Hey there every peoples!

Long time, no see, busy, blah blah blah. Serious crap went down that have set me back as far as the Grand Vision goes. I considered writing about it but i don’t want to bore you with the details. It would have also tied into the commercial/professional debate and i think we ALL have had enough of that for now. So instead, I decided I’m going to talk about a corner of Paleontology that doesn’t get much attention: the fossils of Australia.

Cut off from the rest of the world during the whole of the Cenozoic, Australia developed a unique fauna unlike anything else in the history of the earth. I’m doing the Cenozoic because that’s my main area of focus. Plus, Australia’s dinosaur record is relatively poorly understood (though many outfits are currently fixing that). So i am going to spend a month talking about the Pleistocene megafauna of Australia. Why Pleistocene? It’s the best know of Australia’s past and the Pleistocene is one of my favorite time periods. And we’re gonna start off with one of the weirder denizens of the Pleistocene wilds. An animal who looks like an amalgamation of different animals: Palorchestes.

Way back in the early days of paleontology, Sir Richard Owen was busy describing everything he could get his hands on. This included a shipment of fossils from the newly found penal colony of Australia. Included among them was a jaw with teeth from a large marsupial. At first he thought that it came from a type of kangaroo, albeit much larger and more robust than any living today. He named it Palorchestes, meaning “ancient leaper”. As with many things named by Owen, a clearer picture of the animal was obtained with more complete fossils.

Partial skull of Palorchestes,. Owen, 1873

Partial skull of Palorchestes,. Owen, 1873

These new finds revealed Palorchestes to be a very different animal. Rather than a kangaroo, they showed that Palorchestes was closer to an extinct group of marsupials called Diprotodonts. Eventually Palorchestes would be placed in its own  family, the Palorchestidae. Many species are known, ranging from Palorchestes painei in the late Miocene to Palorchestes azael in the Pleistocene. The former is the earliest known while the later is the last known. Being a member of the Pleistocene megafauna, P. azael was the largest species, weighing a hefty 450 pounds.

Palorchestes painei, looking downright chummy in an issue of National Geographic.

Palorchestes azael. This beautiful reconstruction comes from the excellent book “Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution”

Thanks to rich deposits at Alcoota (P. panei) and numerous cave deposits (P. azael), we now know Palorchestes was a very robust animal with powerful forelimbs. Those forelimbs ended in large sharp claws. It’s teeth were designed to chew very abrasive vegetation, and some think the shape of the lower jaw could have accommodated a long, wiry tongue. Skulls found at Alcoota showed that Palorchestes had very retracted nasal openings like those of a tapir. As such, Palorchestes became known as the marsupial tapir. For a long time only skulls of P. painei were known, but given the close relationship between P. painei and P. azael, scientists thought it reasonable that the later also had a trunk. So with the arms and claws of a bear, the nose of a tapir, the tongue of an anteater, and the reproduction of a marsupial, Palorchestes looked poised to take a commanding lead in the “weirdest animals of all time”.

Skull of Palorchestes painei, from the late Miocene site of Alcoota, Central Australia. On display at the Museum of Central Australia.

Or maybe not. While the interwebs for illustrations, i came across a couple of interesting pages. The first details a skull of P. azael found in a cave near Buchan, Victoria. The skull, while in pieces, is still rather complete. In fact the second webpage, on the site of the Museum of Victoria, says it’s the most complete skull of P. azael known.

Complete lower jaw of the Buchan skull.

The much sought after cranium.

All the pieces put together.

The Museum of Victoria’s reconstruction of the Buchan skull

The Victoria Museum page features a reconstruction of P. azael, presumably based on the new skull. Needless to say, it’s a new and rather different take on the animal:

The new, alternate reconstruction of Palochestes azael, from the Museum of Victoria.

I’d love to know the logic behind this. The page doesn’t explain anything. Is the new look because of the height of the skull? The size of the nasal bone? Unfortunately they don’t go into any detail. Until they do, i think the classic image of a tapir like trunk will continue to reign.

Trunk or no, Palorchestes was in a class all it’s own. What did it do for a living? As noted earlier its teeth seem designed to chew very tough and abrasive vegetation. This combined with the huge claws and suspected presence of a wiry tongue have led to scientists thinking it fed on bark and roots, using the huge claws to rip bark off trees and dig up roots. Paleontologist Tim Flannery even describes them as “tree wreckers”. This presumed mode of feeding and methods of achieving it have led some to label them as Australia’s version of a ground sloth. I think there is a much better ground sloth analogue than Palorchestes, but that’s for another post.

And with that, “Australia Month” is underway. Stay tuned for more strange and wondrous beast from the Land Down Under.

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!

Welcome to the second (sorta) week of Australia month. Whenever the extinct animals of Australia are mentioned, it’s the Pleistocene fauna. And even among that, only a select few are brought up. One of them is an animal who towered over everything else. It was a creature we are quite familiar with but was at the same time unlike anything living in Australia today. In a pitiful attempt to give it a common name, I call it: the megaroo.

The scientific name is Procoptodon goliah. Like many other Australian megafauna it was named by Sir Richard Owen in 1873. And like Palorchestes, he ascribed the initial fossils to a giant kangaroo (except he was actually right about this animal). Procoptodon was a member of a subfamily of kangaroos called sthenurines. Sthenurines trace their origins back to the late Miocene, possibly with the kangaroo Hadronomas. Sthenurines were characterized by a short skull and a very robust skeletal structure. Many species of Procoptodon are known, all from the late Pleistocene. Procoptodon goliah gets all the press because he was the largest and most spectacular of this lineage.

Reconstruction of Procoptodon goliah. From the book “Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: 100 million Years of Evolution”

Following the trend of Pleistocene gigantism, Procoptodon was big. Fully grown, it was have stood 7 to 7 1/2 feet tall and weigh in excess of 400 pounds. Now this may not sound that big compared to the megafauna elsewhere in the world, but it’s pretty big for Australia. Especially when you consider that it is much taller and over twice as heavy as the largest modern kangaroo, the red kangaroo.

