New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (addendum)

     Social media has been rather poisoned by politics lately, so I decided the Internet could use some more dinosaurs (and other prehistoric creatures). I always meant to write another post following up on my last, featuring some of the photos I didn't include in my review of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. So several months later, I've finally gotten around to it! Better late than never, I suppose.
     I really liked the cabinet full of phytosaurs (I posted a pic of the whole thing last time), so we'll start with a couple of close ups! I forgot to take separate notes of the identity of species, so I can't say which is which, but one can at least get a good sense of the similarities and differences between each. Note the position of the nostrils, high on the head between the eyes like a whale's blowhole. This is the defining feature for the group, and the one that most obviously sets them apart from crocodiles.

     A lovely complete specimen of an aetosaur sits on display just across from the pytosaur cabinet. Unlike phytosaurs, aetosaurs sit relatively close to true crocodiles on the tree of life, and yet could hardly look more different. These pig-nosed herbivores bore armor to protect them from more traditional-looking crocodylians as they rooted through the underbrush looking for food. Though this specimen has not been fully restored, and remains in its original, somewhat flattened state, one can clearly see the armadillo-like armor running down the length of its body.

     Now, most of the people I know probably have no familiarity with any of the creatures I've shown so far, so here's a more famous creature to liven things up: everybody's favorite non-dinosaur, Dimetrodon! It's always fun to see a skeleton of one of these guys, even if recent evaluation suggests that this mount should maybe look a little more "gnarly".

     Now, since you've all been so good, here's some actual dinosaurs! I really liked the Western Interior Seaway atrium, featuring ancient sea critters, as well as a forest full of dinosaurs near the shore. Hiding amongst the leaves one can find a Pentaceratops skull (complementing the statue out in front of the museum) and a family of duckbilled dinosaurs (I couldn't find any signage suggesting what species they might belong to).

Pentaceratops is named for its enlarged cheekbones, which

look like extra horns, but the most obvious differences

from Triceratops would be the holes and notch in the frill.

I feel like the mother has the suggestion of an undeveloped crest,

which would make this a lambeosaur of some sort.

     A small theropod can be seen rooting around in the bushes, apparently hunting for something. Sure enough, visitors can walk into a little cave underneath the forest floor, where one can look up through a small burrow and see the predator's quarry, a small mammal, hunkering down until the coast clears.

The contrast is rather bad, but you can just make

out the predator's head behind the mammal.

     Moving on back to the Jurassic hall, there's one piece of the main display which I left out in my previous evaluation. If one looks on the ground below the feet of the mounted skeletons, one can see recreations of the actual type material! I really appreciated this feature, as it demonstrates how little material paleontologists often have to work with, and how displays like this must be reconstructed based on elements from multiple individuals, not always of the same species.

     Also in the same hall, visitors can see reconstructions of a couple of Jurassic fliers. Both a pterosaur and a bird are represented. A skeleton of Eudimorphodon and several "flying" life-like models of the same fly overhead, while one of the better reconstructions of Archaeopteryx that I've personally seen squares off against its far-off descendant, a modern pigeon.

     Finally, as a rabid paleoart enthusiast, I couldn't finish this post without the presence of the great Ely Kish mural that graces the Jurassic Hall. Kish's style has never been quite up my alley (her dinosaurs always look rather emaciated), but I can't deny her basic artistic skill, or the important place she occupies in the history of depictions of prehistoric life. But many famous paleoartists have contributed art to the great museums; what really makes this display stand out is the actual artist recognition the museum gives in signage every bit as prominent as that describing the fossils themselves!!! Seriously, in an age when several scandals have broken out over museums plagiarizing famous artists' work, seeing this bit of acknowledgement from 30 years ago gives me some hope that this doesn't have to be the norm.

     That's all for this odds and ends post. If I ever make it back to this museum, there are several displays I neglected to photograph that I will have to make sure to document next time. (Chiefly, the "Bisti Beast", the Gastornis skeleton, and the horse evolution mural). I hope I've inspired somebody else to check this place out should they ever find themselves in Albuquerque! As I sign off, here's a bonus live lungfish in a tank that can be found amongst the Paleozoic fossils.

New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

      This post has been a while coming (I visited it all the way back in February!), but I'm excited to finally present my review of Albuquerque's New Mexico Museum of Natural History!!! I've had the photos on my computer for months now, but this blog post kept falling by the wayside for one reason or another. Which is a travesty, because I have to say, this is probably one of my all time favorite museums that I have ever visited! I have quite a few photos to go through, so for organization's sake I'll stick to highlights in this post and then maybe put up pictures of interesting specifics in a later post.

