Paleofest Report 2019

Welcome back! It’s this time of year again where I go down the annual Paleofest Symposium, held every March at the Burpee Museum in Rockford Illinois. There’s always new discoveries, new experiences, and a lot of great talks about paleontology research. For further details, I once again recommend our MC Scott Williams, for tweets check out Dr. Thomas Holtz’s twitter, and for images ask Todd Johnson. Once again there’s no particular theme, but once again younger researchers and women researchers take the foreground on a wide variety of topics.

Dragon Day 2018: Top Ten Prehistoric Animals named after Dragons

Happy Dragon day, the fourth Sunday in October!  

Wait a minute, you ask yourself, why are you talking about mythical animals? Isn’t this blog about real animals? Why haven’t you posted more often? 

First of all, yes, I do need to post more often. Second, I will talk about real animals. And finally, in reverse order, dragons are still awesome and I still feel compelled to talk about mythical animals. Dinosaurs have basically become the dragons to the 20^th century. Watch a dinosaur movie, look at a piece of art-these real animals get their most bizarre and fearsome qualities played up. Dinosaurs fulfill the same narrative device. Authors like Adrienne Mayor, Don Glut, and Allen Debus have all made the parallel. Dinosaur bones were indeitifed with dragons, and dinosaurs have been given dragonish qualities in art and literature from the very beginning. A big scary reptile is going to look like a dragon, period.

So, in honor of dragon day, inspired by Christopher dePiazza’s amazing blog and art, http://prehistoricbeastoftheweek.blogspot.com/2015/04/here-be-dragonsor-dinosaurs.html , I am going to give you my top ten prehistoric animals named after Dragons! 

Species That Don't Get Enough Publicity #14: Achillobator giganteus

Dromeosaurs are one of the last dinosaur groups to really become superstars. In the 80s, Deinonychus was the most popular dinosaur: a unique sprinter, jumper, kicker, gangster. A well-armed social hunter, Deinonychus mobbing and dismembering their prey became a defining image of the new “hot blood” look of dinosaurs as science finally came to terms with dinosaur endothermy.  When Michael Crichton gave them the name of Velociraptor and Steven Spielberg put them on screen in the most terrifying depiction of any dinosaur, they became superstars.

Immediately after the release of the film, a new giant dromaeosaur was discovered: Utahraptor. Utahraptor showed that Deinonychus was no longer the earliest or largest dromaeosaur. Earlier dromaeosaurs have since been found, but not larger ones. At over 1,000 lbs, Utahraptor remains the largest (and most famous) of the dromaeosaurs. In the 2010s, a new giant raptor has made headlines. Extremely rare, Dakotaraptor finally allows for the fantasy “Utahraptor meets Tyrannosaurus” scenarios dinosaur fans have dreamed of for 20 years.  

But there are two other giant raptors, two big dromaeosaurs that have been found and ignored by popular culture. One I will deal with later along with its family, but today I will talk about Velociraptor’s giant predecessor in Mongolia: Achillobator.

Happy 30th: The discoveries of 1988

This weekend, I turned 30 years old. It’s a milestone for me, of course, but it reminded me about how much can change in 30 years.  30 years ago the dinosaur film was Land Before Time, when dinosaurs were inspired by the works of Charles Knight and William Stout before the Jurassic Park paradigm took over.  30 years ago,  the Berlin Wall still stood dividing Germany, the first Bush became president coasting in on Reagan’s popularity, and computer graphics in film were limited to a short by Pixar. 

There were many milestone in paleontology as well-new species were described, that would become iconic many years later.  So, I’ve decided to showcase all the fossil tetrapods described in 1988.  I can’t go into any depth about each, but there will be quite a few of them, so hold on your butts.

Prehistoric Warfare Episode 6: Carcharodontosaurus vs Spinosaurus

Now for something different. In 2004, Animal Planet showed as new series called Animal Face Off, a series reconstructing conflicts between coexisting animals. While the execution was clumsy and lacking, the concept is strong and I think easily applied to prehistoric fauna.  Ideally, there would be professionals discussing the situations, but unfortunately, you have only me. First I will compare the animals, and then depict their behavior, before concluding with the final battle.  The outcome will be my personal opinion; and there would be many times when the outcome would be decidedly different. This is not a scientific consensus, but one researcher’s opinion.

