Prehistoric Times - 2017 Spring

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Prehistoric Times #121_Prehistoric Times #73 3/30/17 5:20 PM Page 1

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Writers in This Issue:

Mike Fredericks Tracy Ford Randy Knol

www.prehistorict

imes.com

This is going to be the best Easter EVER!!

Artists in this issue:

Anthony Beeson

Mike Fredericks

Fred Snyder

Fabio Pastori

Misty Marshall

Tracy Ford

Trash Brumitt

John Sibbick

Anson Aguirre Firth

James Gurney

Giovanni De Benedictis

Keith Strasser

Jacek Major

James Kuether

JA Chirinos

Luis Rey

Martin Garratt

Nathan E Rogers

Mike Landry

Sergey Krasovskiy Kevin Hedgpeth

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Phil Hore John R. Lavas Allen Debus Sergio Biston Jeffrey Quinn

Carl Masthay Robert Telleria Steve Kelley James Van Dyke Martin Garratt

Quentin Brendel

Joshua Ballze

Nick Paradimitriou

Jacob Micallef

Clinton Harris Jim Martinez

Maurilio Oliveira

John C Womack

Camila Chair

Ryan McMurry

Filipe Bernardo

Eivind Bovor

Vitor Silva

Jeffrey Nevens

Kurt Miller

Wade Carmen

Joseph S Yansbury

Henry Sharpe

Samuel T Pickens

Zach Coker

Jim Garrison

Luke Dickey

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www.prehistorictimes.com Join the Prehistoric Times group for free on Facebook 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. 121 Spring 2017 subscribe, resubscribe or buy back issues

$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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Don’t forget PT is also available as an app for your phone or computer Advertising: Full page - $150 b&w - $400 color; 1/2 pg - $100 b&w - $300 color; 1/4 pg - $75 b&w - $200 color

Dino Grotto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Van Dyke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Burian’s Paleo Fiction Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lavas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Metriacanthosaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 How to Draw Dinosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Pliosaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beeson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Collectors Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Dinosaur Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Knol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Alice B Woodward Paleoartist . . . . . . . . . . . Quinn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Beloved Camarasaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Biston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 What’s New in Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Estemmenosuchus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Speaking Dino Pronunciation Guide . . . . . . Masthay/Telleria . . . . . . . . . 44 John Sibbick Reader Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 One Earth For Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Debus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Sound of Mesozoic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Telleria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Mesozoic Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

PT logo by William Stout Redone above by Thomas Miller Front cover graphic design by Juan Carlos Alonso

Reader Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Paleonews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Darwinopteryx& Cryolopho Models . . . . . . .Garratt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Aurora Prehistoric Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kelley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

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FROM THE EDITOR

Spring has The amazing collection of sprung and Steve Kelley the new PT has begun. No need to despair, this mag will MOVING?? leave you without a care. So find a comfy chair. You can PLEASE let even read it in your underwear. us know your Please forgive me, Spring makes me full of prose new address instead of what I’m normally full of. How about that when you Burian front cover? I know you have been enjoying John plan to move. Lavas’s continuing articles on the famous artist and in The magazine this issue, he talks about Burian’s fiction art. Our cover is NOT forart and the art on the facing page of the article (page 10) warded and it were loaned to us by their owner Andrew Steven and costs us to have never seen large, color publication until now. resend the Thanks John and Andrew. magazine Call it “Cool” or later to your “Crazy,” long time new “digs.” friend of PT Jim Van Also, if you Dyke shows us his subscribed “Dino Grotto” in this to PT by issue in which he has sending your payment anywhere except directly to us, please know beautifully converted his that we only received a small basement into a percentage of that payment. The people you sent the payThe world has voted and Mesozoic wonderland. Good resale value? Well, ment to got the majority of the new playing piece in all I guess that depends on your money. When you (hopeMonopoly board games who is buying your fully) renew your subscription, house. Convert a few PLEASE do it by sending your will now be this more rooms like this Jim payment directly to us. We are Tyrannosaurus rex. and you’ll have a unique a small business and could Bed and Breakfast. “Greetings folks, will you be staying in really use your support. our Velociraptor room or our T. rex room?” Thanks so much to many of The incredibly handsome Phil Hore writes about the aweyou who have started renewing some dinosaur Metriacanthosaurus, even though not a lot is directly with us. Would the rest known about it. He also describes the bizarre but interesting of you please stop your autoEstemmenosuchus. Both articles include the usual, great matic renewal with an internet artwork. Camarasaurus is not a Brazilian dinosaur but subscription service? We sure Brazilian author Sergio Biston loves it nonetheless and has thank you! You have seen artist Fabio written a nice article for us about the long-necked American ARTISTS! PT does not dinosaur with more great artwork. pay for submissions but many Pastori’s amazing dinosaur art Hey, Tracy Lee Ford and I have illustrated our own Tracy Ford & I have illustrated an artists whose work is seen in in PT many times. He is now Prehistoric Times Dinosaur Coloring Book titled “What all new Prehistoric Times dinosaur Prehistoric Times get paying offering it on T-shirts. E-mail Color Were Dinosaurs?” and we offer it for sale at work from other sources. Fabio directly at: coloring book for all ages. It costs Please send jpg files of your Amazon.com for only $9. We hope you will pick up a copy only $9 plus shipping and is avail- artwork scanned at 300 DPI [email protected] or two (they make great gifts) to give us reason to illustrate able only at amazon.com a second one. Paleontologists are actually beginning to learn resolution. Send as an approx what color some dinosaurs were and appropriately, Tracy’s 4” jpg with your name in the title of the image--example-Triceratops by John Smith.jpg to our e-mail address or send good copies (that you article in this issue talks about dinosaur color. Dinosaur fan and collector Jeffrey Quinn has penned an article for PT about pale- don’t need returned and that aren’t larger than our 9 x 12 scanner bed) to our mailing oartist Alice B Woodward which is interesting. Oh and the incredibly intelligent Allen address in California. We need your art and info. For #122 Edmontosaurus & Debus is finally back from his restful hiatus with a great article about a favorite old Kronosaurus (June 10, 2017), For #123 Ceratosaurus & azhdarchid pterosaurs book. We missed you, man. Carl Masthay, who helps me edit the magazine, and (Sep 10, 2017) For #124 Dinosaurs of Romania and Hadeg Island & Sea Robert Telleria have created a guide in this issue to help you find the dinosaur name Scorpions (Dec 10 2017) Thank you! you would like to know the correct pronunciation of by pointing you in the direction of the correct PT in which it recently appeared (did you understand all of that?) Robert Telleria also wrote a colorful article with part 2 of his “Sound of the Mesozoic.” We of course talk about the latest Paleonews and are very fortunate to have not one but two articles from talented professional model builder/painter Martin Garratt. If that’s not enough, Anthony Beeson tells us about a pliosaur museum exhibit in England. And speaking of models, collector Steve Kelley describes the vintage Prehistoric Scenes models by Aurora. Good ‘ole Randy Knoll and I describe new dinosaur figures and much, much more. So, sit back in your comfy chair and enjoy, but please - put on some pants. Bob Morales is still trying to put together a Prehistoric Times dinosaur MANY MORE DINOSAUR DESIGNS AVAILABLE TOO! convention in Southern California. He ALL COLORS OF SHIRTS PLUS CAPS, MAGNETS, Check out the cool Monsterwax would like to find people interested in WATER BOTTLES, MUGS, BAGS, GLASSES AND MORE! selling from tables and dino celebrities to Dinosaur Galaxy trading cards by eappear. If interested please e-mail him: mailing Mike Riley: AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT WWW.CAFEPRESS.COM/PRETIMES [email protected] [email protected]

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

Prehistoric Times No.121 Spring 2017

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MESOZOIC MAIL

term, 'paleo-artist,' could have been used or printed even before then. Best, Allen A. Debus Dinosaur Song felt by Carl Masthay when 9 to 11 years of age, a memory.

I was 9 to 11 years of age in 1950 to 1952 in Southington, Connecticut. My parents brought me and my siblings in our 1949 Nash car to the Mr. Fredericks, before our son could read Peabody Museum in New Haven 18 himself, we were reading dinosaur books to him. Painted by Jim Garrison of Pacoima, Ca miles away. It was at least twice, As a matter of fact, he had to hear from a perfect maybe thrice. There were dinosaurs stranger that it was pronounced dip-PLOD-i-cuss instead of dip-low-DOHcuss because his mother had been pronouncing it incorrectly for years. I and prehistoric animals all around. They bought me some hungered-for dinosaur books and later on at Christmas time my older sisters Shirley and won't even tell you how I read Coelophysis. Dorothy also bought me a dinosaur book or two (Colbert). I was lost in those Fortunately, the young are resilient, and he thoughtful words and amazing pictures of huge hasn't held it against me. He has been a submassive beasts with complicated names, and I scriber to Prehistoric Times for several years, even tried to make model dinosaurs out of clay and I keep up the subscription, even though he's mildly reeking of linseed oil. As these patterns of now away from home as a college junior. The surging interest went thru me in the living room magazines are waiting for him when he comes and upstairs, my cheerful sister Shirley was prachome, and, in the meantime, I get to read them ticing her piano lessons in the sunroom on a cover to cover myself. piano Mother had bought for the music side of I was prompted to drop you a line, because, our lives. Shirley and Edward learned to play the for Christmas this year, I gave him the 2nd edipiano with teachers, but I never had the desire tion of the Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs. and openly resisted but learned to whistle pretty (He already had the 1st edition.) Then your well. One of the pieces that Shirley played freWinter Issue #120 arrived, and there is Gregory quently was a strongly phrased, dominating S. Paul's article on the changes to the 2nd edisonata. She played it without flourishes while I tion. The choices he had to make! To us not into Artist Phil Wilson sent us a lot of art I intend to was busy with other matters in hearing distance. the nitty-gritty of the taxonomy etc. of extinct Soon enough, I started to ask her to play my show in PT. In the meantime, please go to: animals, it can be easy to forget that there are “dinosaur song,” and with a smiling glance http://www.imagekind.com/artists/PhilWilson/Din very real reasons why there are disagreements askance she would do so. The months went on, osaurs/fine-art-prints and educated assumptions. and one time her piano-playing classmate friend As always, I enjoy your magazine. Steve Brusatte's 2016 In Review has showed up one day, and I asked him to play my “dinosaur song,” and Shirley given me new trivia to share, such as the possible reason that birds survived told him what it was. Looking at the sheet music, he started playing with all the subtle flourishes and turns, and, oh no, I was sorely disappointed the Cretaceous extinction. Yours, Cindy Thun Figueiredo, Petaluma, Ca. because no dinosaur was that prettily phrased with muted stompings! Oh well. Hi Mike: Incredible content in recent PT issues! Here, I wanted to clariAs time went on, I slowed down at requestfy a matter in one of my PT articles though. In ing Shirley to play that piece of music. Years Part 2 of my article, "America's First Popular and years later I asked Shirley at her home in Dinosaur Book," (PT # 118, pp.41-43), from Middlefield to play the “dinosaur song,” and captions stated in the top 2 photos appearing on she did, but somehow the overwhelming feelp.41, it may have been rather apparent that I ing I had weakened and had vanished into had selected Frederic A. Lucas' 1901 thin acoustic air, alas! A dead dinosaur song book,"Animals of the Past" for that esteemed died indeed. 'title.' However I did carelessly omit inserting Triceratops always wins against So decades passed, and last week I wrote to the title of Lucas' book into the next-to-last T. rex when Jeffrey Nevens Shirley, now living in Old Saybrook, paragraph on p. 43 (where I twice referred to illustrates the battle. Connecticut, to ask her for the actual name of Lucas' "1901 book" - meaning "Animals of the my “dinosaur song.” She replied today, writPast"). So, to further clarify, yes, I did 'nomiing that she laughed somewhat on reading my nate' "Animals of the Past" (1901) as America's request about what she played a zillion years first popular dino-book. (Readers may consult ago and now forgotten, but she offered the 1901 edition online at Googlebooks.com.) Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven and Bolero Sorry it took half a year to notice this uninas music pieces she practiced quite a bit in tended omission which, despite the two corthose early 1950s. Well, I knew it wasn’t rectly stated image captions, may have seemed Bolero, and so using this computer I went a little confusing. One item that I found very online for Moonlight Sonata, Movement 3, to interesting doing the research for my article is listen if it had been the correct song, and the discovery that Alexander D. Winchell may indeed it was. have been first to use the term "Paleo-artist" in modern parlance in 1870, (as indicated on p. 42 There are different style choices, but the of the PT article). Of course, it is possible the first one had the sound of a strong and fre6

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“Duranteceratops” by Keith Strasser

class postage doesn’t work for me. Something you said regarding it being up to the USPS letter carrier as to when third class postage items get delivered put me off the idea of 3rd class postage. My primary lettercarrier is a great guy and I trust him implicitly but he only delivers the mail about the half the time and I’m nowhere near as trusting of his associates. So, I’d rather not leave my PT delivery up to all their individual judgements. Thanks for continuing to publish PT. Your humble fan, Kent Stober, San Diego, Ca. Thanks Kent, I published your letter because you bring up a subject I am often asked about. “What is the difference between a 1st class postage subscription and a 3rd class postage subscription (besides the $5 difference.) And of course the answer is “speed of delivery.” As I always say, if you enjoy your PT and wish to receive it as fast as possible, pay the extra $5. It will arrive within days of my mailing it. If you

Named for Jimmy Durante’s big nose, Neil Larson with its skull and Keith Strasser’s lifesize bust. The sculptures are available.

Life-sized sculpture of Machairoceratops by Keith Strasser

quent two-note emphasis for a stomping pouncing meat-eating vicious brute dinosaur and a rumbling, coursing, hopelessly escaping smaller prey dinosaur eventually succumbing to those dominating two notes, despite all its running away. And then there are the creepy quiet lurking times before the horrible terrible hair-raising chase and unwanted onslaught again inevitably occurs. You know that all this is occurring in that baleful pale moonlight, a time of romantic encounters normally!

enjoy your PT but are just as happy to receive it next week as you are this week, then save the $5 and put it towards your Keith Strasser’s son dinosaur collection. Also regarding So you might have thought that piece of music was appropriate models in front of the statue what you are talking about Kent, the for a moment of stimulated relaxation. Well, no! After all, it cast post office told me that the 3rd class me back to Cretaceous days. Carl Masthay, now 76, Creve Coeur (St. mail (now called presort mail) is delivered at the postman’s discretion, Louis), Missouri usually whenever he decides to deliver the 3rd class mail. I will add that I have had equal success with the actual delivery of either - editor Dear Mike, enclosed please find a check for $40 for a one-year renewal of my PT subscription at the first class rate. I received your reply to my Hi Mike. Here is my new piece of paleoart of Eustreptospondylus observinquiry regarding switching from third-class postage to first-class postage ing the sunset. I hope you are enjoying the rain season you guys are getting as well as your kind offer to upgrade by paying the extra $5 if I find thirdand wonder if it will soon take the title from the Rainy Basin away soon. I also enjoyed a bit of what was written about the new find of Concavenator. Fred Snyder of Hoboken, NJ likes to make prehistoric dioramas using Another rather interesting article was on the rather little known toy figures plus beautiful trees and other flora he makes himself. Alcovasaurus mentioned by Kenneth Carpenter. It is rather interesting to think that another animal like Stegosaurus roamed alongside the latter. Judging from the lack of material l wonder if it was small, like the Kentrosaurus, or more likely, was like Stegosaurus and was probably armored like the former. And as for what it faced, animals like Allosaurus and Torvosaurus, or maybe even the bigger Saurophaganax. Anyway, its always nice to say hi and looking forward to another issue. “Talloraptor” Tallack Refshaw, Eagle Bend, MN Volcanism and the asteroid impact were the two dominant theories to the Cretaceous extinction but other explanations weren't considered. When a species from one part of the world mixes with another there is the potential for foreign maladies to affect unprotected immune systems. For example, when explorers came to the Americas they unknowingly brought afflictions like small pox which struck down indigenous people. Also, invasive species cause destruction. Look at the way rock pythons are taking over the Everglades and competing with alligators; kudzu and feral hogs are now serious environmental problems across the nation. Wade Carmen, Cleveland, TN Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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The PT DinoStore

Vintage dinosaur collectibles for sale from PT magazine 18. hollow dinos 1. “Dinosaur Collectibles” price guide co-written and signed by PT editor $49 1. Collectibles 2. Linde 1950s Coffee Premium plastic dinosaur figs 7 from Austria. $12ea. book 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. 19. SRG 10. Sinclair 1960s green plastic 10” brontosaur bank $19 16. Sinclair bagged set 11. Sinclair 1934 Dinosaur book $25 & Sinclair1964 Worlds Fair booklet $15 12. Sinclair 60s colorful Hardback “The Exciting World of Dinosaurs” $44 13. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs ‘64 NY World’s Fair dinos in several colors @$35 27. Palmer 14. Sinclair rare hollow NY Worlds Fair Brontosaurus looking backward $76 15. Sinclair album and complete stamps set 1935 $40 or 1959 $30 16. Sinclair 60s solid Worlds Fair dinos (6 diff. various prices) (bagged set $129) 27. Palmer 17. Sinclair Oil 1960s dino chrome metal tray $55. 18. Hollow, dimestore plastic dinos, 60s/70s six different $8 each (see photo) 11. 1934 Book 2&3. Linde 19. SRG Small metal dinosaurs T. rex, Tricer, Tracho, Bronto or Stego $35 ea. SRG sm. Caveman, Dimetrodon, pterosaur or Plesiosaur $49 ea. SRG Large metal Stegosaurus, Trachodon, Bronto, Tricer or T. rex $59 each 20. Nabisco silver prehistoric mammal cereal premiums 60s $10 ea. All 8 $75 21. Nabisco/Fritos dinosaur premiums, gray (60s) $5 each,50s green & red $10 13. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs 22. Nabisco 1950s cereal mailaway dino wheel guide for toy figures $49 23. ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)plastic dinosaur figs. $15 ea, Pteranodon $25 24. View Master Prehistoric Animals 1960s comp. 3 reels/booklet $24 25. Teach Me About Prehistoric Animals Flash cards (boxed) 1960s $39 26. Brooke Bonde 60s dinosaur trading album w/ set of cards attached $44 33. Abbeon 27. Palmer 1960s Mastodon skeleton or Brontosaurus skeleton $49 each - boxed 20. Nabisco cereal prehistoric Corythosaur 28. Marx Linemar 1960s 1” metal dinos. T. rex, Stegosaurus or Brontosaurus $19 ea. mammals 29. Golden Funtime 1960s Dinosaur punch out (unpunched in book) $89 30.Timpo (England) 50/60s plastic 4” Dimetrodon (black or brown) or Triceratops $35 31. Dinosauriana-The Essential Guide to Collectible Dinosaurs disc $25 8. MPC 32. RARE Napco brand 6” 1960s “Brontosaurus” bone china porcelain figure. $49 Multiple dinos 33. Abbeon 1960s Japan porcelain Corythosaurus $49 PT back issues 31, 41, 42, 52, 66, 74-76, 78, 93-102, 104-120 $9 32. Napco 1960s 6” each or $13 each foreign. (PT issue prices include shipping) porcelain dinosaur figure 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 29. 1960s Golden (916) 985-7986 Dinosaur funtime [email protected] punch out in book

22. 1950s Nabisco cereal dino wheel guide 13. Sinclair 1960s hardback

21. Nabisco dinos

30. Timpo Dimetrodon or Triceratops

17. Sinclair chrome tray 1960s 27. Marx Linemar tiny metal T. rex, bronto & Stego 25. Flash cards

31. Dinosauriana disc 26. Brooke Bond 25. 60’s Viewmaster 7. 6 inch Marx large cavemen

23. ROM plastic dinos 16. Sinclair 1959 Oil dino stamps & album

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degree weather? At times, I couldn’t tell whether I was carving Styrofoam or snow.

