"Creationist Cryptozoology": Dinosaurs by Design Pt. 2

     And we're back with Part 2 of my review of 1992's Dinosaurs by Design, authored by Duane Gish and illustrated by Earl & Bonita Snellenberger (click here for Part 1). For this post, I selected for review all the illustrations that fall under a sort of cryptozoological theme. After the fairly straightforward illustrations of my last post, this one should be quite the wild ride!
     Speaking of wild rides, our first illustration depicts a pair of cowboys getting buzzed by a truly monstrous pterosaur, big as a plane, with a terrifying toothy gape! The illustration accompanies an apocryphal story of some Texas cowboys who supposedly shot an enormous, leathery winged flying creature, though there's no evidence the story ever actually occurred. The text supposes that the cowboys killed the last surviving Quetzalcoatlus, a giant pterodactyl which lived in the area in prehistoric times. While this beast did indeed stand as tall as a giraffe and have a wingspan the size of a small plane, this image unfortunately depicts nothing like that animal. In fact, the creature in the picture is quite obviously simply an up-scaled Rhamphorynchus, a small German pterosaur. As in the picture, Rhamphorynchus possessed a long beak lined with long, sharp teeth, a crestless head, and a long, robust tail. Given the image reproduced here and in the "family portrait" picture from my last post, it's quite apparent that the artists did no research on this animal other than "it's like, super big!"

Interestingly, Mark Witton has illustrated a similar scene more than once.

     The mighty Behemoth from the Book of Job makes an obligatory appearance in every creationist dinosaur book, inevitably identified as a long-necked sauropod dinosaur. The key verse cited in every case mentions the creature's tail which "sways like a cedar". The creationists take to task any who would suggest the elephant as the creature described, as its tail looks in no way like a mighty tree. To drive the point home, many books include a side-by-side comparison between an elephant and a dinosaur, and that's just what our illustrators do here.

Gratuitous butt shot

     This one isn't strictly cryptozoological, but it does depict dinosaurs alongside humans, so I figured it was close enough. Here we see a depiction of the consequences of the Fall of Man: rampant death and sin, carnivory, and hideous birth defects like spinal deformation. It's okay, Quasimodoraptor. You'll always be special to me.

     I really like this picture overall; it has a good energy to it, and a good sense of motion, at least on the part of the horse and rider. Nearly as common as the behemoth trope, most creationist books will also have some variant of the "knight in shining armor" story, suggesting that dragon-slaying stories in general have their origins in cultural memories of encounters with dinosaurs. Many creationist books get even more specific, not only retelling the story of St. George and the Dragon, but also mentioning Baryonyx as a particularly dragonish looking dinosaur. Here the illustrators go a little to far, giving the poor creature overly short hindlegs and a quadrupedal posture, though since a good amount of illustrators were portraying Baryonyx as a quadruped at this time, this is perhaps an understandable mistake. They make a decent reconstruction otherwise, with the eponymous "heavy claws" on the hands and the small crest on its crocodile-like snout.

     FLAME-THROWING HADROSAURS!!! Here we have probably the most entertaining picture in the whole book. The biblical Leviathan (also from the Book of Job) makes regular appearances in creationist literature as well, invariably portrayed as another late surviving prehistoric beast. Gish & Co. take this fire-breathing beast at face value, and assume there must have existed some flame spewing dinosaur to match it. Now, since fancy hadrosaur head crests have been imagined as everything from scuba tanks to boom boxes, the author apparently decided they were fair game and threw his own wacky hat into the ring of wild speculation. Taking a cue from the bombardier beetle, the author suggests that hadrosaurs such as Parasaurolophus stored caustic chemicals in its long winding nasal passages, which would ignite upon shooting forth into the air. While certainly a provocative theory, this doesn't hold up to the creature's skull anatomy, as one can see from the very illustration the artists so helpfully provide. The nasal passages are just that: long winding nostrils. There are no hidden chambers in which to store volatile materials without blocking the poor dinosaur's airway and choking it to death. It does make for a fun picture though. The hadrosaur itself looks reasonably accurate, though it should have more of a humpback like a bison. On the left we have a poor, scorched Ceratosaurus, which we can confidently identify on the basis of its nasal horn and four fingers, despite a rather shapeless, vaguely humanoid body. (Incidentally, I find theropods like Ceratosaurus to be slightly more plausible candidates if we do want to speculate on fiery breath. They could have hitherto-unrecognized storage pouches in the neck or something, and since their nasal passages are nice and short, they don''t risk choking on the chemicals quite as much. I still find the whole idea rather silly, however. The fiery breath was probably just poetic language, guys.)

