly derived basal macronarians. Some early repretypes like Isisaurus (Titanosaurus) colsentatives like Janenschia and berti, whose moderately-long neck, Amargatitanis existed back in geochrons such as Tendaguru and Neuquen, and very long forelimbs and high shoulders ended, in some cases, with dwarves like are convergent on some basal Magyarosaurus on Hateg Island as well macronarians like Atlasaurus, and is as gigantic forms. Although the reasons the closest known sauropod equivalent for titanosaur origins are still obscure, to a giraffe in its proportions. Another large, cohesive but unofficial grouping it’s possible that they got their start as populations of marginalized titanosauriforms that were pushed out, at the of titanosaurs are Aeolosaurines. These include species like North American time of the Mid-Jurassic, by more dominant members of this large clade into Alamosaurus sanjuanensis and Baurititan britoi, which share a biconvex marginalized environments and habitats, where they began to evolve some- first caudal that’s different from the procoelous (“forward hollow”) condiwhat different feeding ecologies. If the former Gondwana continents were tion of the first caudal in more basal titanosaurs. Nested within the truly the birthplace of these sauropods, perhaps places like the uplifting aeolosaurines are the Saltasauridae, which take in small Saltasaurus loricaAndean highlands of Proto-South America were what spurred the locomo- tus, Neuquenasaurus australis, Loricosaurus scutatus and dwarfed species tor adaptations that characterized early titanosaur anatomy. Some of the ear- like Magyarosaurus. Occurring late in the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia is liest known species were still fairly broad-toothed, but showing a definite Opisthocoelicaudia skarzynskyii, a species known from an extensive, heavtrend toward the cylindrical, precision-shear bite mentioned earlier. An ily-built skeleton and which gives its name to our last known titanosaur early, (Aptian-Albian Stage) grouping of basal titanosaurs are the andesaurs. group, the Opisthocoelicaudinae. Though not recognized as a formal clade, these have, in addition to some of MORE EXTINCTIONS? From known body fossils and trackways we know that titanosaurs, the skeletal features already described, more pneumatic vertebral spaces in the trunk and other features that made the spine stronger and lighter. They although they radiated and flourished mostly during the Mid-to-Late Cretaceous, were in existence by during or before the Midalso had a distal tibia wider than anterior-to-posterior for Jurassic, about 165-168 million years ago, and had more support. These may be the first titanosaurs to be Podozamites Fossil - Prefectural Museum, Japan achieved a world-wide distribution before the proto-contiembraced by the superfamily Titanosauria, and include such species as Andesaurus delgadoi, Ruyangosaurus nents that formed Pangaea had separated much. This is important, since it‘s a fact to consider in the debate over giganteus and Sonidosaurus saighangaobiensis. Some whether sauropods as a group actually suffered from more basal titanosaurs even at this early period grew enorextinction events after the one in the Late Jurassic as well mous. Argentinosaurus huinculensis from Western as the final one at the end of the Cretaceous. Those who Argentina reached about 30 m (100’) and weighed 50+ do support this idea claim that there was a “sauropod hiatons, while a later Maastrichtian species Puertosaurus tus” (gap) in the fossil records of the Mid-Cretaceous of roulli was just as big. Because of the claimed presence of osteoderms in its members, somewhat more derived North America and Europe, and that these areas weren’t titanosaurs are grouped by some specialists into the clade re-inhabited by sauropods (titanosaurs, since by now they Lithostrotia, although it’s not recognized by some workers because species were the only ones left) until the beginning of Campanian Stage of the Late included in this group like Epachthosaurus sciuttoi don’t have them. Other Cretaceous, about 84 million years ago. According to this hypothesis, the known forms feature Malawisaurus dixeyi, Ampelosaurus atacis, above areas only had sauropods once more after titanosaurs emigrated from Diamantinasaurus matildae and many others. The group Lognkosauria is a the southern hemisphere continents that used to form Gondwana. In tacksubgroup of the lithostrotians based on derived and shared cervical and cau- ling this issue two workers, Phillip Mannion and Paul Upchurch (both dal characters. Some of these such as Mendozasaurus negueyelap are rela- University College, London), first constructed a database of known individtively small and short-necked, but others have a very long but deep neck, ual sauropod fossil specimens of all types, and all localities, from the periand include gigantic species like Futalognkosaurus dukei, one of the largest od of the “sauropod hiatus”. In assessing sauropod abundance they took into sauropods known from an extensive skeleton. As basal or relatively primi- account the possibilities of uneven sampling, and importantly divided the tive as some of these early titanosaurs are, they lasted long into the finds into those that came either from inland or coastal localities. Inland Cretaceous, in some cases toward the very end. areas where sauropods lived generally shrank during times of higher sea levels (marine transgressions), and this is reflected by the fewer numbers of LATER TITANOSAURS The Cretaceous continues, and we encounter a new, also more advanced skeletal remains, eggs and trackways that would probably be preserved clade: the Eutanosauria, or “true” titanosaurs. These are known mostly from (This doesn’t mean, as we’ve learned, that sauropods didn’t live along the fragmentary, incomplete remains until we get to the provisionally accepted coasts, but it does mean there were fewer varieties of plants to support a family Nemegtosauridae. In contrast to most titanosaurs, nemegtosaurids large number of species, bigger populations of these and therefore increasinclude some of the most completely known of these sauropods, not only ing the chance of becoming fossils). Marine transgressions can result in from reasonably extensive postcranial skeletons but also from skulls. The extinctions, since there’s now less habitat to go around-- some species can’t Continuing from Page 31

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even though they had long since survive, so there ends up being fewer of Titanosaur skull reconstruction of them, or none at all. Since a few of become world-wide in distribution, these transgressions happened during during the Mid-Cretaceous the Tupiasaurus © Mark Hallett the “sauropod hiatus”, hiatus propotitanosaurs may have begun to specialnents use these events, and an alleged ize and evolve derived forms following lack of sauropod species, to support the the decline and extinction of other idea of an absence of sauropods in sauropod clades on this continent first. North America and Europe during this Eusauropods, diplodocoids and most time. Mannion and Upchurch, however, macronarians were almost entirely based on the findings of their study gone by the Cenomanian Stage in former Laurasia, possibly because of a criticized this. They found that although there was a decline in decline in important conifer food sources (see beginning of chapter). European and North American inland Sampling from such a widespread area environments during these times with a isn’t complete enough to determine corresponding increase in coastal enviwhether conifers as a whole declined in ronments and absence of titanosaurs, North America, Proto-Europe and the “hiatus” didn’t occur anywhere else Proto-Asia enough to affect overall around the world, where titanosaurs sauropod diversity in these regions, but were now well established. The team many types of conifers and other gymdemonstrated that claims of absences nosperms, all of which were probably in these continents during certain key important, longstanding titanosaur periods were incorrect. Titanosaurs were present, but in seemingly limited numbers, in Europe and North (and other sauropod) food sources continued to flourish in South America, America during the Cenomanian, in the Late Turonian-Early Coniacian Australia, Antarctica, and to a lesser extent in Africa. These included sever(Europe) and during the Late Campanian (North America) Stages-- areas al species of araucarians, taxodiaceans, and podocarps, as well as ginkgoaleans and tree ferns. Could the survival and prevalence of these and times during which the “hiatus” said they shouldn’t have existed. So titanosaurs were there, but in limited numbers compared to other conifer and other primary browse trees have been the reason for the genera areas—why? One discovery of Mannion and Upchurch’s study was that in and species richness of titanosaurs in Mid-to-Late Cretaceous South other sampled localities from earlier in the Mesozoic, where inland envi- America and possibly other former Gondwana regions? Whether the great concentration of titanosaur species in South America ronments and coastal environments were more even, a greater number of titanosaur body and other kinds of fossils were found in inland localities. is real or due to a preservation bias, the number of species, the extreme size Those of diplodocoids, basal macronarians and other non-titanosaurids were disparity and apparent adaptation to different feeding niches of titanosaurs more likely to come from coastal environments. This is true of geochrons worldwide refutes an earlier, longstanding claim that sauropods as a whole like Tendaguru, Proto-Africa, where we find an abundance of brachiosaurid were a dying group. According to this, the sauropods were unable to adapt individuals like Giraffatitan and to a lesser extent the diplodocoids Torniera to the possibilities of Cretaceous angiosperms as food sources, of which the and Dicraeosaurus, but even fewer of the basal titanosaurs like Janenschia, widely radiating ornithischians like hadrosaurs and ceratopsians now took Tendaguria and Australodocus. It could be that the three latter dinosaurs advantage. These dinosaurs evolved complex chewing dentitions for propreferred more inland habitats with different primary browse trees. If this is cessing the new plants, to which the outmoded sauropods couldn’t adjust. true, the scarcity of titanosaurs in North America and Europe during the so This however ignores certain facts. Although some conifer types like called “hiatus” was the result of a bottleneck rather than large regional cheirolepidiaceans did decline and become extinct, many others were doing extinctions, and that titanosaurs bounced back in these areas to become just fine, especially in the southern continents, and were still widespread more abundant when the sea levels dropped. A following hypothesis, or a throughout the Cretaceous. This was a prime food source that, in spite of 90 corollary, to the “sauropod hiatus” concept is that titanosaur stocks from million years of evolution, the ornithischians as low browsers had never other parts of the world, such as Proto-South America/Proto-Asia, migrated been able to exploit. As we’ve already seen, some Indian titanosaurs as nonback into these two northern regions to fill the gap once conditions for their selective feeders actually branched out into eating grass, and there’s no reaexistence improved. Here Mannion and Upchurch respond that this is son why low-browsing forms would have ignored other angiosperm vegetaunlikely because of the fact that titanosaur populations were already present tion as well. Titanosaurs not only continued the basic strategy of consuming and retaining large amounts of food, without the need to in Proto-Europe and North America, and there was no chew, for efficient energy release but seemed to have vacuum to be filled. If this is true, the “sauropod hiaevolved new feeding adaptations. These in some cases tus” of these regions is best interpreted as an artifact of retained and actually improved on the macronarians’ uneven sampling in previous studies, based on the strong bite, and in others incorporated the extinct scarcity of Mid-Cretaceous inland deposits preserved diplodocids’ leaf-stripping techniques. in the two areas. The titanosaurs were the last sauropods to evolve, SOUTHERN SANCTUARIES and were the last standing when the asteroid hit Earth at By the Late Cretaceous, the titanosaurs were the only the end of the Maastrichtian Stage of the Cretaceous. clade of sauropods still surviving, apart from a possiAlthough along with other non-avian dinosaurs they ble few late-surviving macronarians, in the entire became finally and totally extinct in the catastrophic world. In spite of this they had achieved not only aftermath, in sauropod evolution they had a very “long remarkable diversity but also had set a record for sheer run”—100.5 million years—and were not only the most numbers of genera and species by this time, more than any of the entire range of sauropod clades that had preElizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu long-lived but also the most diverse, and probably the most widespread, of their kind. By any measure, ceeded them. Many are known from Africa, India, titanosaurs and all other sauropods were a huge evoluAustralia, Madagascar and at least one from Antarctica, all former Gondwana landmasses, but thus far an overwhelming tionary success. number of genera and species are from South America. This could be due to a preservation bias, but it also could reflect two possibilities. One is that, Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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Commercial paleontologists: Pariahs not Pirates by Zach Fitzner