A camo net hides the pool table in Jim’s Dino Grotto

DINO GROTTO

On the other end of the weather spectrum, I collected sand from the badlands of Colorado and Utah in 100-degree heat. My intent was to use authentic badlands sand to create a 7’ x 10’ rock-enclosed diorama of a Cretaceous battle between two huge predators.

By James Van Dyke

The painting had to be done inside, so my pool table was temporarily converted into a big workbench for the finishing process.rtd The paint colors were inspired by my years of traveling the mountains and canyons of some of our Western states.

My interest in dinosaurs began more than half a century ago. A grade school teacher noticed my interest in the majestic creatures that later became my passion and bought me several books that set me on the path of a life-long interest. I began collecting dinosaur figures as my resources allowed.

The floor was a special challenge. After trialJim next to his 5 foot T. rex skull sculpture

At 12 or 13 my interest in dinosaurs was side-tracked by girls and fast cars, which left little time for prehistoric adventures.

Many rock wall recesses display dino models

Decades passed. Married and my children raised, my enthusiasm for collecting dinosaur figures was renewed in my 40’s. I discovered Prehistoric Times magazine and have every issue of P.T. It has been great to see how P.T. has evolved from its first issue into the great magazine it is today. When I retired at age 62, after 40 years in construction work, my wife Cathy commented several times about how nice it would be if I did “something” with the big empty pool table room in the basement. Little did she know about the changes ahead.

Oxmox Studio T. rex with natural light behind

I decided to start ‘the project’ at age 65. My ‘vision’ was to transform the large empty room (325 square feet) in the lower level of Weta my home into a ‘prehistoric world.’ What a Collectible great place to showcase some of my favorite dino figures in a 2000-piece collection - a Venatosaurus unique, grotto-like environment, I thought. It wouldn’t take long to build, either…maybe 6 to 9 months. Initially, the processes of designing, carving, fitting and painting consumed most of my available time. I did take time out to work on two traveling museum exhibits, ‘Ice Age Imperials’ and ‘Amazing Dinosaurs!’ Coupled with family commitments and other life events, my vision turned into a 4 ½ year project that was a huge undertaking for me. But, I think it worth the effort, for every time I enter the dino grotto I imagine that I’m transported back in time to the Mesozoic era. So, what was the process like? The walls, rock outcroppings, rock formation display bases and snack bar were sculpted in dense Styrofoam, coated and painted. All of the Styrofoam carving was done outside (including during the long, cold Michigan winter months with occasional temperatures dipping below zero). My primary carving tools were an electric chainsaw, hand saws and a variety of wire brushes. Have you ever tried carving a full size T. rex skull in Styrofoam in 12-

Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

Mural window images are by Tom Hendershot’s The Antiquities Co. LLC

Snack rock with fossils around beverage holders

and-error research, I used an adhesive-based natural sand coating, into which I imprinted theropod footprints in a trackway. The tracks lead past a life size Velociraptor sculpture mounted on a rock base. An extensive water feature, along with Jurassic and Cretaceous foliage, was added to enhance the natural transition from wall to floor. The water feature includes amphibious and insect life in interactive situations. Some of the dinosaur figures displayed within the grotto include Sideshow Collectibles and Studio Oxmox, along with my own sculptures of a T. rex skull, a Velociraptor and dinosaur bones in matrix. My passion for dinosaurs as a young man has stayed with me for a lifetime and has led to the completion of my dino grotto. Will it ever be truly finished? Not as long as my passion for dinosaurs survives.

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2. The Lost World & Plutonia illustrations

1. Introduction Following the biography of Zdenek Burian in PT #116 & #117, we considered his palaeo-landscapes in #119 and Palaeozoic fish & invertebrates in #120. The numbered systematic series will resume in PT #122 with part five (amphibians) but for this issue I will briefly digress to consider a not unrelated topic, namely Burian’s palaeofiction imagery. Amongst the 456 novels and some 550 serialised stories that Burian illustrated was a small number of titles that were either palaeo-themed or otherwise contained palaeoimagery. These included two well-known classic novels; The Lost World (1912) by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and Plutonia: an adventure through prehistory (1924) by Vladimir A. Obruchev (1863-1956), in addition to short stories by Ray D. Bradbury (1920-2012). Many PT readers will already be familiar with The Lost World (reviewed in PT 111) as well as Bradbury's work, but American readers are less likely to have encountered Obruchev’s novel. Given this, and the fact that Burian’s Plutonia paintings were probably his most accomplished set of palaeo-fiction images, the novel is discussed in section three. The impetus for this excursion into the realm of fiction was due to correspondence with art collector and Burian enthusiast Andrew Steven who owns two Burian paintings, one each from The Lost World and Plutonia (he also owns two Rudolph Zallinger paintings). I thank him for permission to reproduce his Burian originals in this issue, and also Jan Kopecky for supplying illustrations from two Bradbury stories.

Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

Andrew’s Lost World painting (Fig. 1) is a scene of the expedition members (Professors Challenger and Summerlee, Lord John Roxton and journalist Edward Malone) camped beneath the ramparts of Maple White Land six days before they made their ascent to the plateau's summit via the adjacent rocky pinnacle (which occurred on Sep 10, 1908 as calculated by Lost World authority Dana Batory). As their intended evening meal was being roasted (an agouti, rendered by Doyle as 'ajouti'), a large pterosaur swooped down upon the campfire to relieve the hapless explorers of their dinner. As far as we are aware, this painting has only ever been reproduced in monochrome so we are likely printing the original colour version for the first time here in Prehistoric Times magazine. Burian painted several images for The Lost World, one of which remained incomplete (Zoological Institute meeting), but two better known paintings first saw western publication not within the novel but in the book Prehistoric Reptiles and Birds (1961). Being one of six popular palaeontology titles authored by Josef Augusta and illustrated by Burian, it featured 31 Burian reconstructions of Archaeopteryx, Hesperornis, Ichthyornis, ‘proavians’ and various pterosaurs. Augusta originally wished to include textual passages from Doyle's novel with supporting images by Burian in the introduction, but eventually settled on a short synopsis (pp 10-13) accompanied by two monochrome images. The first was the camp fire scene (Fig. 1) whilst the second showed the pterosaur captured by the explorers and brought back to London as proof of their exploits. During the Zoological Institute meeting in Queen's Hall, at which the expedition results were announced, the Jurassic captive escaped through an open window. Burian's painting depicts its subsequent homeward-bound flight past a Dutch-American steamer (Fig. 2). Thirty years later, the international pterosaur specialist Dr. Peter Wellnhofer (with whom I had corresponded in the 1990s) utilised a similar introduction to his landmark title The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs (1991, Salamander Books, London).

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This time quoting excerpts from The Lost World (p. 8), he narrated the expedition as if it were historical, only later revealing its source. Wellnhofer included the same two Burian images with his text, as well as other Burian pterosaur art (in the section on pterosaur reconstruction, p. 169) noting that: "The life reconstructions of pterosaurs by Zdenek Burian are still among the best reconstructions of their habits and patterns of behaviour as we imagine them to be" and further….."More recently the Czech artist Z. Burian, working with Professor Augusta in Prague, and also M. Reichel, professor at the University of Basel, have produced outstanding portraits of pterosaurs, which also appear correct from a biological point of view, and thus life-like." Andrew’s Plutonia painting (Fig. 6) depicts a scene from the Sea of Brontosauri (chapter 40) when the expedition encounters four sauropods basking at the water’s edge. The explorers fire a shot above the animals’ heads so as to photograph them ‘trotting’ along the shoreline, but their fragile boat is almost swamped when the alarmed beasts decide to seek refuge in the water. In the 1990s I corresponded with the original owner of the painting, Thomas Kovacs (Hungary), who had purchased it after consulting with Burian’s art cataloguer and biographer Petr Sadecky (19431991). Thomas was extremely proud of the painting and sent me a same size reproduction, as well as other rarely-reproduced Burian art. Our correspondence eventually lapsed and several years later I was surprised to see the painting turn up at a New York art auction, but am now reassured that it is in Andrew’s possession. For the purpose of reproducing the image on this issue’s cover I had to extend the painting’s upper and right margins. Plutonia’s author was a celebrated Russian geologist/geographer and palaeontologist, and one of the early Russian science fiction authors. He penned the novel in 1915 after reading The Lost World and Jules Verne's A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (although Burian illustrated at least 17 Verne editions, 12

‘Journey’ does not appear amongst inventories that I have viewed). The original Russian edition of Plutonia was reprinted in 1955 by the State Publishing House for Geographical Literature, and translated into English in 1957 for the Library of Contemporary Soviet novels by Lawrence & Wishart of London. This edition contained 30 line drawings by E.J. Pagram and a map of Plutonia, but Burian's more accomplished illustrations for the story (albeit printed on poor quality paper) are to be found in a 1956 Czech edition by Statni Nakladatelstvi Detske Knihy (Prague; Fig. 5). In addition to eight credible paintings (including The Sea of Brontosauri), the Czech edition included 26 of his line drawings, a map (Fig. 4), a comprehensive glossary of palaeontological terms and a geological time scale. Plutonia was translated into at least 10 European languages and was joined by another similar Obruchev novel Sannikov Land (1926) regarding a legendary island long rumoured to have existed off the northern coast of Siberia.

3. An adventure through prehistory Plutonia’s plot begins in late 1913 when Moscow-based geologist Prof. Pyotr Kashtanov receives a letter from Nikolai Truhanov (a geophysicist/astronomer at an observatory in the Sayan Mts, Mongolian border) as an invitation for an expedition to unchartered Arctic waters. On Jan 2, 1914, Kashtanov meets with Truhanov and three others; Semyon Papochkin (zoologist), Ivan Borovoy (meteorologist), and Mikhail Gromeko (botanist & medic). Noting that previous Arctic expeditions never reached the extensive areas to the north of the Chukot Peninsula, Truhanov cites meteorological and oceanographic evidence to postulate the existence of a large island, archipelago, or even a continent within the blank area, and expresses concern that if Russian explorers did not claim it, the British would do so via Canada. The four scientists agree to participate in the expedition and on May 4 they depart Vladivostok on the Pole Star, steaming north to Kamchatka where they take on board a team of Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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their sighting of a Triceratops being a portent of things to come. Upon reaching a zone of marshes and lakes they observe other large Mesozoic reptiles before entering the Sea of Lizards, the salt waters of which harbour plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and ammonites. This adjoins another small inland sea, the Sea of Brontosauri (Fig. 6). As well as abundant aerial and terrestrial reptilian life (amongst which they encounter flocks of pterosaurs, a ceratosaur and stegosaur, iguanodons, and sauropods), the explorers contend with giant marauding ants which attack them and carry off their tent, instruments and supplies (Fig. 5). The explorers venture into the arid region of active volcanoes (entering one crater to obtain sulphur with which to gas the ants in their ant-hills before retrieving their stolen equipment from within, then burning the colonies) and narrowly evade an eruption that sends streams of molten lava and muddy torrents to engulf low-lying valleys and many large reptiles. They return to base camp only to find it abandoned; a note from their missing comrades relates how they had been kidnapped by a tribe of matriarchal hominids who regarded their captives as magicians but refused to release them. Following a trail of notes left along the kidnap route which leads to the tribe's village, the explorers liberate their comrades but are later forced to fend off a tribal attack during which one of the females is shot in the leg. Borovoy recognizes the native as one who had befriended them and she is taken to base camp to recover (she subsequently returns to her tribe). By late March the explorers begin their return trek to the coast which takes a month (most of the dogs having fled). In July the sea ice disperses and the Pole Star steams south but is intercepted by the AustroHungarian cruiser Ferdinand whose captain is surprised to find that his captives know nothing of the outbreak of WWI which pitted Austria and Russia on opposing sides of the conflict. The Pole Star and its cargo (including all the specimens collected from Plutonia) are confiscated by the Austrians, and her passengers put ashore at Kamchatka. In August a Japanese trawler ferries the explorers to Japan from where they sail for Vladivostok to find the Pole Star at berth (the Russian navy having confronted the Ferdinand in the Commander Islands to secure the release of the Pole Star which the Austrians had already stripped of cargo and fittings). The explorers agree to wait until war's end before announcing their discoveries or attempting another expedition, given that they retained no evidence of Plutonia other than diaries. But the war dragged on and was succeeded by the 1917 sled dogs and their handler Ilya Igolkin. Passing through the Bering Strait they rescue a drifting goldminer (Yakov Maksheyev) who had run out of supplies. At 75 deg. latitude they moor off an unchartered outcrop which they christen Fridtjof Nansen Land. The party of six (including Maksheyev and Igolkin, with Truhanov remaining on board ship due to his artificial leg) depart with dog sleds to begin trekking inland over a monotonous ‘desert’ of ice and snow. After almost two weeks their barometers reveal a progressive descent into a geographical depression 30,000 ft. below sea level, after which they begin to regain altitude and notice that the 'sun' has turned red and remains continually at its zenith. After reaching mistshrouded tundra-like terrain the explorers encounter what they realise are four mammoths, one of which they shoot and examine (Fig. 5). Other tundra animals include woolly rhinos and musk-oxen. Unsure of how to proceed, the team opens a letter given them by Truhanov in case they got into difficulty. Its contents reveal the true reason for the expedition; Truhanov’s belief that the Earth had an extensive internal cavity connected to its outer surface by one or more orifices (the depression into which they had trekked), and which was illuminated by a central celestial body (a giant meteorite that had penetrated the Earth's crust in a past age). Kashtanov names the new land 'Plutonia' and its luminary red body 'Pluto.' The team separates; Igolkin and Borovoy remain at base camp should a rescue mission be required, while the other four (plus a dog named 'General') paddle two collapsible boats down a southward-flowing river, the banks of which become progressively less cold and more heavily-forested. The interior of the new land is rich in Cenozoic fauna; titanotheres, uintatheriums, indricotheres, sabre-toothed cats, creodonts, mastodons, and diminutive horses co-exist with antelopes, hippos, rhinos, giraffes, camels, deer and boar. As the explorers progress south (geographically beneath the Beaufort Sea) the fauna and flora become increasingly more ancient in appearance, with

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Revolution. After 10 years most expedition members had died or been killed at the front, with the novel allegedly being compiled from the diaries and sketches of a deceased member. Indeed publication of Plutonia itself appears to have been delayed by both WWI and the Revolution, with nine years between its conception and appearance in print. Following publication of the novel its author received many letters from the public asking about future Plutonia expeditions and enquiring after the explorers' fate. He prefaced subsequent reprints with a foreword explaining how the hollow-Earth theory had originated in the early 19th C and gained some scientific acceptance before being rendered obsolete. Compared to Doyle's and Verne's novels, Plutonia contains far more scientific detail (especially geological and ecological), while the prehistoric fauna is introduced in a more methodical manner than is the case with The Lost World. Some of Obruchev’s dinosaur descriptions appear ahead of their time; sauropods are observed as land-dwelling gregarious animals capable of trotting, and iguanodons exhibit coordinated herding behaviour to form a protective barrier around their young when threatened by a ceratosaur, which proceeds to actively leap over the adults in order to snatch a youngster.

4. Conclusion Burian’s palaeo-fiction imagery represents an intriguing peripheral

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element to his better-known formal palaeo-art, upon which some of his sci fi faunal depictions were based (however his ceratosaur from Zeman’s film [Fig. 8] is dissimilar to his 1941 reconstruction [PT 116, p. 42]). Not all of Burian’s fiction images were recorded in biographical inventories due to some serialised story artwork being absent from their respective book editions (e.g. Fig. 9). For this reason it remains difficult to ascertain the complete number of such titles that he illustrated. Nevertheless I trust that this brief overview provides at least some insight into Burian’s palaeo-fiction art (few examples of which have accompanied English translations) as well as an appreciation of the two paintings featured in Figs 1 and 6.

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Metriacanthosaurus

© Nathan E Rogers

by Phil Hore [email protected]

© James Keuther

Wading up to the elasmosaur carcass, the Metriacanthosaurus nudges the body a few times and, when he gets no reaction, takes a bite and tries to drag the carcass back to shore. The meal moves easily for the first few steps and © Keith Strasser

Rolling waves surge toward the long, desolate beach. Small pterosaurs screech and squawk amongst themselves, fluttering around something large that flops and rolls over in the surf, rising and falling as the tide swells and decompresses. Once the thing steadies, the pterosaurs land and return to picking at the small gash on the creature’s side, pulling away long ribbons of pink flesh. Instantly the owner of the morsel is mobbed by its hungry fellows and has to fight to keep its meal. The noise from the squabbling scavengers travels some distance, where it catches the ear of something large and hungry. Answering the call of the pterosaurs, a mature bull Metriacanthosaurus plods along the beach; his large, three-toed feet spread wide to keep his weight from sinking deep into

© Giovanni De Benedictis © Anson Aguirre Firth

the black, muddy bank. In this slow, methodical way, the theropod reaches the water’s edge and suspiciously eyes the dead plesiosaur moving in the tide. After a time it’s clear the mass of flesh is dead, and so the carnosaur takes a tentative step into the ocean. Foamy whitewater washes over its clawed foot, and the Metriacanthosaurus bends its head down at the unusual sensation. When it figures out that nothing is wrong, he turns his attention forward and continues to walk. Deeper and deeper the dinosaur strides, picking his way carefully but showing few signs of being uncomfortable with moving through the light surf that continues to roll in. Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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then stops suddenly, forcing the dinosaur to lose his grip. The carcass falls back into the water with a splash, and the theropod, with shredded flesh hanging from his mouth, raises his head high and peers over to the far side. Here, what looks like a large crocodile, opens its mouth and repositions its own grip on the dead animal. It then tries to swim the body out to deeper water.

© Misty Marshall

The pliosaur is large and powerful but is neither large nor powerful enough to win a tugging match with a full-grown Metriacanthosaurus. The theropod again lowers his head, takes another bite, and this time ensures he has a solid hold. The carnosaur then stands up and begins dragging the dead plesiosaur to shore. The pliosaur does its best to keep its meal but is capable of only paddling with its large flippers, being at a total disadvantage compared to the dinosaur, which uses its contact with the sea floor to overpower the back-paddling marine reptile and starts pulling both toward the shore.The water grows shallow and, running the risk of being stranded, the pliosaur finally lets go and wiggles its way back into deeper water. It then sticks its snout out of the surf, takes in a long breath, dives under a growing wave, and is gone, leaving nothing but a dark shadow sessed elongated vertebral spines, and so this association was dropped. The fossils were also associated with Megalosaurus, mainly because of that early association with Altispinax, along with the fact that there were so few theropods known in the 1920s. This association has recently become untenable, if for no other reason than that the Metriacanthosaurus fossils are at least 25 million years older than those of Altispinax. Instead, Metriacanthosaurus has been linked to a new group of Asian theropods called sinraptorids. This association is not the strongest, however, because the lack of an all-important skull for the English species means the relationship between them cannot be more tangible until additional diagnostic material is unearthed. © Mike Landry

There is another suggestion that the name Metriacanthosauridae should have priority over Sinraptoridae and, if so, would contain Yangchuanosaurus, Shidaisaurus, Sinraptor, and Siamotyrannus and would be a sister group to the Allosauria. Again the lack of material hampers any real association here as well. For this reason (whatever the group is eventually called) it also has the distinction of being one of the least represented with fossil bones than any

© Samuel T Pickens

stroking into the bay’s deeper water. The victor pulls and pulls until the body of the dead plesiosaur is out of the water and resting on the beach. He then takes a step back, lowers his head, and starts to feed, stopping only to occasionally snap his bloody jaws at a foolhardy pterosaur that tries to sneak a nibble.