BURNINATION!

     Finally, we come to the last image in this cryptozoological series. And what a note to go out on! The text recounts the story of a German U-boat that torpedoed an enemy ship in WWI, which promptly exploded. To their amazement, a giant, crocodilian-shaped creature was thrown from the water, and quickly sank, apparently dead. Now, for some reason, I always had it in my head that the creature in this illustration was meant to represent a Geosaurus, or some similar member of the prehistoric marine crocodile family. However, the author actually suggests that the U-boat accidentally torpedoed a Mosasaurus (a marine monitor lizard), so I'm not sure where I got that idea from. Looking at the illustration, the creature does more closely resemble one of the marine crocodiles, so maybe I simply corrected the author in my head.

Damn the metriorhynchids! Full speed ahead!

     Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this look at Dinosaurs by Design (especially the sillier parts) and the uniquely creationist paleoart found therein. Look up the rest of my articles in this series, and let me know what you think!

Vintage Creationist Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs by Design Pt. 1

     Hey, it's still Dinovember! How about another creationist dinosaur book review? Continuing chronologically, we come to the next book in my collection: Dinosaurs by Design, authored in 1992 by Duane Gish and illustrated by Earl & Bonita Snellenberger. This is one of those books that seems to sheepishly know that the Dinosaur Renaissance was going on at the time of its release, and yet obstinately ignores all the important points. You can see what I mean right on the cover. There's a strong suggestion of dynamic activity, but the dinosaurs are all still drawn exaggeratedly reptilian monsters. That T-rex is in a tripod pose for cryin' out loud! (For the record, plenty of non-creationist books pulled this stunt as well.)

     The first section of the book gives its space to a brief discussion on the history and nature of paleontology. The author tells the story of Gideon Mantell's discovery of Iguanodon after his wife Mary Ann brought home an odd fossil tooth, sparking his interest. The story is accompanied by a picture of the couple, which despite not having any dinosaurs for me to evaluate, I thought was kinda cute, so I included it here.

     In the section detailing the methods of paleontology, the artists include a group of scientists mounting a dinosaur skeleton for a museum display. I always thought there was something odd about this skeleton, as it looked sort of like a Psittacosaurus but was ten times too big. As it turns out, I had reason to be confused, since it's clearly based on Joseph Leidy's original reconstruction of Hadrosaurus, commissioned before much of the skeleton (including the skull) became known. (Click here for a comparison picture.) Without the skull, Leidy didn't know to give it the classic hadrosaur "duckbill", and so just gave it a generically beaky appearance. If the text and used this to talk about the history of paleontology, that would've been cool, but the text (and the costumes of the scientists in the picture) clearly mean for this to represent current science, so points off for obsolete information. Also, I'm kinda creeped out by the overly humanoid appearance of that dinosaur's rib cage.