We all love dinosaur battles. They’re always a high point in a film. It’s childish, but it’s just plain fun. So, I’m hoping to use this opportunity to use this almost-universal appeal to get people thinking and talking about ecology, biomechanics, and behavior. Only one or two of these stories will be based on actual fossils-the rest are likely possibilities that must have happened sometime or another. In real life, animals usually don’t fight on even terms, but it does happen. Sometimes prey turn the tables, sometimes predators quarrel between themselves, but it can happen. I hope you enjoy this. Again, first I will have two scenes, one for each animal showing them in their habitat and showcasing their particular skills, then finally concluding with a battle between the two.


I MUST WARN THAT  THIS WILL BE VIOLENT. IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULARLY VIVID IMAGINATION, OR HAVE AN AVERSION TO GRAPHIC NATURALISTIC VIOLENCE, I STRONGLY SUGGEST NOT CLICKING ON THE CUT

Paleofest Report 2017

It’s time for my annual report of Paleofest in the Burpee Museum in Rockford. Last year I skipped the report considering the high amount of unreleased data as part of it, which is a shame since it was quite good. This year there are fewer spoilers, but I did wait a month after the event. For more on Paleofest itself, please check out my first report here: http://davidsamateurpalaeo.blogspot.com/2015/04/paleofest-2015-report.html

Prehistoric Warfare Episode 5: Iguanodon vs Neovenator

Now for something different. In 2004, Animal Planet showed as new series called Animal Face Off, a series reconstructing conflicts between coexisting animals. While the execution was clumsy and lacking, the concept is strong and I think easily applied to prehistoric fauna.  Ideally, there would be professionals discussing the situations, but unfortunately, you have only me. First I will compare the animals, and then depict their behavior, before concluding with the final battle.  The outcome will be my personal opinion; and there would be many times when the outcome would be decidedly different. This is not a scientific consensus, but one researcher’s opinion.

We all love dinosaur battles. They’re always a high point in a film. It’s childish, but it’s just plain fun. So, I’m hoping to use this opportunity to use this almost-universal appeal to get people thinking and talking about ecology, biomechanics, and behavior. Only one or two of these stories will be based on actual fossils-the rest are likely possibilities that must have happened sometime or another. In real life, animals usually don’t fight on even terms, but it does happen. Sometimes prey turn the tables, sometimes predators quarrel between themselves, but it can happen. I hope you enjoy this. Again, first I will have two scenes, one for each animal showing them in their habitat and showcasing their particular skills, then finally concluding with a battle between the two.


I MUST WARN THAT  THIS WILL BE VIOLENT. IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULARLY VIVID IMAGINATION, OR HAVE AN AVERSION TO GRAPHIC NATURALISTIC VIOLENCE, I STRONGLY SUGGEST NOT CLICKING ON THE CUT

Halloween Special: The Horrors of Hatzeg Island

I’m back! I’ve been gone from this blog for a while, but rest assured I’m alive and still fascinated by prehistory. Today we’re coming back to a Halloween theme, however tenuous it may be.  One of the most notorious places in the world of fiction, the most infamous places in Europe, the home of the vampires and witches and werewolves, is Transylvania.  Transylvania is now part of Romania, north of Wallachia, west of Moldavia, and southeast of Hungary. It was a battle zone in the past, as Austrians, Russians, Hungarians, Turks, Wallachians, Moldavians, Poles, and Germans have struggled over the region.  Rich in minerals, it is a mountainous region,  consisting of mostly forest-covered hills and mountains topped with castles.  It was here that the notorious Prince Vlad Dracula imposed his rule with an iron fist and defied the might of the Ottoman empire. 

It is also a place rich for paleontology. This began with Baron Nopsca in a period from 1899 to the First World War. Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás, born of a Romanian line of Hungarized aristocrats in the Austrian empire, left the University of Vienna with two goals: The throne of an independent Albania, and the discovery of Romanian fossils. This colorful, Romantic figure tragically lost his fortune on his pursuits and ended his life in a suicide pact with his Albian secretary and lover Bayazid Doda in 1933.  However, in his lifetime, he found a treasure trove of Romanian dinosaurs from the end of the Mesozoic.

