dinosaurs
laelaps | August 2, 2008When I was a kid remembering "all" the dinosaurs was pretty easy. In the Jurassic you had Allosaurus going after "Brontosaurus" and Ceratosaurus trying to take a bite out of Stegosaurus, and the epic battles between Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops were the "main event" of the Cretaceous. As I sunk deeper into dino-mania I learned more and more names but there still seem to be more than I can keep track of. Thankfully Thomas Holtz has just issued an update to his list of dinosaur genera (a supplement to his lavishly-illustrated encyclopedia, Dinosaurs, released last year).
I think I learned more…
laelaps | July 30, 2008In 2005 the unexpected occurred; researchers reported what appeared to be preserved soft tissues inside the femur of a Tyrannosaurus rex excavated from the Hell Creek Formation. Structures that looked like blood vessels and blood cells were seen under the microscope, and although it is still unknown whether this is original organic material or material that has somehow been preserved the structures provided some tantalizing clues. What the researchers have been more confident about, however, is that they were able to detect the presence of preserved collagen proteins in the material. (Indeed…
laelaps | July 29, 2008Tonight the first episode of the History channel program Jurassic Fight Club will air (I reviewed it here) and I definitely want to know what you think about it. Have at it in the comments.
laelaps | July 26, 2008A female Majungasaurus as envisaged by the creators of Jurassic Fight Club.Imagine, just for a moment, standing in the middle of a Cretaceous forest 70 million years ago. The sunlight streaming through the canopy catches dust motes in the hot Madagascar grove, the calls of birds making the scene feel familiar despite being from another time. Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, they cease, the undergrowth just beyond your line of vision creaking and cracking with the footfalls of something monstrous. The predator slowly comes into view through the trees, a male Majungasaurus with a bright red…
laelaps | July 24, 2008The skeleton of a young Tarbosaurus. From the LiveScience article.Poor Tarbosaurus. Even though it was a top predator during the Cretaceous most people have never heard about it, the theropod from Asia being a poor man's Tyrannosaurus. (Some people think that Tarbosaurus = Tyrannosaurus, but I side with those who hold that they are distinct.) Still, even though it is not as famous as it's North American cousin it is still pretty cool that the recovery of a nearly complete skeleton of a juvenile Tarbosaurus has just been announced. Discovered two years ago in the Gobi Desert the fossils have…
laelaps | July 24, 2008In working on one of my projects I've run into a little snag; I need to get my hands on three papers by E.D. Cope and Rutgers does no have access to them. They are all in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, although the only reference to them I've found is from an old paper by H.F. Osborn in which he reproduced only a single page number from a multiple-page article. The references are;
A helpful reader was kind enough to send these to me. Thank you!
1866 Cope, Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, p. 317
1867 Cope, Proceedings of the Academy of Natural…
laelaps | July 22, 2008
The first time I cam face-to-face with a dinosaur I was so scared I ran around the corner and hid, peeking out to see my parents try to reassure me that I would not be gobbled up, impaled, trampled, or otherwise harmed by the roaring robots. I had bugged the hell out of them to go see the animatronic dinosaurs traveling exhibit at the Morris Museum but when I finally got to see them it was too much for me to handle. I don't remember how old I was exactly, probably about five or six, but even though the synthetic creatures were downsized they still towered over me. The Natural History Museum…
laelaps | July 21, 2008For a long time feathered dinosaurs just looked weird to me. Seeing fuzzy Deinonychus or some other dromeosaur with a splash of plumage never looked quite right and I didn't understand why in the course of a few years predatory dinosaurs went from being scaly to being covered in down. Most of the books I had seen didn't explain it beyond "These dinosaurs were closely related to birds," something I didn't dispute but was not enough to make me feel comfortable with feathered raptors. Even after I started taking a greater interest in paleontology I still had problems with reconstructions of…
laelaps | July 18, 2008Over the course of the past year I've had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of many paleontologists and illustrators of prehistoric life, people who have helped me with their comments, criticism, and support. One such person whose work I admire is Matt Celeskey, the artist (and blogger) behind the Hairy Museum of Natural History.
A few months ago I asked Matt to come up with a brand new banner for this blog, something unique that would capture the character of Laelaps. Although I gave Matt some initial direction, that I wanted an articulated skeleton Dryptosaurus (previously known as "…
laelaps | July 17, 2008Ok, maybe the name isn't as catchy as Jurassic Fight Club but that's what it's all about; ancient critters ripping the guts out of other ancient critters and how we know they did it. I'll have a review of the first episode, featuring Majungasaurus, up next week, but in the meantime the History Channel has released a slew of videos and other materials to look over prior to the premiere (including a game that I'm sure will remind a few of you of Primal Rage).