I’ve always been fascinated by dinosaurs but it was serendipity that brought me into the professional world of commercial paleontology. I’d wanted to be a paleontologist for as long as I can remember so going into college it made sense to study for a double major in biology and geology. By the time I took an intro to dinosaurs class I already knew that I was much more interested in my biology classes than geology but I still had a deep interest in fossils. Luckily a guest speaker for the dinosaur class was none other than Rob Gaston, owner of Gaston Design, a fossil replication business. At the end of his talk Rob casually mentioned that he was looking for help if anyone was interested in applying for a job. Certain that the job would be snapped up quickly, I pounced on the opportunity and soon was working casting fossils. No one else in the class even tried to get the job at Gaston Design. To everyone else, intro to dinosaurs was just another general education science class. Gaston Design has an amazing atmosphere; it’s part natural history display, part art studio and part workshop. Hung on walls are casts of skulls and sea scorpions in matrix. Next to Stone Age tools and hand carved dugout canoes are shiny red tool boxes and a drill press. A Salvador Dali painting hangs in one corner not far from a collection of antique padlocks. I worked on and off for years at Gaston Design but eventually I thought I wanted more. I wanted to work with original fossils, not just casting and I was ready for something different. After three months co-managing a nature reserve in Ecuador, my girlfriend Erin and I were in her home state of New York and far from my home in Colorado and Gaston Design. That’s when I applied for work at Black Hills Institute of Geological Research (BHI), made famous by the documentary Dinosaur 13 about the infamous T. rex named Sue. I made the move and drove to South Dakota to start work at BHI. I ended up working for BHI for a year and a half and contributed to preparing and restoring an original Smilodon fatalis skeleton and Murray Rex (Now Trix) a T. rex sold to Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Holland. Working in paleontology has been like no other experience. Seeing my first fossil casts was like magic: exact copies of ancient bones pulled straight from rubber molds and stacked together, waiting to become a skeleton. Likewise, arriving at BHI just in time to start glueing pieces of bone together, filling in missing parts with putty was magic. In the end you stand before a sort of re-animated corpse of an animal dead for millions of years. I found that in commercial paleontology, people are curious about the world and they care about their work. Rob Gaston told me many stories of his travels along the Amazon with and without scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Bob Farrar from BHI would talk about Mongolia and Pete Larson reminisced about a photo safari in Africa. Artists, film makers, scientists and amateur fossil collectors are all drawn to the workshops of commercial paleontology and contribute to the egalitarian, intellectual milieu of the industry. On the one hand many academic paleontologists and the like sneer at commercial paleontology as something akin to piracy and grave robbing. One wonders though where the line should be drawn between real science and plundering. There is a strong tradition, not only in paleontology but other branches of natural history of on the job training and learning from actually doing rather than academia. True, there have always been academics but there have also been field workers, every bit as brilliant as ‘professional’ scientists ready to get their hands dirty for discovery. Howard Carter started his career in Egyptology as an artist recording discoveries of Lord Carnarvon. Eventually with hard work and practical skills, 46

Carter rose through the ranks and became famous for the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Alfred Russel Wallace made a career for himself collecting bird and insect specimens sold to wealthy British naturalists before co-discovering evolution by natural selection and inadvertently prodding Darwin to publish his own book on the subject. Inside of paleontology there is Mary Anning, an early commercial paleontologist immortalized in the lines, ‘She sells sea shells by the sea shore.’ Anning made important discoveries in marine paleontology, finding the first correctly identified Ichthyosaur, a plesiosaur and pterosaur fossils. Anning also discovered that belemnites have ink sacs like extant cephalopods. Fossils Anning sold often ended up in scientific descriptions with no mention of her at all. Now comes the controversial part. Main stream academia is quick to accept the contributions of the likes of Anning and the others I mention, despite the fact that they were from working class families with little formal education in their fields. Less credit is given to modern commercial paleontologists. Writing in Smithsonian Magazine, Brian Switek says, “The first (distinction) is that fossil hunters like Anning, Sternberg, and Brown were often commissioned by academics to find fossils or they sold those they had already found to museums. Modern commercial collectors do not show the same inclination and are often more concerned with how much money a specimen can make.” Clearly Switek hasn’t spent much time at either of the two places I worked. Gaston Design is entirely dependent on commissions from government and academic institutions and Black Hills Institute often takes commissions from academics. BHI also has its own collections that they make available to researchers and a museum open to the public. BHI’s most controversial find, the T. rex Sue ended up in Chicago on display while otherwise it would have been on display in South Dakota, the main difference being the location. While I was at BHI I saw business done between the institute and museums in Indiana, Washington, Texas, Japan, Holland and a zoo in Ireland among others. Most of what BHI sold while I worked for them seemed to be casts anyway, which are not irreplaceable, like fossils. Gaston Design sells nothing but casts and most often these are sold to government agencies or academia. Switek continues on to say that commercial paleontologists don’t take detailed notes on geology or body position of skeletons, claiming that amateurs often do a better job. When it comes to BHI, this is just plain wrong. I’ve seen with my own eyes notes and detailed maps being made at dig sites. Both Gaston and BHI have contributed to real science in authoring papers or discovering unique fossils. What commercial paleontology does is allow people who don’t have the inclination, wherewithal or desire to pursue a graduate degree the opportunity. Commercial paleontology also allows working class people with highly developed hands-on skills contribute to science in valuable ways that PhDs often cannot. Sometimes commercial paleontology can also be used to sell scientifically valuable finds to private collectors. Fossils on private land, if not found by commercial paleontologists might sometimes be left to erode beyond the point of any value whether scientific or economic. The truth of the matter is there are more fossils, currently being destroyed by the elements than academics and government agencies together can handle. If academics were more willing to work hand in hand with commercial paleontologists, I believe they could learn some things, not the least of which is a degree of humility as to the importance of their own degrees compared to practical experience. Science is moving quickly away from basic natural history towards analytical modeling and other sophisticated techniques. It is wise to remember that the basis of everything in science is direct observation and those doing the most observing are those out there getting their hands dirty. Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

New Millennial Paleoimagery (Part 2 of 2) By Allen A. Debus

“Dinosaur Imagery” which happened to be the title of a 2000 book showcasing several items in John Lanzendorf’s private paleoart collection, setting a new millennial wave for collectors of original paintings and bronze figures, as well as aficionados of books featuring reproductions of such art. Due to the impressive nature of his (former) high quality dinosaur collection, and in thanks for supporting paleoartists, Lanzendorf’s name was allied to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s “Lanzy,” (i.e. the Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize) awarded to paleoartists, beginning in October 2000. But, expectedly. many have personal favorites, eye-catching examples such as paleoartist Danielle Dufault conveyed in a Dec. 27, 2016 online article, “Mud dragons, Tully Monsters, and Toothed Whales: The Best Paleoart of 2016.” Two additional, adjectival terms are “museum quality” and “scientifically accurate,” both usually associated with paleoart advertising. If works are