Leidy's Hadrosaurus mount

     The interesting thing about this book is that it seems to essentially be a reboot of 1977's Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards. Both books have very similar structure, and nearly identical choice in species. For example, the only difference in their treatment of "lightweight" dinosaurs is the omission of Ornithomimus. The paintings are of course much better in this volume. Unlike the previous book, the difference between each is obvious, and most of the dinosaurs now at least balance with their tails off the ground. Oddly, Podokesaurus is portrayed as a beaky, hyspilophondont looking thing, despite the fact that it was much more similar to Compsagnathus (portrayed on the left). I'd be interested to know what led to the inclusion of Podokesaurus in both this and the 1977 book in the first place, considering that the species is based on a single specimen discovered in 1911 and destroyed in a fire a few years later. If they were simply looking for something to fill out there roster, there were plenty of better known small dinosaur to choose from. Saltopus for example was a very popular presence in dinosaur books of the 70s and 80s. Of course every single one of these dinosaurs should have prominent feathers, but we won't fault a creationist book from the early 90s for that. At least Oviraptor has a properly crested head!

     After the "lightweight dinosaurs" section, the book discusses the various armoured dinosaurs (stegosaurs, ceratopsians, and ankylosaurs), as well as sauropods. I didn't want to drag out this post longer than I had to, so I decided not to include them, as there wasn't anything particularly interesting to say about them. I would like to note the inclusion of Monoclonius, Ultrasaurus, and Supersaurus, all very common stars of 1980s dinosaur books.
     I'm including this next picture for one reason only: the appearance of Freud the Tsintaosaurus! Forgive me for being juvenile, but I think the appearance of this phallic meme in this particular book is just too humorous not to take note of. The first discovery of Tsintaosaurus included a nearly complete skull that lacked only a large portion of its crest. Most paleontologists didn't recognize this however, and restored the animal with a unicorn-style spike on its head. At the same time, scientists had also realized that the duck-billed dinosaurs with large, hollow crests used them to produce loud, booming sounds, and many suggested that the crestless species had soft-tissue air sacs on their faces to fulfill the same function. Now, since Tsintaosaurus did not have a hollow crest, many suggested it should have air sacs on its face like the other crestless species. Hilariously, Tsintaosaurus seems to have been one of the only duck-bills ever illustrated with this speculative feature. There's no reason to think this had to be an actual feature of the animal, however. Indeed, many chose to illustrate it without the inappropriately suggestive sacs, so I find it particularly odd that a book which devoted several introductory pages to blaming evolution for the rise in sexual immorality (among various other sins) would chase this trope. Draw whatever Freudian implications you will.

Penis.

     Another bizarre hold-over from the 1977 book is the treatment of pachycephalosaurs and psittacosaurs as a single group. Scientists knew Psittacosaurus was a ceratopsian pretty early on, so there is no reason why it shouldn't have appeared with Triceratops and kin several pages earlier. Perhaps, given Psittacosaurus' bipedality, Gish felt a ceratopsian identity would promote evolution somehow? Who knows. It's not the best looking psittacosaur anyway; it should have much more prominent cheekbones, which incidentally would make its family affinity a little more obvious. At least it seems roughly in scale with the dueling Pachycephalosaurus pair.

     Here's probably the best example of the "we know it's the Dinosaur Renaissance but we don't like it!" attitude. The artists clearly paid close attention to the details of Allosaurus' skull, rendering a very commendable reconstruction... aaand then they have the tail dragging obstinately on the ground in the dreaded killer kangaroo pose. Come on guys! You must have referenced much more up to date material for your inspiration for that head! Is it too much to ask for a properly balanced theropod? Probably, since that would mean reading material by people who believe birds evolved from dinosaurs. Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

So close, yet so far.

     Of course Tyrannosaurus rex fares no better himself, as the King of the Dinosaurs pulls off his best impression of Godzilla, the King of Monsters. Bonus points though for trotting out the classic "Here's the actual size of T. rex's STEAK KNIFE teeth!!!" trope.

     Poor Tenontosaurus. You just can't ever get rid of those pesky Deinonychus packs, clinging to you in every book you appear in. It's okay; I appreciate you for what really makes you special, like your unusually long tail which the artists completely ignored because they were too busy with the murder-death-kill raptors. You have my sympathies. As do the Deinonychus for their weird bug-eyed frog-faced birth defects. That Velociraptor seems nice and happy though! Look at him, dancing a little jig over there!