Metriacanthosaurus In the last issue we dealt with a theropod species that had something of a crest running down its back, and Concavenator had been associated with numerous elongated neural spines found in England. These had originally been named Altispinax, and completely by accident, I assure you, it seems we have come across the path of these same fossils again, because the English bones have also been associated with Metriacanthosaurus. The similarly elongated Metriacanthosaurus vertebrae also led to an early association with spinosaurids, but then more fossil remains from across the globe showed that numerous, mostly unrelated theropods pos16

other theropod family. We know all were medium sized (around 30 feet long) and weighed one ton or more. A single tooth unearthed in China of a very large size seems to belong to the group, and so there is a chance in the future that a mega-Metriacanthosaurus may be found, but again we have the trouble of a lack of material to compare it to. The confusion about them does not end there. The only Metriacanthosaurus fossil so far discovered (three dorsal vertebrae, right ilium, portions of left and right ischia, left and right pubes, right femur and proximal part of left femur) is most likely from the Oxford clay because there has been some doubt as to just where the remains were unearthed. It’s believed the fossils were found in Dorset’s Furzy cliffs, and from the same location was found a reasonably complete ichthyosaur and plesiosaur as well as bits and pieces from several other marine critters. This leads to the question, What was a dinosaur doing in marine sediments? This relationship grew even closer when paleontologists noticed one of the dinosaur bones Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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CollectA makes one of the few Metriacanthosaurus figures on the market drawn here by Mike Fredericks

© Jacob Micallef

had an oyster shell (Gryphaea dilatata, the famous “Devil’s toenails”) attached, likely having grown in situ at the time. Perhaps the dinosaur had been washed out to sea, not an unlikely scenario since Australia’s Kunbarrasaurus was found in similar sediments. In an issue where we have highlighted species with limited information, discovered by scientists most of us have never heard of, Metriacanthosaurus was described by William Kitchen Parker, a medical doctor and comparative

© Ryan McMurry

© Josh Ballze

anatomist. As a student, Parker had been taught by Richard Owen and would later prove to be one of his most vocal opponents when the man who named the dinosaurs came out with some theories to combat Darwin’s Origin of Species. This included attacking Owen’s ideas that things like the shoulder had evolved from skull bones.

little compared to his peers, and it has been hinted that this could be attributable to his being dyslexic, not exactly an unknown issue for some paleontologists. Parker’s association can be seen today in the dinosaur’s full name, M. parkeri, or ‘Parker’s moderately-spined lizard’.

Our lack of knowledge about the man is likely because he published very © Trash Brumitt

© Luke Dickey

© Wade Carmen

© Nick Papadimitriou

Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

For all you collectors out there, CollectA (London and Kowloon) is the only company known to have produced a figure of this dinosaur.

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How to Draw Dinosaurs By Tracy Lee Ford

[email protected]

Theropods are not lizards, but they may have been as colorful.

diameter and separated from one another by narrow furrows. The skin impressions are inverse impressions (Figure 1, E-H). There are no other theropod specimens that I know of with any kind of armor/osteoderm/pointy integument preserved. We all know dinosaurs aren’t lizards, and they shouldn’t be depicted that way. Now that I finally got that out of the way, I have a lot of space left in my article, and so I'll talk about color, which leads to the coloring book that Mike Fredericks and I have recently published, and will be reviewed in this issue. Late last year Mike asked me if I wanted to make a coloring book with him. We both drew 15 illustrations; his are on the odd pages, mine are on the even. Our styles are different but work well for a coloring book. Mike didn’t want side views (lateral), and so we have all kinds of different angles, animals, and so on. Only a few fossil nonavian and avian theropods have been found with “color’ or, more accurately, fossil melanosomes found that pertain to color in feathers (Anchiornis, Archaeopteryx, Microraptor, Sinosauropteryx, Sinornithosaurus, and Confuciusornis), though this list will surely grow. The majority of specimens show the black or dark color melanosomes. I was talking to a scientist who studies the fossil melanosomes at the last SVP (2016). He told me that the more colorful melanosomes don’t fossilize. See below for a list of how birds get their color.

Color in fossil nonavian and avian theropods is found in the microstrucThere is a growing trend to augment dinosaurs with a ridge of spines, ture of its feathers, where the melanosomes (color-bearing organelles) are bumps, and extra skin elements, like that in lizards. The major lizard clades found. Melanosomes are lysosome-related organelles of pigment cells with these extra integuments are iguanids (with the extreme being the where the melanins are stored and are partly responsible for the colors in basilisk lizards), a few agamids, and feathers in modern birds. The two most chameleons. All the other lizard Figure 1. A-D, Ceratosaurus osteoderms. A, Osteoderms over the cau- common melanin types are phaeomeclades lack these integuments. We all dal neural arch (after Gilmore 1920). B-D, Cleveland-Lloyd ceratosaur lanin (in phaeomelanosomes), which know dinosaurs aren't lizards, yet osteoderms (after Madsen and Welles 2000). B, Lateral view of UUVP are the reddish-brown to yellow pigmaking them look like an overglori- 433. C, Dorsal view of UUVP 6788. D, Dorsal view of UUVP 677. E-H, ment, and eumelanin (in eumefied lizard is becoming more com- Carnotaurus skin (after Bonaparte, Novas, and Coria 1990). E, Proximal lanosomes), which are the black-grey mon. There is virtually no theropod caudal region. F, G, Details of same. H, Neck region? (not listed in paper). pigment. Zhang et al. (2010) studied that has this kind of integument. The Sinosauropteryx, Sinornithosaurus, type specimen of Ceratosaurus has and Confuciusornis. They wanted to irregular and bulbous small osteoconfirm that the microstructure in derms in a single row down the midSinosauropteryx is feathers and not dle of the spine, which looks nothing collagen fibers or bacteria. Both like an iguana's back (Figure 1, A). A melanosomes and bacteria have simijuvenile Ceratosaurus (at The lar shape (spherical, oblate, or elonMuseum of Ancient Life, gate) and size (1 micrometer or less). Thanksgiving Point, Utah) have a Zhang et al. (2010) found more pointed apex. In the Madsen and melanosomes in the first feathered Welles monograph on Ceratosaurus theropod and confirmed that they are they state that at the Cleveland-Lloyd feather structures because Dinosaur Quarry several melanosomes are not found in collagen Ceratosaurus osteoderms were found; fibers. Melanosomes are highly resisunfortunately they are not associated tant to chemical and physical degradawith any vertebrae (Figure 1, B-D). tion and can fossilize because they Carnotaurus sastrei is the only other have a higher resistance to decay than theropod known with large patches of the keratin substrate of hairs or feathskin. One section is from the anterior ers. cervical region; another is from the The studies that show melanosomes scapular area near the glenoid, two found in feathers do not show all the fragments from the thoracic region color range the animal could have had. and associated with the midproximal Eumelanin shows only black, gray, and area of ribs, and the largest area is dark brown, but phaeomelanin light from the proximal part of the tail. brown, brick red, dull yellow, and tan. There is little variation in the different The other colors are not dictated by areas. The surface of the skin is made melanosomes. What causes the other of rather low, conical protuberances colors? about 4 to 5 cm in diameter, with each having a modest keel that is separated from each other by about 8 to 10 cm. The surface between these protuberances is rough, with rather rounded, low, and small granules about 5 mm in 20

Carotenoids. Lutein (a xanthophyll), zeaxanthin, and beta-carotene are bright yellow, and astaxanthin, rhodoxanthin, and canthaxanthin are bright red. Like the pink in flamingos (which Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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gets its color from eating algae and crustaceans), it is a bird's diet that brings out the bright yellow and red. The yellow carotene pigments are found in grains, seeds, and other vegetable matter. I don’t recall a bright yellow or red “raptor” bird. Once eaten, the carotenoid pigments color, and chemical structure may be modified in the bird’s body. The carotenoid pigments are mostly the cause of the bright red, orange, and yellow. They also almost exclusively are found on the back and breast plumage but rarely in flight feathers. The porphyrins are turacoverdin (green), turacin (red) (both copper-complexed uroporphyrins), and coproporphyrin III (brown, red brown). The porphyrin pigment colors are related to hemoglobin and other bile pigments formed by the breakdown of hemoglobin by the liver. The most common porphyrin is brown; however, they can also produce bright reds and greens. Structural colors comprise structural only (white), structural rarely caused by pigment (blue), and usually structural, though can also be caused by the combinations of yellow carotenoids and black melanin (green). Structural colors are a result of modifications or separations of the components of white light by the feather structure. White feathers reflect the whole visible spectrum. Blues and greens result when light is scattered through fine cell-wall layers in the barbs (Lucas and Stettenheim 1972). It is interesting to note that most blue and green birds don’t have green or blue pigment in their plumage. The colors are a result of complex patterns of refraction and reflection in the cell walls at the surface of the barbs and barbules of each feather; for example, the blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata) really isn’t blue. Its feathers reflect blue-light wavelengths only and give the appearance of blue color (Proctor and Lyn 1993). Iridescence in feathers is primarily structural but is mainly caused by melanin granules. Most birds have dark skin because they need to protect their skin from the ultraviolet components of sunlight. The majority of birds have dark back plumage to absorb the ultraviolet radiation before it reaches their skin. White seabirds often have dark pigments in their skin or underplumage of down and semiplume feathers that are grayish, which absorb ultraviolet radiation before it reaches the skin. The majority of birds, even predominantly white birds (gulls and pelicans), have dark primary feathers or feather tips. Black or dark brown feathers are made up of melanin granules and are always associated with the increase of keratin, which also strengthens the feather. Another study looked at Microraptor (BMNH C PH881). Li et al. (2012) found fossil melanosomes, and their research showed that Microraptor plumage was predominantly iridescent black, as in modern starlings. Carney et al. (2012) looked at the original “Archaeopteryx” feather to determine its color. They determined the feather’s dark traces to be a melanic organosulfur residue. Only rod-shaped eumelanosomes were observed, and they determined that the feather had a black color and extrapolate that Archaeopteryx had a dark color when alive. The dark trace preserved the very fine details of the feather barbs and barbules. The feather shows characteristics of extant birds. Manning et al. (2013) restudied three Archaeopteryx specimens. They used nondestructive chemical analysis to determine the color of the feathers because these species are too important to try any other destructive technique. They used synchrotron rapid scanning x-ray fluorescence (SRSXRF) maps and combined sulfur x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. The combination of both determined the first map of organic sulfur distribution within the whole fossil and demonstrated the organically derived endogenous compounds. In two structures, however, only the lighter elements (phosphorus, sulfur) were comparable with those in the third specimen. The feathers have trace metals and organic sulfur, a finding that supports remnant endogenous eumelanin pigment. The distribution of organometallic compounds is used to predict the feather-pigment pattern and shows that the distal tips and outer vanes were more heavily pigmented than the inner vanes. The pigment adaptation might have influenced the structural and mechanical properties of early feathers and steering plumage in the evolution of the early nonavian and avian theropods. Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

However, because not all the pigments fossilized or were formed as part of the diet or the environment, the colors discovered were just the melanosomes, and the melanosomes were not the only colors the animals could have had. They could very well have been as colorful as extant avian theropods, especially from the colorful birds from the rain forests. The color of avian and nonavian theropods Anchiornis’s body was dark gray, and its face had rufous (red) speckles. The crown was rufous, and the long-limb feathers were white with black spangles. Microraptor’s plumage was predominantly iridescent black, as in modern starlings. Sinosauropteryx had alternating orange and white stripes. Sinornithosaurus was speckled with orange and black. Archaeopteryx had a black coloring Confuciusornis had light proximal flight feathers. The distal flight feathers had a white color. The downy body feathers were probably dark in color. In lizards, their skin color is determined by chromatophores that are layered upon one another in the outer area of the dermis, xanthophores (yellow pigment cells), erythrophores (reddish-purple pigment), and other fat-soluble pigment cells that are just under the epidermal basement membrane. Under the xanthophores are several layers of iridohores, which produce the iridescent colors (blue to gold [guanophores] and white [leucophores]) (from http://www.anapsid.org/basicdermatology.html). The two closest clades to dinosaurs—birds and reptiles (including crocodilians), see color. I believe looking at extant animals is a good reference to looking at prehistoric animals. Check out birds and lizards in the rain forest, desert, seashore, woods, and other places. When coloring dinosaurs, look at not only the dinosaur, but also the environment it lived in, which would be a possible indication of what color it could have had. Mammals, for the most part, don’t see color so well as birds and reptiles (except for primates). Go to the zoo, wild animal park, or even a country fair. At the fair they will have livestock, various mammals, sometimes pigeons, and other birds. Look at their color and banding. I believe the Mesozoic Period was a very colorful time. What also needs to be taken into account is male and female colors. In birds and lizards, the males are more colorful than the females. This could mean the male Tyrannosaurus was more colorful than the female, or any other dinosaur or bird. The final take on this is that just because we know the different melanins (eumelanin and phaeomelanin) it doesn't mean those were the only colors the animals had. Likewise, because not all the pigments become fossilized or were part of the diet or environment, the colors discovered (the melanosomes) were not the only colors the animals could have had. They could very well have been as colorful as extant avian theropods, especially the colorful birds of the rain forests. Both my volumes of “How to Draw Dinosaurs” are available on Amazon.com, my “Generic Dinosaur Skull a Day Calendar” (2 volumes), and my novel “Dinosaur Isle.” And also available only at Amazon.com is 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. 21

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Part of Bristol Museum’s huge collection of marine reptiles as it appeared before the bombing of the Second World War.

sil skeletons of a pliosaur known. It is also an internationally significant specimen and the only example of what is a new species of pliosaur. The animal was so large that it has taken twenty years to prepare the fossil for display and this will be the first public showing of the specimen. ‘Fluffy’ as the fossil has been unofficially dubbed by museum staff, had a number of injuries including a dislocated broken jaw, an infected flipper and a mouth abscess. The first probably resulted in her death. To accompany the huge fossil the museum has commissioned from Bath-based sculptor Tony Hitchcock a life-sized model of the animal that will include such animatronic features as a heartbeat.

PLIOSAURUS! by Anthony Beeson

One section of the exhibition will feature a selection of historic toys of marine reptiles and other prehistoric sea creatures dating from the 1950s until the present day from my collection. Because they were rarely featured in prehistoric animal books, beyond the Marx Kronosaurus, pliosaurs did not really make an appearance in the toy market until the introduction of Invicta’s Liopleurodon. It was only after the screening of BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs, that their popularity as toys began. The exhibition begins on 17th June and runs until the 7th January 2018. Full details will be available on the museum website: https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/bristol-museum-and-art-gallery/

The Bristol City Museum in England has long been associated with marine fossils. Before the Second World War its Geology gallery boasted one of the most impressive and oldest displays of marine reptiles to be found anywhere in Britain. Indeed the 18th century Bristol geologist, the Rev. Alexander Catcott, had bequeathed his ‘Cabinets of Fossils’ and books to the city’s library in 1779 for public consultation. The books survive in Bristol’s Central Library but the fossils, which formed one of the first public fossil displays in the country, were later transferred to the Bristol Museum. As such then Bristol’s collections dated from the 18th century. These included the superb holotype of Attenborosaurus and many other exhibits found by such early fossilists as Mary Anning. At the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, the decision was taken to move many of the smaller exhibits to safety but the pride of the collection, the wall mounted marine reptiles, were too unwieldy to attempt to relocate. Alas, during one of the many air raids that the city suffered, the museum (by then the Natural History Museum) was hit by an incendiary bomb and burned and the exhibits were largely destroyed. The fate of the Catcott collection is not clear as many crates of exhibits are still in storage and await unpacking through lack of space, but it is generally believed that they may have perished. After the war the remaining museum collections were moved into the adjoining Edwardian art gallery, which subsequently became Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. Since those days Bristol has again built up an impressive collection of British dinosaurs and prehistoric marine reptiles, which includes the holotype of the ichthyosaur Excalibosaurus. The collection has been the inspiration for several of CollectA’s toys and Attenborosaurus, Temnodontosaurus, Excalibosaurus, Scelidosaurus and Plateosaurus are just some of the models that have been based on its exhibits. The museum education team use the models to explain fossils to groups visiting the geology department. The collection also includes pliosaurs, and in celebration of the display of an exciting new fossil of Pliosaurus carpenteri, they are mounting a new exhibition in the Summer of this year. The new female pliosaur was found in Westbury, Wiltshire and has been named in honour of Simon Carpenter, who unearthed his 8m long, 150 million-year-old ‘monster’ in 1994. It is one of the most complete fosPrehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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Dinosauriana,

The Essential Guide to Collectible, Figural Toy and Model Dinosaurs

With over 9000 full color photos and a wealth of information on dinosaur and prehistoric animal collectibles from the 20th century by expert Joe DeMarco and a half dozen other experts, this ely v i s n e t disc allows you to also become the x E w d o e N t expert with just a touch of a pd U your computer mouse. Pick up your copy of this computer disc direct from the author. Please note it is a PDF format so you must have Adobe Reader. The disc sells for $25 including shipping. Contact Joe at [email protected]. Joe accepts Paypal.

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LEFT: Collector Andrew Steven who supplied two

of our Burian painting images for this issue was kind enough to send some items for Collectors Corner too. This is a colorful, old punch-out “Dinosaur Paper Model” from British Airways probably handed out to kids at one time.

By Mike Fredericks

y LEFT & ABOVE: Two images of the tough

to find, tin litho, metal “Mechanical Prehistoric Animal” (T. rex) produced in the early 1960s by Linemar of Japan (a division of Marx. When wound up it walks and “roars.” The box packaging is very rare and probably worth even more than the actual toy.

ABOVE: A set of six different 5” dinosaurs made of bone

china and manufactured in Japan were popular in the 1960s, especially in Canada. This “Howling” Protoceratops was sold as a dinosaur souvenir of Drumheller in Alberta. It is written on its frill.

ABOVE: “Dinosaurus!...alive with thrills that started a million years ago.” So says the text on one side of this cardboard advertisement for Dinosaurus! a 1960 science fiction film produced by Jack H. Harris. Collection of Andrew Steven.

ABOVE: SRG brand metal dinosaurs were

very popular in the 1960s and are very collectible today. This SRG pterosaur was a gift shop souvenir attached to a nice piece of polished wood, but surprisingly not petrified wood.

BELOW: Jonas Studios created full sized dinosaur

sculptures for the 1964 New York World's Fair’s “Dinoland”, which was sponsored by the Sinclair Oil Corporation. They consulted with famous paleontologists Barnum Brown, Edwin H. Colbert and John Ostrom to create sculptures that were as accurate as possible. After the Fair closed, the dinosaur models toured the country on special flatbed trailers as part of a company advertising campaign. Many of the statues are now on display at various museums and parks. This 30” tall poster advertised the traveling show.

ABOVE: Old souvenir plates are collectible today.

This one is from the South Dakota badlands and advertises the Wall Drug Store know for its affiliation with dinosaurs including its giant Diplodocus statue.