Skull of Procoptodon goliah

Comparison of the thigh bones of a red kangaroo and Procoptodon (from the Discovery Channel documentary “Monsters Resurrected:Giant Ripper”)

As a sthenurine, Procoptodon was a browser. Because they fed on higher vegetation (most modern kangaroos and wallabies are grazers) they could do something most other kangaroos can’t: they can reach above their head. Combined with the length of its arms and huge hooked claws, Procoptodon could reach leaves 9 feet off the ground. Now in the last post I mentioned how Palorchestes is often labeled as Australia’s version of a ground sloth. However, I feel Procoptodon is the better proxy. Most ground sloths made their living as browsers, filling the niche occupied elsewhere by giraffes and elephants. Ground sloths are thought to have uses their claws to pull down branches. Sounds an awful lot like Procoptodon, doesn’t it?

“Hey Macropus rufus. Why don’t you come and join me and… Oh right, you can’t! You don’t have the skeletal articulation. Nana *thhppppttt*!” (reconstruction published in National Geographic Magazine)

Procoptodon wasn’t just unusual in its size and short face. The sthenurines of the Pleistocene were unique in having only a single toe on each foot. Modern kanagroos and wallabies have 4 toes. In Procoptodon, this single tow ended in an enormous claw. Modern kangaroos are well known for their kick boxing style of fighting, which while used manly against other kangaroos also serves a defense against predators. A modern kangaroo can knock a full grown human on their ass with ease. With a lot more muscle and that huge claw, Procoptodon probably had a kick to make any martial artist jealous. Given the predators stalking the Australian bush during the Pleistocene, size alone may not have been enough to protect Procoptodon. A good kick from this beast could probably send even the most brazen hunters packing.

A pair of red kangaroos kick boxing. Now imagine the same thing with animals the size of a small grizzly bear!

Like the other megafauna in Australia, Procoptodon died out around 50,000 years ago. Many experts think the first humans in Australia lived with and hunted these animals. Rock art resembling some meagafauna hints at this possibility. There is an aboriginal legend of a large fighting kangaroo, which may have been inspired by encounters with Procoptodon. How those encounters may have played out is anyone’s guess. In any case, i am rather envious of them. At least they got to see this magnificent animal in the flesh.

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!

Today marks a momentous occasion: the release of Gareth Edward’s Godzilla! This is the first Godzilla movie on American soil since Roland Emerich’s disastrous (no pun intended) take on the iconic reptile in 1998. Considering the poor critical response and the perpetual ire of the fan boys, the G-Man would not get an American outing for 14 years. Godzilla is often used a comparison for any giant reptile. Most often it is applied to dinosaurs, since Godzilla is supposed to be a resurected dinosaur. But I think the title of Godzilla incarnate is better applied to a much different animal. Dinosaurs were related to birds, not lizards, and Godzilla is often called a lizard. We fear what we don’t understand, but often fear can come when something familiar (and maybe already terrifying) is taken to the max. And I’m not talking about feathered dinosaurs (“Would I like to see an enfluffled Tyrannosaurus chasing after hapless humans? Absolutely. I’d be thrilled to view such scientifically-informed nightmare fuel.”- Brian Switek. A featured tyrannosaurus is a can of worms for another time) I’m talking about something more insidious to our primitive monkey brains. Something that, unlike dinosaurs, early man would have encountered. I’m talking about the most famous of Australia’s Pleistocene menagerie: Megalania.

In 1859, Sir Richard Owen (not the first time we heard of him and it won’t be the last) described some vertebrae from Australia. They appeared to come from a lizard, but far larger than any lizard known. He named the animal Megalania prisca, which translates to “ancient giant ripper”. A name like that conjures images of a titanic and savage predator. But again, Owen just described some vertebrae. Not a whole lot to go on when trying to uncover the nature of an extinct species. Since Owen’s initial paper, more fossils have been found, including a partial skeleton. However, they are fragmentary and sparse. Even the partial skeleton is far from complete. This hasn’t stopped diligent scientists from trying to piece together this animal’s paleobiology. For much of the time it was known it was designated its own genus, Megalania. More recently, though, it was placed the genus Varanus, the genus that includes all monitor lizards including komodo dragons. In his book “Dragons in the Dust” Ralph Molnar posited that if Megalania was ever sunk into Varanus, Megalania would likely remain as it’s common name. I will continue as such.

Reconstructed skeleton of Megalania by Gondwana Studios.

The most noteworthy aspect of Megalania is its size, though that is a matter of debate. In the 1970s Max Hecht calculated that Megalania could have been as much as 27 feet long and weighed more than 1300 pounds. These estimates were challenged by Wroe, whose own calculations gave a maximum size of 15 feet and 750 pounds, with a length of 11 feet and 250-300 pounds being the average. Next up was a recent study of a large lizard on an island in the Mediterranean which also attempted to tackle the size issue. They came up with a length of 11 feet, about what Wroe came up with. However, Ralph Molnar came up with a range of sizes and calculated that while the lengths Hecht came up with could be possible maximums, the likely average was probably more like 18 feet long and 500 pounds. So who is right? That may be difficult to determine. For starters, these averages are only estimates. I never did believe that Wroe was able to just calculate an average size, since I thought calculating averages involved measuring numerous specimens and finding the mean between them. Given the dearth of Megalania fossils found so far, I’m not sure such an average could be deduced. Furthermore, the recent study used a limited dataset for their measurements, mostly using casts from the American Museum’s collection. Finally, we have two large estimates and two small estimates. Whose is right? Which one do we go by? I remember reading in a National Geographic article about the marsupial lion that we finally got a handle on its size. I believe Wroe’s words were “The fact that we used two different methods to arrive at the same estimate means we’ve nailed the size of this animal.” Ok fair enough. They fact that all these various methods have produced nothing consistent should mean that this lizard’s true size has yet to be determined. But one thing should be obvious: it was big. Bigger than any lizard alive today. Even large lizards like komodo dragons and parenties are pint-sized compared to fossils of Megalania. It was like my friend Eric Scott said back in my post about Arctodus. He said he would show me an Arctodus bone next to that of a modern to show plainly that it was very large (He has yet to do that. But then again, I keep forgetting to take him up on it). When compared with modern lizards, it’s hard to imagine Megalania as anything but a giant.

Bones and partial skeletal layout of Megalania. It’s a little hard to see, but in the upper left is a skeleton of a komodo dragon. But even here we can tell that Megalania was a much larger animal.