Species That Don't Get Enough Publicity #10: Tusoteuthis

Giant squids are iconic animals. Squids by themselves are intelligent, powerful, and alien-looking. Giant squids give grandeur, epic scale, and mystery, having not been seen in their natural habitat until 2004. Although not as long as a bootlace worm or as heavy as a colossal squid, they have become legendary. Their corpses and fleeting sightings of their dying have created legends in places from Norway to Greece to Japan.  The Norse sailors and Vikings prayed for safety from the Kraken, a beast so powerful it is still part of modern popular culture.

Species that don't get enough publicity #9: Rajasaurus narmadensis and the Lameta Formation

With the passing of the one-year anniversary, I’m going to return to my peak output.  I’ve been distracted, but now I’m back.  So today, we’re going to feature another dinosaur.  This one’s a fairly recent one, but part of an interesting story in both its history as an animal and its history in paleontology. 

Everyone loves the big scary dinosaurs. When William Buckland was given a big jaw with a serrated, curved tooth from Stonesfield quarry in  1815, he was fascinated by it, and thanks to the ferocious reconstruction by Benjamin Hawkins it became an icon of antiquity. Cope’s Dryptosaurus in 1866 and Marsh’s Allosaurus 1877 brought dragons back to life. The apex came with the legendary Tyrannosaurus of 1905.  People like their animals big, scary, and extinct, and Tyrannosaurus is the epitome of all this.

So I’m not going to talk about Tyrannosaurus, but a contemporary. This one’s been only described fairly recently, but its story is intertwined with mysterious bones found in 1932. This is the story of Rajasaurus, but it’s also a story of the Lameta Formation near the Narmada River next to Jabalpur in Madya Pradesh.

An overview of Dinosaur Exhibits part 5: The Royal Ontario Museum

I have held off talking about this museum for a while now, as it has been nearly 15 years since I’ve been there last, and not only have I forgotten a great deal of it but also it has undergone extensive renovation in 2008.  Canada, like the USA, is rich in dinosaur fossil material, and sort of acts like Mongolia to China in terms of fossils-the hotbed of Cretaceous rock. British Colombia brought us the Cambrian explosion in the Burgess Shale, but for dinosaurs, Alberta and Saskatchewan are the real treasure trove. There’s really nothing like them outside of Montana and Wyoming to the south and Mongolia across the Pacific. Lambe, Brown, and the Sternbergs found a gold mine of Cretaceous fossils, one that is still being excavated today. 

Like the southern American West, while a lot of fossils are stored and studied nearby (in this case, the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller near Edmonton), a great deal have made it to the East. While the US fossils were shipped to Chicago, Pittsburg, Washington, New Haven, Philadelphia and Washington DC,  the Canadian fossils were sent to Toronto and Ottawa. The National Canadian Museum of Nature will be covered next in the series, but today we’re looking at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Paleontology Week in Review: 6/7/14

Sorry about missing the week in review last week-there wasn’t much going on in the world of paleontology. However, the press this week has brought to my attention some amazing fossil finds.

First we’ve got a beautiful discovery of a pterosaur rookery in Xinjiang by Dr. Wang Xiaolin. This week his team released their paper on the discovery, naming the new species Hamipterus tianshanensis.  The sheer amount of fossil bones reveals much-needed, often-sought but seldom-found information on the animal. Not only are there 5 intact eggs, but at least 40 individuals. This number provides information on physical characteristics (the animals are sexually dimorphic in terms of their crest shape), life cycle (pterosaurs are found in almost all stages of growth), and social organization (nests are preserved,  and the sheer amount of nests and individuals suggests a colony not unlike one of seabirds). 

It’s been suggested for decades that pterosaurs were social animals living like birds in large groups, but this time we have an actual flock.   Wang et al classify it as a relative of the famous Pteranodon, one of the earliest members of the family.  Found it the Aptian Cretaceous Turpan-Hami Basin, it was the successor of the more basal pterosaur Dsungaripterus, but was more of a generalist fisher.