Paleoimagery is the ubiquitous means by which most dinophiles – often young of age or of heart - become acquainted with former denizens of our primeval planet. Thus it is peculiar that not much attention was afforded former paleoartists (themselves), with their artwork often taken for granted, until a time when the burgeoning dinosaur renaissance was still in early stages. Decades later, in mid-February 2017, concerned members of the Facebook “Paleoartists” group wanted to qualify posted content of certain kinds of visuals, (i.e. paleoimages that aren’t regarded by a consensus as ‘true’ scientifically founded paleoart). So, based on a set of rules, an interesting suggestion A pairing of bronze sculptures (Albertosaurus & Chasmosaurus) by David Thomas at New Mexico was made to weed out, for example, fantasy Museum of Natural History. (Photo- A. Debus) dinosaurs, artwork depicting ‘real dinosaurs,’ yet placed /cast in fantastic, unlikely settings, varieties of dino-monsters (per- exhibited in a museum, by definition one must agree they’re of sufficient haps of sci-fi/horror derivation), restorations that otherwise seemed too con- museum ‘quality.’ My impression is that the general level in sculptural figjectural. I understand the rationale, but it’s a bit of a slippery slope to make ure quality has escalated considerably during the dinosaur renaissance, even (fine) judgements of this nature. It’s a tough ‘call.’ Ultimately who must in the case of toys, some of which certainly are ‘museum quality.’ And being sanction how much detailed research and contemplation is needed before ‘scientifically accurate,’ usually suggesting a scientist may have directed the image rises from the more common ranks of paleoimagery to a more creation of the art or made it her/himself, remains a moving target. As exalted paleoart form? Where does one draw the ‘line’? Regardless, don’t dinosaur science moves on, “progresses” some might say, historically older many of us enjoy all the diversified categories? What qualifications are nec- paleo-images (restorations & reconstructions) remain static, memorialized essary to make such calls? in time – bearing testimony to those who imagined (accurately) such speciApart from accurate depiction of fossil specimens in a drawing, engrav- mens long ago. As one recent example, in 2016 paleoartist Robert Nicholls ing or photo, terms such as “restoration” and “reconstruction” are often sculpted a life-sized Psittacosaurus sculpture earning high praise, deemed loosely intertwined. However, to make proper distinction, generally, I’ve as the “most accurate depiction of a dinosaur ever created,” for reasons found it useful in referring to vertebrate paleontologist William E. Swinton’s explained in The Guardian, (Sept. 14, 2016) and mentioned further below. mid-20th century definitions. (Debus, 2002, 2013). Swinton reserved The meaning of such artworks, especially paleoart, is often conveyed “reconstruction” for organizing or reconfiguring the skeleton via “imagetext,” which may also suggest hypothetical or of an out of the matrix prehistoric vertebrate either on paper rhetorical ideas, visually and through associated cues or or as a skeletal mount, and “restoration” used in reference to written ‘captions.’ Interpretive meaning of paleo-images an artistic, interpretive impression of the animal as it may and associated iconography is essential to the viewing of have appeared as a living organism. Unsurprisingly, paleoart paleoimagery. When we look at dinosaur imagery, it conrestorations may introduce more speculation than skeletal notes an idea, conjuring something in the mind that its crereconstructions. In both cases, however, at least some degree ator(s) perhaps wished us to see, comprehend, though of artistic license is unavoidable. I’ve noted that G. S. Paul always subject to interpretation and distortion. Otherwise, reserves a term – “full-life restoration”--for specimens the artwork and images would be of lesser interest to viewdeemed suitably complete for paleoart. Conventionally, drawn ers, instilling far less frisson. W. J. T. Mitchell applies the reconstructions are now “shaded” to show probable body outterm “imagetext” to the concept, “… a combination of verlines. bal and visual signs … when we see a Did I coin the term, “paleoimagery”? My dinosaur … we are seeing a constructed Note that the title to A. J. Desmond's "Hot-Blooded use of it (i.e. perhaps first used in print – Dinosaurs" referred to a "revolution" in paleontology (not a image with an assigned name and descrip2002) stemmed from a similar term, tion … an artifact, a visual-verbal-tactile 'renaissance'). Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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considered or implied to be that much ‘betconstruction based on its remains and an array ter’ perhaps than paleoart of yesteryear? Is it of prototypes we use to make sense of those mainly technological approach, techniques remains.” (p.52). Upon this framework, in and accessibility to amazing new fossils that 2004 Kathryn Northcut intensively studied the have altered our picture significantly? Can manner in which dinosaur restorations and we pin a date as to when paleontology’s artisreconstructions, viewed in context as paleoart, tic renaissance began in throes or midst of a are “rhetorical” in nature. ‘dinosaur renaissance’? It would seem fairly `Is the term “dinosaur renaissance” an outrecent phenomena and discoveries fuel revivmoded term by now? No, it remains relevant, ified or extrapolated paleoart inspiration. although evolving (as outlined in Chapter 36 First, paleontology has increasingly moved of Paleoimagery). Two decades ago I inconfrom ‘hard rock’ to ‘software.’ We live in a clusively attempted to discover who exactly highly computerized/digitized age, with coined this apt term. Its author may have access to amazing laboratory sophisticabeen Robert Bakker – the prime suspect—or Paleoartist Robert Nicholls with his Psittacosaurus sculpture tion, unimaginable a century ago, wielding an editor then on staff at Scientific revelatory kinds of instrumental methods American, for the term first appears in print on the cover of their April 1975 issue, advertising a now famous article of on (the best preserved) fossil specimens. So relying on foundational princisame title by Bakker wherein he suggested that small dinosaurs like ples of biology, chemistry, physics and engineering, aided by new technoloArchaeopteryx wore insulation. In my 2002 book I loosely structured the gies and analytical tools, amazingly refined assessments and results are perdinosaur renaissance into three distinguishing periods of scholarly activity, mitted. Also we’ve witnessed a sea change, cultivating revelation about integuthen culminating with the now persistent “feather revolution” paleophiles find themselves flocking to. But other terms have since arisen in recent pub- mentary appearances of dinosaurs that was mere speculation forty years ago lications, also acknowledging a feathered dinosaur craze, plus known bush- when Robert Bakker and Adrian J. Desmond introduced us to an outlandish branching, bioevolutionary - saurischian/maniraptoriform - ties to dinosaur idea about “hot-blooded dinosaurs” and spoke of avant-garde creatures like “paravians” (some having plausible flight capabilities) and modern birds. Sordes pilosus, popularizing a once heretical notion since continually sup(See Stephen L. Brusatte, “A Mesozoic Aviary,” Science, v. 255, Feb. 24, ported by accruing lines of evidence, which now more than barely hints at 2017, pp.792-794) A competing, relevant term “dinosaur revolution” was likely evolutionary lineage. As always, via the media, scientific knowledge applied to both a Geotimes 2006 article and a 2011 dino-documentary. Then filters down to the masses, often in forms of favored paleoimagery for many in 2014, a PT author referred to the “2nd paleo-art revolution” (in PT # 111, to ponder and enjoy. Decades ago, Rudolph Zallinger could only speculate on true coloration p.27). “Revolution” appeared in the subtitle to Adrian J. Desmond’s 1975 landmark book, The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs: A Revolution in of dinosaurs, based on those evinced in living reptiles, in his landmark “Age Palaeontology. So I submit that “dinosaur renaissance” may, although in of Reptiles” Yale Peabody Museum mural, imaginatively introducing a vogue, may be becoming striped plateosaur pair for rather vague, in need of the Triassic portion. Not further clarification. Have long after the avianwe moved from a “renaisdinosaur relationship was sance” phase into a “revomore properly established lution”? What will the during the dinosaur tides of history proclaim? renaissance did paleFor a bit more on this oartists like Luis Rey increasingly dare to show topic see my Chapter Two not only body coloration, in Dinosaur Sculpting: A but vivid feathers on their Complete Guide, 2nd ed. restored dinosaurians. As (2013). Then a new phrase capRey stated in 2012’s turing the spirit of our Dinosaur Art volume, “… times coined by science fiction with logic, Jacqueline Ronson in not fantasy … The anireferring to “paleontolmals we depict are extinct ogy’s artistic renaissance” and even if we follow (my italics) appeared in strictly all the evidence the title of an online Dec. …the external aspect will 16. 2016 article. The title still be a conjecture, espealone triggered contemcially in color, ornaments, plation: for what reasons An interpretation of the new look of Deinocheirus by Mike Fredericks from “What Color Were etc., and there you have might today’s paleoart be the great opportunity to Dinosaurs? The Prehistoric Times Coloring Book” by Tracy Lee Ford and Mike Fredericks 48

