Dino Dino Dino (Dad Reviews)

Time for more self-promotion! I guess it's been a while; there's quite a few more books featured at Dino Dad Reviews than the last time I did this!

I've managed to find multiple books over the past year celebrating the often overlooked contributions of women in paleontology. Daring to Dig has proved the most popular of these so far, which tells the stories of several women important to the history of American paleontology. She Found Fossils is pretty similar, though it expands its focus worldwide, and covers many more individuals (including scicomm celeb Ashley Hall, who just released her own book, Fossils For Kids). The Dinosaur Expert is a storybook about a girl embarrassed by her interest in dinosaurs that demonstrates the value of representation in the field, and an information page at the back mentions many of the paleontologists mentioned in the previous two books. Fossil Huntress tells the story of famous paleoanthropologist, Mary Leakey.

Additionally, I've reviewed multiple books about Mary Anning, the matriarch of paleontology, over the past year or so. Stone Girl, Bone Girl and The Dog That Dug For Dinosaurs are somewhat meh, while Mary Anning's Curiosity and Dinosaur Lady are excellent (even if the latter perpetuates the erroneous association of Anning with dinosaurs).

I've published a few more reviews on museums and other attractions, including Dinosaur Valley State Park, the creationist ICR Discovery Center, the socially-distant drive-thru version of Jurassic Quest, and the Texas Through Time museum.

I completed my trifecta of Abby Howard comics with Mammal Takeover!, and reviewed another Ted Rechlin comic, this time about the famous Sue the T. rex! I also reviewed another of Hannah Bonner's cartoon prehistory books, When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth.

I've reviewed a fair number of different forms of media recently as well. Continuing my Primeval Playlist series, I was super excited to cover the geologically themed music of The Amoeba People, and also wrote a separate post about miscellaneous prehistory-themed music. The creator of THE BIG DIE produced a new humorous paleo game called Lemme Splash!, which mocks the crackpot Brian J. Ford and his idea of dinosaur "sex lakes". I've begun reviewing documentaries as well, starting with the Ark Encounter expose We Believe In Dinosaurs, and most recently Emily Graslie's Prehistoric Road Trip. Perhaps most significantly, I covered the inaugural Dino Nerds for Black Lives livestream, an online event which saw all sorts of paleo nerds doing various live presentations to raise money for BLM charities.

Just for fun, I engaged in some coloring activities, including The Coloring Book of (Scientifically Accurate) Paleofauna. I also reviewed several dinosaur toys: the Battat Dinosaurs 5-Pack and the Wild Past Protoceratops.

I suppose that's good enough for now. I'll keep coming back her to make more of these posts in the future. I hope you enjoy my reviews!

More Dino Dad Reviews

And I'm dusting off this old blog once again to post more links to my new site, Dino Dad Reviews! I'm not expecting anybody to read this, I'm just trying to game the algorithm.

I'll start off with a few graphic novels I've reviewed. First is Ted Rechlin's Jurassic, a day-in-the-life story of a young Brontosaurus, much in the vein of Delgado's "Age of Reptiles" series. I've also reviewed the first two entries in Abby Howard's "Earth Before Us" series, Dinosaur Empire! and Ocean Renegades! I'll be reviewing book #3 soon.

I've made a yearly habit of reviewing prehistoric shark material during shark week, with my reviews of Paleo Sharks & Safari's Prehistoric Sharks Toob last year, and Discovering Sharks & a pop-up book about Sharks & Other Sea Monsters this year.

While books are the bread and butter for Dino Dad Reviews, I do expand my focus to other media now and then. The Big Die is a runner game based on the End-Permian mass extinction, inspired by a paleontology meme group on Facebook. Sharp Teeth is a fantastic short film that plays on audience assumptions about carnivores. I also like to share favorites from my "Primeval Playlist": fun prehistoric themed songs I enjoy listening to. I've covered the music of Ray Troll & The Ratfish Wranglers as well as Professor Flynn so far. I've also recently published my first ever museum review, looking at The Whiteside Museum of Natural History in Seymour, TX.

Speaking of branching out, I've begun reviewing children's books on evolution as well, starting with Grandmother Fish and When the Whales Walked.

Here's some other miscellaneous reviews. The Adventures of Padma and a Blue Dinosaur is a combination storybook and encyclopedia that brings some much-deserved attention to the dinosaurs of India. I've reviewed a couple of fossil themed activities: the Build Your Own Dinosaurs Sticker Book, and Mike Tharme's DIY Fossil Magnets. I think Small and Tall Tales of Extinct Animals deserves more attention, as it's a charmingly illustrated book on the somber topic of animals made extinct by human hands. Similarly, the excellent Cat-in-the-Hat tie-in Once Upon a Mastodon deserves to be better known than its rather lackluster counterpart, Oh Say Can You Say Di-no-saur?

That's all for now. I'll post more links as I review more books in the future.

Dino Dad Reviews

So I have a new blog called Dino Dad Reviews! This Stuckasaurus blog never did attract many visitors, so I'm mostly using this post to link to a bunch of my new posts to try to boost their standings in The Algorithm.

I was super excited to get my signed copy of Cruisin' the Fossil Coastline, a sequel to Kirk Johnson and Ray Troll's classic Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. I love Ray Troll's art, and have a bit of a personal connection to it.

Speaking of personal connections, reading Jason Chin's Grand Canyon got me really nostalgic for the Disneyland Railroad. The Grand Canyon/Primeval World diorama is partially responsible for my dino obsession.

I'm pretty pleased with my review of The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, and it's proved to be a bit of a hit on my blog.

Speaking of hits, it's got nothing on the Ultimate Dinopedia (authored by the great Dino Don!), which has twice the hits of any other review on my blog!

Mammoth Is Mopey (by David Orr of Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs) is perhaps my favorite book I've reviewed so far, and I'd really like to see it in the hands of more kids everywhere!

ROAR: A Dinosaur Tour has a similar art style to Mammoth Is Mopey, though it doesn't have quite the same concern for fidelity to its subjects.

Pinnochio Rex is my most recent review, and is a great primer on the diversity of the tyrannosaur family.

That's all for now. I'm probably just going to use this blog to promote Dino Dad Reviews from now on, so if anybody stumbles upon this page, be sure to go check out that website instead!

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.

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!

"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!