ABOVE: What kid wouldn’t

love to play “Bowl-AMonster?” The dinosaur premium bowling game came LEFT: Another SRG (Sell Rite Giftware) metal dinosaur; this time a Brontosaurus is attached to a plague or paperweight inside this 1966 cereal box of Wheat Honeys, the same which reads “Member of the American Museum of Natural cereal that included little History.” This, of course, refers to the world famous museum dinosaur and prehistoric in New York City. The Bronto’s tail has been shortened; permammal figures free in their haps on purpose or by accident. boxes years earlier. Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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Dinosaur Collector News by Randy Knol [email protected] www.dinosaurcollectorsitea.com The 2017 New York Toy Fair was more vibrant than it has been for several years. The number of new figures on display from Safari Ltd, CollectA, GeoWorld, Schleich, and Papo was a sensory overload. Recur and Jin Mei Da have reinvented the softplay idea originally developed by Bullyland. When I first saw their figures, I mistook them for highly varnished vinyl. When the interior was exposed, it showed a detailed matrix of nylon fibers that recall the layout of the muscle fibers in living tissue. The original concept as implemented by Bullyland, Play Vision and Disney used a plush-style stuffing. It will be interesting to see if the new variant on an old idea is successful in the market. Battat was at the Fair, and the new and recast LaRusso figures are still being sold, at a rate that exceeds their production, at Target. A note for collectors: a cache of the original Diplodocus was found in the Battat warehouse and is the source of many of the EBay listings. They start at $250 per figure. The Safari ltd release of a baker’s dozen of new prehistoric models was on display. While many of the figures replace the older figures from the retired Carnegie Safari series, there are several brand new figures. The newly feathered figures drew the bulk of attention; after all, it is the “Year of the Rooster.” The new bipedal Tyrannosaurus is the star of this year’s release. The figure has dino fuzz from the eyes to the tail. The face, the lower leg to the feet, and the rear portion of the belly all have scales. The color scheme is black along the back, graduating progressively to red brown, then tan and finally off white on the belly. The proportions of the feet, arms and tails are all perfect. Every character of the model is incredibly detailed; the feathers, teeth, claws and eyes. The use of the feathers fluffs the model up, and mitigates the freeze-dried look that has plagued theropod models. There is a very natural and original feathered collar that looks like it is fluffed out in a threat display similar to a rooster you might see in a cockfight. The wounds on both sides of the face lend itself to the image as the dueling T. rex. My only regret is that this must-have figure sucks up all the attention, and may cause the public to pass over the other quality figures included in the release. The next feathered collectable is the new Velociraptor. Again, the coat of feathers CollectA Deluxe gives the reconstruction a more robust look. Styracosaurus Previous fossil-based reconstructions have always seemed to give Velociraptor a fragile look. It has been hard to take the skeleton covered with skin as a serious predator. It may be why the Jurassic Park raptors have preserved their movie monster look. Safari Ltd. sculptor Doug Watson handles the feathers differently from the tyrannosaur. The Velociraptor has individually sculpted feathers except for the snout and feet, which have a fine patina of scales. The stance is similar to the older 26

Wild Safari model, and has a wide running stance which uses the forelimb for balance. The top is red brown with a white under belly. The wings are large and impressive, with the bottom edge of the feathers colored in graveyard gray and white spots like those of a Quail. The back of the neck and top of the head have a cap of the same gray and white stripes. The coloring is both attractive and realistic. The only comparison is the Bullyland feathered Velociraptor, and it is the best and most accurate figure sold today. There is a third feathered figure; the Deinocheirus mirificus. Since 1965, we have known that a dinosaur with giant arms and claws lived in Cretaceous China. Other than speculation of an ornithomimid relationship, that was all we had until 2013. HLBS produced a rare metal reproduction that was a bigarmed version of Ornithomimus, and that was the standard image. We now know that Deinocheirus was part of an errant early branch of the ornithomimids. It looks very different, and the Safari figure captures the difference. The skull has a duck style beak with deep nostrils on the front. The body is narrow with a humped back and bipedal stance. Safari Ltd. gives its coloring a golden brown with white underbelly, neck and stripes. The body, covered with dino fuzz, has display feathers on the forelimbs and on the tail end. This is an innovative and great reconstruction. The fossils show preSafari Ltd. Feathered T. rex and Velociraptor dation by the Asian tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus, so it is a great companion or meal for our feathered Tyrannosaurus. If you purchase your figures with the clear plastic mounts, store them in the mounts to protect the balance. Vinyl has memory, and it is sensitive to temperature and weight. The bipedal models are finely balanced and free-standing, but can change shape if stored roughly without the mounts. The CollectA Deluxe Styracosaurus is a large and impressive sculpt. The scale looks to be 1/30 or greater. It has the CollectA trademark of a dorsal frill over the hips. The body is different from CollectA’s smaller Popular reconstruction. The front limbs are directly under the body and it is walking forward. The scaled skin has large nodules surrounded by small scales. The entire figure based in brown with bruised purple streaks looks like a living animal. The head and skull are a masterwork of detailing with all the horns, hornlets and spikes that has made Styracosaurus a regular CollectA Einiosaurus figure in toy sets since Marx playsets. The horns and beak are ivory with charcoal & Regaliceratops streaks at the tips. There are rugose bosses over the eyes, and a single long nasal horn. There are three large spikes on each side of the shield, followed by five small hornlets. Like its centrosaur relatives, it has a pair of hornlets at the top of the crest. This is a display piece that you will want in your collection. The Popular CollectA ceratopians for 2017 are the centrosaur Einiosaurus and the chasmosaur Regaliceratops. CollectA’s theropods and horned dinosaurs are their most distinct and original figures. The torsos favor a narrow body with legs set directly under the body for a galloping stance, and each has the signature dorsal frill. Einiosaurus herds lived in Montana during the Campanian. Originally identified as a styracosaur subspecies and then as a possible female Styracosaurus, it is now seen as a potential ancestor to the hornless pachyrhinosaurs. It has a prominent nose horn, often shaped like a canopener. The base is light green with gray toes and horns. The face is presented in fine detail, and you can see how the features relate to the Deluxe Styracosaurus. The figure’s posture suggests it is moving forward, perhaps with the rest of the herd. The award winning children’s PBS television proPrehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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gram Dinosaur Train featured Bernie and Ernie inserts into the bottom for display, but I am Schleich and Einiosaurus. The figures made by Takara Tomy uncomfortable with mutilating a figure to Kinto were garish, and the frill lacked the details, but allow insertion. A non-penetrative display Dinichthys the preschool audience should be prepared to solution like that used by Invicta is preferred. graduate to a realistic model. The Schleich Dinichthys has an articulated jaw Regaliceratops is from the Maastrichtian in that suits the figure very well. The Kinto is nice Alberta, Canada, and shares the lineage of to have and is a rare collectable, but the Triceratops. Regaliceratops gained the nickSchleich is a must-have model. If you want to name “Hell Boy” for its small, anomalous brow add a few smaller figures to your prehistoric horns. The reconstruction captures the long seas collection, the Schleich ammonites that nasal horn and diminutive brow horns that are come with their Dinosaur Advent set are a the distinguishing characteristics. Normally, great choice. They lived in the Mesozoic, but chasmosaurs like Triceratops have long brow had relatives in the Devonian. For presentation, horns and short nasal horns. The crest is encirthe Schleich Moray Eel Den or Coral Reef play cled with scallops topped with a vertical hornlet sets can display them in context. The new separating the crests. The “Hell Boy” red outline of the face and inner crest CollectA mini-sea figures offer additional material. Safari Ltd.’s Prehistoric offer a flash of color to the brown torso and Shark toobs are on sale and there is no equivcream underbelly. The posture is a pose with alent to this selection so get them while you Geoworld Corythosaurus the head lowered as if ready to charge. The can; I did. detailing of the skin, toes and fingers rises to IWAKO is a small company in Japan that the quality and accuracy we expect from makes novelty erasers, some of which are CollectA. I liked the choice of this figure novel dinosaur erasers. They are sold in small because the convergence with the centrosaur packages that can have one of the large headgear is a great teaching moment. dinosaurs or larger packages that contain all of While I was at the Toy Fair, Reeves the dinosaurs. The Larger figures are International announced they would be disStegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and tributing CollectA including the dinosaurs. Reeves is best known for repre- Pteranodon. They are cute figures, but nothing really new. The two smaller senting the Breyer Horses and other lines that are designed to help children figures, a raptor and a prehistoric bird, are very interesting. They are just learn through play. This seems like a natural match and should be a reliable small enough to scale as accessories with your 1/40 scale models. Painting source for retailers. rubber is problematic but I would like to see the details brought out by some GeoWorld has repainted several figures from its original “Dino Dan” TV of our PT talent. series release. Corythosaurus, part of Dr. Steve Hunter’s line, has been repainted dino green. The original was tan with gold markings and was one of the first GeoWorld figures reviewed. I like that we still have a 1/40 toy in production. The Dr. Steve version has the Cassowary helmet, the toothless mouth in the front of the duck beak and uses a four-footed pose rather than the retro Kangaroo posture of my childhood. The figure is robustly made for easy play. New for this year are the bagged collectable mini-figures. Each bag contains a surprise figure. The jawed fish dominated the Devonian, and placoderms like Dinichthys and Dunkleosteus were the top of the food chain. Prehistoric fish do not get a lot of attention in the toy market, the exception being the Dinichthys that was part of the metal SRG line from decades ago and was typically the most sought-after figure of the set. More recently, the Wild Safari Dinichthys was a critical success. Kinto has released two different Dunkleosteus figures, and Schleich surprised everyone by including Dinichthys in their innovative 2016 Prehistoric Giants release. The two fishes are now considered distinct, but were synonymous for many years. The Schleich figure is photo gray making it a tribute to the Zdenek Burian print that was included in PT’s retrospective of his work. The two prints will always define Dinichthys for me. The Kinto Prehistoric Life Soft Model comes in blue with black armor and shading. Pigment cells suggest dark colors on the back and a silvery belly, so all falls into that scope. Placoderms had bone in their skin; the head made great fossils, but the cartilage forms the rest so the back half of the body is based on conjecture. The facial armor of the two figures is in agreement. Both include an unarmored section behind the skull, a gap called the nuchal gap, that would have allowed Dinichthys to raise the upper head back while opening the lower jaw. They both include pectoral and pelvic fins, an anal fin, a dorsal fin on the back and a heterocercal caudal or tail fin. The Kinto figure has a pair of claspers like those used by some sharks for internal mating, so it is a male figure. The skin on the Kinto figure is smooth and like that of a shark. The fins are smaller in proportion and less detailed than the Schleich model. The Schleich fins are larger and very detailed and have a more primitive look. The skin is a mosaic of small scales broken by a line of larger scales in a single line along the back. Both figures have a lateral line on both sides that would represent the sensory canal used to detect changes in water pressure. The Kinto Dunkleosteus has a nice mount that Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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Alice B. Woodward First Woman Paleo-artist by Jeffrey Quinn Alice Bolingbroke Woodward (1862-1951) was a British illustrator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is known mostly for her work in children’s literature and secondarily for her illustrations of prehistoric life. She’s best known for The Peter Pan Picture Book (1907), the first illustrated version of the book and play by J. M. Barrie (1860-1937). The book became very popular and is still being printed to this day. A remarkable feat that’s lasted for over 100 years. Alice was born in Chelsea, London being the middle of seven children, five girls and two boys. All the children were home schooled by governesses and encouraged to draw. The girls became artists and the boys became scientists in their own right due to the fortunate occupation of their father, Henry Bolingbroke Woodward, who at the time was the Keeper of Geology at the British Museum of Natural History and later president of the Geological Society of London. They had free run of the museum and did their drawings in the Roman and Greek galleries. Alice’s sister, Gertrude also took to paleontological drawings, but mostly for museum paleontologists with some of her illustrations being that of the infamous Piltdown Man. All this had a lasting influence on Alice and her siblings and by her late teens she was illustrating for her father’s lectures and other scientific drawings for his colleagues. While there were a number of other women who did prehistoric drawings prior to Alice’s works, they were usually done for their husband paleontologists or museum curators in an assistant role and not in a professional one, making Alice Woodward the first prolific prehistoric illustrator of her time. As a result, she earned enough money to finance her studies at the South Kensington School of Art (which later became the Royal College of Art) and later at the Westminister School of Art and Académie Julian in Paris. In the 1880’s Alice took lessons in illustration from noted American artist Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) who’s association with publishing houses of J. M. Dent & Sons and Macmillan & Co. led to her getting commissions to illustrate children’s books. By 1896 Alice was also illustrating for the publishing firm of Blackie and Son Ltd. in Glasgow, Scotland. From 1907 on, her main publisher was George Bell and Sons where she illustrated her most famous work- The Peter Pan Picture Book written by Daniel O’Connor from Barrie’s play. One picture from that book being shown here is of Capt. Hook meeting his demise from the jaws of the fabled crocodile. After this book, her career took off, with her illustrating for the Illustrated 28

London News and BonMots of the Nineteenth Century. Alice also exhibited her work at the 91 Art Club, a venue for women artists. During her career, Woodward’s art appeared in over 80 publications. Around this time, Alice was approached to do some 50 prehistoric illustrations for Henry Robert Knipe (1854-1918) for his books (1905) Nebula to Man and (1912) Evolution in the Past. While she had done prehistoric drawings in the past, this was the first time most of the illustrations in these books were her own work and cemented her reputation as a prominent female paleo-artist. When she illustrated her prehistoric animals she would often make notes on the back. Pictured here is an original drawing of Altecamelus (her spelling) with notes on the back addressed to Henry Knipe. Alice’s style of artwork was unique and very recognizable with her attention to details and a lifelike look with a touch of whimsy which made her illustrations liked by many. Alice’s artwork was very accurate and precise for that time frame and many in the scientific community wanted to use her illustrations in their papers and publications. She contributed many of her prehistoric reconstructions to the Illustrated London News, the last of which appeared in 1938. When she was doing the children’s books she would sign the pictures with a butterfly motif integrated into it, while her prehistoric works she just wrote her name. Not much is known about Alice’s personal life, whether she married, had children and such. No other pictures of her can be found except for a promotional photo of her from 1899 which seems kind of strange since she was an artist. Other biographical information is scarce with one being a tutor to Front and back of “Altecamelus” post card

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artist Cicely Mary Barker (famous fantasy illustrator) and another with her working briefly for British Naval Intelligence in World War I. I wonder what she did for them. After this she settled into a studio in Bushey where she remained for the rest of her life passing away at the age of 89. Her legacy today resides in old copies of the aforementioned books and news publications which can still be found. Another side of her prehistoric works was in the form of postcards which were used in the day to help educate people about the wonders of prehistoric life. These old postcards are still quite collectible with a few accompanying this article. Many

Alice Bolingbroke Woodward was held in high esteem by her peers for her reconstructions of the prehistoric world as her skills brought to life how our ancient world looked. She is truly one of the forgotten women illustrators of prehistoric life, and I give her credit especially during a time when it was widely considered to be a man’s world.

“Gigantosaurus”

of her original drawings are now archived or displayed in several museums in England. There’s also a large Iguanodon statue in front of Germany’s Berlin Aquarium that is based on her 1895 drawing.

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My Beloved Camarasaurus

© Maurilio Oliveira

By Sergio Biston [email protected] Outshone by superstars of the dinosaur world like Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus, Camarasaurus never enjoyed the same level of popularity as his relatives. Google it and you won't find many accurate representations among the paleoart community. Apart from a magnificent Sideshow Collectibles Camarasaurus versus Allosaurus model, toy lines and paleoartists do not seem to find much interest in the beast either. However, this interesting sauropod is one of the most common dinosaurs in the Morrison Formation and a favorite of yours truly. A member of the Macronarian clade, the large, squarefaced Camarasaurus could reach 23 meters in length and weigh more than 50 tons, an impressive animal for sure. The first remains of Camarasaurus were described by none other than Edward Drinker Cope in 1878, when he purchased some vertebrae from Oramel W. Lucas. Impressed by its hollowed vertebrae, Cope named the animal Camarasaurus, meaning “chambered lizard.” It was only in 1925 that the first complete skeleton was found, a subadult individual.

There’s also a partial humerus unearthed in the Bryan Small Stegosaurus Quarry that shows a rather nasty lesion of 25 x 18 cm that was probably very painful to the animal. Another interesting fossil is a partial pelvis with theropod tooth marks on the ilium that seems to indicate that the predatory animal, probably Allosaurus, fed on the Camarasaurus. Whether the theropod killed it or simply fed on its carcass in a scavenger behaviour is not clear.

In such harsh environments, with predators lurking in the background, protection may be acquired by forming family groups or herds. That’s what Camarasaurus must have done, judging by a find from Wyoming that contained two large adults and one juvenile individual. Even if protection against predators could be attained through gregarious behavior, it was useless against natural disasters, such

Currently there are four species of Camarasaurus: C. supremus, C. grandis, C. lewisi and C. lentus. They more or less differ in size and age, with C. grandis the oldest and C. supremus the largest. Its body plan doesn't differ much from other sauropods, making the skull the most distinguishing feature of Camarasaurus, characterized by its larger than average size for sauropods, square shape, short snout and the presence of many fenestrae. Life in the Time of Camarasaurus Surely life wasn't any easier 150 million years ago. Diseases, predation and natural disasters all could cut life short in the Jurassic world of Camarasaurus. Sharing the world with other dinosaurs such as the mega-herbivores Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus and Diplodocus implies that Camarasaurus had to compete for food resources, all the while avoiding fearsome predators such as Allosaurus and Torvosaurus. All of this is eternalized in the fossil record. Tschopp, Wings, Frauenfelder, and Rothschild describe phalanges of a Camarasaurus with several pathologies, including osteochondrosis, osteoarthritis and bone tumor. One particular pathology, the ossification of tendons on the pes, can be used to speculate about the animal’s behaviour. As such a condition is often associated with joints that are heavily used or that support high loads, its presence in the pes possibly indicate the heavy use of the claws for excavating nests and/or in the search for food and water. 30

as flash floods. At least one event of this kind can be attributed as the cause of the death of a Camarasaurus specimen, SMA 0002, as the absence of tooth marks and the degree of preservation and articulation of this particular specimen implies a rapid and “clean” death, with subsequent quick burial, something that is compatible with a flash flood event.

Digging Camarasaurus Fossils of Camarasaurus are abundant in the Morrison Formation. This location has long been one of the most abundant dinosaur fossils sources. Among other prominent dinosaur of its Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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fauna are giants like Apatosaurus and Diplodocus, as well as predatory animals like Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus and Torvosaurus. All of these dinosaurs lived together in a semiarid climate with distinct wet and dry seasons. Excavations in one private dig site on the Red Canyon Ranch in Shell, Wyoming, found hundreds of Camarasaurus bones, including partially articulated individuals and more important, one of the most complete Camarasaurus ever found. One particular find at this dig site, a partially articulated adult Camarasaurus nicknamed “Homer”, including the tail, a cache of bones, and parts of the skull, was found near a 50% complete Diplodocus. The tails of “Homer” and the Diplodocus

Living among giants

almost crisscrossed each other, and it seems that those animals may have been killed and washed away by a flash flood that also moved ancient pine trees and cycads. It was only recently that a complete and articulated set of fore and hind feet of a sauropod was found, and it was, you guessed, a C a m a ra s a u r u s . Not only was s p e c i m e n SMA0002 almost complete, it also preserved skin impressions in the manus and hind leg, abdomen, and in the lower jaw. A study of the find conducted by Tschopp, Wings, Frauenfelder and Brinkmann in 2015 extended our knowledge of the evolution and proper reconstruction of sauropod fore and hind limbs and shed light on the shape of Camarasaurus’s foot print. The skin impressions on the pes and the hind legs show two different polygonal patterns that vary in size. Perhaps one of the most significant fossil finds related to Camarasaurus is the first record of an embryonic sauropod Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

(Britt, Naylor, 1994). Found at Dry Mesa Quarry, the small premaxilla, measuring only 37 mm, contained 4 unerupted teeth. The presence of spatulate teeth and a rectangular premaxilla body with a laterally broad, nearly vertical nasal process, were pointed out by the authors as key characteristics to associate the fossil with Camarasaurus. As mentioned previously, Camarasaurus shared its habitat with other supersized herbivores such as Diplodocus and Apatosaurus. Food resources must have been limited and it is rather complex to imagine how such large animals could share the limited food supply. According to Button, Rayfield and Barret in a study published in 2014, this could be explained by divergent specialization, with different foraging specializations inferred by the measuring of bite forces of each species. The authors came to the conclusion that Camarasaurus was capable of stronger bite forces than, for example, Diplodocus, thus enabling Camarasaurus to consume hardier plants than Diplodocus. The study is corroborated by another conducted by D Emic et al. (2013) that analyzed the teeth of Camarasaurus and Diplodocus and took into consideration the tooth replacement rate, size and shape of both species. According to the results, these researchers came to the conclusion that Camarasaurus had a large volume of broad-crowned teeth with a slow replacement rate while Diplodocus had a small volume of narrowcrowned teeth that were replaced much more rapidly. The results can be used to determine ecosystem partition by attributing the differences between the teeth of the species to differences in the types of plants ingested. Being such a common occurrence in the fossil record of the Morrison Formation, and with new studies being conducted on already available fossils, it shouldn't be long until we hear again from Camarasaurus! With special thanks to Terry Pfister and Bob Simon. By the time this edition comes out, I'll become a father. To my wife Elisangela, I love you. To my daughter Laura, Daddy loves you and can't wait to hold you in his arms. 31