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- the likes of (the aforemenuse your imaginative resources tioned) Nicholls, John …” Sibbick, Luis Rey, And yet such (once) idle, pterosaurologist & palehypothetical speculations may oartist, Mark P. Witton and have been born out as fact, based Katrina Van Grouw. Well on the most recent, post-2008 done! (There was such an interpretations of “microbodies” extraordinary event once in found in fossilized feathers, (and California, the famed 2016 discovery of dino-feathers “Dinosaurs Past and Present” preserved in amber). Although a Symposium, in 1986, but to possibility remained that such my knowledge nothing quite microbodies were bacteria prelike that here since.) served on fossil feathers, by Increasingly, well-illustrated 2010, it seemed that key types, detailed ‘techniques/interwere identifiable as view’ books are published “melanosomes,” responsible for Ely Kish's mural at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. (Photo - A. Debus). featuring works by promipigmentation, indicative of color. Through detailed examination of melanosomes, therefore, one might nent paleoartists, such as the lavish The Paleoart of Julius Csotoni: infer color of ancient feathers, plumage in Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous Dinosaurs, Sabre-Tooths and Beyond (2014). And we continually spy new paravians, such as the Anchiornis, Sinosauropteryx, or most recently, raw interpretations of favorite dinosaurs in PT or on the internet such as Eoconfuciusornis (PNAS, v.113, 12/6/16). Spinosaurus, popularized via 2001’s Jurassic Park III, yet whose form has Paleontologist Jakob Vinther who published groundbreaking melanin since been substantially modified (see Ibrahim, Sereno, et. al. in Science v. studies (above) moved pigmentation intrigue further along with aid of pale- 345, no. 6204, pp.1613-1616, 9/26/14), long-armed Deinocheirus (now recoartist Robert Nicholls; together they produced that aforementioned “most ognized as a giant, sail-backed ornithomimid), while upholding our afflicaccurate” dino-restoration in 2016, of an ornithischian dinosaur – tion for the very largest of dinosaurs - record holders such as Psittacosaurus - based on a “3-dimensional camouflaging” study. This was Dreadnoughtus. (See Stephen Brusatte’s article in PT # 112, pp.49-51.) a foray into coloration patterning, not in “integumental appendages, such as New dinosaurs and interpretations thereof will just keep coming out of the feathers.” The study, published in Current Biology (v.26), involving life- bedrock into our living rooms! Since the dawn of the dinosaur renaissance and particularly the new milsized sculptures of the dinosaur remarkably proved beyond a ‘shadow’ of doubt that Psittacosaurus’ body pigmentation was “countershaded with a lennium, paleoart and paleoartists have become more integral to comprehending paleontological specimens and light underbelly and tail, whereas the chest associated scientific hypotheses. In 2008, was more pigmented …” suggesting a preJane P. Davidson perhaps espoused with ferred “… closed habitat such as a forest conviction an extreme view when she with a relatively dense canopy.” commented that throughout the history of Research studies testing hypotheses origthis science, “there is no paleontology inating within paleoart are more common without imagery” (p.183). I believe that now than in yesteryear. Nicholls’ 2011 my 2002 book (coauthored with Diane painting of a restored pair of Carcharodontosaurus hoisting an unlucky Debus) successfully captured the spirit of medium-sized sauropod in their jaws (a over 200 years of dinosaur paleoartistry scene titled “Double Death,” recently repro(or as much as publisher limitations would duced in Dinosaur Art: the World’s Greatest then allow), capping developments up Paleoart (2012), pp.160-161) inspirationally through the end of the 20th century, fueled another paper (The Anatomical through the dawning of a later “quantum Record, v.298, 2015) by Donald M. shift” (to borrow a Steve White term) in Henderson. He calculated with exacting biolater 20th century dino-science and art. engineering detail that indeed such a maneuYet, thanks to a bevy of new discoveries and a protean paradigm, as much as the ver might be possible, provided the victim practice of paleoimage-making has grown did not exceed 850 kilograms, 8.3 meters in so vastly during the past 18 years, vibrantlength, and “load in the jaws would still be ly fueled by a fascinating stream of new over the feet.” Here, paleontology was driven fossil discoveries, ideas, theories and by a paleoart ‘sample,’ rather than vice versa methods, the captivating field of paleoimas is usually the case. agery would seem about to soar far further During October 28 to 29, 2016, the UK than before! Dinosaur Society sponsored a special END Paleoart Exhibition attended by paleoartists Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

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Concluding from Page 14

assembled with a truncated tail and carnivorian skull, and in 1955 Burian adjusted the animals’ morphology (and the landscape) to depict the herbivorous Edaphosaurus pogonias. The resultant idyllic image appeared in Augusta's book Prehistoric Animals (1956) accompanied by the author’s trademark eloquent text (Fig. 1) in which he noted that edaphosaur remains had been found in two Czech localities, Nýrany in Bohemia and Rosice in Moravia (both in Upper Carboniferous strata). Although this image was replaced by more recent versions from 1961 and 1967 in subsequent titles by Augusta and his successors, it remains Burian’s best-known pelycosaur reconstruction. In 1952 Burian again painted Naosaurus but as a single animal in an almost biblical-like Permo-Carboniferous forest setting (Fig. 2), complete with dual rainbows. This image was one of Burian’s ‘School painting’ series of 44 large format oil paintings produced in collaboration with Augusta between 1949 and 1967 for the Czech state education system (see PT # 116). The original is a striking work which was displayed at the Prague National Museum when I visited in 1992. It remained unpublished in Augusta’s books but did appear (although only in monochrome) in the book Geologicke vedy (1973) where it was captioned as a typical Permo-

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Carboniferous landscape with resident Edaphosaurus (even though the skull and tail are clearly incorrect). Why Burian had again painted this animal with outdated morphology is unknown. Jan Kopecky advised me that by 1952 Augusta would have been aware that the skull and tail of Naosaurus were in error due to the Age of Reptiles mural completed by Rudolph Zallinger (1919-1995) in 1947 for the Yale Peabody Museum (in which the animal, by then Edaphosaurus, had the correct features). However, Augusta was known to have been rather conservative, and the fact that the image was never used in his books is the most likely reason that he did not request Burian to update it. The painting is otherwise a competently-composed and idealised rendition of a Carboniferous glade. Burian’s 1961 Edaphosaurus (Fig. 3) is a colourised iteration of a 1947 ink image that he had produced for the 1st edition of Augusta’s text Ztracený svét (The Lost World, 1948; not to be confused with the 1912 novel of that name by Arthur Conan Doyle). Depicted in a less classical format than the 1955 version, it again featured cascading water as a lone animal negotiates dead Carboniferous vegetation. It was first published in sepia in Augusta's book Versteinerte Welt (1962), which contained selected content from his earlier titles Ztracený svét (1948) and Z hlubin pravéku (From the Depths of Prehistory; 1949), and subsequently in colour for various editions of Life before Man (1972, ‘73, ‘74, ‘77, ‘95) authored by Augusta’s successor at Charles University, Zdenék Špinar (1916-1995). Burian reverted to classical style for his 1967 Edaphosaurus (Fig. 4) which was used as the cover image for the 3rd edition of Ztracený svét (1968). His last Edaphosaurus (1978, not reproduced here) was one of a series of large canvases painted for the Dvur Králové Zoological Gardens from 1977 to 1981 (PT # 117) called Vyvoj zivota na Zemi (The Evolution of Life on Earth), at the request of the Czech naturalist/explorer/zoo director Josef Vágner (19282000). Although 34 canvases were planned only 22 were completed due to Burian having passed away on July 1st 1981. Edaphosaurus was the 4th canvas painted for this project and is by far the weakest of Burian’s edaphosaurs. Ironically the Vágner project included some of Burian’s finest large format palaeo-art (e.g. Thylacosmilus, Kronosaurus, Deinotherium to name just three) that sits alongside several atypically poor examples from the same series (Life in the Ordovician Sea, Brachiosaurus, Tyrannosaurus & Triceratops). The reasons for this contradiction are primarily due to Burian’s failing health as well as that of his wife Františka who also passed away during the project (Oct 18th 1979). In addition Burian had two supervisors for some Vágner canvases (Špinar and Vratislav Mazák [1937-1987]), neither of whom favoured the artist’s tendency Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

towards freestyle and dynamic palaeo-art. As was the case with the Vágner Triceratops (1979), the 1978 Edaphosaurus is depicted in an almost Victorian style, as if Burian was recalling naive depictions of extinct animals from his childhood. The subject has grey pallid skin and stiffened body as it crawls over a melancholy landscape of dead vegetation in the fading light of a setting sun. Even Burian’s personal ‘favourite’ saurian, Iguanodon, suffered at this time and the wooden-like 1979 Vágner version (also depicted against a setting sun), pales next to all his earlier versions. Purists will find it sad to view these weaker images from the artist’s twilight years, although the distinctive Burianesque pathos and vitality did return in some measure for most Vágner canvases completed after Františka’s death. In contrast to his other edaphosaur images that were composed in vibrant Carboniferous settings, Burian’s two Dimetrodon reconstructions depict animals in drier Permian landscapes with scant vegetation. As was the case with the 1952 Naosaurus, the 1965 Dimetrodon limbatus (Fig. 5) was one of the ‘School painting’ canvases and also remained unpublished in books until 1997 when it first appeared in Borivoj Zaruba's Otisky casu (Time Imprints). Burian’s 1970 painting of Dimetrodon incisivus (Fig. 6) was more

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hastily-composed with broad brush-strokes and (again) included the hallmark cascading water, as well as an attendant Varanosaurus acutirostris (cropped from this figure). Created for inclusion in the first (1972) edition of Life before Man it was retained in subsequent editions (plus other titles), the last of which (1995) was of poor quality reproduction. In summation, Burian’s pelycosaur paintings formed an important element of his palaeoart collection, with two of the canvases (1952 and 1965) being used for Czech state educational purposes. As the caption to Fig. 1 suggests, Burian’s early pelycosaur reconstructions and his particular skill in depicting primeval forest vistas provided artistic expression to Augusta’s romantic and idealised descriptions of Carboniferous scenes and their strange saurian inhabitants. The elements of mystique and visual aesthetics that Burian had harnessed so effectively in his 1950s canvases were less evident in his subsequent pelycosaurs. Nonetheless, with the exceptions of his first Naosaurus (1941) and final Edaphosaurus (1978), his pelycosaur reconstructions are evocative visualizations of animals that played a key role in the evolution of the mammals.

