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! 

Paleofest 2018 Report

Two months ago, I had the privilege of attending Paleofest, the yearly Paleontology symposium at the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Illinois. The Master of Ceremonies remains Scott Williams, now at the staff of the Museum of the Rockies, and once again there was an excellent variety of speakers. There was no particular theme this time, predominantly dinosaurs but with a fair amount of other paleolontology.  While there was mostly American paleontology, other continents were represented in some talks. Unfortunately, my camera malfunctioned, so if you want pictures, please contact my and Scott’s friend Todd Johnson for his excellent photojournalism.

 

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.

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

Ancient enemies: man-killers of prehistory

Happy Halloween, readers! The human psyche is full of fear. A lot of fear comes from our vivid imaginations-horror is full of hypothetical situations based on pure fantasy, but on premises that date to real situations and concepts. Murder, disaster, accident, disease-people die from horrific causes. Most monsters are humanoid-people are the leading cause of human deaths. Many of our fears come from animals. Bats are alien-looking, rats carry disease, and arthropods are alien-looking and often dangerous. 

Then there’s the fears dating from actual experiences. History is replete with examples of people by accident or malice coming into conflict with animals.  People have been killed by our own domesticated animals: dogs can be taught to be brutal attackers, and angry cattle, horses, and pigs are more than a match for an unarmed human.  

Then there’s people being killed by wild animals; every day an unlucky person runs into a dangerous animal, are perceived as predator or prey, and dispatched by deadly natural weapons honed by generations of natural selection.  Without technology, a human being is pathetic. We’re bigger than most animals, but the largest predators dwarf us. Our resistance against venom and chemical weapons is just our size alone. Our natural weapons are pathetic: we can barely outrun an elephant on a good day, our strength is feeble, our teeth are small, and our fingers and toes are tipped with sensitive pads instead of hooves or claws. We have no armor or horns or quills, we can’t fly, and are only efficient swimmers with a great deal of effort. 

Now imagine humans without our technology.  No guns,  not even a spear. We were prey.  An enemy could come at any direction, and kill us without a fight. At night, we were blind without fire, at the mercy of nocturnal predators. You could wake up at any morning and you could find a member of your family vanished. In the day, you’d be looking at the grass nervously. Every time you tried to eat or drink you would have to keep your eyes moving and eating as quickly as possible. If you scavenged from a kill, you could easily find yourself the neighboring carcass.  These are the animals we feared. Welcome to my nightmare, my friends; I think you’re going to like it. 

Jurassic World review

“Boy, do I hate being right all the time!”-Ian Malcolm

For years I’ve wondered why dinosaurs aren’t popular anymore. They’re second fiddle again like always. The Renaissance is over, and the Wars of Religion have begun. Paleontology’s still small and uncool, science itself is forgotten in an anti-intellectual atmosphere, hardly anyone goes to museums for the collections anymore. Maybe I’m cynical. Maybe it’s just my bipolar psychology getting to me again.  I had hope for a while. Then I saw Jurassic World.

Paleofest 2015 report

For the first time in my life, I was able to attend Paleofest on the weekend of March 14. Paleofest is an annual celebration and gathering of paleontology fans and experts at the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Illinois. Paleontologists gather from all over the world to give talks, while children engage in interactive, educational play with museum docents and visiting scientists. I had been aware of this event for three years and especially wanted to go to last year’s event on the Cenozoic. This year it was all about the Triassic, a period of reptile diversity and evolution, and the emergence of the first mammals and dinosaurs as the ecosystems of the world revived from the Permian extinction.

The talks took place downstairs, in the main classroom of the museum below all the other exhibits. There was a substantial crowd, and I wasn’t the only representative from the Field Museum’s volunteers to attend. Only visitors wearing the event badges were allowed in, and I paid $85 for the full weekend.  The talks were attended by people of all ages, and both genders were well-represented. It was genuinely inspiring to see how diverse the appeal of paleontology is.

Top 10 Dinosaur fights in fiction

Everyone loves dinosaur fights. All the best dinosaur films have them. What’s better than big, bizarre prehistoric creatures? When they duke it out! They can be violent, they can be bloody, but they’re always exciting.  The very first would be the Ghost of Slumber mountain, where two Triceratops duel and one of them is then killed by a Tyrannosaurus in a fight. The last would be the Pachyrhinosaurus-Gorgosaurus brawl at the climax of Walking With Dinosaurs.  Hopefully this year’s Jurassic World will have the decency of giving us one.  Most of these fights are wildly anachronistic between supersized versions, and some of them involve animals that are not dinosaurs or even real animals, but it gives that element of fantasy that dinosaurs invoke by their very prescence. This list is entirely subjective, so I’ll leave a long list of runners up first-

Prehistoric Middle Earth: The real life equivalents of Tolkien's creatures

This December marks the last of the live-action films based on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and I’m a big fan of both the films and the books.  Why am I talking about it on my blog? Well, the creatures described by Tolkien (and depicted by WETA workshop) bear some resemblance to those in prehistory! So I’m going to go down the list of Middle Earth beings and animals that had equivalents in real life! So prepare for a 3-hour post!