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What’s New in review

By Mike Fredericks We, at PT are very thankful to CollectA for sending us review copies of their new 2017 prehistoric animal line of beautiful figures. Let's start with one of my favorite dinosaurs. CollectA’s Deluxe Styracosaurus is among their larger 1/40 scale figures (approx 8" long) which always means better detail and a little more realistic figures. Styraco is portrayed bleating with an open mouth, and huge, beautiful horns on its nose and frill. The skin is nicely detailed with scutes and rosettes and on top of the tail are the quills that we are seeing on ceratopians now. It is finely colored with a two tone brown camouflage, a lighter brown under belly and grey toe nails. The horns are a bone color transitioning into black as seen on modern bulls. This is a really nice looking dinosaur figure. Staying withe large, deluxe figures, we also received CollectA's new Kronosaurus with moveable jaw. This approximately 10" long marine reptile figure is also painted in a two tone brown scheme with dark brown dots also added. It looks very menacing with its mouth full of sharp teeth wide open. It also has those black "dead" eyes like a shark. Kronosaurus used to swim the seas near what today is Australia. We CollectA’s Deinocherius drawn by Mike Fredericks

the two new prehistoric mammals. My last Deluxe figure to review (CollectA's Deluxe Dimorphodon was not ready to be sent yet) is a large Uintatherium, named for the Uinta mountains in which it was found (which were named for the Uinta Indians that lived there.) It is sculpted in a moving pose with feet wide and tail up "ready for action." Uintatherium had a multi-horned head with tusks sticking out of it mouth. It was a beast you did not mess with and CollectA has done a fine job recreating it. The other mammal is the amazing Basilosaurus. It sounds like a dinosaur but was instead an impossibly long whale. Why it was so long, almost like a giant snake is unknown to me. Interestingly, some have said that perhaps some Basilosaurus are still alive today and account for some of the lake "sea monsters" seen around the world. The figure has its mouth wide open, full of sharp teeth. It is covered in several areas with attached barnacles. Basilosaurus is a bizarre but fascinating creature and makes for a great addition to your collection. 2017 is the eleventh year that CollectA has been producing prehistoric fauna and flora. Matthias Geiger is the sculptor (from Germany) that works closely with Anthony in creating all of these fantastic models. The last four figures are in the regular, smaller size of CollectA figures. Two are ceratopsians and include the not often seen Einiosaurus and the recently discovered Regaliceratops. Both have brightly colored frills, as most artists can't resist painting. The Einio is overall green and the Regali is tan. CollectA’s Uintatherium drawn by Mike Both have camouflage stripes Fredericks across their back and the quills on their tails. They have nice skin detail and are fine little models. The amazing Chinese stegosaur Gigantspinosaurus is an interesting choice for a new dinosaur figure. It has crazy large shoulder spikes that look like exhaust pipes on a hot rod to me. A great conversation piece. It looks nice in a tan color with dark brown CollectA’s Regaliceratops drawn by Mike camouflage and gray spikes and Fredericks plates. Being British, Anthony likes to regularly throw in a British prehistoric animal into the mix. The ichthyosaur Excalibosaurus has sword-like jaws. It was found in the area of England associated with King Arthur and is named after his legendary sword. It is mostly

feature Kronosaurus in the next issue of PT. Buy this figure for your art model. CollectA's designer Anthony Beeson keeps up with the latest science and has now sent us their Deluxe Deinocherius, a dinosaur still fresh in the news. For many years, this dinosaur was known for nothing but two huge skeletal arms and clawed hands. At one point Therizinosaurus became known to science and paleontologist thought the arms belonged to a similar dinosaur. Then a couple of fossil skeletons of Deinocherius were found thereby solving the mystery. CollectA's figure is feathered and has the duckbill and hump that this odd-looking creature is known to have had. It is lavishly colored with red and blue above its lower brown ending in a bushy, feathered tail tip. It walks across a soft ground piece with footprints left behind. It too is large at about 10" long. I'll continue reviewing dinosaurs and marine reptiles but let's switch to 34

CollectA’s Basilosaurus drawn by Mike Fredericks CollectA’s Excalibosaurus drawn by Mike Fredericks

colored black with a white stomach. It's sword-like upper jaw is much longer than its lower and you can see its teeth hanging down. I showed photos of all of CollectA’s 2017 prehistoric animal figures in the last PT and show my drawings of several this time.

In the last issue I talked about what is new from Safari Ltd for 2017 in their Wild Safari prehistoric animal series; no less than 13 new figures! Safari Ltd. was kind enough to send review copies now so I can describe them first hand. (I showed good photos of all of them in the last issue of PT Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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so I hope I am forgiven if I only show a few highlights this time.)

Prehistorix Plateosaurus Prehistorix Resin Plateosaurus

The star just might be the feathered Tyrannosaurus rex which is displayed prominently in Safari Ltd.’s twopage ad in this issue. Whether dinosaurs were feathered or not is a big question among paleontologists today. As you can see in the photo, this famous meat-eating dinosaur is heavily feathered in a rust color that fades to lighter browns on the underside. Its very bird-like feet look awesomely real, even on the underside and the head is beautiful and accurately sculpted according to the well known skull (with scars across its face.) Wow, what a dinosaur figure! Wild Safari’s Feathered Velociraptor (the star of Jurassic Park), is very accurately sculpted as well in a lighter rust color with interesting tail feathers. Its hand claws stick out from its wings and of course, each foot has a very prominent, deadly sickle-shaped toe claw. Like the feathered T. rex, its mouth is open wide with tiny details shown in its mouth. The Wild Safari Coelophysis, the small, triassic dinosaur found in huge numbers at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, is also feathered. Despite its size, the detail is tight and incredible. The little head is a work of art within itself. Interestingly, the paint scheme is very similar to that of a modern day gazelle’s. Next from Wild Safari is Deinocheirus. It used to be known only by two incredibly large hands/arms but recently a couple of more complete fossils were found showing us what this weird dinosaur actually looked like. It had a very duckbill-like head and a large hump on its back. Of course the Wild Safari figure accurately depicts this. It too is beautifully feathered in orange-brown with a lighter colored camouflage. Wild Safari’s Diplodocus, the well known, huge Jurassic Safari Ltd. feathsauropod, is also especially ered Velociraptor beautifully done. In a bluish-gray color on top and an off white on its underside, this large figure (about 18”) also has spikey scutes completely down the length of its back. I love its thin, whip tail that Safari Ltd. feathered could punish threatCoelophysis drawn here by Mike theropod ening Fredericks dinosaurs at the speed of sound with a mighty crack!

Safari Ltd. feathered T. rex

Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

Wild Safari’s prehistoric animal line continues to be on the cutting edge of science by offering the newly discovered ceratopian dinosaur Einiosaurus. It is hard to keep up with the many horned dinosaurs that are being discovered on a regular basis. Einiosaurus had two tall horns on the top of its frill but then a bizarre “can-openershaped horn” on its snout. The figure has detailed skin fea-

tures with many scutes portrayed. Much like the hearing holes in a football player’s helmet, indentations in the lower part of the frill allow the dinosaur to hear better and black holes are painted to represent the ear openings. It’s details like this that make the Wild Safari figures extra fantastic. The huge Wild Safari Kronosaurus was, in life, an enormous marine reptile from Australia (featured in an upcoming issue of this magazine), It sports a black and white camouflage pattern reminiscent of orkas. It has beautiful flippers and a wide open mouth as it swoops in to take a bite of its hapless victim. It is a very large figure too at about 14” long. Paleontologists are beginning to discover what color some dinosaurs were, especially the feathered ones. Several seemed to have had black feathers and that is what the Wild Safari Microraptor, the beautiful little dinosaur that even had feath-

ered legs, has. It is portrayed Kinto Favorite Cambrian Creatures mini with its wings spread wide, Set winged legs extended and its long plumed tail swings back for balance and direction. It has an open mouth with a tiny, toothed beak and clawed hands and feet including one sickle-shaped toe claw on each foot. Wild Safari’s Psittacosaurus is a smaller figure, again, with great detail. We are learning alot about this dinosaur; that it was lighter colored on its underside than on top, had quills down its backside and may have been spotted. Of course this new figure features all of those ideas. I find that even the smaller dinosaurs can be fascinating. Wild Safari’s Quetzalcoatlus, the North American pterosaur that was one of the largest flying animals to ever live is shown flying. It is very light as it accurately has thin wings and other body parts that helped it reach flight. It has brown, detailed fur and a colorful head. Wild Safari also offers a new Tylosaurus. This was the largest of the mosasaurs and its paint job (orange with black stripes) reminds me a little of a tiger. I’m sure it was the “tiger of the sea” and that’s how its prey would have felt South Lands Replicas about it. It is made swimming swiftly Thylacine through the sea with its mouth wide open with detailed teeth showing inside. Wild Safari’s Giganotosaurus represents one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs that ever lived. This South American predator is another of the larger of the figures in the new group and the only one to include a South Lands Replicas Thylacoleo ground base that it is walking on. It is colored a light gray with beautiful dark brown lines of camouflage on its back. It roars with its mouth open wide and would have been a terrifying sight to behold in person. Last but not least is the Wild Safari Parasaurolophus. My daughter especially loves this amazing duckbilled dinosaur with the huge horn on the back of its head. Looking at small scale figures, we sometimes forget just how huge most of these animals were. Parasaurolophus, for example weighed two and a half tons and was over 35

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thirty feet long. This figure is painted a mustard color with a dark brown camouflage on its upper areas. It includes very minute skin detail and looks great. Complete your collection and purchase your Wild Safari prehistoric animals now wherever Safari Ltd. products are sold.

Masterpiece models Acheroraptor skull

Mark Kreiss of Prehistorix Resin sent us a review kit of their model of Plateosaurus. This kit was formally released by the "Alchemy Works." It was sculpted by Jeff Johnson and was one of the last Prehistoric Scenes kits Alchemy Works created. That’s right, it’s designed to display right along side your Aurora Prehistoric Scenes models.

Our good friend Dean Walker of dejankins.com recently made me aware of a new line of prehistoric animal figures from Australia. Dean said, “Hey Mike, do you have the new South Lands Replicas Thylacoleo and Thylacine figures?” To which I replied, “Why no Dean, I do not.” So he sent them to me for review. These are beautiful little figures much like you would buy from Safari Ltd. and CollectA. The Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) is an animal that only went extinct in the early 20th century. Unfortunately it developed a taste for Australian farmer’s livestock so hundreds of them were killed until the last died in a zoo. It is about 4 1/2 inches long, brown with black stripes and in the middle of its famous yawn. Thylacoleo carnifex ("pouch lion" or “marsupial lion”) is an extinct genus of carnivorous marsupial that lived in Australia from the late Pliocene to the late Pleistocene (2 million to 46 thousand years ago). Some of these "marsupial lions" were the largest mammalian predators in Australia of that time, with Thylacoleo carnifex approaching the weight of a small lion. This figure is about the same size as the Thylacine figure and is portrayed with its mouth wide open showing its bizarre teeth and with an outreached paw taking a swipe at something. It is dark brown with a lighter brown tiger-stripe camouflage on its back. Apparently more prehistoric animal figures are coming. http://www.southlandsreplicas.com Always order these and ALL of your prehistoric animal figure needs from good ole’ Dean Walker at dejankins.com. See his ad on page 27.

Plateosaurus is a dinosaur which lived

We only have some skull parts for Acheoraptor

over 200 million years ago during the late Triassic Period. Its fossils were first discovered near Nuremberg, Germany in 1837. The name means “broad lizard” or “flat lizard.” Many of you may remember your Marx toy figure that was about three inches long. Plateosaurus was approximately 28 feet long and weighed around three quarters of a ton. It is known for its long neck and tail, and for its 5-fingered hands that it may have been used for picking things up or for defense or to saw off plant material. Plateosaurus was a bipedal herbivore that is believed to have lived off of a diet of cycad, conifers and club ferns. It has been suggested that it also walked on all fours at times. The Prehistorix Plateosaurus is made up of 19 pieces of crisp white resin

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in a limited edition full color box. This kit is a must for any collector that wants a classic kit at a very competitive price. Complete with a large two part base, foliage and a basking amphibian, the detail on this kit is incredible.The kit includes Plateosaurus, a two part base with small pool, a prehistoric amphibian, a small tree, a cycad and a name plate. The old Aurora Jungle Swamp model kit base fits right against the Plateosaurus base for more fun and excitement! $75 plus postage. Prehistorix’s newest release is formally from Mike Evans "Alchemy Works." but is all theirs thanks to Mike selling his molds. It comes boxed with instruction sheet with graphics by Bill Voyce. Now Prehistorix has added a new Payment Plan. Folks can go to the website:

David Silva’s new Velociraptor mongoliensis is shown here in three photos

Velociraptor mongoliensis is made up of ten beautiful parts.

(http://prehistorix.wixsite.com/prehistorix) to get more information so we can all join in on the fun of owning these great kits! Check out their other prehistoric animal kits there too. We thank Masterpiece models for sending us their 1to1 scale Acheroraptor skull sculpted by Darren McDonald. What the heck is a Acheroraptor anyway? And well you should ask. Well, let me tell you. Acheroraptor was the first confirmed genus of dromaeosaurid dinosaur to be known from the Hell Creek Formation of North America. A few dromaeosaurid teeth had been known before this time, but they had been presumed to have come from either Dromaeosaurus or Saurornitholestes. These teeth are now more commonly referred to Acheroraptor. Unfortunately Acheroraptor is only known from a maxilla and dentary with teeth. These have been enough however to confirm that Acheroraptor was actually a North American cousin of Velociraptor that lived in Asia. It is exciting news to know that an animal that looked very much like the famous Velociraptor lived in America too. Acheroraptor would have been about two meters in length. Acheroraptor was the only dromaeosaurid dinosaur known from the Hell Creek Formation until 2015 when the genus Dakotaraptor was named. At about five and a half meters in length, Dakotaraptor would have been significantly larger than Acheroraptor. Talented sculptor Darren McDonald was asked to create the skull of a dinosaur that offered very little material for him to work with. Darren has done the best he can. Using the fossils he had and what we know about its close Mongolian cousin Velociraptor, this is a beautiful dinosaur skull and until we find a more complete specimen, as accurate of a skull as can be expected. It certainly is nicely sculpted. At life-size, it is almost a foot long. It is hollow cast so it is not overly heavy. It is beautifully cast in a sort of bone color with just a few air bubbles in some of the teeth. Detail is sharp and minute. It looks great as it is or you could paint this to better match the color of a fossil and make it the pride of your collection. Impress your friends by not only owning an impressive dinosaur model but also being one of the few people that knows about this dinosaur. Price is only $39.99. Order one today. Check out this amazing company’s site at: https://masterpiecemodels.com/product/acheroraptor-skull-1to1-scale/ And while there, check out their other dinosaur models from Darren McDonald including T. rex skull, Triceratops skull in 1/9th scale, Pentaceratops (full body) in 1/10th scale, Velociraptor skull 1to1 scale, Juvenile Allosaurus skull 1to1 scale. And if you are a modeler that enjoys military model kits and other subjects, check out masterpiecemodels.com for many more beautiful models for sale. Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

And finally up for review is David Silva’s latest resin dinosaur model - Velociraptor mongoliensis. This 1/6 scale raptor is the model kit version of the Velociraptor mongoliensis he made for the Beasts of the Mesozoic Raptor Series action figure line and is inspired by the package art done by Jonathan Kuo. David has done an entire series of dromaeosaur dinosaurs through his Kick-Starter program. (Now he is working on a series of ceratopian dinosaur action figures.) Go to his CreativeBeast Studio site and check out the beautifully painted “raptors” there.

This resin kit that we received is made up of ten parts which includes a medium sized base and a separate plant to glue on. The feathered Velociraptor is amazingly detailed and realistic. Even the base is incredibly sculpted with minute detail. I dry fitted all of the parts and every thing goes together beautifully and actually stays together for the most part without gluing which goes to show the mastery of this kit. Your finished Velociraptor stands on one leg “crowing” up at the sky. It is a dynamic pose for a dynamic model. The casting is perfect with virtually no air bubbles in the plastic. I guarantee you will love this model and all of the many other prehistoric animal models that Dave has created and are now for sale. David may do more kits from his raptor line depending on sales for this first one, so order yours today. Creative-Beast.com [email protected]. Also see David’s ad on page 24. 37

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Estemmenosuchus By Phil Hore [email protected]

© Eivind Bovor

© Kurt Miller www.kmistudio.com

First issue of Nature, Nov. 4, 1869: “Triassic Dinosauria,” by T.H. Huxley: “It will probably interest geologists and palaeontologists to know that a recent examination of the numerous remains of Thecodontosauria in the Bristol Museum enables me to demonstrate that these Triassic reptiles belong to the order Dinosauria and are closely allied to Megalosaurus. The vertebrae, humerus, and ilium, found in the Warwickshire Trias, which have been ascribed to Labyrinthodon, also belong to Dinosauria. The two skeletons obtained in the German Trias near Stuttgart and described by Prof. Plieninger, some years ago, are also unquestionable Dinosauria; and, as von Meyer is of opinion, probably belong to the genus Teratosaurus, from the same beds. Von Meyer’s Plateosaurus, from the German Trias, is, plainly, as he has indicated it to be, a Dinosaurian. As Prof. Cope has suggested, it is very probable that Bathygnathus, from the Triassic beds of Prince Edward’s Island, is a Dinosaurian; and I have no hesitation in expressing the belief that the Deuterosaurus, 38

© James Gurney jamesgurney.com

from the Ural, which occurs in beds which are called Permian but which appear to be Triassic, is also a Dinosaurian. It is also very probable that Rhopalodon, which occurs in these rocks, belongs to the same order. If so, the close resemblance of the South African Galesaurus to Rhopalodon would lead me to expect the former to prove a Dinosaur. I have found an indubitable fragment of a Dinosaurian among some fossils, not long ago sent to me, from the reptiliferous beds of Central India, by Dr. Oldham, the Director of the Indian Geological Survey. Further, the determination of the Thecodonts as Dinosauria, leaves hardly any doubt that the little Ankistrodon from these Indian rocks, long since described by me, belongs to the same group. But another discovery in the same batch of fossils from India leaves no question on my mind that the Fauna of the beds which yield Labyrinthodonts and Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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© James Kuether

Dicynodonts in that country represents the terrestrial Fauna of the Trias of Europe. I find, in fact, numerous fragments of the crocodilian reptile so closely allied to the Belodon of the German Trias that the determination of the points of difference requires close attention, associated with a Hyperodapedon, larger than those discovered in the Elgin Sandstones, but otherwise very similar to it. Thus, during the Triassic epoch, extensive dry land seems to have existed in North America, Western and Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Central India, and South Africa, as it does now; and, throughout this vast area, the

© John Sibbick www.johnsibbick.com

© Jacek Major Dinosauria—the links between reptiles and birds—seem to have been represented by not fewer, probably by many more, than nine or ten distinct genera.

© Luis Rey https://luisvrey.wordpress.com

Huxley was a great man who accomplished much, but never was he more wrong than in the above passage. Almost every species he mentions was not a dinosaur; in fact most were not even reptiles. As an example the labyrinthodont Huxley mentioned was obviously an amphibian though the original report was by Richard Owen, who, to be fair, was not sure how to describe them at first either. Only later did he classify them as amphibians, and so Huxley’s mistake here is a forgivable one. Belodon was a genus of crocodile-like phytosaur, whereas Hyperodapedon [ed. note: online etymology ‘best-pestletooth’ is defective for proper Greek hypero- ‘pestle’ + dápedon ‘land, soil; floor of a chamber’, thus ‘pestle-floor’ is preferable] was a beaked, herbivorous rhynchosaur. India’s Ankistrodon was likely a proterosuchid, so close in a way, but certainly no dinosaur.