     These pterosaurs are... something else. On the one hand, yay! They have furry bodies! That automatically makes them more up-to-date than the vast majority of pterodactyl depictions ever produced. On the other hand, what on earth did they do to Quetzalcoatlus?!? Enormous scales from ears to snout, and giant protruding fangs! I'm pretty sure nobody ever suggested that Quetzalcoatlus had teeth, so who knows where they got that idea from. Pterosaurs are also know to have lacked large scales, being clad only in either smooth skin or fine furry pycnofibers. Both the quetzal and the Pteranodon run afoul in the scale department. The Rhamphorynchus is okay, though.

Leathery Winged Monstrosities

     Th part of the book dealing with the supposed evolution of birds from dinosaurs genuinely angers me these days, representing a act of blatant misdirection. The artists portray a Struthiomimus ("ostrich mimic")and an Ankylosaurus alongside a modern ostrich, with the Struthiomimus obviously meant to represent the closer relative of the two. The author then makes much of the fact that Struthimimus is a saurischian ("lizard-hipped") dinosaur, rather than an ornithschian ("bird-hipped") dinosaur, treating this as a definitive blow against evolutionary theory. Except his example is invalid. Remember the raptors from earlier? Those are what birds are actually supposed to have evolved from. And guess what? Despite belonging to the saurischian lineage of dinosaurs, they actually have bird-like hips! In fact, the discovery of Deinonychus was what kicked off the whole "birds are dinosaurs" thing in the first place, which the author has to have been aware of. To not mention this fact is essentially a lie of omission, and one that tempts the fates of those this book is aimed at. What happens to the kids that read this and then find out about Deinonychus? Obfuscating the truth does you no favors.

Grasping at straw men

     Ugh. I'm in need of a palate cleanser before we finish up. How about we end things with this Sparkleraptor Archaeopteryx? The feathers are very nicely done, if a little more of a gaudy blue than I would expect to see on the real animal, and while the primary feathers don't quite attach to the hands in the right way, at least the fingers aren't sticking forward off the wings like Sidewinder missiles. The songbird perching feet are more of an issue; the first (rear-facing) toe was higher up the ankle and not long enough to reach the ground, much less be capable of grasping anything. There's some evidence it may have had a raptor-style retractable claw on the second toe, but people have gone back and forth on this point, so it's not an issue. The head would have been completely covered with feathers, with no scaly skin. This last point is a bit odd, considering the creative team was so willing to bend the facts with the last image. One would think that if Archaeopteryx was really "just a bird", the artists would jump at any chance to distance this animal from any supposed reptilian forebears. I suppose this just goes to show that the artists were more inclined to go chasing after common paleoart tropes rather than actually evaluate the evidence for themselves, despite the fact that it might've supported their point.

The epitome of Dinosaurs by Design

     Well, that's all for now. While I'm omitting some images for the sake of brevity, there are however a special batch of images from this book that I think deserve their own blog post. What might those be you ask? Two words: Creationist Cryptozoology! See you next time as we continue to evaluate the paleoart of Dinosaurs by Design!

Obligatory Dinovember Post

     I may be nearly two weeks late, but I figured I'd jump on the Dinovember bandwagon and use it as an excuse to throw a little of my own paleoart out there on the interwebs. Here's my rendition of Archaeopteryx lithographica, a small dromaeosaur best known as "das Urvogel", AKA "the First Bird." Known primarily from quarries in the Solnhofen Limestone of Bavaria in Southern Germany, this prehistoric bird is known from what I consider to be the most beautiful fossils in the world. Take a look at the Berlin Specimen, and tell me that it is not a gorgeous bit of natural beauty! I should mention that I heavily referenced Nick Longrich's interpretation of the animal in my drawing, using his feathers as a guide and lifting the color scheme nearly wholesale. I mostly changed the pose and some particulars of the tail. I hope you like it!

Archaeopteryx lithographica