     The front of the museum is graced by these two beauties squaring off against each other: a generic albertosaurine tyrannosaur and a Pentaceratops, both metal sculptures by Dave Thomas. Both depict dinosaurs known from New Mexico. The albertosaur has since been more precisely identified, and is now known as Bistahieversor, or the "Bisti Beast".

"Alberta", the tyrannosaurid

"Spike", the Pentaceratops

     Walking inside the museum, the first thing you see is this nice Coelophysis sculpture next to the admission desk. I would've looked very poorly on the museum had this little guy not been featured in some fashion, as it's the star of perhaps the most famous paleontological find in all New Mexico! A quarry at Ghost Ranch has yielded hundreds upon hundreds of specimens all tangled together a mass grave. While they appear to have died in a flooding event, a sense of mystery still hangs over the site, as nobody can satisfactorily explain why so many individuals of a single species clustered together so densely. One would expect to find equal proportions of other animals from the area, such as lizards, mammals, and other such things, but it's just Coelophysis all the way down.

I can't find a credit, so I assume Dave Thomas also sculpted this.

This block full of Coelophysis appears further inside the museum, but I thought I'd include it here for reference.

     As you walk into the main space of the museum, you come across Stan the T-rex on your left. "Stan" is a very well-preserved specimen (surpassed only by "Sue") discovered by the Black Hills Institute which has been molded, copied, and sold to many museum worldwide. If that T-rex skeleton you're looking at isn't made of real bone, chances are it's a cast of Stan. It was nice to run into him here! I'm not sure if I'm crazy about that pose though; it looks like he's scrambling to get onto his feet after you surprised him from a nap.

"Just gimme a sec! If only I could do a proper push-up..."

     The rest of the downstairs consists mostly of boring non-dinosaur stuff, so upstairs we go! I really, really appreciated and enjoyed the set-up of the paleontology exhibits. It's arranged as a sort of "walk through time" display, with each major section numbered so you know which direction to go, starting with the beginning of the earth on through the Paleozoic. Highlights here include the phytosaur vs dicynodont mount.

Or Not-a-croc vs Not-a-pig, if you prefer.

     I was thinking of saving this for the future odds & ends post, but I love comparitive anatomy exhibits so much that I just had to share this Wall of Phytosaurs as one of the chief highlights of the Paleozoic section. These sorts of displays really help to emphasize the diversity of life on earth, and to drive home the idea that maybe similar looking creatures aren't necessarily so same-y after all. How does a phytosaur differ from a crocodile you (probably didn't) ask? Well, if I were going to boil it down to a single layperson-friendly feature, you can see here that the nostrils sit above the eyes on the forehead in a whale-like fashion, as opposed to the tip of the snout as in modern crocs.

(Not A) Croc Cabinet

     Now on to the dinosaurs! The next leg of the museum's "walk through time" takes us to the Jurassic Period, with two of its largest residents taking center stage. The starts are the skeletal mounts of a Saurophaganax chasing down an enormous sauropod once known and here labeled as Seismosaurus halli, though it has since been referred to another genus, becoming instead Diplodocus hallorum. D. hallorum was once hailed as the longest dinosaur of all time, though it has since ceded that title to Supersaurus. Incidentally, the titles of longest, tallest and heaviest dinosaur are each individually held by completely separate dinosaurs, so if you ever hear somebody simply refer to "the biggest" dinosaur, make sure to pay attention to which measurement they're actually talking about. Saurophaganax is a bit easier, as there don't appear to have been any Jurassic meat eaters that approached in scale by any measurement (though it's still plenty smaller than "Seismosaurus"!). You can just see a Stegosaurus on the right, but I'll save that for a later post.

Someone's bitting off more than he can chew...

     If I may draw your attention to the mural behind the skeleton, I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that it was painted by none other than famed paleoartist Ely Kish. She's not my favorite paleoartist, but she's still pretty handy with a brush, and it was fun seeing it in person.
     To the left of this hall's main attraction stood this massive Brachiosaurus forelimb. It was conveniently placed so that one can stand next to it for a picture, which I did of course. Fun fact! Brachiosaurus means "arm-lizard", in reference to the fact that it's forelimbs are much longer than it hindlimbs, in a reversal of the usual dinosaur body plan, giving the creature's body a distinct sloping back.