51

Mesozoic Media by Mike Fredericks

The Art of the Dinosaur: Illustrations by the Top Paleoartists in the World by Kazuo Terakado (Editor), Luis V. Rey (Artist & 8 more artists) Hardback $49.95 200 pages, PIE International ISBN-10: 4756249221 ISBN-13: 9784756249227 The Art of the Dinosaur is a collection of dinosaur illustrations by nine of the world's most technically and aesthetically accomplished paleoartists today. Each dinosaur is reproduced elaborately and faithfully based on the most recent scientific discoveries. These astonishingly detailed and realistic illustrations will certainly help you further appreciate dinosaurs and probably help you learn a thing or two about them. Paleoart is any original artistic work that attempts to reconstruct or depict prehistoric life according to the latest scientific evidence in paleontology today. The amount of the world’s paleoartists has certainly multiplied since the 1990s following the release of Jurassic Park (1993) and has been enhanced by advances in computer graphics technology. The scientific world appreciates paleoart. Since 2000, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology has awarded the Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize for achievement in the field. Honorees featured in the book include Luis V. Rey, Davide Bonadonna, and Rodolfo Nogueira. The very talented artists in this collection present a generous selection of their works that are dynamic, detailed and show their individual techniques. The artistic renderings are the result of collaborations with paleontologists and are based on the most recent discoveries. The artists' own words about their professional focus, their techniques and how they became fascinated with dinosaur art, are also presented. Informative captions include the name, habitat, and time period of each dinosaur, along with the media used in each art work. You have seen the work of several of the included artists in Prehistoric Times magazine like Luis Rey, James Kuether, Davide Bonadonna, Sergey Krasovskiy, Emily Willoughby and Raul Martin. Also included are other talented artists possibly not as well know to you such as Masato Hattori, Rodolfo Nogueria and Zhao Chuang. Each of these nine extremely talented artists has his or her own section. At the end of the book is an interview with Mr. Kazuo Terakado, editor, and Dr. Makoto Manabe that gives a nice, solid history of the depiction of dinosaurs over the years. This is a gorgeous, full color hardcover book that I highly recommend. Resurrecting the Shark: A Scientific Obsession and the Mavericks Who Solved the Mystery of a 270-MillionYear-Old Fossil Hardcover by Susan Ewing, 312 pages, Pegasus Books ISBN-10: 1681773430 ISBN-13: 978-1681773438 For a long time it has been a prehistoric mystery. A fossil so mesmerizing that it boggled the minds of scientists for more than a century until a crew of modern day shark fanatics decided to try to bring the monster-predator back to life. In 1993, Alaskan artist and paleo-shark enthusiast Ray Troll stumbled upon the weirdest fossil he had ever seen; a platter-sized spiral of tightly wound shark teeth. This chance encounter in the basement of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County sparked Troll’s obsession with Helicoprion, a mysterious monster from deep time. In 2010, tattooed undergraduate student and returning Iraq War veteran Jesse Pruitt became seriously smitten with a Helicoprion fossil in a museum basement in Idaho. These two bizarre-shark disciples found each other, and an unconventional band of collaborators grew serendipitously around 52

them, determined to solve the puzzle of the mysterious tooth whorl once and for all. Helicoprion was a Paleozoic chondrichthyan about the size of a modern great white shark, with a circular saw of teeth centered in its lower jaw a feature unseen in the shark world before or since. For some ten million years, long before the Age of Dinosaurs, Helicoprion patrolled the shallow seas around the supercontinent Pangaea as the apex predator of its time. Just a few tumultuous years after Pruitt and Troll met, imagination, passion, scientific process, and state-of-the-art technology merged to reanimate this remarkable creature and made important new discoveries. In this beautifully illustrated book, Susan Ewing reveals these revolutionary insights into what Helicoprion looked like and how the tooth whorl functioned pushing this dazzling and awe-inspiring beast into the spotlight of modern science. 24 pages of color illustrations Discovering the Mammoth: A Tale of Giants, Unicorns, Ivory, and the Birth of a New Science Hardcover by John J. McKay, 264 pages, Pegasus Books ISBN-10: 1681774240 ISBN-13: 978-1681774244 Today, we know that a mammoth is an extinct type of elephant that was covered with long fur and lived in the north country during the ice ages. However, how do you figure out what a mammoth is if you have no concept of extinction, ice ages, or fossils? Long after the last mammoth died and was no longer part of the human diet, it still played a role in human life. Cultures around the world interpreted the remains of mammoths through the lens of their own worldview and mythology. When the ancient Greeks saw deposits of giant fossils, they knew they had discovered the battle fields where the gods had vanquished the Titans. When the Chinese discovered buried ivory, they knew they had found dragons’ teeth, but as the Age of Reason dawned, monsters and giants gave way to the scientific method. Yet the mystery of these mighty bones remained. The journey to unravel that puzzle begins in the 1690s with the arrival of a new type of ivory on the European market bearing the exotic name "mammoth." It ends during the Napoleonic Wars with the first recovery of a frozen mammoth. The path to figuring out the mammoth was traveled by merchants, diplomats, missionaries, cranky doctors, collectors of natural wonders, Swedish POWs, Peter the Great, Ben Franklin, the inventor of hot chocolate, and even one pirate. Author McKay brings together dozens of original documents and illustrations, some ignored for centuries, to show how this odd assortment of characters solved the mystery of the mammoth and, in doing so, created the science of paleontology. Quite a story of luck, intelligence and happenstance. 8 pages of color illustrations. Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures Hardcover by Ben Mezrich, 304 pages, Atria Books ISBN-10: 1501135554 ISBN-13: 9781501135552 Science fiction becomes reality in this Jurassic Park-like story of the genetic resurrection of an extinct species—the woolly mammoth—by the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and The 37th Parallel. Ben Mezrich takes us on an true adventure story from the icy terrain of Siberia to the cutting-edge genetic labs of Harvard University. A group of young scientists, under the guidance of Dr. George Church, the most brilliant geneticist of our time, works to make fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from above the Arctic circle, and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional embryo and bring the extinct creatures to life in our modern world? Along with Church and his team of Harvard scientists, a world-famous conserPrehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

vationist and a genius Russian scientist plan to turn a tract of the Siberian tundra into Pleistocene Park, populating the permafrost with ancient herbivores as a hedge against an environmental ticking time bomb. More than a story of genetics, this is a thriller illuminating the race against global warming, the incredible power of modern technology, the brave fossil hunters who battle polar bears and extreme weather conditions, and the ethical quandary of cloning extinct animals. Can we right the wrongs of our ancestors who hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction—and at what cost? Exciting stuff, soon to be made into a feature film. Primitive War by Ethan Pettus, Paperback: 430 pages ISBN-10: 1545500746 ISBN-13: 9781545500743 The Vietnam Conflict began in the 1950s when the North Vietnamese were trying to reunite with South Vietnam. Because the North Vietnamese were backed by Russia and China, the U.S. became involved to stop the spread of communism and the domino effect. By the 1960s, the U.S. and it's allies were involved in heavy fighting there. While they won the battles, the north eventually won the war, thanks in part to political unhappiness back in the states. The United States left Vietnam and the north poured into the south. You may have spoken to veterans and heard their terrible stories of fighting there but one thing you never heard about in Vietnam were the attacking dinosaurs. Primitive War began as an idea when author Ethan Pettus was still in High School. He passed the time by doodling Vietnam War-era soldiers being hunted by dinosaurs in the jungle. This gave him the idea for what would become the original version of Primitive War - a story called Hunted. Hunted was posted on-line. Later, in college, he decided to create the full story into his novel. When a green beret unit goes missing in a remote valley of Vietnam, Vulture Squad, a platoon of crack U.S. soldiers is sent in to rescue them. And then we are off to the races! Numerous hints of strange animals continually show up in the valley and then the men of Vulture start to go missing. From fire fights with Vietnamese and Russians to death matches between man and dinosaur, the action is fast and gruesome. I was most impressed with this young author’s writing style. He is descriptive, creative with his characterizations and certainly knows how to keep my nose in the book for long periods of time. You will love all of the dinosaurs, many feathered. Among the dinosaurs included are T. rex, Quetzalcoatlus, Suchomimus, Triceratops, Deinonychus and Utahraptors. I am still thinking about the slow death a Russian receives from a group of Utahraptors; gruesome. Ethan dedicates his book to Michael Crichton and this book is certainly similar to a Jurassic Park novel or even King Kong (but not for kids.) Raph Lomotan does some fantastic prehistoric animal art for the project. You can see a lot of his artwork on-line (and in this PT) but unfortunately not in the actual book. The sequel is in the works and perhaps even a motion picture. Primitive War can be purchased at Amazon.com The Subterranean Expedition by David A. Hornung Paperback: 308 pages, iUniverse, ISBN-10: 153201533X, ISBN-13: 978-1532015335 It has been a while since musePrehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