I hope, shortly, to have the honour of placing the details of the researches into the structure and distribution of the Dinosauria, in which I have been engaged for the last two years and of which the above notice is one of the results, before the Geological Society.” ©Mike Landry

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By highlighting these mistakes, it’s my hope to show you just how confusing the information is on Estemmenosuchus (/eh-STEM-muh-no-SOOkuss/) and the weird Dinocephalia it belonged to. I will admit Huxley was right on the money when he said dinosaurs were the link between reptiles and birds, though they “seem to have been repre-

we know it as Dimetrodon (‘two-measure tooth’), the most famous of a group called pelycosaurs (‘wooden-bowl lizards’) and a creature that is still often confused by the general public as a dinosaur. They were in fact closer to mammals, and the pelycosaurs later gave rise to therapsids such as Deuterosaurus, which was an advanced form of dinocephalian. Although they shared a similar name, again Huxley had missed the mark because they were not dinosaurs.

© Aaron Marsh

© Clinton Harris

The Dinocephalians (‘terrible heads’) were mostly largebodied therapsids, an order that lasted only 10 million years (during the middle of the Permian), but in this short time they produced many features we typically consider belonging solely to mammals. They had replaced the earlier, more reptile-like pelycosaurs and themselves were replaced by dinosaurs and eventually true mammals as the world continued to change.

Known only from a few locations—mostly Russia and southern Africa, though some have been found in China and Brazil—this dispersion indicates they had lived across the globe. This distribution should not be such a surprise because all the world’s continents at that time were joined together to form Pangea (or Pangaia), meaning it was possible to walk from pole to pole. During their short time the dinocephalians branched out into almost every form imaginable; there were clear carnivores, herbivores, and species with a mixture of both features, an indication that they were probably omnivorous. They were also big and ugly, with the clear king of the Permian being Estemmenosuchus, the ‘crowned (with a wreath) crocodile’.

John C Womack sented by not fewer, probably by many more, than nine or ten distinct genera” may have been off by a few hundred genera or so. Bathygnathus is a name not in use anymore because today

At 10 to 15 feet and weighing around 500 pounds, these were large animals, comparable to the Siberian tiger and even a rhinoceros in size. This was equal to other dinocephalians, such as the older tapinocephalids (‘humble heads’), a group of animals that Dr. Bob Bakker described in the Dinosaur Heresies: “at a distance, [they] looked a lot like a bowling ball with a snout attached.” Sculpture by Quentin Brendel

© Ryan McMurry

© Misty Marshall 40

Those heads were likely used for sexual selection, either as a visual display or for use in combat. Most of their skull bones were extremely thick, and the neck was attached at a right angle, such that the animal could lower its head and really lean its immense bulk into a blow when charging forward. Two of these beasts charging into each other at full speed would have been a sight to see, and perhaps mating time would have sounded like a bowling alley on a busy Friday night. As bizarre as most dinocephalian skulls were, Estemmenosuchus took this to extreme lengths. They not only had a large skull, but they also sported a pair of horns on either side of the Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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head, along with a pair of bosses jutting from the side of the face. Did these bones act as protection? Certainly there were large predators at the time, such as Ivantosaurus, and so such knobbiness may have helped protect the neck. These bones, along with their teeth, gave the creature a fearsome appearance, but was it all bark and no bite as they say?Another amazing feature is that between the top head bosses was a round bony ring that protected its pineal (/PIN-e-ul/) gland, a real light-gathering organ back in Permian times. This was its third eye, the one that pointed toward the sky. Certainly Estemmenosuchus had large teeth and canines, an indication that they were probably carnivorous, and behind these teeth were a few dozen small teeth. They also sported a secondary, smaller dentition on the palate, a little like that of a mosasaur. The smaller teeth and the enormous bulk of their torso indicate they were able to digest large volumes of plants, and looking at the entire animal one can see why some consider it omnivo-

© Jeff Nevens

© John Sibbick www.johnsibbick.com

while they eat and, when fetal development goes wrong, forms a cleft palate. This feature is not necessary in a cold-blooded (ectothermic) animal, which needs far less food and oxygen. This feature would not appear until later in the Permian in therapsids like Cynodon.

rous, eating mainly plants but capable of devouring meat when it was available, as from a carcass.

© Nick Papadimitriou

The teeth also indicate that Estemmenosuchus did not chew their food, and so it’s likely they used gastroliths (stomach stones) though nowhere could I find evidence that any of these stones have been found associated with their fossils. So they likely used their chisel-like incisors to cut through tough plants (and possibly meat) and then used the rear teeth to hold and process material into smaller pieces. These were then swallowed and digested in the gut. Although dinocephalians had some mammal-like features (such as the synapse and various types of teeth), they were still missing some of the important traits of their distant descendants (if they were in fact directly related). They were most likely not warm blooded (endothermic), since their body shows no sign of adapting to this lifestyle. Their teeth were still primitive, and their body shape was similar to that of a reptile, two features that mean they did not have to process the larger amounts of food a mammal needs to pay for an endothermic lifestyle, which allows them to be highly active and mobile. Another sign that they did not live this lifestyle is the lack of a secondary palate, which allows mammals to breathe through their nose Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

Another warm-blooded feature that appeared in the therapsids but missing in dinocephalians was the presence of complicated nasal turbines. Warm blood requires a lot of energy, and to ensure that heat and especially moisture is not lost, mammals have complicated, seashell-like bones in their noses to help retain both. These early synapsids had nasal features that could be considered transitional between reptiles and mammals. The most obvious mammal feature missing from the terrible-heads was hair. Although we cannot be certain all dinocephalians were missing hair, we know Estemmenosuchus had none because of a remarkable fossil that was found with skin.

Sculpture by Jim Martinez

There were no hairs or scales present; instead the fossil reveals that Estemmenosuchus had sebaceous glands, an indication that our protomammalian ancestors had skin that secreted oils and other products that had replaced the need for scales and yet retained moisture inside the body. These secretions are similar to earwax and a substance that mixes with tears to ensure they don’t dry out and to help keep the eye moist. The other important function these glands do is to produce milk to feed the young, as well as keep them cool on hot days by sweating. Something rarely noted in the discussion to work out if these animals were hot or cold blooded is the environment they lived in or, maybe a better way of putting it, is the time during which they lived. Going all the way back to the start of the Permian, the world was emerging from a great ice age, and many of the 41

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creatures that lived at this time had bizarre features that could help them cope with the cooler temperatures they faced—though the function of Dimetrodon’s fin is still debated, it was likely partly used to help warm its blood during cold times. By the mid-Permian, the world had warmed up as the continents moved closer and closer until they finally formed the enormous supercontinent of Pangea. The interior desert that formed in the middle of Pangea would have warmed things up considerably. It also stabilized the climate with fewer cooler days, even in winter. This resulted in animals not needing to be warm blooded to live a warm-blooded lifestyle at the time. Their world was warm, and by growing large and having a thick body, they also had the opportunity to be gigantothermic, meaning the heat their bodies absorbed during the day would be stored within, keeping them reasonably active during the cooler evenings and night. Is there any evidence for this? Well, with the facial features that made Estemmenosuchus so bizarre looking, if they were combative in nature, these animals had begun investing more and more into mating. No © Ryan McMurry longer was just having a great display good enough to attract a mate, now you had to fight, and fighting a rival, or a series of rivals, for the right to mate burns through a tremendous amount of calories. This is why mating combat is mostly a warm-blooded characteristic. To build up the reserves to fight and later recover the energy from such combat means that mammals have evolved into eating machines. They have various types of teeth to process food, and the ability to breathe while eating means that mammals can create and replace energy in a very quick time. Do those various teeth of Estemmenosuchus show hints that they were starting to resemble our own omnivorous dentition—sharp teeth for meat, smaller teeth for plants? Living a warm-blooded lifestyle, yet not developing the body to feed this lifestyle, indicates these animals were harnessing energy a different way or simply did not need to have so much energy; for example, they did not need a lot of energy to keep warm because the daily temperature of their environment was high enough to power their bodies.

© Joshua Ballze

These fossils were collected by Russian paleontologists in the 1960s and described and named by P.K. Chudíno (sometimes spelt Tchudino), who produced over 70 scientific papers during his long career. Through four seasons in Perm, his team had used bulldozers to clear away an enormous amount of soil around the fossil site. Chudino later wrote about the decision to use such equipment, noting that “it felt like a barbarian, raised his hand to the work of art.” During the excavation “the volume of excavated rock was calculated at 40-45 thousand cubic meters.”

What the team unearthed was the greatest Permian find ever, with more than a thousand bones, almost all entirely from new species. Some of these later became embroiled in an argument between Russian institutions, an issue authored by Richard Stone and reported in Science (vol. 281, no. 5378, pp. 773-774, August 1998) “Fight erupts over rights to profits from holdings,” as follows: “PIN [The Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Science] has been mired in lawsuits, investigations, and controversies involving, among other things, fossils that have disappeared from its collections. But it has formidable assets: Some 57 fossil skeletons— including a prized 70-million-year-old, $10 million Saurolophus angustirostris—are each valued at $100,000 or more. These specimens are an important source of revenue for an institute where scientists earn only about $100 a month. For example, a recent Russian dinosaur exposition—featuring unique Permian fossils such as the only known Estemmenosuchus uralensis and the species-describing type specimen of Scutosaurus karpinskii—generated $105,000 for PIN during a 7-month show ending last May at the new City Museum in St. Louis.” Some were stolen, some were sold, and some can be seen today in a wonderful traveling exhibit called “Permian © Wade Carmen Monsters: Life Before the Dinosaurs.” Having already traveled the world, Gondwana Studio’s exhibit will soon be arriving at New Zealand’s Waikato Museum, and one of the stars of the show is Estemmenosuchus in all its ugly glory (http://waikatomuseum.co.nz/exhibitions-andevents/view/2145882895/permian-monsterslife-before-the-dinosaurs).

Numerous Estemmenosuchus remains have been found, most from the one location, and it has been suggested they were deposited there because of some prehistoric flood or they lived in a large, marshy area. 42

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Cretaceo us Cl assif ieds Free to subscribers but must be updated each issue 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 Wanted: in the neverending quest to make our reference book "Dinosauriana - The Essential Guide to Collecting Toy, Figural and Model Dinosaurs" totally complete, we are looking for images of figures of the following: 1) IMAI Nessie figure 1969 2) Elgate dinosaurs 3) Bandai large vinyl T rex 1993 4) Gakken Allosaurus kit 5) Kokoro single dinos 6) Sapporo Boy 7) Nissin 8) Mesalands Dinosaur Museum bronzes 9) Wai Fong 10) Silver Dolphin 11) Equity Promotions 12) Doris Dotz set info 13) Argeal metal figures 14) Life-Like Hobby mini figures from "World of..." model kits 15) Magma Terra ceramics 16) Nagasakiya 17) Jurassic Stones chase Archaeopteryx 18) Bandai Great Animal Kaiser figures. Contact Joe DeMarco at [email protected] Wanted: I lost my copy of PT #56 with my 1st art printed in it. Can anyone help me find another copy? [email protected] 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. If you find one, please tell me and I will pay you some commission. MY EMAIL IS: [email protected] I AM WAITING FOR YOUR GOOD NEWS 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 [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 such as Neanderthal man, the mastodon, and the

Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

mosasaur. Please respond to [email protected] Large Fossil Collection for sale. Selling as one lot. Many unique and hard to find..Serious inquiries only please. Call after 8:00 PM EST and leave message..I would be more than happy to email pics upon request. Call Mark (704-7638401) 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 727-4247881 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] 1000+ MODEL DINOSAURS shown in The Visual Guide to Scale Model Dinosaurs, 2012, softcover, 300 pages. Contact: eonepoch@aol .com 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 Wanted: I am interested in any playvisions animal figures but especially the African Forest Buffalo, Chital (Axis Deer) and Dhole. I am also looking for Jeols Bushpig, Safari Vanishing Wild Gemsbok (adult and calf), and ELC Kob. I would be interested in almost any mammal figures, prehistoric and modern. Please email me at [email protected], you can call at 801 597 8875 or write to Keith Brown, 3032 S 5990 W, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84128 For Sale : Complete set of Battat dinosaurs for sale, as a set. I also have one of the few JP full size raptor promotional pieces. This piece is unreal. I'm also 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. Most of these are sets, all are in mint condition and never used other than for display. 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 of paper ephemera such as this 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. This explains our consistently better quality fossils than is usually found in the marketplace. In addition to what is shown on the site, an even greater inventory of specimens are either yet to be listed or in various states of preparation. 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) 774-1063 www.PaleoDirect.com [email protected] Supplying museums, educational facilities and collectors around the world.

PT Subscribers! Did you check the address label on your PT envelope? If the number after your address is 121, it is time to re-subscribe! 43

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Announcing the PT Coloring Book for all ages of paleoartists!

Tracy Lee Ford and Mike Fredericks have created over thirty all new illustrations of newly discovered dinosaurs for you to color. For only $9 (the price of a magazine) plus postage. Available ONLY at

Amazon.com

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© by John Sibbick

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One Earth For Us

still enticingly reflecting that ‘golden age’ of “dinosauriana” – (the latter a 2010s term coined by Joe DeMarco and Robert Telleria).

By Allen A. Debus

WMR clearly borrowed an approach established by 19th century authors in presenting In July 1928, astronomer William Maxwell Reed (1871 the history of life through time 1962) – known as W. Maxwell Reed (“WMR”) - finished on Earth, while offering geolothe manuscript of a book primarily intended for youthful gy lessons along the journey. readers concerning the history of life on Planet Earth. His So we read about salt mines, The Earth For Sam (1930) became a genre favorite, mainhow glaciers form, erosive taining popularity for at least two generations of dedicated power of river systems and the paleo-philes. Fathers like mine would share their copies origin of geological features with children during the 1960s, thus indoctrinating us with such as mountains, folded the thrill of comprehending life through an immensity of rocks and volcanoes. But these geological time. Decades later, now older folks like me discussions are interwoven with fondly recall Reed’s masterpiece. But, of all the popular discussions concerning the books published on dinosaurs and those ‘other’ prehistoric main theme - how life originatanimals then, why does this particularly well-fortified ed and key fossil forms from example (still) stand out? And, hey, while we’re at it – who each of the major, successive was this titular Sam character anyway? geological Eras and Periods. First, “Sam” was Samuel McCobb Reed, the book And like so many of the early author’s then young nephew – who must have been several books for non-specialists of the years older than my father was in 1928. As W. Maxwell time, WMR opens his age-byReed states in his Preface, the lad, “used to ask me to tell age coverage with the Silurian him about the formation of rivers, mountains, and clouds Period following several short, and about the earth and stars. Since obviously such leading chapters on how questions cannot be answered briefly and since my Book cover, embossed, for first printing of "The Earth For Sam." life originated and began to time was limited on week-end visits, I told Sam I would evolve, nature of the fossil write him letters. Some of the chapters in this book are these letters almost record and key geological processes (e.g. volcanoes and chemical weatherunmodified. My friends suggested that I complete the series of letters and ing of rocks). publish them in book form.” Pretty cool idea! Many of us have fond memEarth For Sam lacks a Bibliography, yet its primary references are relaories, having taught our own kids about paleontology, dinosaurs and other tively easy to glean. References consulted or cited by WRM include: Henry wonders of the deep mysterious past. (I’ve even gone so far as to dedicate F. Osborn’s The Origin and Evolution of Life as well as several of his other my most recent (2016) book to my 3-year old grandson.) W. Maxwell Reed monographs and books, Alfred Wegener’s The Origin of Continents and (WMR) then went on to write other books in the “Sam” series as well, delv- Oceans, F. A. Lucas’s Animals of the Past, Gerhard Heilmann’s The Origin ing into other, non-paleontological topics, including The Stars For Sam of Birds, H. G. Seeley’s Dragons of the Air, Henry R. Knipe’s Nebula to Man (1931), and The Sea For Sam (1935). According to a short Wikipedia entry, as well as his Evolution In the Past, William Berryman Scott’s History of WMR was educated at Harvard, and taught astronomy at Harvard and Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere, F. H. Knowlton’s Plants of the Princeton universities. A smart and impressive guy. Past, Charles Schuchert’s Outlines of Historical Geology, and Water So for those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure, what’s inside this gem? Mainly, this is a volume concerning the most majestic and distinctive fauna and flora representing Earth’s successive ages. Since we’re all familiar with such geo-historical outlines, fairly standard even then, it is unnecessary to delve fully into those familiar details. The Earth For Sam remains an exquisite melding of paleo-images with text; it was one of the first truly popular life through geological time books published in America, tailored for youthful enthusiasts. The book is rather formulaic, much like many popular books printed in Europe and America particularly from the 1870s on, presenting fundamental geological principles interwoven with, or prefacing the ‘meat’a dramatic unfolding of the evolution of life. Overall, Earth For Sam bears a distinctive modernistic ring, while Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

Reptiles of the Past and Present by Samuel W. Williston. And more! Important paleo-references of the time.

img315: Irene Robinson's Tyrannosaurus (Ancient Animals, 934).

The book is sumptuously enriched with over 200 figures, more than one per every two pages. As we know, the ranks of those who would be qualified “paleoartists” today has swollen considerably since the 1920s. But counted among Earth For Sam’s many figures are black & white reproductions from a veritable ‘Who’s Who in Paleoart’ of the time, including Charles R. Knight, Erwin S. Christman, Alice B. Woodward, E. B. Seeley, Gerhard Heilmann, S. W. Williston, Richard Deckert, J. Smit, E. P. Bucknall, Bruce Horsfall, C. Whymper, (etc.), with Knight’s fine work taking pride of place. There are also numerous, quaint cartoons by Karl Moseley and, of course, many photographs of museum fossil specimens, geological diagrams and natural geographical features. Bountiful 47

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images: there’s an ‘art’ in their proper selection. A lavish affair for youngsters then and now.

held responsible for K-T boundary changes. Remember that even though several scientifically minded men had by then already speculated that asteroid and comet impacts would be devastating, such possible causes (of extinction) were usually dismissed or mocked in the early 20th century (because they weren’t ‘uniformitarian’ or ‘Lyellian’ in nature). Also, although Wegener had written of ‘continental drift,’ there was as yet no convincing geophysical mechanism for causing such movement on a “fixed” continental scale.

