With six years of phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, Darren Naish mostly spends long hours in the library, hunched over his laptop. But he gets out sometimes, and picks up litter and pursues exotic lizards across the British countryside, aiming all the while to publish his technical work on obscure Cretaceous dinosaurs. He also messes around with pterosaurs, swimming giraffes, British big cats and stuff like that. He has given up on the stupid idea of being a dedicated academic and ekes out a living as a technical consultant, editor and author. He can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. For more biographical info go 
Dr David Hone is well known for many scientific achievements. For the description of the new rhynchosaur Fodonyx (Hone & Benton 2007a). For his papers on Cope's rule and macroevolutionary trends in archosaurs (Hone & Benton 2005, Hone et al. 2005). For his PhD work on the phylogenetic position of pterosaurs (Hone & Benton 2007b). For the organisation of the awesome Munich pterosaur meeting. And for the philanthropic wonder that is the Ask A Biologist site. But even such a noble creator can spawn a monster. Yes world, I give you the horror that is lol-sauropods, brain-child of Dave Hone (and with a nod to Mike P. Taylor and all the artists ripped off in this little endeavour)...
Maybe this would have better appeared on SV-POW.. yeah, if some of the pictures featured the vertebrae of the animals concerned. If you like Luis Rey's carcharodontosaur vs Amargasaurus piece shown at the very top, note that Luis has recently updated this picture and changed it entirely: go here.
Refs - -
Hone, D. W. E. & Benton, M. J. 2005. Cope's rule in the Pterosauria, and differing perceptions of Cope's Rule at different taxonomic levels. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 20, 1164-1170.
- . & Benton, M. J. 2007a. A new genus of rhynchosaur from the Middle Triassic of south-west England. Palaeontology 51, 95-115.
- . & Benton, M. J. 2007b. An evaluation of the phylogenetic relationships of the pterosaurs among archosauromorph reptiles. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 5, 465-469.
- ., Keesey, T. M., Pisani, D. & Purvis, A. 2005. Macroevolutionary trends in the Dinosauria: Cope's rule. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 18, 587-595.
Life Science
Comments
I knew this was coming. I didn't know where, and I didn't know when. But I knew it would be soon, and I knew it would be horrific.
Posted by: John Conway | March 21, 2008 12:05 PM
lol. And I thought Martills jokes were bad.....
Posted by: neil | March 21, 2008 12:07 PM
Hey, Luis! You took all the spines off the Amargasaurus!
Why?
Posted by: Michael P. Taylor | March 21, 2008 12:11 PM
Oh noes! They are teh evul!
Posted by: Emile | March 21, 2008 12:36 PM
Nice!! I needed a good laugh today, thanks!
Posted by: ReBecca | March 21, 2008 1:27 PM
Hey, Luis! You took all the spines off the Amargasaurus!
I believe it's because Amargasaurus and Giganotosaurus did not, technically, coexist. U can not has temporal paradox.
Posted by: Mike Keesey | March 21, 2008 1:31 PM
By the way, for anyone who doesn't understand what this is about ...
http://icanhascheezburger.com/
Posted by: Michael P. Taylor | March 21, 2008 1:50 PM
Because it's not an Amargasaurus anymore dumbass - he's changed it into a baby argentinosaur so that it can be properly contemporaneous with Mapusaurus (which was previously Giganotosaurus in the picture). See p. 105 of the big Holtz & Rey book. Argentinosaurus is from the Cenomanian Huincul Fm, whereas Amargasaurus is from the Barremian-Aptian La Amarga Fm and Giganotosaurus is from the Turonian Rio Limay Fm. Mapusaurus, however, truly was contemporaneous with Argentinosaurus.
Posted by: Darren Naish | March 21, 2008 2:00 PM
:) This post made me smile! I love sauropods!
Posted by: Amanda | March 21, 2008 3:57 PM
Posted by: Alexandra | March 21, 2008 4:07 PM
Yes, folks, those are my friends and fellow bloggers, making up LOLsauropods and calling each other "dumbass" in public. I only hope that I can figure out a way to take credit for it.
Posted by: Matt Wedel | March 21, 2008 5:05 PM
Darren, you (or someone on LiveJournal) should post these to lolscience. They recently had a lollambeosaur, an ankylolsaur, and a couple of loltheropods, but no lolsauropods. :( Obviously sauropods produce bigger LOLs, right?
BTW, what is the source for the last picture? It looks kind of familiar.
Posted by: Vertebrat | March 21, 2008 8:24 PM
I think the last picture is from the (god awful) mini series dinotopia
Posted by: Neil | March 21, 2008 9:58 PM
Since Matt wants to take the credit, I will try and let him. The 'idea' came from his recent SV-POW! post on pneumaticy where he pointed out that soem sauropods were 'rilly, rilly big' and something in my brain snapped and I thought 'I can has pneumaticy?'. Then I just *had* to get it out of my brain, and well, then this happened.
I feel like Frankenstei and that I will end up at the pole trying to escape my creation, only to find a tourist there in an 'I is not playin' T-shirt....
Posted by: Dave Hone | March 21, 2008 10:28 PM
I may have to try my hand at these. Dave, you've created a monster. Now you have to let fly with pterosaurs.
Posted by: Zach Miller | March 21, 2008 10:53 PM
Ooh lolpterosaurs!
I IS NOT SKIMMIN
I IS QUADRUPED TOO
MY PATAGIUM LET ME SHOW YOU IT (on a fossil with impressions)
I CAN HAS HEADCREST?
HEVIER THAN YOU THOT
QUETZALCOATLUS IS IN UR NEST EATIN UR BABYS (on a certain Mark Witton picture)
Posted by: Vertebrat | March 22, 2008 12:13 AM
I did send out the initial e-mail to the SV-POW! boys entitled 'Oh God, NO!'. I did wonder where this would go. Can soemone please go and reserve 'www.Icanhaspneumaticy.com' so at least they all end up in one place where people can avoid them if they want to. I would hate to think the poor chumps who just like dinosaurs will suddenly find these on every blog they turn to.....
Posted by: Dave Hone | March 22, 2008 2:23 AM
Speaking of Creating Monsters, Ectoplasmosis has picked up "Sun Goes Like This, posted in an earlier response, with added tear-inducing commentary
In case you need a refresher, "going like this" refers to a depraved modern practice illustrated here. Other examples may be observed at the site, albeit at great risk to continued (or, perhaps, recently restored) sanity.
Posted by: Nathan Myers | March 22, 2008 6:37 AM
Nathan, I am quite scared.
Posted by: Darren Naish | March 22, 2008 6:45 AM
Megaloldon is nothing against teh ordinary lolshark!!1.
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 22, 2008 10:20 AM
So, can somebody make sauropod icon for smileys. Not that boring yellow face.
Posted by: Jerzy | March 22, 2008 1:30 PM
and then there's always http://lolsaur.com/
Posted by: treocast | March 25, 2008 7:45 AM
@Jerzy: Give me a hint what you'd like it to look like and I'll give it a whirl.
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | March 25, 2008 8:55 AM
I livz to serv.
Posted by: Dave Godfrey | March 27, 2008 10:44 AM
For those of you not following SV-POW yet (!), this is marginally apropos:
http://svpow.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/your-sacrum-is-negligible/#comment-626
Posted by: Nathan Myers | March 29, 2008 3:27 AM
im in ur blog ROFLin at ur LOLsaurz. LOLscience on flickr can has?
Posted by: themadlolscientist | May 13, 2008 5:13 PM