Indholdsfortegnelse for Winter #140 2022 i Prehistoric Times

Neovenator – It’s a hard-knock life. I was lucky enough to visit the Isle of Wight and its world-class dinosaur museum a few years back, and for those of you following my Bone Rooms page, you can read about my entire visit there, though I will quote myself a few times in this article. (http://bonerooms.blogspot.com/2012/11/dinosaur-isle-isle-of-wight.html). Today the Isle of Wight is a county of England, and the nation’s largest island. It sits within the English Channel and likely separated from England 125,000 years ago during a series of glaciation periods, which also caused sea-level changes in the area. The growing ocean gap between both is called the Solent, and it’s this erosion that has helped make the island the richest source of dinosaur material in Europe. “You can either cross…

The Himalayas have Yeti, and the Abominable Snowman. Scotland has Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. And Indiana has the far lesser-known Oscar, the giant turtle of Churubusco, which sounds like a tall-tale but is more about the high price of pride. The story begins with a precursor back in 1898 when Oscar Fulk, a farmer in Churubusco, North-east Indiana, reported seeing a giant, prehistoric turtle in his lake. He didn’t say which prehistoric turtle, and how deep his knowledge of paleontology was is now a matter for speculation, but then for 50 years nothing much happened. Apart from two World Wars, the rise of communism, and the rise of the U.S.A., but at Fulk’s Lake nothing much happened. That was until … 1948, July 27, Tuesday. Charley Wilson and the…

Hi, Mike --Most welcome was your article on José F. Bonaparte. Ifirst met José in 1984 at my first SVP meeting, held at the University of California, Berkeley. He was very friendly and, over the years, graciously sent me materials including photos of dinosaur specimens for use in my then in-progress book Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia. One day, while visiting the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, my paleontologist friend Michael K. Brett-Surman told me that Bonaparte was in the paleontology lab about to give an informal slide talk about some of his recent fossil discoveries in South America. Also in the room where José had set up a slide projector and screen were other paleontologists on the museum staff, as I recall including Nicholas Hotten and Hans-Dieter Sues. Among…

For anyone who has survived it, the attack of a grizzly or polar bear is surely one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable. Now imagine the onslaught of a mammalian carnivore even larger than a bear, and faster, more agile, and with even greater biting power, and this will give one an idea of what the onslaught of Amphicyon ingens, one of the largest of the amphicyonids (not to be confused with the amphicynodonts, an ursid or bear family), or “bear-dogs”, would be like (Fig. 1). Yes, the terms are a bit confusing. In spite of their popular name the amphicyonids (Greek amphi, ‘ambiguous’; küon or cyon, ‘dog’) were, however, neither bears nor dogs. They independently arose during the Late Eocene as the first major radiation of the Caniformia, one…

The Megalictis didn’t care Look at him running through the forests. One of his distant relatives, the honey badger, will hold the record in the Guiness Book of World Records as the most fearless creature on earth, and this is clearly something they inherited from Megalictis . . . because they just don’t care. Megalictis (Greek ‘big weasel’) lived in a dangerous world. Enormous animals roamed the land. There were herds of rhinos and enormous elephants like gomphotheres; there were also horses and weird horse relatives, the chalicotheres like Moropus. These not only had large, strange arms, looking more like a gorilla than a horse, but their front arms ended in weird claw-hooves. Well, the Megalictis didn’t care. They had no regard for any other animal and would have just…

Years ago, Francis Messmore told me that the “World a Million Years Ago” played at the 1939 NY World’s Fair, but I've never been able to find anything on it --not even a confirmation, other than an old pre-Fair magazine article stating that a planned Flash Gordon exhibit would feature mechanical dinosaurs. I never found anything confirming that the FG exhibit actually happened either. Well, with some free time, I did some extensive Googling and found the attached images --and also remembered that Francis had told me that, at the 1939 Fair, the attraction was called Pastorama. Also, note the Pastorama photo of the Stegosaurus looming symbolically over the city. That solves another mystery. It’s the same Stegosaurus --obviously a guy in a suit --in test footage included on that…

This issue’s dinosaur, Neovenator (aka “New Hunter”) inspired me to try a few new things as a modeler. It’s my first 3D printed model for one thing. Also, I've utilized a sponge technique I'd thought about trying for a while. Rather than a step by step, I thought I'd talk about these things a little differently. If you'd like to know more, you can always email me at writesjk@gmail.com. THE MODEL: I could not find any existing resin kits for this animal, but an internet search turned up the work of a talented digital artist, Robert Fabiani (robertfabianijr@gmail.com) on Instagram. After working out the arrangements, I sent the file over to my friends at the Radford University Center For Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL) to print on a Raise 3D…

Introduction The final group of ornithischians yet to be discussed is the Marginocephalia (= margin head), which comprises the Ceratopsia (= horned faced; more correctly rendered as Ceratopia, although this spelling is not in common usage) and the Pachycephalosauria (= thick-headed lizards). Among the ceratopsians (ceratopians) can be found some of the most recognizable dinosaurs including Protoceratops, Triceratops, and Styracosaurus, whereas pachycephalosaurs are far less well known, both scientifically and in the public realm. The first ceratopsians appeared in the late Jurassic, but the group radiated significantly during the Cretaceous, with their final representatives dying out at the K-T boundary. They were primarily herbivorous and ranged in size from small and lithe bipeds to the heaviest quadrupedal dinosaurs other than large sauropods. As in the thyreophorans (PT 139), ceratopsians developed…

Dino.Hunter@cox.net In this issue I’ll be discussing the type of skin feathers grows from, how feathers grow, and scales. Two crucial components in avian feathers are how they grow and how a bird moves its feathers is its “avian” skin. I say avian skin because a bird’s skin is different from other animals’ skins in that it is thinner and stronger. SKIN: First we must understand a bird’s skin itself. The vertebrate integument, that is, skin and cornea, is composed of a pluristratified epithelium (the outermost layer of skin) that overlies a mesenchyme (loosely organized undifferentiated cells). Skin forms the external body envelope and creates the boundary between the organism and its environment. In all living vertebrates, specific types of alpha-keratins (K1-2/K10 and K3/K12) characterize the epidermis and corneal epithelium…

PT: What made you decide to write Drawing and Painting Dinosaurs? (reviewed in this issue) It is nice of you to share your knowledge and methods. I know some artists who are taking their secrets to the grave. Emily Willoughby: I had wanted to write a book like this for ages, but hadn’t yet found the time or opportunity to start sending out query letters to publishing agents. So when Crowood Press reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in writing and illustrating a new book about dinosaur art, I immediately jumped on it, delighted to be given the opportunity. PT: Your book covers many dinosaurs but not surprisingly, with an emphasis on feathered dinosaurs. Why do you think Deinonychus and other feathered dinosaurs are your favorite dinosaurs?…

Jurassic graveyard reveals oldest evidence that dinosaurs traveled in herds A Jurassic graveyard in Patagonia, Argentina, holds more than 100 fossilized eggs and the bones of 80 Mussaurus patagonicus dinosaurs ranging in age from hatchling to adult. The trove of dinosaur remains suggests that these paleo-beasts lived in herds as early as 192 million years ago, a new study finds. The finding is the oldest evidence on record that dinosaurs lived in herds and suggests that dinosaurs displayed socially complex, gregarious behavior 40 million years earlier than previously thought, the researchers said. The graveyard also shows that the herd had internal structure; for instance, young dinosaurs hung out (and died) together in cliques. It’s rare to find signs of behavior preserved in dinosaur bones, but "now we have evidence of…