Maxilla (upper jaw bone) of Megalania. This specimen is almost 9 inches long, the same length as the entire skull of a komodo dragon. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like two animals of similar size to me. (from the book “Wildlife of Gondwana”)

So just what place did Megalania have in its ecosystem? It has long been interpetid that Megalania was an alpha predator. Like its close cousin the komodo dragon, it had serrated, recurved teeth (not unlike a dinosaurs), strong jaws, and sharp claws. It is often thought, also like the komodo dragon, that Megalania was venomous. Modern komodo dragons use venom to take down large prey like deer, pigs, goats, and even water buffalo. Not much of the skull is known, though i I don’t know if the dragon’s venom glands leave any clues in the jaw structure. But if it was venomous, combined with its size and weaponry, there may not have been anything Megalania couldn’t take down. The marsupial tapir, the megaroo, Zygomaturus, wallabies… Some have even suggested it may have preyed on the largest of marsupials Diprotodon. Modern varanids are actually good sprinters, and persue prey longer than most reptiles. This is due to a unique method of breathing, wherein the animal “gulps” in air, increasing the amount entering its lungs. Megalania may very have had this trait too, but like the kmodo dragon was primarily an ambush predator. Right now it’s looking like Megalania was short on competition in it’s strange world. That might have changed when a new creature, also being used to the top of the food chain, entered the scene.

Meglania feeding on the carcass of the giant marsupial Diprotod by Mark Hallet. I need to get a poster of that (sans the text, of course).

Megalania is thought to have died out between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago. About the same time humans are thought to have made their way to Australia. Humans have never seen a dinosaur. They have never seen anything quite like a dinosaur. That is, until they ran into Australia’s top predator. I can only imagine terrifying that must have been for them. A feathered dinosaur would have looked like a giant bird (maybe Hearthstone’s Angry Chicken could use some new art work). Megalania, with its scaly hide, flicking tongue, and hissing breath, with venomous spit dripping from jaws lined with knife-like teeth, Megalania must have looked like the lizard from hell. Sure, humans would have been no stranger to large crocodiles throughout their evolution and migrations. But crocodiles are restricted to water. This was an animal who could stalk on dry land, going pretty much anywhere it pleased. It could possibly have been able to run down a human. How could the early aborigines have defended themselves from this monster? We don’t know what kind of weaponry they had. The woomera doesn’t appear in Australia until 5,000 years ago (as far as i know). Scientists think they would have been armed with spears that were little more than long sticks ending in a fare hardened tip. A nasty weapon no doubt, but would it have been able to repel Megalania? Hard to say. A man by the name of Peter Hancock thinks that ancestral memories of Megalania may have survived in the oral traditions of the Aborigines. For example: “A New South Wales clan tells of Mungoon-gali, the giant goanna, which ambushed people near waterholes. Central Desert tradition has it that Koockard the goanna killed two boys who had teased him, and in the Balgo region of Western Australia’s north they have a story about a goanna that fought a crocodile – and won.” In his book, “The Crocodile that Wasn’t”, Hancock describes a tale from the Nyungar people of southwest Australia that he thinks is about Megalania. In the story, a giant lizard terrorizes a village. The people pray for a solution and 7 dingoes arrive and attack the creature. One bites off its tail and the lizard flees the land. But could this have been Megalania? Megalania is thought to have died out no later than 45,000 years ago. Dingoes are believed to have come to Australia 3,500 years ago. Whether the story is true or not, I’m sure most people today are glad it’s extinct.

Aboriginal rock art of a lizard that appears to be larger than a man.

Aboriginal rock art of a lizard that appears to be larger than a man.

We fear monsters. But we also fear animals that we make out to be monsters. Like the new Godzilla, they are not good or evil. They are simply animals doing what they have to to survive. Godzilla does have a certain inate malice which the military thinks it’s trying to repel. Some military personnel even state what we would do if Godzilla were to rise from the depths and start wreaking havoc. But Godzilla is a myth created purely of our imagination. Megalania was a flesh and blood creature. Our ice age compatriots may very well have had to deal with it when they made landfall in what must have been an alien world. Dinosaurs can only chase humans on the silver screen. But the giant lizard who stalked Pleistocene Australia was the closest thing, a reptile seemingly out of time. You can keep your fuzzy tyrants and fluffy raptors. I know what animal would truly haunt our nightmares. In fact, it may be already.

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!

What the hell happened? Well, i don’t know. I’ll try to finish Australia when i can. But right now i want to talk about the commercial fossil trade once again. I once tried to defend the commercialists. But after a certain incident i have seen the error on my ways. Thee nothing redeemable about them. They are destroying the ancient heritage of everyone in a gross, twisted mockery of a noble scientific profession all in the name of making a buck. Commercialists need to be stopped if the fossil record is to survive at all.

Why the change of heart? Like i said, something happened to me that made me realize how despicable commercialists are. I won’t bore you with the details. But i used to defend commercialists because i knew one. He seemed different. He seemed to believe in the science of paleontology and in the Grand Vision as well. I saw that unlike what i had read, commercialists weren’t all the same and that there could be some good in them. Finally, after working with him for a while, i was given an opportunity to finally advance the Grand Vision. Me and my hopes of a Central Coast Museum were finally moving forward in a significant way. And then… i got stabbed in the back. My dreams and hopes were crushed because he didn’t think it was profitable (of course, how he handled the situation would reveal just how much of a sniveling weasel he really was). I thought he was different. But turned out he was just the same s every other commercialist: selfish, greedy, unable to think beyond anything and anyone but themselves. A lowlife who thinks only in terms of dollar value, not scientific value or the public welfare. It was difficult for me to handle. I’m still reeling from it. I’m basically back at square one.But most importantly, i have learned that these money grubbing whores are the true threat to paleontology and the natural heritage of everyone.

Let me tell you a little story:

A man named Don is putting together a puzzle at a picnic table in the park. He enjoys doing puzzles for the challenge and the thrill of seeing the finished product. He does his puzzles in the park because he likes sharing the process with people and happily showing them the whole picture. He would get many visitors, asking questions and usually just admiring his work. He is joined by a particularity interested little girl named Beth. She is not so good with puzzles and doesn’t fully understand them but likes watching the man, a pro, do it. She is always amazed when it is finished, looking at the result of hard work and determination.

Then a person walks up and picks up one of the pieces. “Ooh, this one is so pretty!” They start to put it in their pocket.
“Excuse me,” said Don, “I need that to finish the puzzle.”
The person just stared at them. “I collect blue pieces, and this one would look great in my collection.”
“But i need it to complete the puzzle!” Don protested.
“Oh don’t worry about it. You have so many pieces I’m sure you won’t miss just one.” The person walked off, ogling their new prize. Don continued working on the puzzle and Beth kept watching.