The unadulterated joy and pleasure one derives from these dusty old books perhaps principally stems from their outlay of Life’s mysterious ‘progression’ from and through the dawn ages to the present day. For Earth For Sam is a delightful life through geological time affair, taking us from the dawn of Earth time and life’s origin (then stated surely as a then mindstaggering one billion years ago) to the most recent post-glacial period, while warning of a coming period of Book chapters imply or rely either global warming and mankind’s on gradualistic causes or terrestrial img316: Margaret Flinsch's Paleomastodon from Animals On the March. ‘revolutionary’ shifts leading from destructive tendencies. It certainly (p.277) was ‘up to date’ for its time – as one Era to the next. For example, WRM makes full use of adaptational WMR comments cryptically at the concepts, without dabbling in once popular “orthogenesis” ideology, while opening of the Triassic that, “Then another of the earth’s revolutions came employing contemporary radioactive ages for geological periods, then a rel- and utterly destroyed them.” He continues, philosophizing, “It is odd, havatively new technological breakthrough. ing been born … in one revolution, they couldn’t stand another.” (p.161) At A highly evolutionarily-themed book, Earth For Sam refers to natural the terminal Cretaceous extinctions, we learn that glacial conditions may variations within species, using phrases “elimination of the unfit” and “sur- have been one root cause. (pp.239-241) And at the dawn of Eocene time, vival of the fittest,” although without mentioning then, more technical- WMR resorts to Knipe’s by then ‘oldtimey’ 1912 theatrical metaphor, namesounding terms such as “Darwinism” or “evolution.” WMR does refer to ly that “The passage of time from the Cretaceous to the succeeding Eocene “survival of the fittest” in the “Oligocene Period” (i.e. he refers to Paleogene is shrouded in darkness. It is as if the lights in a playhouse had been abrupt“epochs” instead as “Periods”). Also, as a metaphor, he likens the destruc- ly extinguished, and after a lapse had been restored, disclosing a stage tion of the Eocene creodonts by carnivores of Asian origin to the “ruthless” crowded with new characters.” (p.243) And of course, in the style of a pictreatment of “native Indians” by European white men in the Americas. torial essay, there’s ample coverage of the Mesozoic Age. (Two quibbles – Using a series of then state-of-the-art diagrams, WRM expertly describes he refers to Ceratosaurus – my dad loved Smit’s life restoration here - as a how the fish fin evolved into a primate hand, how birds evolved the capac- member of the horned dinosaur group, and suggests that T. rex co-existed ity of flight from ancestral reptilian genera, evolution of whales from ter- with Stegosaurus during the Cretaceous; well, WRM was an astronomer.) restrial mammalian ancestral stock, and how dawn horses became …. horses. Additionally, maps profess to show how configuration of the North American continent may have appeared in earlier periods, while WMR outlines processes and factors that led to subsequent stages of geographical revolution, with concomitant climate changes. A wintry ice age is

img319 and img 320: Two cartoons by Karl Moseley from The Earth For Sam. (pp.241, 182) 48

Throughout, WMR flashes arresting writing skills, such as when during the recent Ice Ages, “Thick furs were very fashionable garments for the fauna in the Pleistocene days.” (p.343) Or, in referring to walking, winged “…Dimorphodon … in a hurry he looked something like an old-fashioned cavalry officer with spurs and long saber and a fierce expression.” (p.198) We also read how Archaeopteryx’s voice may have sounded and why. (p.189) Later, WRM quotes from a short fiction story written by W. D. Matthew, published in Natural History, about “ P i t h e c a n t h r o p u s .” (pp.330-333) Naturally, because its riddle hadn’t yet been solved, WRM also includes Piltdown Man – the “Pliocene human” - in this chapter. He recognizes that Greenland may become warm and icefree once again, but forecasts this environmental change to ~ 30,000 years hence (rather than predicting the far more rapid warming that has been Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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occurring within only the past few decades).

killed all animals that were their enemies, just as we are doing today. Under such conditions … cousins of the apes would never have had an opportunity to become men.” (p.179) He even concludes with an intriguing stream of paleontological “what-ifs,” discussing what if Earth’s ‘experiment’ could be rerun on 100 different planet Earths, instead of how evolution actually proceeded. Then who or what might be standing here today, instead of us? Today, the foundational value in Earth For Sam isn’t as much as in its presentation of eye-catching, extraordinary imagetext, but more so in teaching us that wise men, decades ago, appreciated the quirky and randomized factors leading to our present planetary circumstance – now grasped so dearly yet precariously by an apex primate.

Perhaps inspired by then recent, impressive prehistoric life exhibits in Chicago, the Field Museum’s ‘dinosaur hall’ adorned by Knight’s murals displaying geological history, and both the Sinclair dinosaurs and The World A Million Years Ago on display at the 1933-34 “Century of Progress” Chicago World’s Fair, and given The Earth For Sam’s immediate success, a flurry of While many of you may have heard of The Earth For Sam, let us move on similarly themed paleo-books were pubbriefly to WMR’s second paleo-oriented book, which very few of you may lished. I’ve written about one of these know of – Animals On the March (1937, co-written with Jannette M. (Charles R. Knight’s Before the Dawn Lucas, edited by Edwin H. Colbert). This is possibly the third book pubimg317:Title Page to Earth For Sam of History, 1935) in context of its time lished in America dedicated to and emphasizing prehistoric mammals, intended primarily for nonspecialists. Animals On the img314: "Animals On the March" book cover. March, a kind of ‘sequel’ to Earth For Sam, was still published in that early period prior to the advent of punctuated equilibria evolution theory. Besides Knight’s magnificent restorations, WRM also employed paleoart by Margaret Flinsch, Mrs. E. M. Fulda, John W. Hope and Bruce Horsfall.

img318: J. Smit's Ceratosaurus in The Earth For Sam. (p.208) elsewhere (Dinosaur Sculpting, Chapter Two, 2nd ed., 2013). But two rarely cited contemporary additional popular entries, intended for younger readers, merit mention here: W. W. Robinson’s and Irene B. Robinson’s Ancient Animals (1934), and Leon Morgan’s pamphlet, The World A Million Years Ago (presumably 1933 or 1934). Artists for each were, respectively, Irene Robinson and H. G. Arbo. Although the Robinsons’ book would seem a stylistic precursor to Knight’s, the advent of prehistoric man is not explored therein, concluding ominously: “The story of man is not for these pages. While he rules, however, new monsters cannot live on this earth that was born of the sun.” Meanwhile, Leon Morgan’s booklet adopted a similar paleo-perspective to WRM’s. Earth For Sam is rife with ideas, it’s interesting to mention a few of WMR’s flights of fancy. WMR is prone to intriguing speculation, barking up the tree of accidental, historical ‘contingency.’ Such as, if ants (insects originating in the Mesozoic Era) had evolved to the size of horses, WRM speculates, their “… wonderful capacity and their instinct to help each other would have made them … rulers of the earth. They probably would have Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

While following ample coverage of “land-bridge” theories, WMR describes how populations of extinct mammals may have roamed as sea levels and land areas both rose and fell, affecting oceanic currents and paleoclimate, WMR delves into a synopsis of vertebrate evolution – quickly striding toward his main subject: mammals, ancestral to modern. One of the first such chapters is a point of view description ‘told’ in the words of an equine “scholar” (a modern horse, no less!) about the genealogical history of its own noble race. From there he goes on to describe the ‘rise’ of other mammalian groups (felines, dogs, rhinos, camels, deer, elephants, etc.), since the Cretaceous. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is mentioned, yet in cases of shovel-tusked proboscidea and the Irish Deer, this time he ponders the (then contagious) theory of orthogenesis leading to their extinctions. Despite their universal, expansive and conservationist outlook, WRM’s paleo-themed books were written a decade following World War I, during that dark period leading toward World War II and invention of atomic warfare. WRM was evidently a pacifist, weary of man’s politically fueled, worst tendencies trending toward global war and eradication of species. His mindset reminds me of modern socio-biologist E. O Wilson’s. In modernity, as we reflect upon how things used to be, we tend not to recognize that scientific men, science popularizers, pondered deep ramifications of paleontology, including extinction, decades ago. And long before Stephen J. Gould began writing about such matters as evolutionary what-if, “contingency,” luckily, a little known astronomer strove to put everything into perspective for “Sam” … and us. END 49

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es – with dinosaur art on the cover.

DINOSAUR ALBUMS … JUST FOR THE RECORD PART 2 – STORYTIME, SINGALONG & EDUCATIONAL by Robert Telleria dinosauriana.com Dinosaur books are an everexpanding universe of collecting as we all know. Collecting them all is a real impracticality. PT readers it would seem are most passionate about models and toys, and the rarest and most desirable 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 the overlooked world of recordings bearing dinosaur artwork on vinyl, cassette and compact disc formats. The emphasis is on the sleeves themselves not the quality of the scores (which frequently rival the films they were composed for!) Hopefully you can appreciate the artwork for dinosauriana you can hear. In the last issue, Part 1 documented soundtracks for film and television. This part 2 documents just some of the many storytime, singalong and educational album releas50

The first part of this article focuses on the genre of “recorded stories”. Leo the Lion's 1966 LP Dinosaurs! was actually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World read by Basil Rathbone. The real value is the lush cover populated with Charles Whitney Gilmore's sculptures from the turn of the (20th) century. In 1980, Listen For Pleasure released an audio cassette of The Lost World read by James Mason with a mostly unremarkable but lifelike cover of Pteranodon soaring over the plateau. Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth has seen a few record releases. Leo the Lion's 1968 LP, read by Bill Stern, featured an attractive painted cover with a Pteranodon in the background and an Elasmosaurus dueling with a Tylosaurus as our heroes look on from their makeshift wooden raft. Another dramatization by the Wonderland Imagination Theatre was released on Golden Records in 1974. The Wallace Wood artwork on the cover is straight out of a comic book, with a four fingered Tyrannosaurus ready to attack. Doctor Who Tom Baker read the 1977 album release on Argo label, but the cover sadly did not feature any prehistorics. Another reading on Caedmon Records in 1978 only had a photo of actor James Mason (who actually reads on the album.) Two French-language albums (on the labels Disques Festival and Le Petit Poucet Collection) exist but with rather dragon-like cover artwork. An MGM Young Directional LP called Dinosaurs' Journey (YDS-308) was scheduled to be released in the early 1970s but like most of that series, it never was. Star Trek: Dinosaur P l a n e t , released in 1979 on Peter Pan Records, included a story book and 7” record. The cover shows a photograph of Captain Kirk and Spock superimposed over a generic comic book image of two theropods and a pterodactyl. Caedmon Records' The Little Blue Brontosaurus, is a recording of a story written by William Stout (who also did the cover art) and Byron Preiss and dramatized by George Irving. Random House has released audiobooks for Jurassic Park (read by John Heard) and The Lost World (read by Anthony Heald) with identical covers to the actual books. Prehistoric Times No.121 Spring 2017

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One of the very first, if not the first, story-themed children's record with a dinosaur cover was 1965's A Day in the Life of a Dinosaur from Golden Records. The title dino is Bronty the Brontosaurus, depicted of course, as a friendly cartoon, voiced on the album by Phil Foster. Dinosaur singalong albums for kids emerged in the early 1980s but may have started with the 1978 releases Our … Dinosaur Friends from American Teaching Aids/Educational Materials Unlimited. The cover with Stegosaurus and Allosaurus is for the “Intermediate Years” (music by Art Barduhn) and the “Early Years” has a pair of Zallinger-esque Tyrannosaurus with songs by Pam Johnson, Eric Miller and Wayne Johnson. The next similar album was 1980's The Dinosaur Record from Tempo Records in the U.K. The music was by Mike and Chris Croft. Probably the best cover of all the singalong records to date, a collage of traced dinosaur images from David Lambert books. On Dinosaur Rock (Caedmon LP and Tape, 1983), Michele Valeri and Michael Stein were the performers and the cover was a strange painting of a Parasaurolophus playing a guitar shaped like the back of Ankylosaurus. The performers returned with their self-released The Great Dinosaur Mystery: A Musical Fossil Fantasy (1994) exists on tape and on CD (on the Rounder label). Once sold in the Dinosaur Society's Dinosaur Catalog blessed by Dinosaur Society founder Don Lessem. The cover, as well as on another release, Dreamosaurus, has the performers posing with a Barney-esque costumed character. Melody House released two singalong albums on LP and cassette formats in the mid 1980s. The first was Dynamic Dinosaurs performed by Pam Tims Cramer, with a rather dull Brontosaurus painting on the cover and the second was The Dinosaur Café performed by Derrie Frost with a livelier, whimsical cover. Diane Batchelor performs songs on Where Are the Dinosaurs? released on LP by The Learning Line in 1984. One of the strangest covers is for Jane Murphy's Once Upon a Dinosaur, also released by Kimbo on LP and CD in 1987. The artwork depicts a kind of “Jurassic” (kid's) park so to speak, where dinosaurs live together peaceably: Triceratops plays on a slide, Dimetrodon holds balloons and T. rex enjoys an ice cream cone. You get the picture. Even the great Donald Glut got in the singalong dinosaur song act. Great American Audio Corp.'s Dinosaur Singalongs Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

was timed to capitalize on Jurassic Park. In the mid 1990s, he formed a “record label” called Fossil Records (only Don could come up with the perfect pun), a trio of cassettes of songs performed by his Iridium Band (that's another pun) with art of rockin' dinosaurs by Peter Von Sholly (who also played on the cassettes.) Dinosaur Tracks (no we're not done with puns), More Dinosaur Tracks and Dinosaur Tracks Again. We're still waiting on the fourth release, Dinosaur Tracks Forever of Don's “rock” music (okay, final pun!) Also of note, Glut's recorded “Dinosaur Talks” with late dinosaur researchers Edwin H. Colbert, Elmer S. Riggs and Charles M. Sternberg. The Field Museum's “Sue” coup led to all manners of merchandising from books to shirts to mugs and everything in between such as a kid's singalong CD in 2005. Released under the label Music for Little People, A T. rex Named Sue featured songs sung by Al Jarreau, Travelin' Smiley Whippersnapper, Martha Davis, Gregg Himelstein, Anson Dawkins, Terry Sampson, Joe Bonamassa/Bonnie Bramlett, Randy Crenshaw, Jill Levine, Elaine " S p a n k y " McFarlane, Rosie Flores, and R e n e e Sandstrom. The jewel case sleeve shows the official Sue logo and Brian Cooley's crocodilemouthed head sculpture of Tyrannosaurus (not necessarily Sue.) The next reviews are for educational recordings yet there is only one album I am aware of, the Walter Cronkite-narrated Digging for Dinosaurs, a 7” record released in 1960 by The American Museum of Natural History. It came with a book and slides, mostly photographs of skeletons and Charles Knight paintings (the cover shows an Allosaurus pair). Part of the Panorama nature and science series, a service of the Columbia Record Club. This release may be the earliest non-fiction vinyl themed on dinosaurs, and it may be due to this record that Cronkite later hosted a 1991 documentary series.

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Mesozoic Media by Mike Fredericks Not a lot of new books came out this time (nothing like last issue, wow!) but quality is better than quantity. Please read on and support these authors. Major Herbert M. Dawley, An Artist's Life: Dinosaurs, Movies, Show-Biz, & Pierce-Arrow Automobiles by Stephen A Czerkas (Hardcover 348 pages, includes "Silent Roar" DVD) $49.95 + shipping. This new, lavishly illustrated hardback book introduces us to Major Herbert M. Dawley, a true renaissance man. He was a theater and film producer, an actor, director, screenwriter and author. He was an inventor, engineer, painter, sculptor, puppeteer and animator. Dawley was the innovator of stop-motion model animation with his landmark films The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918) and Along the Moonbeam Trail (1921.) Virtually unknown previously, he truly paved the way for later giants in the field like Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen. After a decade of research, dinosaur sculptor, animator, and paleontologist Stephen Czerkas chronicles the amazing life and career of this motion picture pioneer Herbert M Dawley. Dawley’s life is well covered including over a decade of his diary writing in the last years of his life. Production values of the book are beautiful and most impressive. The book is literally packed with over 850 color and b&w photos. Included in the back of the book is a DVD featuring the most complete restored versions of the Ghost of Slumber Mountain and Along the Moonbeam Trail with new music scores, commentaries and re-created intertitles. Of course both films include stop-motion dinosaur and other prehistoric animals. You will love seeing these old films. Silent Roar: The Dinosaur Films of Herbert M. Dawley DVD The Ghost of Slumber Mountain and Along the Moonbeam Trail $24.99 + shipping. This is a specially produced DVD featuring the most complete, restored versions of The Ghost of Slumber Mountain and Along the Moonbeam Trail with new music scores, commentaries, and re-created intertitles. The DVD includes: The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918), Along the Moonbeam Trail (1921), 12 "silhouette" animation shorts by Dawley and Tony Sarg, including the only known print of Thumbelina, Dawley's slide show on the Battle of Gettysburg, and Rare audio recording of Dawley's speech to the Pierce-Arrow Society in 1968 You can order both the book or DVD direct from the Czerkas’s Dinosaur Museum’s web site. A shopping place is set up there at www.dinosaur-museum.org. Please order both the book and DVD direct from The Dinosaur Museum’s web site. You can also phone: 435-678-3454 God's Word or Human Reason?: An Inside Perspective on Creationism by Jonathan Kane, Emily Willoughby, & T. Michael Keesey - Hardcover: 424 pages, Inkwater Press ISBN-13: 978-1629013725 ISBN-10: 1629013722 This new and original book tells us that God gave humans the ability to reason, but the Bible commands that we have faith in Him. According to Answers in Genesis, the largest and most influential creationist orga52

nization in the United States, the conclusions of human reason must be rejected if they contradict our understanding of the Bible. What are the implications of this and is it the best one for a Christian to live by? In God's Word or Human Reason?, five former youngEarth creationists explore the topics of science and the Bible to show that the scientific method actually glorifies God more than denigrate Him. Instead of providing a broad-level overview of the evidence for evolution and an old Earth, this book takes a new approach that considers the detailed expanse of creationist technical literature. The six main chapters provide an in depth examination of these arguments in a few key areas, including stratigraphy, radiometric dating, the origins of birds and of humans, and the meaning of the book of Genesis. Of course the main topic is evolution. This book provides plenty of proof and explanations of evolution to show that there is good reason to believe in it, yet, there is also room to believe in God for some of us too. What is wrong with believing that God’s creations changed over the millenia guided by His hand. The book is beautifully illustrated including many new, full color dinosaur paintings by Emily Willoughby. While the authors once were young-Earth creationists, today they represent a diversity of beliefs and each has included a personal account of their experiences growing up or participating in the creationist community, as well as the factors that played into their eventually leaving. God's Word or Human Reason? attempts to help people of many religious affiliations use reason as a means to understand the world. While I, Mike Fredericks write most of the reviews here, it would not make sense for me to review my own book so I thank Pat Schaefer for that task: What color were dinosaurs? Prehistoric Times Coloring Book by Tracy Lee Ford and Mike Fredericks Paperback: 34 pages, ISBN-10: 1542756707, ISBN-13: 9781542756709 The cover which poses the question: “What color were dinosaurs?” begs for a bit of preparatory text, something like: “We do not really know that much about dinosaur coloration but friends and relations in the Class Reptilia are not afraid to bear bright colors; there are brightly colored lizards and brilliant snakes, and, also, friends and relations in the Clade Aves, of the feathered clan, have feathers whose colors span the rainbow. So dinosaurs need not be just drab browns and grays, a little color is in the blood, so to speak. Don’t be afraid to choose a bold palate: this is your license to color.” That said the book presents a number of new dinosaurs you will not find in any other coloring book. It includes many dinosaurs of the feathered variety which really gives you the opportunity to add color, or not, depending on your point of view. Each page has a short paragraph with help on pronunciation of the name, scientific information about the animal and other interesting factoids. Tracy and Mike each contributed an equal share of drawings, I will leave it to you to determine whose are whose. But if this review makes the book seem a bit too tame, I did find in my preparation for this review that there is a coloring book on the market where all the dinosaurs, I kid you not, have a paisley pattern superimposed on them. I suggest you get a copy of the PT Coloring Book instead, get it from Amazon.com now. Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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© Joseph S Yansbury

Siats meekerorum

josephsyansburyillustration.com

© Fabio Pastori

The Djadokhta © Henry Sharpe

READER ART Dunkleosteus © Fred Snyder

Andrewsarchus mongoliensis © JA Chirinos 2016

“ A King Rises” T. rex © Zach Coker Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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nants of the dinosaur dynasty – have been seen eating the seeds of modern-day cycads too.

PALEONEWS Isaberrysaura mollensis and area in red where stomach contents were found

Fossilized dinosaur dinner offers clues to ancient ecosystems

A new species of dinosaur has been discovered in the Mexican desert.

From Argentina comes a newly discovered, unusual Jurassic dinosaur whose guts have revealed the secrets of prehistoric food webs. Named Isaberrysaura mollensis, the plant-eating species measured 5-6 meters (16-20 feet) in length, and it trudged among river deltas some 180 million years ago in what is now the Neuquén Province. But the really exciting find was inside the belly of the beast: a chunk of fossilized gut contents. Known as a cololite, it's food that an animal wasn't quite done digesting when it died (not to be confused with a coprolite, which is food an animal was well and truly done with).

Mexican scientists discovered a new species of dinosaur after a decade of research in the desert of the northern state of Coahuila, the National Science and Technology Council (Concyt) has announced. The discovery of the new species was led by paleontologist Hector Rivera Sylva and biologist Jose Ruben Guzman Gutierrez, both scientists of the Coahuila Desert Museum (MUDE).