um professor, John Morton, was recruited into a secret government agency and fell in love with a beautiful special agent / assassin while attempting to stop two renegade scientists determined to destroy the post-Civil War Union. But now just as he and Julia begin to build a wedded life together, her former boss reappears and ends their peaceful existence with another assignment. After they are appointed to confront a new danger threatening to instigate a new Indian war, John, Julia, and their former team return on an expedition to the untamed western territories. As they face monster machines and prehistoric dangers from Earth's past, now only time will tell if they can survive the new horror associated with an international criminal cartel and stop a looming war, before it is too late for all of them. In this continuing science fiction tale, a museum professor and his former special agent wife must gather their eclectic team and attempt to complete another dangerous assignment in a land threatened by the possibility of another ghastly war. Following Hornung’s first adventure “Ratten Expedition,” comes his second adventure which is just as fast-paced and well written as his first with the return of great characters. Join our heroes in a kind of steam punk, alternate history of the world when they encounter strange, enormous creatures. Is it a terror bird and a deadly prehistoric pig and is that a sabertoothed cat guarding that entrance? Guaranteed enjoyment. The Evolution Underground: Burrows, Bunkers, and the Marvelous Subterranean World Beneath our Feet Hardcover by Anthony J. Martin, 400 pages, Pegasus Books, ISBN-10: 1681773120, ISBN-13: 978-1681773124 What is the best way to survive when the going gets tough? Hiding underground. From penguins to dinosaurs, trilobites, and humans, Anthony Martin reveals the subterranean secret of survival. Humans have “gone underground” for survival but our burrowing roots go back to the very beginnings of animal life on earth. Without burrowing, the planet would be very different today. Many animal lineages alive now only survived a cataclysmic meteorite strike 65 million years ago because they went underground. The very chemistry of the planet itself had already been transformed many millions of years earlier by the first animal burrows, which altered whole ecosystems. Every day we walk on an earth filled with an underground wilderness teeming with life. Burrows are a refuge from predators, a safe home for raising young, or a tool to ambush prey. In a book filled with spectacularly diverse fauna, acclaimed paleontologist and ichnologist Anthony Martin reveals this hidden world that will continue to influence and transform life on this planet. 16 pages of illustrations Cataclysms: A New Geology for the Twenty-First Century by Michael Rampino, Hardcover: 224 pages, Columbia University Press ISBN-10: 0231177801 ISBN-13: 9780231177801 In 1980, the science world was stunned when a maverick team of researchers proposed that a massive meteor strike had wiped the dinosaurs and other fauna from the Earth 66 million years ago. Scientists found evidence for this theory in a “crater of doom” on the Yucatán Peninsula, showing that our planet had once been a target in a galactic shooting gallery. In Cataclysms, Michael R. Rampino builds on the latest findings from leading geoscientists to take “neocatastrophism” a step further, toward a richer understanding of the science behind major planetary upheavals and extinction events. Rampino offers a cosmic context for Earth’s geologic evolution, in which cataclysms from above in the form of comet and asteroid impacts and from below in the form of huge outpourings of lava in floodbasalt eruptions have led to severe and even catastrophic changes to the Earth’s surface. This new geology sees Earth’s position in our solar system and galaxy as the keys to understanding our planet’s geology and history of life including a controversial consideration of dark matter’s potential as a triggering mechanism.

53

PALEONEWS

The researchers named the dinosaur Patagotitan mayorum after the Patagonia region where it was found and the Greek Jurassic-era crocodile had T. rex teeth word titan, which means One of the top predators of the Jurassic period wasn't a large. The second name dinosaur but a bone-crushing, giant crocodile with the serhonors a ranch family that rated teeth of a T. rex. Razanandrongobe sakalavae, known hosted the researchers. as "Razana," was 23 feet long and weighed between 1,760 Six fossils of the species and 2,200 pounds. Powerfully muscled, Razana had deep, were studied and dated to massive jaws and strong teeth like fangs for crunching about 100 million years through tendons and bones. ago, based on ash found Given where the fossil evidence was collected in Madagascar, Razana was at the top of the food chain 170 million years ago, around them, Pol said. The dinosaur averaged 122 feet long (37 metres) and during the Middle Jurassic period. This period is still poorly documented in was nearly 20 feet high (6 metres) at the shoulder. You may have heard about the fossil record. Based upon isolated teeth and a bone fragment, the new the cast of the dinosaur's skeleton already on display at the American genus and species was first described by Italian paleontologists in 2006. Museum of Natural History that is so large the dinosaur's head sticks out More cranial fossils were discovered and have enabled the paleontologists - into a hallway at the New York museum. Legendary T. rex and other meat-eaters “look like dwarfs when you put - Simone Maganuco, Cristiano Dal Sasso and Giovanni Pasini -- to answer them against one of these giant titanosaurs,” Pol said. “It's like when you put the questions from that first paper with new research. In 2006, they didn't know whether Razana was a dinosaur similar to an elephant by a lion.” Scientists have known titanosaurs for a while, but this is a new species Tyrannosaurus rex or an unknown relative of crocodiles. The new fossils and even a new genus, which is a larger grouping, Pol said. Another showed key features that classify Razana as a crocodile relative, such as titanosaur called Argentinosaurus was previously thought to be nostrils facing to the front of the snout, lower jaw formaPatagotitan the largest. tion and a bony palate, as well as teeth and teeth sockets © Gabriel Lio “I don't think they were scary at all,” Pol said. “They were probthat expanded sideways. But unlike the conical teeth of modern ably massive big slow-moving animals. Getting up. Walking crocodiles, Razana had serrated teeth that were even larger than those around. Trying to run. It's really challenging for large anifound on T. rex and other similarly sized predatory dinosaurs. Like T. mals,” he said. rex, Razana also had some chisel-like incisor teeth in the front that could The big question is how did these be used to scrape meat from bones. This leads the researchers to believe that dinosaurs get so big, Pol Razana was a hunter and a scavenger. Although it wouldn't have been a fast said. Researchers are still runner, Razana would've been formidable at ambushing and scavenging, studying it, but said it probably has to do with an explosimilar to the opportunistic behavior of today's hyenas and lions. And while it could swim to cross rivers, Razana was built to walk on dry land, Dal sion of flowering plants at the time. Along with a forest, it was like an allyou-can-eat buffet for these dinosaurs and they just got bigger. Sasso said. “It's hard to argue this isn't a big deal when it concerns the (probable) Razana also differs from modern crocodiles by having a deep skull and largest land animal ever discovered,” University of Maryland palaeontolofour strong, erect limbs, making it specialized to be a land predator. The crocodiles we're familiar with have flattened skulls and are largely aquatic. gist Thomas Holtz, who wasn't part of the study, said. Kristi Curry Rodgers, a palaeontologist at Macalester College who wasRazana is unique in that it's the oldest and largest representative of the suborder of crocodylomorphs called Notosuchia, predating other forms like it n't part of the study, praised the work as important. She said the fact that by 42 million years.The fossil evidence also shows one of the Jurassic peri- Patagotitan's bones show signs that they haven't completed their growth od's earlier events: a huge increase in body size within the evolutionary his- “means that there are even bigger dinosaurs out there to discover.” tory of the group. Researchers believe Razana fed upon sauropods. New Feathered Dinosaur Had Four Wings but The researchers are eager to find more bones to fill out the skeleton, but excavation in these remote areas of Madagascar can be difficult to access. Couldn't Fly A pheasant-size dinosaur found in China is causing a stir among scienThey also want to fill in the "ghost lineage" of this group by finding older tists trying to understand the origins of flight. The newly named species, examples from the Early Jurassic period, which were probably smaller. "We began with isolated teeth and a bone fragment and ended up bringing Serikornis sungei, adds to the ranks of dinosaurs that effectively had four wings, thanks to heavily feathered hindlimbs and forelimbs. But in a twist back to life a one-ton, terrifying bone crusher," Dal Sasso said. for paleontologists, the evidence suggests that Serikornis couldn’t fly. “The feathering of Serikornis shows for the first time a complete absence Discovery of biggest dinosaur ever hailed by sciof barbules—that entists as fossilized bones of Patagotitan unearthed Serikornis sungei is, the microstrucin Argentina © Emily Willoughby tures that allow A study proclaims a newly named species the heavyweight champion feathers to resist of all dinosaurs, making the scary Tyrannosaurus rex look like a air pressure during munchkin. wing beats,” says At 76 tonnes (69 metric tonnes), the plant-eating behemoth was as heavy study leader as a space shuttle. The dinosaur's fossils were found in southern Ulysse Lefèvre, a Argentina in 2012. Researchers who examined and dated them said the paleontologist at long-necked creature was the biggest of a group of large dinosaurs called the Royal Belgian titanosaurs. Institute of Natural “There was one small part of the family that went crazy on size,” said Sciences in Diego Pol of the Egidio Feruglio palaeontology museum in Argentina, Brussels. co-author of the study published on Tuesday in the journal Proceedings Fossil research of the Royal Society B. has shown that 54