Then another person walked up and immediately seized a few pieces.
“Wow, you any idea how much these are worth?” They said in a giddy tone.
“What do you mean?” Asked Don.
“These are some pretty rare pieces. Collectors would be willing to pay a lot of money for them!”
“That’s nice but those pieces are very important. They could fill in a crucial gap in the puzzle.”
Beth chimed in: ” Besides, me and everyone else won’t get to see the whole puzzle if you take those pieces. Those pieces belong to all of us.”
The person wasn’t buying it. “But there still plenty of pieces. Besides, i could make so much money with these.” He walked off with the pieces he stole.

Don did eventually finish the puzzle. It appeared to be a duck in a pond. Except there was a hole in the water where the first person took a blue piece. The duck’s head was missing, as well as a couple pieces of the cattails from where the second person took them. Don was disappointed because he will never be able to complete the puzzle. Beth is sad because she and everyone else will never see the whole, beautiful picture. Both have been dealt a heavy blow because some people put their own self-gratification above the well being of everyone else.

I will admit it’s not my best bit of fiction but i hope it illustrates the problem here. In case you couldn’t figure it out, Don represent scientists, Beth is the public, and the two people represent private collectors and commercialists. The puzzle represents the fossil record. Without all the pieces Don couldn’t fully understand and reconstruct the puzzle. Beth wouldn’t be able to admire the finished puzzle, the product of all the work of Don. Don doing the puzzle in public so everyone can know and appreciate it was rendered pointless. Basically, when commercialists gain, everyone else looses.

Private collectors are a problem, but i wouldn’t say they are the main problem. Private collectors are usually enthusiastic and are simply ignorant of the harm they can do. Besides, many of them do eventually donate their stuff to a museum. So in the greater scheme of things they are more of a nuisance. Commercialists, on the other hand, are actively harmful. Spurred on by the possibly of big money, they scrabble to get their hands on anything they think can turn a profit, often overlooking or even destroying other important fossils. They often break the law, collecting fossils illegal from public lands. They are pillaging the scientific record and the heritage of everyone because they can’t value anything other than money. And what is more, these guys are kind of like creationists. They don’t listen to reason or logic. They usually trot out the same tired talking points. They can’t, for the life of them, see that what they are is wrong and refuse to stop doing what they are doing because their rabid faith (in this case, in money) blinds them. So lets take a look at how they try to justify themselves.

“Museums already have plenty of important specimens.”- I point you back to my puzzle analogy. Every fossil is important to unraveling the secrets of the past. The more fossils we have, the more hypotheses we can test. If we don’t have all the pieces, we will never have a full understanding of our planet’s marvelous past.

“Scientists can still study specimens in private collections. They refuse to out of their own stubbornness.”- Like i said back in my other post on this subject, there are some big reasons why paleontologists don’t touch stuff held privately. The most important thing in science is the ability to repeat the results of a study. That allows scientists to either confirm or debunk them. This is easy in a museum, where the specimens are cataloged and held in the public perpetually. In private collections, however, the fate of the specimens is uncertain. Even if the owner allows access to scientists, that scenario may not last. They may suddenly change their mind and deny access. They may sell it. They may die and then the relatives, not knowing what to do with it, either sell it or just throw it out. Only in a museum is the future of a specimen secure. That is why scientists only publish on specimens in museums.

“Most specimens are never seen by the public in a museum. We’re simply making it more accessible.”- I actually agree with you on the first point. The one of the main reasons i want to start my own museum is because my fossil heritage remains locked away, out of view, in foreign museums. So many stories go untold because museums only have so much display space and choose only the biggest, most impressive specimens to lure visitors. But the solution is not to sell fossils. You really want to make fossils more accessible? Support museums. Donate to them so can afford the lengthy process of creating online databases; so they can build more exhibit space; so they can more effectively utilize social media. And face it, you’re not making specimens more available to the public by selling them. You are making them available only to the few who could afford them. And then those will disappear into their private collection, where only that person and their few family and friends will see it. That is hardly the idea of being available to everyone.

“Scientists don’t have the manpower or resources to find all fossils. Think of all the fossils that would have been lost to erosion had we not found them.”- That is true. So many fossils are lost because museums can’t field enough people to scour the badlands. But your “rescue” is irrelevant because what you find goes to the market, not a museum. It might as well have withered to dust. My museum could put some more bodies in the field, but that’s assuming i get it up and running.

“But they are just following their passion.”- Bullshit. If they were so passionate about fossils, why are they whoring them out to the highest bidder? Why do they only invest time and work into specimens they think will bring in the big bucks? If they are so passionate, why do they often break the law by collecting on public land or smuggling specimens out of other countries? Passion is working for peanuts in a museum or univerity because you love fossils and study them for the enrichment of humanity’s knowledge base. Here’s a few examples from that shit eating worm who betrayed me:

1) I was talking to him about how when the museum was up i wanted to lead people out into the field like what the L.A. and Burpee museums do. Trying to explain to him how in paleontology you have to take what you can get, i asked him “What if we go to the field and all we find is a horse tooth?” His response? “I’d consider it a waste. I’d let them keep it.” Wow. So passionate means discarding anything that isn’t big and flashy (and therefore, worth a lot of money)?
2) Many invertebrate specimens we had found… He just left them in crates outside, in the elements. So passionate means leaving the “ok” stuff out to rot because you don’t think they’ll for as much?
3) He was completely unwilling to drive more than an hour to a site. Places like Apache Canyon and Cuyama Valley were “so far away”. Plus he avoided going out if it was hot. Jeez, if he can’t handle the weather here, he never would survive going to some of the more well known localities in the badlands. So being passionate means not willing to go the extra mile to live the dream?

That doesn’t not sound like a passionate enthusiast to me. That sounds like a deadbeat who wilts in the face of doing a little hard work. I have gone out in the sweltering heat and managed just fine. I have driven hours just to visit a little museum in the middle of nowhere just to view their fossils. And above all else, i know that fossils belong in museums, where they can be enjoyed by everyone. The pursuit of monetary gain is not passion. It is blind, naked greed.