Here’s the paper: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2814%2900525-9

Speaking of mass finds, there was a mass find of early Cretaceous Icthyosaurs in Chile. 36 individuals, some of them pregnant, from 4 different species, were found in a single bed at the Torres del Paine National Park.  The find was discovered ten years ago, but only now has the significance and sheer scope been found. Sadly, the paper is not available in a free journal, so precise details are not known to me. However, like the pterosaurs, this suggests a catastrophe, possible a tsunami or volcanic eruption that killed the animals.

The paper http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/early/2014/05/22/B30964.1.abstract

A new short-snouted crocodilian was found in the Paleocene Cerrejon formation in Colombia by Alexander K. Hastings of the Florida Museum of Natural History, Jonathan I. Bloch of the Geiseltalmuseum of the Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, and Carlos A. Amarillo of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Called Anthracosuchus balrogus, it was distinct for it thick, squared scutes that protected its back, bony tuberosities around its eyes, wide-spaced eyes, short, broad snout, and rounded, blunt teeth. Anthracosuchus is a dyrosaur, a family of crocodilians that evolved in the Palaeocene, flourished, then went extinct. The family was better adapted for aquatic lifestyles than their modern counterparts, thriving in the jungles and wetlands of the Palaeogene and eating fish and other aquatic reptiles. The teeth of this animal seem to be adapted for crushing turtle shells. 

At 16-feet long Anthracosuchus dwarfed most of the other animals of the Cerrejon jungle, including its main prey, the 6-foot turtle Carbonemys, and its relatives the small but similarly short-snouted Cerrejonisuchus and common, long-snouted Acherontisuchus. However, it in turn was prey for the largest snake of all-time, the similarly semiaquatic Titanoboa. Titanoboa was twice the length of a modern green anaconda, and fulfilled a similar role as aquatic apex predator.

The paper http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08912963.2014.918968#.U5O_xyigzWg

On to dinosaurs-

Hai Xing and his team from multiple institutions in China, Canada, and the UK released their paper this week on a new hadrosaur from Henan, Zhanghenglong yangchengensis. The animal is described as basal, similar to Bactrosaurus, Telmatosaurus, Lophorhothon,  and other ancestors of hadrosaurs.  The find is scanty and disarticulated, but enough of the skull and post-cranial material remain to get a good picture of this browser, it’s evolutionary relationships, and it’s ecological role.  It’s placed as a sister taxon to Nanyangosaurus. 

It’s from the Majiacun Formation, a Santonian age mid-Cretaceous strata discovered relatively recently and with very few fossils. So far, we know that the troodont Xixiasaurus and alverezasaur Xixianykus shared the habitat, and eggs have been found suggesting therizinosaurs also lived in the area.  Hopefully, more of this animal will be found and more animals in this environment will be found.

Here’s the paper http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0098821

Finally, another dinosaur was found, this one from Luxembourg and described by Dominique Delsate from the Musée national d’histoire naturelle de Luxembourg and Martin D. Ezcurra of the Universities of Birmingham and Munich.  It’s a theropod dinosaur from the Hettangian Early Jurassic: a relative of Megapnosaurus and Sarcosaurus.  The material is scanty-teeth and a foot bone. 

The locale, Reckingerwald quarry, is not known for dinosaurs, either-most of the fossils are of marine invertebrates, with a few plesiosaur, ichthyosaur, and cartilaginous fish bones.  It’s the least of the discoveries in terms of material and drama, and the dinosaur has yet to be named, but it’s still a find worth the publicity

You can find the paper here http://popups.ulg.ac.be/1374-8505/index.php?id=4569

Tune in next week for more paleontology news!

An Overview of Dinosaur Exhibits Part 4: The Carnegie Museum

Most times in which I hear about museums are in the context of a book or documentary. This week’s museum, however, I first learned from a series of toys.  I remember my first dinosaur toys being from the Funrise series of animal figures, and the Imperial Toys large toys. The best, however, I encountered in first grade. The classroom has a display of them, with an accompanying poster. The name was distinctive-“The Carnegie Collection”.  They were big enough to be detailed but not too big enough to effect play. They were beautiful, sculpted, and sturdy. They ranged from familiar animals like Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops to more obscure animals like Maiasaura. 