It's always arm day with Brachiosarus

     Next up on our walk through time, we come to the Cretaceous seashore, represented by this lovely atrium and wonderful diorama. There forested area houses several dinosaur models hiding amongst the shrubs, and opposite in the "water" sits a mosasaur, a hesperornith (a prehistoric diving bird) and some ammonites swimming alongside each other. It's fun exploring the area to see what you can find! I found the skeleton of the "Bisti Beast" in here, though I forgot to take a picture. There's also a little tidepool exhibit with some live critters inside which they presumably open up for field trips to play with.

A little "cave" on the left lets you look up trough a burrow into the diroama

Just "offshore" lurks a mosasaur, looking to snag the real chicken of the sea

     The paucity of prehistoric mammals and other Cenezoic creatures was the only part of the walk through time that I felt was somewhat lacking, though I did appreciate seeing a mammoth right next to a mastodon skull so you could easily compare them (hint: it's all about the teeth). Comparative anatomy for the win again! I am very unhappy however to discover that I somehow forgot to take pictures of a lovely Gastornis skeleton and a nice mural of the various stages of horse evolution. Oh well! Perhaps next time.

Mammoth and Mastodon skulls, for comparison. The Mastodon had its tusks removed to save space.

A sabertooth cat menaces the poor pachyderms.

     That's all for now! The museum contains tons of smaller specimens which I didn't cover here, as well as several whole non-paleontology themed areas I didn't even have time to visit. I'll write up another blog post soon to cover the stuff I did take pictures of later.
     If you're ever in Albuquerque, NM, be sure to stop by the natural history museum! It's well worth your time, and easily one of the best museums I've been to so far. (Extra points for having the single best-stocked gift shop I've ever seen in my life!) I'm sure there's plenty I missed; was on a tight time schedule on my last visit and had to cut my visit shorter than I would have liked. I really hope I get the chance to go back myself someday!

Rex of the Rings

     So Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs has put on a little contest called "Tyrannosaurus Trying... And Succeeding!" in which we spin the classic internet meme on its head for a chance to win paleontologist Dave Hone's new book The Tyrannosaur Chronicles. I thought that sounded like too good an opportunity to pass up, so here's the Lord of the Rings themed entry I came up with. Success is much easier when you're physically incapable of failure! (Click to enlarge.)

Yes, Gandalf's pipe is a baby brontosaur. No, I am not a sociopath.

Waco Mammoth National Monument

     Jacy and I recently took a trip down to Austin for a Safe Staffing rally at the state capitol, which was my first visit to the area. We had a decent turnout considering this was the first such event, and my lovely wife was invited to the stage to give a quite eloquent talk on the subject. Frustratingly, I ran out of storage space on my phone halfway through, but the event itself was largely a success.
     I was particularly excited for our drive down, however, as the Waco Mammoth National Monument was on our way! This smallish museum is built over the site of a Pleistocene (Ice Age) excavation site, where a number of prehistoric mammals were found, especially of course mammoths.

     It's five bucks per person for the guided tour. I think you're allowed to walk around by yourself for free, though I don't really remember for sure. (Check with the ticket office just in case.)

     The original dig site was actually located just outside of the front entrance of the main building (Jacy and Xander are facing roughly in its direction). Seventeen Columbian Mammoths were found, two of which were juveniles, and all the adults were female. This was the first mammoth "nursery herd" ever discovered, confirming the long-held suspicion that mammoths behaved just like modern day elephants, whose females formed herds with their young, and males wandered off on their own upon reaching adulthood. You may have noticed I said "Columbian" Mammoth rather than "Woolly". Woolly Mammoths can be found in the northern latitudes worldwide, while Columbian Mammoths are exclusive to North American. They were larger than the Woollies, and lived further south, and so presumably had less hair, though since none of them had the decency to freeze in a glacier, we don't know for sure.

     After the initial herd was fully excavated, multiple individual mammoths were discovered nearby, as well as other prehistoric creatures. A building was erected over the site, and excavation ground to a halt as they ran out of room at Baylor University to store the bones. Currently, researchers are working on getting the excavated bones prepared for display. In the meantime visitors to the site get to see the remaining fossils in situ, as well a work-in-progress excavation site protected from the elements.

     The largest animal left in the pit is an old approximately 45-year-old male designated Mammoth Q, and curiously, was found with a baby mammoth resting on its tusks (most of the baby's body has already been removed by the scientists). Both presumably drowned when the nearby river flooded. Female elephants often will use their tusks to try to lift their babies out of harm's way when they are in distress, but for a male to do this would be unprecedented. It's also possible that their bodies simply bumped into each other as they were washed away. The jury's still out on that one.