“Scientists just don’t like competition.”- Yes, they don’t. Mainly because they can’t compete at all. The price tags of many fossils on the market are just not doable for museums. A while ago a man was hoping to get a million dollars for a Triceratops skull. The Montana Dueling Dinosaurs were expected to fetch 9 million dollars. Nine million! For most museums, that is the cost of a major renovation. For the love of Christ, you know what i could do with 9 million dollars? I could build my museum, instal some exhibits, and probably have enough leftover to fund several seasons in the field. Nine million dollars would go a very long way in funding museum operations and commercialists think they should cough up that much just on a specimen or two? Give me a break! Because these yahoos can only focus on making money, they aren’t willing to offer them to museums for less than an obscene amount.

Money truly is the great corrupter. Those who have a lot of money, who could use that money to do great things, instead use to get more money and fund their hideously opulent lifestyles. The money required to create wonderful exhibits, excellent education programs, and quality research is chump change compared to the holdings of the many millionaires and billionaires that sit atop our society. But they apparently don’t bat an eye about spending that money to influence politics, buy their fifth home, or go to the opposite end of the world for the weekend. Some even use that money to buy fossils at auctions, failing to realize that same amount of money, donated to a museum, would find many more specimens. And who supplies those fossils? The commercialists, who pretend to be noble fossils hunters who in reality are little more than loathsome vultures ripping apart and regurgitating the fossil record that represents everyone’s heritage. They need to be confronted head on and stopped. Thomas Carr once suggested using eminent domain to reclaim fossils from commercialists. I think that would create a PR nightmare, but now I’d be willing to give it a shot. We need to hit commercialists in he only thing they care about: their wallet. Money is all they understand, so if we cost them their precious money to get their attention, we need to do it.

So there’s that. I am going on a trip up north but when i get back, i hope to conclude Australia Month.

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!
The demon has been really giving me a hard time lately. It has interfered with everything, including this blog. Not helping the matter was a most worthless comment my last post had gotten. I thought about responding to it, but in the end determined that it wasn’t worth wasting the effort and thought (and when you take into consideration that I once responded to a blustering creationist, that’s really saying something). But i decided that it might be good to talk about some offbeat, casual topic to try and keep my mind solvent. With the recent buzz around PAX, what better thing to talk about than video games!

Specifically, I’d like to talk about an upcoming exclusive for the Playstation 4 called “The Order:1886″. The game is about a group of knights (the knights of Arthur’s Round Table in point of fact) struggle for order in an alternate Victorian-era London. In this universe, not only are the lower classes rebelling against the wealthy and ruling elite (the knights are fighting for the elite) but are also waging a centuries old battle against half-human monsters, nicknamed “half-breeds”.

Before we continue, i just want to say: i don’t video games. I have played a few. But my learning disability made it difficult to ever be any good at them. Besides, I have always been the kind of square who got more enjoyment out watching people play games than playing them myself. That being said i can still get rather into a game; I just focus on its story (or lore, as us nerds call it), it’s design, and it’s ideas. That I what I’ll be discussing here.

Now you should know by now that i am all about what is different, what hasn’t been done to death. So off the bat we have characters from the most adapted and popularized English story out there: the story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. So what does the Order do with that? In this universe, the knights long ago discovered a mysterious substance called black water. This substance has the power to heal grievous wounds and prolong life. So the knights in the Order are many hundreds of years old. Ok, not bad. You have me interested.

Now what is supposed to be one of the major plot points of the game are the half-breeds. When i saw the initial E3 trailer, I was a little apprehensive. It just looked like yet another romp with werewolves. Werewolves are right up there with vampires, zombies, and demons as the most overdone monsters in fiction. But this game started to win me over a little with some little snippets in interviews and the like. One synopsis for the game said that “In the game’s history, around the seventh or eighth centuries a small number of humans took on bestial traits. Doesn’t specifically say werewolf. I’m listening.

Then came the following video detailing the creation of the half-breeds:

What particularly stuck out to me was the line about lycans (the trendy name for werewolves these days) being a “particular species of half-breed”. If this reference to them being just one species of half-breed is true, then I’m on board. If it truly is something that is half human half animal, and not just the same old werewolf, then the sky is the limit. Use that to get creative! Like the werewolves are expert hunters and are fast because they are half wolf. Maybe another species, being half ox or bear, or even rhino or elephant, could be a slower but stronger enemy requiring different tactics than the werewolves. Very little about the game has been revealed, so i am still wary that we will just be stuck with werewolves.

Another big plot point is that the industrial revolution has allowed for the creation of all new never before seen weapons that will hopefully turn the tide against the half-breeds. The guns not feeling very impactful has been a complaint from those who have played the demo. And i feel them. From my spectator, lore and concept viewpoint, the weapons in this game feel very lackluster. The thermite rifle and arc gun are really the only ones who stand out. The thermite rifle is a double action weapon. First i sprays a cloud of thermite at the enemy; then a flare launched into the cloud to ignite it. The arc gun basically fires bolts of electricity (because, by the way, their weapon maker is Nikola Tesla). But the rest of the guns just feel… lazy. Rather than unique creations, it seems they just used slightly modified versions of guns from the 20th century:

The “M85 Automatische” is just a PPSh 41 with a slightly different ammo drum.

The “Essen M2 ‘Falchion'” or “combo gun” looks like someone slapped an M203 grenade launcher onto a Dragunov sniper rifle.

Oh come on! The “C78 Autoloading Pistol”? You just copy and pasted a Luger! And there is another hand gun that is a dead ringer for the Mauser C96. What, was your imagination broken that day?

This rifle from one of the trailers looks like a semi-auto (read: without the bolt) version of an SMLE.

They just look out of place and not very inspired. “But Bioshock: Infinite had guns that looked a lot like later guns. Why aren’t you raging on that?” That’s different. In Bioshock:Infinite, a major aspect of the universe is the interruption of the space time continuum. In that universe, Columbia had such advance technology for its time because many of its scientists and industrialists were able to peer through holes in the fabric of time. That’s how they had modern pop songs and vigors (derived from plasmids, which were invented in the 1950s) and how Comstock was a prophet: they saw things in the future and adapted them to their own time. So the weapons resembling future ones made a lot more sense in Bioshock. And since the game took place in the early 20th century, not that long before their inspiration was invented, they didn’t feel so out of place.