The show itself features a number of experts but the main host is "Dinosaur George" Blasing, and while I'm not on board with all of his…
laelaps | July 17, 2008
Nine reasons not to date a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Also check out Zach's post refuting Jack Horner's hypothesis that Tyrannosaurus was an obligate scavenger. The piece was inspired by the new symposium book Tyrannosaurus rex, The Tyrant King; I can't wait to get my claws on a copy of my own (but I should finish Rex Appeal and Tyrannosaurus Sue first).
Now if only that anxiously awaited technical book about "Jane" would come out...
[Hat-tip to Thomas Holtz]
laelaps | July 14, 2008The type skull of Velociraptor mongoliensis. From Osborn, et al. 1924. By the summer of 1993 Velociraptor had become a household name. Although Deinonychus had long been my fleet-footed favorite the olive-green "clever girls" of Speilberg's film soon outshone all of their relatives and gave Tyrannosaurus a run for it's money.* Velocriaptor is hardly a new dinosaur, however. It was discovered during the famous expeditions to Mongolia made by the AMNH in the 1920's, the team setting out to find the "birthplace" of all mammals and coming back with loads of new dinosaurs. Velociraptor…
laelaps | July 12, 2008Majungasaurus is one cool theropod. Not only does is have a neat, knobby skull but the numerous remains of this dinosaur allowed for an entire series of papers on it to appear in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoirs. Although it is hardly a household name quite a bit is known about this predator from the ancient sediments of Madagascar, and the Witmer Lab has recently put up some really cool 3D animations of cutting planes through the skull of Majungasaurus;
There's also some cool video of sagittal slices through the skull of Majungasaurus;
You can expect to be hearing more about…
laelaps | July 10, 2008They don't make commercials like this anymore. There's probably a good reason for that;
laelaps | July 9, 2008Is the National Geographic Society hurting science more than helping it? In December of 2007 the group launched a media blitz (including two books, a documentary, and a speaking tour) surrounding the exquisitely preserved specimen of "Dakota," purported to be an as-yet-undescribed species of Edmontosaurus. Although the NGS released a supplementary news report in March to keep everyone's interest going, I don't think I'm alone in expressing my frustration that this dinosaur has been widely promoted yet we're all still waiting for something, anything in the technical literature.
Those of you in…
laelaps | July 7, 2008For H.A. Reid, the secretary of the State Academy of Sciences in Des Moines, Iowa, evolution and Creation fit perfectly together. Writing in the Kansas City Review of Science and Industry in 1881, Reid echoed the sentiments of Thomas Jefferson that it was impossible to look at the natural world and not see evidence for some kind of Creator;
The very nature and constitution of the human mind is such, that no man can talk or even think about his own existence and that of the visible world of objects around him, without assuming, even though he may deny it in words, the idea and the fact of a…
laelaps | July 7, 2008
Oh dear. I guess the History Channel decided that the U.S. needed an equivalent to "The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs" and will soon be featuring a show called "Jurassic Fight Club." Here's the synopsis;
JURASSIC FIGHT CLUB
They were the ultimate fighters -- prehistoric beasts who walked the earth millions of years ago. With cunning and strategy, they hunted their prey -- transforming the prehistoric world into a battlefield. Today, archaeologists are uncovering these battlefields -- and are gaining startling new insight into how quick thinking, maneuverability, and striking at the exact…
laelaps | July 1, 2008It seems that today is going to be a big day for science bloggers. Although updates were scheduled to go up yesterday, both Carl Zimmer and Phil Plait have delayed their announcements until sometime today. I've got a big announcement, too, something that I am definitely excited about.
My abstract on T.H. Huxley's thoughts about dinosaurs & birds has been accepted for the Dinosaurs: A Historical Perspective volume.
I truly am honored to be allowed to contribute to the book, and have to thank Mike Taylor for his advice and encouragement. I've got a lot of work to do this month but I am…
laelaps | June 26, 2008If you like bad b-movies featuring clunky cgi dinosaurs it has been a good summer so far. First there was gratuitous silliness of Aztec Rex;
Close on it's tail, though, is 100 Million B.C. (not to be confused with the recent big-screen cheese fest 10,000 B.C. or the classic One Million Years B.C.). The film looks like someone dropped a couple of seasons of Stargate, a copy of The Lost World, a few issues of The War That Time Forgot, and Michael Gross in a blender and hit "Gooify";
laelaps | June 25, 2008For those of you who love sauropods, you'll definitely want to check out the latest issue of Paleobiology. I don't have enough time right now to give each a full treatment, but here's a brief summary of each;
"Modeling growth rates for sauropod dinosaurs" (Thomas M. Lehman and Holly N. Woodward) -
Sauropods were the largest of dinosaurs (and among the largest animals to have ever lived), but how quickly they attained their huge sizes has been hotly debated. Determining how quickly sauropods attained adult size has major implications for considerations of dinosaur metabolism and body…