 

Top Twelve Worst Name Changes for prehistoric taxa.

Sometimes animals get very evocative names in scientific description. Tyrannosaurus the tyrant, Hyaenodon the Hyena tooth, Stegosaurus the roofed, Styracosaurus the spiked, Megalosaurus and Megatherium, the big animals. Sadly, not all such names survive. The rule of priority is vital here; if we could arbitrarily change the names of taxa, it’d be a mess. Paleontological taxonomy is complicated and deceptive enough that many animals are given different names by different people, or assumed to be a new species when they aren’t. Sadly, this happens all too often, and many classic, evocative names are cast aside for more generic (pardon the pun), dull names.

Prehistoric Warfare Episode 2: Dilophosaurus vs Sarahsaurus

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

Species that don't get enough publicity #8. Dakosaurus, Metriorhynchus and friends

Today I’m going to talk about not a particular species, but a family of animals. I couldn’t narrow it down to just one-collectively perhaps only one or two has been featured in dinosaur books, and only one in my memory has made the headlines.  Remember Pristichampsus? Well, prehistoric crocodiles are fascinating to me so you can expect more. This time, it’s about a niche crocodilians exploited multiple times. Don’t worry, I won’t do them all in one go. The Philodosaurs, Dyrosaurs, and Teleosaurs can wait. Today I will restrict myself to a single but giant family of marine crocodiles. Yes, I said marine crocodiles. These are the Metriorhynchids.

Movie Review: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms

Last week’s viewing of Godzilla got me thinking about the origin of the kaiju genre. It’s ultimately related to dinosaurs and our awe of the huge and strange. King Kong certainly played its part, as it its own inspiration, the 1925 Lost World. However, one film tied King Kong with Godzilla, a missing link of movie monsters, between dinosaurs and kaiju. Today we’re looking at Ray Harryhausen’s  1953 opus, the Beast From 20,000 Fathoms

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!

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.

Top 10 Prehistoric Creatures pictured accidentally

You know, it’s easy to see how we’ve misinterpreted fossils.  It’s difficult for any part of an animal to fossilize, so complete specimens are rare and really special.  So inaccurate palaeoart is inevitable, and really not surprising at all.  Then there are the times when reconstructions accidentally depict a different animal entirely unintentionally. We all know about how Tyrannosaurus was originally reconstructed on Allosaurus and Apatosaurus on Camarosaurus, but they’re not alone. Sometimes it’s because of misidentification, and sometimes it’s simply due to laziness in paleontological reconstructions.  Here are the top 10 Prehistoric Animals people picture when they try to picture a different animal (there has to be a specific word for this phenomenon. I’m sure there’s one in German or something).

Documentary Review: Walking With Monsters 2005

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally time we finish the “Walking With” trilogy. True, there’s the three Chased by Dinosaurs specials and Allosaurus and Walking With Cavemen, but this one is the closest to the original in terms of structure.  It’s very different, however, in many ways, from running time to presentation. It’s certainly ambitious and explores much-neglected times and places in prehistory. People often forget that these periods existed, and only the trilobite, Dimetrodon, and possibly Meganuera as familiar to most of the public. They’ve always played second fiddle to dinosaurs, so much that Dimetrodon is more often placed with dinosaurs than with fellow Pelycosaurs. It’s telling that in the former exhibit Life Over Time, there was a corridor visitors could take to bypass the entire Palaeozoic and go straight to the dinosaurs (thankfully, Evolving Planet does not). It’s certainly the longest in terms of time periods covered, while it’s much shorter in running time: at 90 minutes, it’s half the length of the first two.  So without further ado, let’s look at the prehistoric clip show to see how they can deal with 280 million years of evolution in one and a half hours.

An Overview of Dinosaur Exhibits Part Three: The Field Museum

I think everyone has their favorite place in the world, a place that just restores their life, a place tied up with countless memories. It can be a house or a park, or a stadium, or a school.  For me it was the Field Museum of Natural History on the East Side of Chicago near Grant Park. I can’t remember when I first went. It might have been in 1991, or even as a baby.  You see, when I lived in Chicago, you could go to the library and get passes for the Field Museum, Art Institute, Shedd Aquarium or the Adler Planetarium. My mother didn’t have a job at the time, so she would take me, my mother, and our two cousins to the museums and zoos of Chicago. 

Musing on King Kong

You know, my original plan was to review the 1933 King Kong. Then I reconsidered for one reason: too easy. It’s a great film. The characters are two-dimensional but never unlikable. The special effects are amazing. The direction, cinematography, and score make for a great film. The central idea is inspired. This movie changed the filmmaking medium forever, and I consider it the best-made film ever. Citizen Kane was just plain boring-it needed a giant gorilla fighting dinosaurs.

Paleontology Wish List for 2014

Everyone has a wish list for their friends or their family to give them.  Some people have political wish lists, or try to get in touch with their spirituality through goals. I myself have wish lists for Christmas and my birthday. However, this is a paleontology wishlist, a list of all the discoveries and insights I hope will happen in 2014.   I know most paleontology is based on the combination of persistence and luck, but here’s hoping at least one of these will happen in the next year