Seeing world war 2 guns in the 1880s is just jarring and feels like cheating. Now we have seen plenty of fantasy and action games featuring fantastical weapons and thoroughly modern technology. But I have always been interested in how real ancient cultures, particularly more primitive ones, would have dealt with such super natural monsters. I have been intrigued since reading some of the “accounts” detailed in The Zombie Survival Handbook, as well as an old video in “Howling 3: The Marsupials”. I know for game play sake you need weapons like these, and it’s supposed to be a big part of the lore, but i find it a little boring. I’m actually more interested in how people fought these wars when all they had were spears, axes, bows and other just weapons. That or even primitive guns, luck harquebuses, muskets, single action revolvers, and early rifles, where the highest magazine capacity was 14. One of my side interests is ancient warfare. While everyone is into Mideival knights, Japanese ninjas and samurai, and Classical Greek soldiers, I’m into the primitive and tribalistic parts of the world. Why? Because it’s easy to made just impressive weapons when you have metal. How do you fight, protect yourself, and wage war when you have only natural materials such as wood, stone, teeth, etc. Their solutions are far more fascinating. That’s how it is with the Order. It’s not as interesting watching people deal with these monsters when armed with the luxury of modern high capacity firarms (or the couple fantasy guns they created).

Bottom line: I feel there is a lot of potential here. The Order: 1882 could be a neat spin on the shapeshifters genre. But it’s lazy weapon design and possible use of just werewolves is cause for concern. So far, we have two conflicting images here. One trailer showed a a more survival horror vibe against one of fiction’s most dreaded monsters. But most of the gameplay shown so far, with human antagonists, hiding behind cover in a fire fight, and the thoroughly modern sounding gun fire makes this game feel like “Ye Old Call of Duty”.  Hopefully the game will do well enough that it will get a sequel where the creators can really cut loose. Have take place in ancient times without modern type guns where the knights have to rely more on skill and fortitude than just being able to hold down a trigger. And maybe explore things from the half-breed side. Maybe you could even play as a half-breed. If there are different species of half-breeds, they could at some point splinter into different groups and duke it out in some kind of half-breed civil war. Of course, such radical directions are rarely taken. Being creative is a liability these days. Same sells, so what need is there for different? Just how The Order plays out is anyone’s guess at this point. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Till next time!

Please read the whole post if you wish to gain insight into what has been eating at me so much lately. Also, this will sound like a rant. I’m just trying to vent.

Hey, there are all kind of peoples.

Well despite my best efforts (including trying to distract myself by talking about video games), the demon still has a grip on me. I have decided to go with the dumping option: just belt it all out. I’m hoping that by getting these festering thoughts out of my head I might finally be able to stabilize. Let’s see if I’m right.

The Grand Vision isn’t just some career option. The quest to start a museum here on the Central Coast and the mission it represents has become a part of my identity, who I am. However, the project doesn’t really extend beyond myself at the moment. I have sent outreach letters to various museums and organizations throughout the Central Coast. But who knows how that will go. I almost had an opportunity to create a small museum that surely would have boosted the effort. But that dream was stolen from me and I found myself betrayed and back to the drawing board. Right now the Grand Vision hangs by a thread, and the stability of my mind with it. Of course, the most important thing to starting a museum is: money.

Museums need money not only to start, but also (and much more crucially) to maintain operations. Museum are mostly non-profits, so they are reliant on the generosity of others (donations, community partners, etc). A little while back, I had some ignorant dullard accuse me of being jealous of commercialists, that I couldn’t have “a piece” of their money. I don’t care about their money. My number one concern is the fossils. Besides, commercialists have dirty money. That money was made selling fossils, minerals, and artifacts. No matter the amount, I would never touch it. Trying to fund a museum by selling fossils makes about as much sense as funding elephant conservation by selling ivory. Accepting money from commercialists would be practical, but morally reprehensible.

I do covet money, but not for the conventional reasons. Commercialists are in it to make money, to line their pockets. As I said, I don’t want their money. I want to try and make this world a better place by creating a place of science. Unfortunately, science is abysmally low on everyone’s list of priorities unless it’s “practical”; that is, if it’s immediately useful and/or can be profited off of. One of the greatest problems in this world is the concentration on the self. People live in a little bubble consisting mostly of them self and maybe those closest to them. They care not for the world around them, even though they are very clearly a part of it. Selflessness is a liability, and all energy must be focused on themself. Now obviously that focus can be justified depending on how much money a person has. If someone is barely making enough to feed and house their family then yes, they should focus on that (why they should have to worry about that is another can of worms for some other time). But what about those who are doing very well for themselves?

I think there are two kinds of people in this world: those who could make a difference but can’t, and those who can make a difference but don’t. This complete lack of selflessness in people is truly exemplified by the rich. These people have the ability to really make a difference in the world, to help their fellow human beings in numerous ways. But instead what do they do? They use their wealth to fund extravagant and lavish lifestyles: expensive clothes, fancy restaurants, luxury vacations to far flung exotic locales, huge posh homes, exorbitant crafts (yachts, private jets etc), and (in the case of many folks on the coming list) polluting and trying to control the political process. These people could use their money to fund various causes and still live comfortably. But instead, they just cling to their money. Because our culture is obsessed with money. We equate having lots of it with success. We are expected to admire and worship these people because they have “made it”. Money is still treated as some kind of status symbol; the more you have, the “greater” you are supposed to be. It is all about them. They keep making more and more money and clinging to it so that they can continue serving their own interests.

So yes, I am envious of the rich. But it’s only because I see all this money sitting around and thinking about how much good I could do with it. Instead of living life a rich asshole, I could make the kinds of differences that these people refuse to do. So we are going to look at various rich folks and what I could do with the kind of money they save for themselves. Then I will tell you what I could do with it (using the website TheRichest).