Isaberrysaura is unusual for another reason, too: while it appears to be an early cousin of the famous duck-billed hadrosaurs that roamed in herds across the world of the Cretaceous (millions of years later), features of its skull – particularly the simple teeth and weak jaws – bring to mind dinosaurs like the plated Stegosaurus and those similarities with stegosaurs may have to do with diet. While the hadrosaurs had famously complex teeth, great for chewing and grinding plants into paste, the chompers of Isaberrysaura and the stegosaurs seem better suited to minimal mastication.

Guzman said that when they were cleaning off a part of the skull, they noticed a protuberance that made it different, because no other ceratopsid dinosaur species discovered in North America "had that characteristic."

But deciphering the ins and outs of dino diets can be a challenge, and that's where the cololite comes in handy: it provides rare evidence of Isaberrysaura's food preferences. Inside the dinosaur's belly were mineralized seeds, the leftovers of its last meal. There were at least a couple of different types of seeds in there, but the largest Yehuecauhceratops ones have been identified as belonging to mudei (photo by plants called cycads. MUDE) This very ancient group of plants is still hanging on today, but back in the Jurassic, cycads were some of the most successful plants around. The seeds inside Isaberrysaura are mostly undamaged, lending support to the idea that this dinosaur didn't do much chewing. But there's more: these leftovers also offer clues to a tight plant-animal relationship spanning hundreds of millions of years. Cycad seeds are surrounded by a soft, tasty coating, but the kernel at the core is very hard-shelled and loaded with a toxic substance called cycasin. A strong-jawed animal might crush the seed completely and release those toxins, but Isaberrysaura can get the tasty bits without breaking into the kernels, allowing the seeds to pass all the way through the digestive tract and be deposited elsewhere in a rich pile of fertilizer. The dinosaur gets food, and the plant gets to spread its seeds. With this in mind, it probably isn't a coincidence that the evolutionary rise of large herbivorous dinosaurs coincided with the rise of cycads – these organisms developed a mutually beneficial relationship over the millennia. Much later, when the super-chewing hadrosaurs – those later cousins of Isaberrysaura – spread across the world in the Cretaceous Period, toxic seeds would have been a less appealing dining choice. This may have marked the beginning of the cycads' downfall, especially since fruit-bearing angiosperm plants were becoming more and more popular, providing a tasty (and safe!) alternative food source.

Comparative size of Kaikaifilu hervei

With its weak jaws and seed-swallowing ways, Isaberrysaura may have been part of a long-running tradition of cycad-dinosaur mutualism, although the relationship isn't totally a thing of the past. Certain birds – modern rem54

The new dinosaur has been christened Yehuecauhceratops mudei, a name that comes from the Nahuatl word "yehuecauh" (ancient), the Greek "ceratops" (face with horns), and "mudei" in honor of the museum, he said.

The scaly bone had a "protuberance or 'beak' that showed that this was something new," Rivera said. The paleontologist said another aspect worth noting was the size of the new species, 3 or 4 meters long, compared with the 9 meters of a Triceratops, the best-known representative of the ceratopsids. That area of Coahuila was a refuge for different species of dinosaurs, which developed differently from those living in what is today the US and Canada. Massive Mosasaur sea lizards once hunted plesiosaurs in Antarctica Antarctica was once home to a 10-meter long sea monster that hunted huge plesiosaurs at the end of the dinosaur age, scientists have discovered. The mosasaur, a huge marine lizard with fearsome jaws and paddle-like limbs, lived 66 million years ago when Antarctica was much warmer than it is today. A 1.2m long skull of one of the beasts was unearthed on Seymour Island off the Antarctic peninsular. Scientists describing the find named the creature Kaikaifilu hervei, after a giant sea reptile featured in a native creation myth. In the tradition of the Mapuche people from southern Chile and Argentina, the battle between Kai-Kai filu and his great rival, another demigod reptile that ruled the land, shaped the world. Kaikaifilu was the largest southern hemisphere mosasaur discovered to date. It was about twice the size of the biggest creature of this type previously found in Antarctica, which had a skull 70cm long. The creature’s main prey was probably aristonectine plesiosaurs, longnecked marine reptiles that filter-fed in much the same way as present-day baleen whales. Kaikaifilu lived at the end of the Cretaceous period and vanished in the great extinction event that followed a giant meteor impact off the coast of Mexico. “Prior to this research, the known mosasaur remains from Antarctica provided no evidence for the presence of very large predators like Kaikaifilu, in an environment where plesiosaurs were especially abundant,” says study author Rodrigo Otero, from the University of Chile. “The new find complements one Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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expected ecological element of the Antarctic ecosystem during the latest Cretaceous.”

Under lasers, a feathered dino shows some skin What happens when you shoot lasers at a dinosaur fossil? Some chemicals preserved in the fossil glow and provide a nuanced portrait of the ancient creature’s bones, feathers and soft tissue such as skin. A next-generation imaging technique called laser-stimulated fluorescence reveals hidden skin in the feathered wing of the Jurassic dinosaur Anchiornis.

swered. The natural life span of these long-extinct giants is of interest to scientists, in combination with questions regarding how fast they could grow and how they could obtain sufficient nutrients from their habitat. Paleontologists estimate by means of bone structures whether a particular dinosaur fossil is a young, adult or very old animal. Rings inside bones very similar to the annual rings on trees are answering these questions. Also, the fossil of the Euchambersia therapsid (a pre-mammalian reptile), that lived in South Africa about 260 million years ago, is the first evidence of the oldest mammal to produce venom. CT scans of fossils of the pre-mammalian reptile shows anatomical features, designed for venom production. Perhaps this was the first “spitter” long before Dilophosaurus of Jurassic Park.

Soft tissue is rarely preserved in fossils, and when it is, it can be easily Bipedalism in dinosaurs was inherited from ancient and much smaller obscured. A technique called laser-stimulated fluorescence “excites the few skin atoms left in the matrix, making them glow to reveal what the shape of proto-dinosaurs. The trick to this evolution is in the big, leg-powering muscles in their tails. Having this muscle mass provided the strength and the dinosaur actually looked like,” says power required for early dinosaurs to stand on and move with their Michael Pittman, a paleontologist at the two back feet. Over time, adaptations like hind limb elongation University of Hong Kong. allowed ancient dinosaurs to run faster and further, while smaller Anchiornis fossil Pittman and colleagues turned their forelimbs helped to reduce body weight and improve balance. feet lasers on Anchiornis, a four-winged Eventually, some proto-dinosaurs gave up quadrupedal walking altodinosaur about the size of a pigeon with gether. feathered arms and legs. It lived around And lastly, the world's largest dinosaur footprint has been discov160 million years ago during the Jurassic ered in northwestern Australia, measuring at nearly 5 feet 9 inches Period. The researchers imaged nine speci(1.75 meters). Amazing. The track belonged to a sauropod, a longmens under laser light and used the photos necked herbivore. It tops a record 1.15 meter-long (nearly 3 feet 9 to reconstruct a model of Anchiornis that Scaly pads on Anchiornis’ feet are inches) footprint found last July. That footprint, found in Bolivia, was shows an exceedingly birdlike body. nearly invisible in normal light (top) the largest ever from a carnivorous dinosaur. There's nothing else that In the crooks of its elbows and wrists, the but are visible using laser-stimulated comes close to this length. The sauropod that made these tracks would dinosaur had what looks like taut tissues fluorescence (bottom). have been around 5.4 meters (17 feet 9 inches) high at the hips. Many called patagia, a feature in modern bird other tracks were found in this area including the first proof that wings. “The wings of Anchiornis are reminiscent of the wings of some livstegosaurs once lived in Australia. ing, gliding and soaring birds,” Pittman says. Plus, the images capture minute details like feather follicles and scales, and confirm some characteristics of Anchiornis long surmised by scientists: that it had drumstickshaped legs, pads on the balls of its feet and a slim tail. Still, it’s unclear what geochemicals are actually fluorescing in the fossils because the team didn’t perform any chemical analyses to determine the organic compounds or minerals present. “The images are very cool,” says Mary Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. But, she cautions, a few hurdles remain, including testing fluorescence in different fossil types and verifying how skin glows under laser light in modern bird fossils.

And much more... So many new theories and discoveries are made on a regular basis these days that it is impossible for Paleonews to keep up. It is old news now but right after the last issue was finished a piece of feathered dinosaur tail was found trapped in amber. It has helped paleontologists understand the makeup of early feathers. At around the same time, a rock turned out to the first fossilized dinosaur brain found. Due to limited space, for the rest of this article I will briefly describe other news and if it interests you, I invite you to further research it on the internet for more details. Researchers in the UK are saying that dinosaurs are now thought to have originated in that area due to two early dinosaur fossils they have found there. They are also saying that theropod dinosaurs are looking to be more like the bird-hipped dinosaurs than the lizard-hipped dinosaurs as we have always been told. In one way, this would certainly make sense as modern birds are most closely related to the theropod dinosaurs. These theories out of the U.K. could shake up all we know about dinosaurs. Some paleontologists are skeptical however. New research provides the first evidence that proteins have been preserved within the 195-million-year-old rib of the sauropodomorph dinosaur Lufengosaurus. It was found only in the small vascular canals that ran along the length of the ribs. Organic matter has been found in more recent dinosaur fossils (Late Cretaceous) but this is much older and scientists used a method they hope will help them find more. How old were the oldest dinosaurs? This question remains largely unanPrehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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As soon as I saw this kit, I felt it was ‘one of those that you had to have.’ It is available from Geenemodels.com. The casting is excellent with very little clean up, so here goes:

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DARWINOPTERUS SCULPTED BY GALILEO This was built and painted for: www.urzeitshop.de by Martin Garratt Pic 1. The kit consists of eight pieces which I thoroughly washed in soapy water. It was assembled using super glue with the seam lines being removed, and gaps filled with Milliput and re-textured to match the kit. I have also installed glass eyes. Pic 2. Darwinopterus was primed with grey automotive primer and a basic ‘flesh’ colour applied all over. Pic 3. I airbrushed a pinky/red colour around the edges of the wings and in the creases. Pic 4. Raw Umber with a touch of black was then airbrushed down the forearm, fingers and wing fingers, also the first round of mottling was done on the wings. Pic 5. The body was painted in a red/brown, noodling lightly, using the same colour. This was repeated in various areas to make it darker. Pic 6. I then added darker brown (almost black) and continued to ‘noodle’ areas of the body, arms and legs. The face has been airbrushed with a pink/violet colour and a yellowish/brown tinge down the snout. Black edging added to the head crest. The body was misted with the same yellowish/brown that was used on the snout, mixed with Johnson’s Floor Varnish. Pic 7. I darkened the end of the snout and head crest, adding a few black dots and blobs. A few white dots were applied to the back of the neck creating stripes. Pic 8/9. Transparent red ‘glass’ paint was airbrushed over the crest. The inside of the mouth was painted with a warm pink and the teeth painted with an Ivory colour and dirtied down with raw umber. The mouth and Teeth were varnished. A watery Burnt Sienna has been ‘misted’ all over (with emphasis on the wings) The entire model was then sealed with matt varnish. Base. The base was made from a block of Styrofoam cut to a suitable size. The impression of tree bark was carved into the foam. I then painted resin onto the foam to seal it, which allowed the foam to be painted without soaking into it. I started painting the ‘tree bark’ with a dark brown and ‘dry brushed’ it using several shades of lighter brown. Transparent green was misted in various areas to give an aged look. A piece of wood was then inserted into the back of the foam, a screw was put through the wood and foam, up into the belly of the Darwinopterus to make him secure. A wall bracket was fitted onto the wood enabling it to be fitted flush to the wall.

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I would like to thank Mike Fredricks for asking me to do an article for his fantastic magazine. Martin Garratt

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Finished

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Pic. 2

CRYOLOPHOSAURUS BUST sculpted by FABIO PASTORI This was built and painted for: www.urzeitshop.de by Martin Garratt

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This Cryolophosaurus is an amazing piece, available from Fabio Pastori. I have had the pleasure of painting three of these excellent busts to date. Here's what I did with this one: The bust consists of: head, crest, dewlap, connecting neck piece and spines, along with a marble base. Pic 1. I first thoroughly washed the pieces with soapy water and then assembled the resin model using super glue. Not much filling was required but Milliput was used where necessary. I primed the bust with a spray of grey automotive primer and installed the glass eyes which are standard with the kit. The whole of the Bust was base coated with Folk Art 'Pebblebrook' which was then misted over with Folk Art 'Whicker White' to lighten the color slightly. Pic 2 & 3. Burnt Sienna was airbrushed around the jawline, picking out a few scales on the lower jaw and the back of the neck. Pic 4. A dark Red Oxide was then airbrushed over the Burnt Sienna, emphasizing the back of the neck and also creating some spots.

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Pic 5. I applied a watery red wash around the eye and a darker red wash around the ears. A few random scales were picked out and darkened. I used Burnt Sienna mixed with a touch of black to also pick out scales down the snout to create stripes. Pic 6 & 7 The crest was airbrushed with a transparent Yellow and transparent Orange misted over the top. The dewlap was airbrushed in a warm pink. The teeth were base coated in Ivory and dirtied down using Raw Umber. The glass eyes are very pale so I misted transparent Yellow over them to deepen the colour. The back of the neck was airbrushed with transparent Chocolate Brown and the whole Bust was then misted with transparent Yellow. And finally, I sealed the overall model with matt varnish to finish. Again, many thanks to Mike Fredericks for giving me the opportunity to do this article for his 'Prehistoric Times' magazine.

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I hope you enjoy! Martin Garratt

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Aurora Prehistoric Scenes Part 1 by Steve Kelley The year, 1971. 1971 featured a lot of top musical hits on the radio including "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night, "When you’re hot you’re hot" and "Amos Moses" by Jerry Reed, "Me and You and a dog named Boo" by Lobo, "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart, "One Bad Apple" by The Osmonds, "I am..I said" by Neil Diamond, "You've Got A Friend" by James Taylor, "Take Me Home Country Roads" by John Denver and "Rainy Days and Mondays" by the Carpenters.

A few of the great movies that came out in 1971 included "Fiddler on the Roof, "The French Connection", the James Bond film "Diamonds are Forever", "Dirty Harry", "Billy Jack", "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" and "Escape from the Planet of the Apes." A gallon of gas was .40 cents, a new Dodge Charger was priced at $3,579 and a few of the top toys in '71 were Malibu Barbie, Etch-a-Sketch, Game of Operation, Battleship game and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots. The top TV shows included "All My Children", "Mary Tyler Moore", "McCloud", "The Odd Couple" and "The Partridge Family". A few of the top stories for 1971 included the death of The Doors’s lead singer Jim Morrison, the creation of Fed Ex and Amtrak and the banning of cigarettes being advertised on TV in the U.S.

ing Riverdale and George's Country Store. There was however one rather large and unique toy store located in Claremont NH called Toy Castle. I fondly remember going in the store one day with my father and discovering in the model section an amazing display of dinosaur models called "Prehistoric Scenes" by Aurora. I knew the name Aurora from a couple of the Star Trek Aurora models I had,

as well as, the Aurora HO scale Model Motoring race car set my sister and I had received for Christmas one year. In fact it was probably the racing set that brought us to Toy Castle, where my father was probably getting something for it. As my father went off in search of parts or whatever, there I found myself in the model section of the toy store mesmerized by the amazing and beautiful artwork on those Prehistoric Scenes boxes. It was that great artwork that first caught my attention and my imagination. Like many kids, I was absolutely fascinated by dinosaurs and I even owned a few dinosaur books including a Giant Golden Book of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Reptiles by Jane Werner Watson and illustrated by R Zallinger which I enjoyed very much. After that memorable visit to Toy Castle where I obtained my very first Prehistoric Scenes model, an Allosaurus model if I

While a lot of the country was focused on President Nixon and the growing opinions against the war in Vietnam, I was enjoying a more simple and care free childhood in Plainfield NH. I was the typical 9 year old who enjoyed riding my bike, listening to my albums of the Monkees, the Osmonds, the Carpenters, the Partridge Family among others on my record player and of course playing with my toys. As my Star Trek collection was still in its infant stage consisting of a mere few dozen or so pieces, my interest in different toys varied quite a bit. Living in the small town of Plainfield NH, we didn't have any big malls, or even much for big stores. For department stores there was a Giants, Kings, Riches, Woolworths, JJ Newberrys and a few other smaller stores includ58

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remember correctly, it wasn't very long before I was asking my father to drive me to the Toy Castle store again and again where I would spend my weekly allowance obtaining more of these very cool Prehistoric Scenes dinosaur models. After purchasing a "PS" kit at the store, being a typical kid I usually couldn't wait the 25 minutes or so "long" drive back home and so I would carefully open the box in the car and begin to break the various model pieces off the "tree" or "sprue" so I could start to assemble the snap together model. At home I had a couple of shelves on the wall directly over my bed. On the upper shelf I displayed my various Star Trek items and on the lower shelf I displayed my growing collection of assembled Prehistoric Scenes models. I had a footboard on the end of my bed that had three shelves built into it.

Inside the 1972 Aurora catalog

I would line up each one of the Prehistoric Scenes boxes on the top shelf

history museums. In 1962, the year I was born, ITC released a 20" Brontosaurus skeleton model and a Neanderthal Man model. The Neanderthal Man model included both human and skeletal versions in the box. Not soon after these first dinosaur models were produced, the Pyro model company also began producing dinosaur models as well. The Aurora Plastics Corporation was founded in March of 1950 by engineer Joseph E. Giammarino and businessman Abe Shikes in Brooklyn NY. However, by 1969 Mr. Giammarino had been voted out of his executive

on the foot of my bed so I could easily look at those colorful boxes with their amazing artwork anytime, especially right before going to sleep. I actually enjoyed the packaging itself as much as the models inside. I loved the beautiful artwork on the boxes and tried to display them as best I could in the limited space that I had in my bedroom. These many years later, as you can see in the pictures of some of my now very large collection, I have accumulated and built up a very nice Prehistoric Scenes collection. A collection which is still ever growing as I

position in Aurora by the board of directors. Mr. Giammarino put his holdings up for sale where they were quickly purchased by an investment group led by Charles Diker, giving his firm a controlling share of the company. Mr. Diker soon became the new President of Aurora. This is important to note because Mr. Diker had an extensive background in product placement, marketing design and advertising and was the one who updated the Aurora logo and also came up with the idea of the larger square box format over the previous slim and slender tall box format as was

try to fill the gaps as only a completest will do. Though dinosaur toys can be traced back as far as the 1920s and 1930s, the first known dinosaur "models" ever produced were released by the Ideal Toy Company (ITC). In 1957 ITC produced both a 16" long Tyrannosaurus Rex and a 12" long Stegosaurus skeleton models. These early models were based on assembled dinosaur bones seen on display at the time in natural Prehistoric Times No. 121 Spring 2017

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seen in Aurora's earlier monster line. Mr. Diker felt that the slender boxes were lacking in artwork appeal, and because of that along with their odd shape and size were easily missed and passed up on store shelves by shoppers. Diker knew that a larger more uniform square box design would make the models easier to stack on toy store shelves making them display better.

The new box design would also provide more room on the side panels for more colorful artwork, making them stand out and more easily attract attention on store shelves.

In 1965, Aurora's director of research and development Darek Brand interviewed a then 21 year old Andy Yanchus, who was quickly hired. Later Andy became the project manager for Aurora. Andy Yanchus is also known for coming up with many of the ideas for the Monster Scenes model line that would then be carried over into the Prehistoric Scenes model line. Most notable are the snap together interchangeable moving parts and the inter-

locking scene base feature where one model base would fit against another creating a diorama type effect. The designs for many of Aurora’s models were created by Dave Cockrum and then sculpted by Bill Lemon. Near the end Styracosaurus of Aurora and the model built and Prehistoric Scenes painted by the models production, author. Dave Cockrum had been designing and working on a Stegosaurus model. Sadly it apparently never made it past the clay model stage at the time of Aurora's demise as a company.

Part two will conclude this article in the next issue of Prehistoric Times magazine

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