“Razana”, a Jurassic crocodilian with teeth longer than Tyrannosaurus rex

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

birds and dinosaurs shared behaviors such as broodLagenanectes richterae ly preserved bones of this ancient marine reptile (most of the skull, which had a meshwork of long ing and nest building. According to paleontologist © Joschua Knuppe fang-like teeth; vertebrae; ribs; and bones from the and National Geographic grantee Jack Horner, it also stands to reason that dinosaurs had similar courting four flipper-like limbs) from an abandoned clay pit behaviors as today’s birds. near Sarstedt in northern Germany in 1964. Despite “The plumage is composed of four wings, as with being discovered nearly half a century ago, Dr. Sven many theropod dinosaurs from China, but it did not Sachs of the Natural History Museum in Bielefeld, allow ‘Silky’ to take off from the ground or from a Germany, and colleagues were only recently invited tree.” to study the specimen by the Lower Saxony State Instead, Lefèvre and his team suggest that Museum. “The jaws of Lagenanectes richterae had some Serikornis was part of a subgroup of early fourwinged dinosaurs that had feathers not well adapted especially unusual features,” said co-author Dr. for flight. Rather than flapping or even gliding Jahn Hornung, a paleontologist based in Hamburg, through the trees, these animals would have likely Germany, “Its broad chin was expanded into a masspent their lives scampering around on the forest sive jutting crest, and its lower teeth stuck out sidefloor. ways. These probably served to trap small fish and Found in 2014, the Serikornis fossil is about 160 squid that were then swallowed whole. Internal million years old. The fossil hails from China’s channels in the upper jaws of Lagenanectes richternortheastern Liaoning Province, a region famous for ae might have housed nerves linked to pressure preserving the remains of early birds and feathered receptors or electroreceptors on the outside of the snout that would have helped the reptile to locate its dinosaurs. prey. The bones also showed evidence of chronic The first four-winged dinosaur, Microraptor, was bacterial infection suggesting that the animal had discovered in Liaoning in 2000. And the same rock layer Serikornis came from previously yielded the four-winged species suffered from a long-term disease that perhaps eventually claimed its life.” “The most important aspect of this marine reptile is that it is amongst the Aurornis and Anchiornis. As more multi-winged discoveries popped up, many scientists began to see the arrangement as an important precursor to oldest of its kind,” said co-author Dr. Benjamin Kear, from the Museum of full powered flight in birds, with these early bird relatives either flying or Evolution at Uppsala University in Sweden. gliding between the branches of China’s prehistoric forests. Lefèvre and his team named the new species in honor of Sun Ge, the sciNew species of bus-sized fossil marine reptile entist at the Paleontological Museum of Liaoning who made the fossil avail- unearthed in Russia able for study, and for the presumed silky texture of its body covering. A new species of a fossil pliosaur (large predatory marine reptile from the Serikos means “silk” in ancient Greek. 'age of dinosaurs') has been found in Russia and profoundly changes how we In life, the newly described dinosaur would have been about 1.5 feet long understand the evolution of the group, says an international team of scienwith tiny, sharp teeth and a body covered in downy, wispy feathers. Its limbs, tists. Spanning more than 135 Million years ago, plesiosaur marine reptiles however, would have sported several other kinds of feathers, including long represent one of longest-lived radiations of aquatic tetrapods and certainly pennaceous feathers with central vanes that are more like the the most diverse one. Plesiosaurs possess an unusual body shape plumage we often see on modern birds. That’s what makes not seen in other marine vertebrates with four large flippers, Serikornis such a puzzle. According to Lefèvre, the a stiff trunk, and a highly varying neck length. Pliosaurs dinosaur’s wing feathers simply weren’t light and stiff are a special kind of plesiosaur that are characterized enough to produce enough thrust to counteract gravity. by a large, 2m long skull, enormous teeth and Instead, he suspects the animal used its feathers for insulaextremely powerful jaws, making them the top tion and as a display to fend off rivals or woo mates. predators of oceans at the time. Luskhan itilensis However, not everyone agrees that Serikornis couldn’t fly. Mike © In a new study the team reports a new, excepAndrey Atuchin Benton, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in the U.K., thinks tionally well-preserved and highly unusual the case for this dinosaur as a ground-dweller is not strong. pliosaur from the Cretaceous of Russia (about 130 million years ago). It was “The hind wings would be inconvenient for a ground-runner,” says found in 2002 on the right bank of the Volga River, close to the city of Benton. “The long feathers on the thigh and calf would be like very elabo- Ulyanovsk, by Gleb N. Uspensky (Ulyanovsk State University), one of the rate bell-bottomed trousers, rubbing and catching as the animal walked or co-authors of the paper. The skull of the new species, dubbed Luskhan ran." itilensis, meaning the Master Spirit from the Volga river, is 15m in length, He still prefers the interpretation that the four-winged arrangement is “a indicating a large animal. But its rostrum is extremely slender, resembling model for the origin of flight, in which early dinosaurs such as Serikornis that of fish-eating aquatic animals such as gharials or some species of river clambered into trees, perhaps chasing insects and other small tree-dwellers dolphins. "This is the most striking feature, as it suggests that pliosaurs colfor food. To escape predators or to get around, they would glide from bough onized a much wider range of ecological niches than previously assumed" to bough.” said Valentin Fischer, lecturer at the Université de Liège (Belgium) and lead author of the study. The team revealed that several evolutionary convergences (a biological Lagenanectes richterae, One of the Oldest Known phenomenon where distantly related species evolve and resemble one anothElasmosaurs Elasmosaurs (Elasmosauridae) were a family of plesiosaurs that flour- er because they occupy similar roles,) took place during the evolution of pleished during the Cretaceous period, about 145 million to 66 million years siosaurs, notably after an important extinction event at the end of the ago. They were fully adapted to an aquatic lifestyle, and had a distinctive Jurassic (145 million years ago). The new findings have ramifications in the body plan comprising a streamlined body, paddle-like limbs and a very long final extinction of pliosaurs, which took place several tens of million of years before that of the dinosaurs (except some bird lineages). Indeed, the neck with up to 75 individual vertebrae. Named Lagenanectes richterae, the newly identified elasmosaur was 26 new results suggest that pliosaurs were able to bounce back after the latest feet (8 m) long and inhabited a shallow sea around what is now Germany Jurassic extinction, but then faced the Cretaceous extinction that wiped some 130 million years ago. Private fossil collectors recovered the perfect- them off the depths of ancient oceans, forever. Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

55

Caption: Jefferson Airplane - Early Flight (1974) repeats the aforementioned Astori Pteranodon art. Caption: Mike Donald and Bob Siddall - Bertie the Bronto/King of

DINOSAUR ALBUMS … JUST FOR THE RECORD PART 3 – PERFORMERS by Robert Telleria

the Dinocrats (1972) First 7” single tied in to a toy line (Inpro, marketed by Saftvale). Archaeopteryx – First Flight (1976) Caption: “X Minus One” series radio

dinosauriana.com

originally broadcast on NBC on

know. Collecting them all is a real impracticality. PT readers are most pasable of this niche can take a lifetime to collect as well. All that is known is documented in Dinosauriana: The Essential Guide to Collecting Figural, Model and Toy Dinosaurs. Books on stamps featuring dinosaurs exist too while the hundreds of posters, postcards and puzzles with prehistoric imagery have yet to be properly catalogued. In past PT issues, I have checklisted notable coloring books, calendars and other ephemeral items. This article spotlights dinosauriana that you can hear but with an emphasis on the sleeve art on the overlooked world of recordings bearing dinosaur artwork on vinyl, cassette and compact disc formats. I would never write about the quality or lack thereof pertaining to the music. In my last installments I documented the soundtracks and storytime/edu-

March 7, 1956. Pressed on vinyl with black and white art featuring Ray Harryhausen's Allosaurus. Shinsei Japan Orchestra (1979) Caption: Blue Oyster

Cult

Cultasaurus

-

Erectus

(1980) appears to be a modified alligator skull image but the rest of the jacket is actually more

interesting:

a

frontal photograph of a T. rex skull and dinosaur eggs on the back while the inside has a photograph of a boy near dino footprints.

cational records. This article will only present memorable album covers by

Digital Dinosaurs - Don't

performing acts in the world of theatre, rock, jazz, pop and everything in

Call Us (1981)

between. There are too many obscure acts on indie labels but I have includ-

The Piltdown Men

ed a few. Fun facts – Did you know prehistoric animals never appeared on

(1981)

any major albums by Dinosaur Jr., Jurassic 5, Stegosaurus, Deinonychus or Mastodon? Or The Degenerates' Play Dinosaur CD cover for that matter? Did you know an early version of Van Halen were called Mammoth (and VH later had a very cool instrumental called “Baluchitherium”)? Not bizarre enough? Try the song “John Ostrom” by Birds Are Dinosaurs. Caption: Jack Ary and the High Society Cha-Cha – Theodore the Dinosaur (1960) maybe the first performer to use a dinosaur image on their album cover. Caption: The Flock Dinosaur

Swamps

(1970) copies the artwork

of

Constantin

Astori's Pteranodon and rhamphorhynchi altered with the band members on the rocky shoreline. No swamps, no dinosaurs. The Move - Brontosaurus (1970) Caption:

Tyrannosaurus Rex (later T.

Rex), the group Mark Bolan formed that he named after the skeleton which left him awestruck, only ever used an image of the dinosaur on the sleeve for his 7” vinyl single “Hot Love” (1971). 56

(1977)

L. Sprague de

Camp's “A Gun For Dinosaur”,

Dinosaur books are an ever-expanding universe of collecting as we all sionate, it would seem, for models and toys, and the rarest and most desir-

Broadcast

Adaptation of

Caption: The Hoodoo Gurus

-

Stoneage

Romeos (1983) features Harryhausen's Allosaurus from One Million Years B.C. Caption: The Police - Synchronicity (1983) If you look close, you will see lead singer Sting posing near the skeleton of Stegosaurus off to the right middle section. Caption: Pylon – Chomp (1983) features Vernal Utah T. rex sculpted by Elbert Porter on the cover. Incidentally one of their videos shows an Eryops fossil. The Early Mammals – Dinosaur Omelet (1987) Caption: Birdsongs of the Mesozoic – Sonic Geology (1988) What do you expect from an instrumental band whose press photos were taken in front of the Kronosaurus mount at Harvard's Prehistoric Times No.123 Fall 2017

Museum

of

Comparative

but not the cover: a tyran-

Zoology.

nosaur being pulled from a

The Dinosaurs (1988)

magician's hat?