1. Mitch McConnal- First up on our list is Ol’ Turtle. This guy has been one of the leaders of the most obstructive and unproductive congress in history. According to the site, his net worth is $9.8 million. While that is a huge sum to the most of us, it is rather small to the costs of starting a museum. But with nearly ten million dollars, I could likely buy a small warehouse and convert it into a curation facility. I could probably also rent some space downtown as a display site. There out to be a couple million left over to then fund our activities for a couple years.
2. Sarah Palin- The Qitta from Wasilla has made a tidy living blithering like an idiot both on stage and Fox “News”. She’s worth $12 million. That would probably allow me to do the same as in number 1, but with more money for operating costs.
3. John McCain- After failing to become president, John McCain now spends his days as an angry old white guy trying desperately to stay relevant. He lucked out by marrying a beer heiress. His net worth sits as a modest $21 million. That kind of money would actually allow me to build a custom made curation facility from scratch. Then I could use the leftovers to fund the place.
4. George W Bush- The guy who likes to act like a cowboy but lives like a king. The guy who is considered by many to be the worst president ever sits pretty at $35 million. Wow, I could probably add some initial display space to the custom built facility.
5. M. Night Shayamalan- This guy has become legendary for a career that started off beautifully… and then took a nose dive… and has gotten worse with each film. And yet he is worth a cool $50 million. That much could get the last option but be able to fund it for a few years.
6. Dick Cheney- Everyone’s favorite war criminal with a scowl not even a mother could love. Dick has done well for himself, being worth $90 million. With that, I could get the custom built curation facility, add some exhibit space, and fund it for a few years with a curator or two.
7. Morgan Freeman- Ah, now we’re getting into the big bucks. This academy award winning actor is undeniably at the apogee of talent. He is worth the not inconsiderable sum of $150 million. That could get the previous option, but have some money available for future expansion.
8. Justin Bieber- This poser/twit/little shit is somehow worth $200 million. Never mind what I would do with it… I have already talked about Bieber more than anyone ever should.
9. Adam Sandler- A decent actor who for some reason keeps making terrible movies. Sandler is currently worth $300 million. With that, I could build a proper natural history museum, with a small (to start) research staff that could be funded for a couple decades.

Alright, we are getting to the really big players. Basically, they could all contribute the same amount. They are:

Larry Page- $31 billion

Sheldon Adelson- $36.5 billion

David Koch- $49.9 billion

Now let’s start with the amount of $500 million. This would be chump change for these guys. But for people like me, it is mana from heaven. What would I do with half a billion dollars? Be sure to take your bathroom break now because I’m about to unleash a wall of text!

With half a billion dollars, I could create a veritable academy of sciences. It would be divided into three buildings, each with its own collections facility and exhibit space. Each one would have its own hierarchy of research staff. It would go something like this: each department within the building would consist of: 3 or 4 assistant curators, 2 curators, and one senior curator. Each building would then have a director that oversees the whole place. Of course the number of assistant and regular curators would vary depending on the needs of the department, but that’s the general idea.

The first building would house the ancient sciences. This would consist of: invertebrate paleontology, vertebrate paleontology, Mesozoic paleontology, geology, and archaeology (Why did paleontology get sub divisions? Because it’s what I know best.). The second building would be dedicated to the life sciences: invertebrate zoology, lower vertebrate (fish, reptiles, amphibians) zoology, higher vertebrate (birds, mammals) zoology, molecular biology (cells, DNA, etc), and human biology. Last but not least, the third building would consist of the physical sciences: chemistry, physic, and climatology (yeah I pigeon holed that last one). There would also be a fourth building, housing a space for traveling exhibits, a high tech imaging lab, research library, and offices for the various other administrative departments (education, press, financial, etc). All that, and I would be able to fund it for many decades.

Of course, I could probably shave off $150 million for various other causes. For example, when I went to Sharktooth Hill, the guy said he had sold a couple acres of the bonebed to various institutions, but there would still be 7 acres left. With the obscene amount of money I have, I could buy the remaining 7 acres. I’d keep 3 for my museum to excavate, I would give 2.5 to the Buena Vista Museum (and $5 million to develop it and curate it), and 1.5 acres to the Ray Alf Museum (and 2 million to develop it and curate it. Why not? That place is awesome and has been so good to me. Plus having a bonebed ready to go could add a new dimension to their field and education programs). I probably also give another few million to the Alf. Then I’d give $15 million the San Bernardino County Museum so they could finally finish the Hall of Geologic Wonders (keep the change)! Then how about $20 million to the Cooper Center so they could upgrade their curation facility and prep labs and maybe hire some more people to help prep their back log of fossils and artifacts. I’d also throw $5 million to the Autry National Center so they could fix up and reopen the Southwest Museum. And oh yeah, $8 million to the Charles Paddock Zoo, who is in serious need of renovation. What else? I could probably build some homeless shelters, donate to various conservation efforts, and fund the lunch programs at local schools so the kids are getting healthy, quality food (especially the ones who can’t afford it). Hell, with ten million I could buy this place.

And then convert it into an ice age park (like that one guy is doing in Siberia). Basically I’d stock the land with free roaming bison, horses, camels, llamas, pronghorn, and tapirs. Then people could come and go on a “prehistoric safari”. With a few million more, I could create a small zoo near the front to house the stuff that probably shouldn’t roam free (like elephants as well as the carnivores: lions, cheetahs, jaguars, wolves, and bears). The place would need a game warden, zoo keepers, education staff, and various other employees. That ought to create a few more jobs and boost the local economy! And if I somehow scored the full $1 billion… Well, I could do all of the above and then some.

“Oh please, you would keep it all for yourself”. Well yeah, I’d probably keep just a little bit, mainly as a safety net. I’d probably also use some so my parents can fumigate the house; so they can replace their shower with one whose floor isn’t in danger of caving in; get my sister some help with her kids so she could go back to school (as well as pay for her tuition); help my parents wipe out their credit card debt. You know, things regular people should be able to do but can’t because they have to devote most of their money to just trying to live day to day. That because the economy keeps poking along and the inequality gap keeps growing, people can’t afford to be affluent.

Of course, we all know none of this, the stuff I spent the last 3 days writing, will ever happen. The rich cling to their money like they are preparing for some kind of depression. Now obviously there are exceptions. The richest has a list of the 10 most charitable celebrities. And don’t forget George Lucas donated the $1 billion he made (selling the rights to Star Wars to Disney) to charity. But sadly these people are the exception when they should be the rule. “It’s their money. They can do what they want with it”. Yes, yes it is. It doesn’t mean I can’t condemn their greed. But like I said, none of this matters. This essay, this bloated treatise of whining and wishful thinking, is invisible. It exists only on some hack’s blog, lost in the sea of rantings and babblings that is the internet. Even if this were to be seen by more than a few people, it likely would have no effect other than as a curiosity. Like almost everything else I do, it was in vain.