     Accompanying the mammoths is a very nice specimen of the extinct American camel called Camelops. The camel is at the bottom of the picture, Mammoth Q & the baby are in the upper left. Another juvenile mammoth occupies the upper center of the picture. "Accompanying" may indeed be the right word, as Camelops fossils are often found alongside Columbian Mammoths, leading some to theorize they engaged in a symbiotic relationship. According to this theory, the camels would act as lookouts, while the mammoths would provide the muscle. Fun fact: camels actually originated in North America. While those that remained here eventually died out, some migrated to Asia & the Middle East where they still survive, while others migrated to South America and are now known as llamas.

     There was a nice exposed mammoth skull lying near the back that allows visitors to get a good look at the overall shape. Note that the skull is upside-down; you can see the molars just behind the tusks.

     This lovely (though somewhat sad) mural overlooks the excavation site. The scene depicts the original nursery herd at the moment it was caught and overwhelmed by the river as it jumped its banks in a flash flood. A Camelops makes a cameo in the waves behind the mother mammoth on the left.

     Here's the whole family in front of a life-sized representation of a full-grown Columbian Mammoth. It really gives you an impression of just how massive and awe-inspiring these creatures were! This painting takes into consideration the warmer climate of their southern home, and so it has much sparser hair compared to a Woolly Mammoth, rather closer to a modern elephant.

     At the end of the tour, we had Xander stand next to a mammoth femur for a little comparison photo, and in a moment too cute not to post, he went and hugged it instead! He seemed to like it. I certainly enjoyed the museum, and I look forward to seeing again next time we drive down to Austin!

More Dinosaur Doodles

Here's a few more Texas dinosaurs I've drawn recently, with varying degrees of success in this batch.

Gastonia

     First up, a dinosaur that may not even be from Texas! Somewhere along the way, I thought I'd heard it was found around here somewhere, but now I can only find references to it as being from Utah and Colorado. Oops! Well, it's my favorite of this batch, so I'm including it anyway. Ankylosaurs are always a pain to draw, what with all the knobs and spikes all over the place, so I'm pretty pleased with myself for sticking with it and producing something that looks halfway decent. I think I managed to hit upon a reasonable-but-interesting-looking color scheme to go with it as well. (To justify myself somewhat, even if Gastonia never made it down to Texas, it did cross paths with the next dinosaur in this post, which HAS been found in Texas, so there.)

Acrocanthosaurus

     Acrocanthosaurus was originally dicsovered in Oklahoma, and is the official State Dinosaur there, but it also ranged through Wyoming and Texas, and perhaps even further afield. It's most well-known for its distinctive ridge-back, and it was the top predator in its time. Most believe it was responsible for the large theropod tracks at the famous Paluxy River dinosaur trackway site. I'm not sure I like how the color scheme came out on my drawing here. I think I should have made the colors grade into each other a little more gradually perhaps.

Alamosaurus

     Remember the Alamosaurus!!! Actually, contrary to popular belief, Alamosaurus was not named for the site of the famed Texas battle, but rather for the Ojo Alamo formation in New Mexico where it was originally discovered. By happy coincidence, it was later discovered in Texas as well, though still not particularly close to the Alamo of historic legend. The interesting thing about Alamosaurus is that it appeared rather suddenly in North America after an apparent 40 million year absence of sauropod ("brontosaur") dinosaurs from the continent, leading some to suspect it had migrated from South America where the sauropod lineage was still going strong. It appears to have had pebbly "armor" in the form of small bony knobs speckled across its back. For my drawing, I attempted to avoid the old trope of the boring grey long-neck, and added some fancy colors to the neck and tail for a mating display (a good use of all that advertising space). I'm not sure I like the end result however; I feel like I could've made it look more realistic somehow while still keeping it interesting. Oh well. Next time, maybe.

     Hope you liked these! Stay tuned for more.

Tenontosaurus drawing

     Now that we've moved in to our new home in Texas and I've had some time to settle down, I've been sketching a few "Texasauruses" in honor of our new home state. This first one represents Tenontosaurus, the most common dinosaur in the state. It's most distinctive feature is its long tail compared to relatives like Iguanodon. It's most famous for having been discovered in association with the remains of multiple individuals of Deinonychus, a discovery which led to the hypothesis that raptor dinosaurs hunted in packs. This Tenontosaurus remains blissfully raptor-free, and sports a fancy color scheme for attracting mates. Hope you like it!

Also uploaded to my DeviantArt page

Stay tuned for more!