Was (Not Was) – Walk the

Triceratops (1997) and

Dinosaur single (1988) Caption:

Chafe,

Triceratops (1997) – The blue Jaffe,

cover is the Japanese act of

Schottstaedt – Dinosaur Music (1988), a German release, lifted a pixilated

Zdenek

Burian

Brontosaurus. Caption: Fowler Brothers –

the same name. Various - Dinosaur Days (1998) Crispy – Mr. Dinosaur (1999) Caption: Tower of Power – (2000)

–

Breakfast For Dinosaurs (1988) features Monogram recasts of Aurora

Dinosaur Tracks

Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus on the cover (the latter missing from the cas-

Compilation with animated icon

sette cover image). The man on the cover is wearing a green Stegosaurus tie,

“Gertie” on the cover, back and disc itself.

probably eating Dinersaurs cereal. The label Fossil Records has nothing to do with Donald Glut's 1990s “label” .

Enid Blyton - Fünf Freunde 41 - Und Die Spur Des Dinosauriers (2001) Da Vinci's Notebook – Brontosaurus (2002)

Caption: Dinosaur Jr. - What

Caption: Catch Twenty Two – Dinosaur Sounds

the F---? (1989) is an unofficial

(2003) lifted its Diplodocus cover from the 1941 book

release with a Brontosaurus lifted

Animals of Yesterday.

from a 1987 Modern Publishing Coloring Book.

The Dinosaurs – Friends of Extinction (2004) Matmatah – Triceratops (2005) Beach Patrol – Riding

Sleestaks – Call of the

Dinosaurs (2008)

Pterodactyl (1990) uses Ja-Ru toy

Motion

dinosaurs. Caption: The Flesh Eaters -

Soundtrack

Prehistoric Fits Vol. 2 (1990)

City –

My

Dinosaur Life (2010) Caption: Led

you'll find Ja-Ru Marx knock offs Dimetrodon and

Zeppelin bootleg – Dinosaurs Rule (2010),

Stegosaurus. Captain Crunch – Dinosaurs are Back (1992) lifts a tinted version of John Gurche's Daspletosaurus vs Styracosaurus painting, known famously as the cover of Robert Bakker's 1986 book Dinosaur

previously on vinyl but the bootleggers stuck on a King Kong V-rex still for the CD version. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - The Music of Rush (2012)

Heresies. Lienemann – Die Dinosaurier (1993) 7” single Caption: Soul City Orchestra – It's Jurassic (1993) uses the Jonas Studio T. rex head, for a recording of the cover

The Title Sequence – Dinosaurs (2012) Dinosaur Burps - Mother Nature Wants You Dead (2012) lifts artwork from the UK poster artwork for The Giant Behemoth (Behemoth the Sea Monster). MC Lars – The Zombie Dinosaur LP (2015) Caption: Alice in

of “Jurassic Park” Theme by John Williams. Caption: Various - Techno Dinosaurius (1993) is a dance club compila-

Chains - The Devil Put

tion from Spain, with a Kenner Jurassic Park T. rex toy on the cover and

Dinosaurs Here (2015)

UKRD brand toy dino figures on the back. A cassette version uses a mech-

Perhaps they should

anized Aurora T. rex.

have

put

Submarine – Dinosaurs (1993) 12” single

Diabloceratops, “devil

Caption: “Weird Al” Yankovic - Alapalooza (1994)

horned

obviously parodies the Jurassic Park poster. The track (and video) of the same name mocks the film itself. The Tin Lids – Dinosaurs in Space (1994) Caption: Various - Never Say Dinosaur (1996) is a Christian rock compilation which may explain the title Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

face”,

here

instead of Triceratops. At any rate, the album also exists as a 12” picture disc. Bassjackers & Jay Hardway – Dinosaur (2016) Caption: Hairy Giant – Glowing Dinosaurs (2016) lifts Rudolph Zallinger's 1960 Ornitholestes and Brachiosaurus for the CD sleeve. 57

Charles Knight Field Museum mural SIDEBAR - Terry Dactyl

and

Stegosaurus.

the

"She

Left;

I

Dinosaurs was a British

Died/Too Self-

novelty act known for a

Centered"

few singles in

the

(1973) 7" sleeve 1970s, one of which was a

has some barely visible, small inset

#2 UK Singles hit entitled "Sea Side Shuffle".

shots of dueling toy Allosaurus and

B/W "Ball and Chain" (1971), the band's most

Trachodon by Marx.

distinctive 7" sleeve has a psychedelic, modified

Under the alias "Brett Marvin and the they

released

"I'm

Rudolph Zallinger T. rex from Dinosaurs and

Thunderbolts"

Other Prehistoric Reptiles by Jane Watson. The

Coming/Highway 61" (1973), the French 7" sleeve

most common sleeve has a pink cartoon dinosaur

of which has unique cartoon dinosaur art. Their

in overalls. Yet another European sleeve has a

final release, "Come Away/Cherry Ring" (1977),

black silhouetted shape of T. rex. "On a Saturday Night/Going Round the

typically didn't have dinosaur art on the sleeve

World" (1973) 7" sleeve released in Europe and Turkey has a redrawn

except for the Portuguese release.

Continuing from pg 18 Camarasaurus was killed by the Ceratosaurus, only to later be driven off its kill by an arriving pack of allosaurs. The most obvious Ceratosaurus feature was the single horn formed from two protruding nasal bones. Like ceratopsian horns, in life the core would have been surrounded by a larger keratinous sheath. Like so many of the dinosaur features, all the usual reasons have been suggested for the horn: it was for mating—the color or shape showing potential mates that here was one fine specimen of ceratosaur—or perhaps it was used as a weapon. © Eivind Bovor

© Paulo Leite Other features that separate Ceratosaurus from other theropods was a row of armor plates (osteoderms) running along its spine and that their enormous teeth are often found in sediment alongside fish. These, along with their flexible, powerful tail (similar to those found on crocodiles), led Bob Bakker to suggest they were aquatic predators. The recent explanation that Spinosaurus lived just such a life-style may lend weight to this idea in the future and help shake up the image theropod dinosaurs had for a long time. Just like birds, theropods could and did enter many kinds of environments in search of prey.

© Catherine-Ann Beckford

Unearthed in 1883 by Marshall P. Fetch at the Morrison Formation, famous for the dozens of allosaurs found there, the presence of one Ceratosaurus is a clear indication their population was never large in the

© Mike Landry 58

Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

region. Fetch was born in Massachusetts in 1834, and after fighting with the Union Army, he moved to Colorado with his family, settling in Cañon City in 1871. The family soon uncovered large bones about the farm, and when news of these reached O.C. Marsh, America’s first paleontologist got into contact and asked about the bones. The farmer wrote back, noting he had found many in a sandstone layer he called “the old river bed.” Marsh sent men to help excavate and preserve these bones, many of which were in poor condition. This led to the quarry eventually being shut down but not before dozens of crates filled with plastered bones were sent to Yale. A few years later other locations at which Marsh had been working dried up, and so he wrote Fetch asking if there was a chance he would open his quarry again. The farmer agreed, and soon boxes stuffed with disarticulated bones started filling trains heading east. The work was hard and not helped by the environment. Fetch at one point wrote Marsh that he was happy to get back to work just “as soon as the snow thaws away again,” and then there were the shipping companies. “In regard to the overcharges for freight it is no more than can be expected of the D&R.G. Ry. Co. notoriously a Corporation of Highway Robbers that fleece everyone that comes in their way. Knowing this I went personally twice to the Agt. and made a square contract—and nothing was said about prepayment till the boxes were loaded on the cars—and then the Agt. would not specify rates on the bill but made me sign an agreement that I would guarantee charges paid.” Fetch was not getting rich digging for bones, and many of the farmer’s letters to Marsh were from him asking to be paid so that he could get on with things, yet the work paid off. Out of all the remains Fetch collected, only a few were articulated, and this included a juvenile Ceratosaurus in 1883. For one of the first

Sculpture © Jim Martinez

© Mark Hallett www.markhallett.com © Peter Thomas complete dinosaurs, most of the general public have never heard of Ceratosaurus, which is weird because the dinosaur has always been a media star. Not only did we get a brief flash of one in Jurassic Park III, a Ceratosaurus was in (arguably) the very first live-action dinosaur film on the silver screen as D.W. Griffith’s 1914 Brute Force. One even had the audacity to try and eat Rachel Welch in One Million BC, before getting its butt whipped by a nearby Triceratops.

© Keith Strasser

© Samuel T Pickens

Photography © Paul Carter Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017

59

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oCHClOO2UQ

© Joe deVito

h t t p s : / / c d n . c s g a z e t t e . b i z / c a c h e / r 9 6 0 86dc9f50ff32228916eec1673916a3e5.jpg

© Julie Ann Kitzes

© Dinosaur Ty - Don Dumas © Jeffrey Nevens

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Prehistoric Times No. 123 Fall 2017