Documentary Review: Flying Monsters 3D

I must admit to being as guilty as pop culture is in terms of pterosaurs. Pterosaurs have always played second fiddle to the dinosaurs. When they’re not actually mislabeled as dinosaurs themselves, they’re often passed over as inferior prototypes to avian dinosaurs.  Pterosaurs often seem to be token bit players in the world of dinosaurs-Pteranodon and Pterodactylus have an ocean and nearly 100 million years between them, but they’re synonymized in the public eye.

That’s why I was glad to finally see a pterosaur documentary. In 2011, this documentary, called Flying Monsters, hit IMAX screens in 3D. Despite the relatively short running time, this film was ambitious-David Attenborough was the host, pterosaur evolution and biomechanics was the focus, and CGI was used extensively. Does it do pterosaurs justice? Well, that’s what I’m going to talk about now.

Paleontology Week in Review: 5/24/14

This week, starting every Saturday, I’ll do a paleontology week in review. I’ll go over new discoveries, recommend articles on them, and give my perspective on it.

First up is Leinkupal laticauda, discovered by a team led by Palbo Gallina of the Universidad Maimoides, who has a right to be cocky about his find.  Leinkupal, like most dinosaur finds, is sadly incomplete, mostly vertebrae. However, the vertebrae indicate a small (30 foot) sauropod, and a unique one at that.  This is because the vertebrae are unmistakably, distinctly diplodocid. Diplodocids were long-snouted,  whip-tailed sauropods that reached their heyday in the Late Jurassic with their banner species: the legendary Apatosaurus, the famous Diplodocus, Barosaurus, African Tornieria, Portuguese Dinheirosaurus, and the gigantic Supersaurus among them. Like their stegosaur compatriots, they went into a sudden extinction at the end of the Jurassic. As the stegosaurs were replaced by ankylosaurs, diplodocids were replaced by the titanosaurs, broad-toothed, box-headed sauropods that conquered every continent and lasted until the end of the Cretaceous.

What makes Leinkupal unique is its being in the Bajada Colorado Formation, about 133 million years ago. It’s been 12 million years after the Jurassic extinction, and no diplodocids have been found in the Cretaceous until now.  It’s a survivor, and survivor species are fascinating. What allowed them to survive? What kind of environment did it have? What were the other species? Unfortunately, little is known on this formation and so we don’t know, but it’s a great discovery and I hope Gallina et all will find more about this unique animal.

Here’s the paper:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0097128

The other news is even bigger, but also a South American sauropod. I was talking about Titanosaurs earlier, and they include the giant sauropods Paralititan, Antarctosaurus, Puertasaurus, and Argentinasaurus.  This team includes Drs. Diego Po, Pablo Puerta and Jose Luis Carballido from the Museo Paleontologico Egidio Feruglio.  They announced that seven specimens were found, with the huge bones being excavated for the past three years and will continue for a long time in the future.  The animals are estimated to be up to 130 feet long, larger than any other sauropods found.  Matt Wedel used a femur to calculate one specimen to be the size of the current record holder for largest dinosaur, Argentinasaurus, while other experts argue for a larger size. Regardless, this is a close relative of the giant Puertasaurus and Argentinasaurus, and in the same titanic size range.

Here are two good articles on the find

http://svpow.com/2014/05/19/the-new-argentine-titanosaur-was-about-the-same-size-as-the-biggest-argentinosaurus/

http://paleoking.blogspot.com/2014/05/record-smashing-titanosaur-just.html

The formation is not reported in most of the press releases, but the location-Chubut, and the report of Tyrannotitan teeth, suggest the animal is from the Cerro Barcino formation. The environment, according to earlier finds, was a dry plain, so dry that the resident crocodile predator Barcinosuchus seemed to be specialize in terrestrial prey. Other dinosaurs include the giant predatory carnosaur Tyrannotitan, the smaller ceratosaur (perhaps the last non-abeliosaurid) Genyodectes, and the smaller titanosaurus Chubutisaurus.    I hope to soon make an article on the succession of South American formations, but it preceded the other giants Argentinasaurus, Antarctosaurus, and Puertasaurus the same way Tyrannotitan preceded Giganotosaurus, Mapusaurus, Aerosteon and Orkoraptor.

Sadly, there's been no paper and no name given to this new giant, but I'll give you updates as they come up in the news! Right now we can just cheer on Carbadillo and company and wish them the best of luck on this amazing discovery.

That’s all the news for this week , and I’ll see you the next Saturday if anything comes up!

April 1

Well, I know all the real blogs are doing elaborate April Fool's gags, but I'm going to save that for next year. Still, I want to entertain, so today we're doing do an MST3k-style commentary track for the Korean dinosaur movie Tarbosaurus aka Speckles The Tarbosaurus.

Food for thought: Omnivore’s dilemma

In case you pay attention to the latest paleontology news, there’s been a lot of publicity towards the ever-growing case for giant flightless birds being herbivores. Isotope analysis done on the Eocene Gastornis and Pleistocene Genyornis suggest diets high in fruits (for Gastornis) and grass (Genyornis), overturning the long-held assumption of them as predators.  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-014-1158-2 So that’s that, it seems; we made a mistake, and now these brilliant scientists have demoted these terrifying runners into placid, docile browsers according to the headlines.  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-014-1158-2

Species That Don't Get Enough Publicity #5: Anchiceratops

Triceratops is my favorite dinosaur. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because it’s both a plant eater and intimidating. Maybe because it’s like a rhino or a bull. Maybe because it can stand up and defeat the greatest monster dinosaur in media.  It’s been my favorite dinosaur for a while, actually, although I’ve grown to know and love the rest of the horned dinosaurs.  Triceratops is by far the best known, but others have appeared in media.  The sister species Torosaurus managed to get a supporting role in Walking With Dinosaurs, while the spiky-frilled Styracosaurus has become second to only Triceratops in popularity due to its unique look and made its film debut in the 1933 Kong movies (albeit the scene was cut from the first).  Pachyrhinosaurus has surprisingly been popular-being a background dinosaur with Styracosaurus in Disney’s Dinosaur, playing a supporting role in documentaries like The Dinosaurs, March of the Dinosaurs, and Jurassic Fight Club, and finally being the star of the movie Walking With Dinosaurs. 

There’s several that have slipped under the radar, but are well known from science books and dinosaur encyclopedias, but have made occasional appearances. Chasmosaurus (or should I say Mojoceratops) was the only dinosaur in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Centrosaurus has appeared in the documentary Dinosaur!, the short Prehistoric Beast, and has been popular in dinosaur art (sometimes as Monoclonius). A lot of the most recent ceratopsians such as Xenoceratops, Diabloceratops, Medusaceratops and so forth are too new to become engrained in media and culture. 

Documentary review: Jurassic Fight Club

I have a special connection to this week’s documentary being reviewed. When it first came out in 2008, I was eagerly anticipating it. You see, it reminded me of a series I was really interested in as a teenager. It was on Discovery, a show called Animal Face-Off, which discussed possible battles between coexisting species such as lion vs tiger, elephant vs rhinoceros, bear vs alligator, etc.  While the execution was terribly done, I liked the premise. When I heard what sounded like a dinosaur version of the show was coming to TV, I couldn’t wait.  

This is Jurassic Fight Club. When I did watch it, it wasn’t as good as I hoped, but still a very enjoyable show.  The premise is extrapolating from fossils about prehistoric conflicts. The discovery is first shown, then the species involved, the environment, and then a comparison and finally an action sequence showing the conflict. The host is George Blasing, a paleontology expert and teacher who has a roadshow in Texas, educating at schools on fossils and prehistoric animals. George is a great personality, dynamic and funny on the show, and with a vivid imagination he describes, blow by blow, the incidents implied by the fossil finds.  When my birthday came this past week, I immediately bought myself the DVD set for this review.  

Documentary Review: Clash of the Dinosaurs

Paleontologists usually don’t get furious, at least not at their job. Yeah, there are arguments and disagreements and the natural reaction to creationists and other forms of pseudoscience and anti-science, but personal offense isn’t usually part of the day. This makes such incidents very notable and significant. You see, the media is both the ally and nemesis of scientists; most of the time they help each other out, but when the deals go bad, things can be very messy. Today I’m going to talk about Matt Wedel and Clash of the Dinosaurs.