People who could enact real change in this world choose not to. Meanwhile, those of us who wish to enact change must instead fight and claw our way through life and society to bring about what ever good we can. Like I said, what I could do if given the reasons will never happen because that kind of money only stays with the rich. So what am I to do? I have a few ideas. I could find the tallest building or cliff I can and take a nose dive off it. I could give a baretta a blowjob. I could just grab a humble razor blade and let loose the crimson tide. Except that wouldn’t do any good either. Seriously, what would the death of a complete nobody with delusions of grandeur possibly do to the world? There are 7 billion people on this planet. I am nothing more than a speck of dust. Meanwhile, the real movers and shakers of society, who stand heads and shoulders above most of us, can’t be bothered to think about society outside of their decadent ranks. So here I am, a glorious plan to actually make a difference in the world, left to languish over the fact that while someone could very easily make it happen, they won’t. Because society exists to serve them, when it should be the other way around.

So yeah, that is what has had me down so much lately. I feel like I have stabilized, but honestly, how long can that last? Every day I’m reminded of how insignificant I am in the world, of how powerless I am to make a difference. Meanwhile the ones who should be doing more to help their fellow man instead grow fat off the hard work of the rest of us. If you’re reading this and are one of the wealthy or you know someone wealthy… prove me wrong! Show me that these people aren’t just parasites on society who think they live in a different world than we do. Show me that they aren’t just in it for themselves.

I’d really love for this to go somewhere, but I know it won’t. No one cares. No one cares about making the hellhole of modern civilization better. They only care about themselves (although if they are on the bottom, as A LOT of people are, they simply don’t have a choice as they have to work hard just to keep their heads above water). They can’t seem to grasp the concept that we as a population, as a race, as a people, are in this together. But how can we ever hope to improve if the potential for change is never given a chance? I think I have gone on long enough. Let’s hope I can keep myself together.

Till next time…

PS- on a lighter note, if you care to say, what would you do with any of the above amounts of dough? Would it be as grandios as what I said? Feel free to elaborate in the comments.

Hey there every peoples.

My last post seemed like a total non starter. I knew it would be insignificant, but damn, did it seem to go unnoticed, even by this blog’s standards. But still, whether I had a billion dollars or just a few thousand, where would my museum go? I have talked about all kinds of places on “The Hit List”. These are extremely numerous and probably unfeasible to try and tackle in my lifetime (of course assuming I even make it far enough to start building a collection). So I have decided to place priority on some select localities I have dubbed “Paleontology Hot Spots”. These are places that boast a long and continuous fossil history. Instead of just a few million years of most geologic formations, these “hotspots” have multiple sequences of formations that really detail the changes in life and environment through time. I have selected 4 that I’d like my museum to focus on should it ever take off.

1. Southern California- Come one, you saw this one coming. I guess I don’t have to talk too much about this one. Basically the fossil record here in southern California is superb. The Central Coast alone has a pretty decent fossil record. Supplement that with localities like the Goler Formation, Sharktooth Hill, Red Rock Canyon, Barstow, The Moreno Hills, and a few other small localities. Southern California still has some fossils to yield. Hopefully I could uncover some of them.

Plotosaurus, a sea going mosasaur from the late cretaceous Moreno formation, Fresno County.

Jaw of Pterodon, a carnivorus mammal from the Eocene section of the Sespe formation, Central Coast

Mesohippus, a small three-toed horse from the Oligocene section of the Sespe formation, Ventura County.

Partial skull of a large, three-toed browsing horse (Megahippus) from the Barstow formation, San Bernardino County.

Leg and teeth of a hippo-like rhino from the Dove Spring Formation, Red Rock Canyon State Park.

Partially articulated whale skeleton from Sharktooth Hill, Kern County.

Flipper of a Pliocene walrus (Valenictis) from the Pismo Formation, San Luis Obispo County.

Tusk of a Southern Mammoth from the early Pleistocene of Ventura County.

2. John Day Fossil Beds- I have been hooked on this place since I first visited it 10 years ago. The JDB not has a near continuous record of 40 million years, but it also chronicles the evolution of plants, animals, and land in stunning detail. However it’s story isn’t told outside of Oregon. I mean, it’s fantastic that it has good representation in its home state. But there are large and significant collections in Berkeley, Yale, The American Museum, The Smithsonian and others. But none of he John Day stuff (to my meager knowledge, at least) sees the light of day. Instead, it’s always stuff from South Dakota and Nebraska. The JDFB are perhaps the greatest unsung story of paleontology. I want to help tell it.

Plant fossils (fruits, nuts, and woody parts) from the early Eocene Clarno formation (Nut Beds).

Alligator bones from the middle Eocene Clarno formation (Hancock Mammal Quarry)

Skull and forelimb of Nimravus, a sabertooth cat-like animal from the middle Oligocene John Day formation.

Skeleton of Diceratherium, a cow-sized rhino from the middle Oligocene John Day formation.

Jaw of Gomphotherium, an ancient four-tusked elephant from the middle Miocene Mascal formation.

Partial jaw of Dromomeryx, a horned deer-like animal from the middle Miocene Mascal formation.

Teeth of Indarctos, a large short-faced bear from the late Miocene Rattlesnake formation.

Jaws of Megatylopus, a giant camel from the late Miocene Rattlesnake formation.

3. San Juan Basin- This next one isn’t as continuous as John Day but stretches about the same amount of time. As far as I can tell, it contains 5 or so formations stretching from the Cetaceous to the Eocene. The Fruitland and Kirtland formations detail the currently hot topic of the Campanian (~75 mya). Lesser known are the sediments of the Ojo Alamo formation. These date to the Maastrichtian, which was the last faunal age of the cretaceous. These are important because the focus on the Maastrichtian has been revolving around the northern part of North America, specifically the Hell Creek formation. But Hell Creek can’t speak for everything. The Ojo Alamo formation has the potential to greatly increase our knowledge of what was going on in the twilight of the Mesozoic. Andy Farke has lamented about dinosaur formations being picked over. This one may not. As far as I can tell, very little work has been done on any of the San Juan Basin’s mesozoic strata. Hell, Denver Fowler said he published the “Alamosaurus was one of the largest dinosaurs ever” paper to try and drum up interest in the Ojo Alamo. Well it got me hooked. Perhaps if I ever get my museum of the ground, Andy can come join us in trying the secrets of the Mesozoic in New Mexico.

Palm frond from the Fruitland formation>

Tyrannosaur tooth from the Fruitland formation.

Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus from the Kirtland Formation. From Wikipedia

Skeleton of Titanoceratops (or Pentaceratops, depending who you ask) from the Kirtland formation. From Flickr User jkay2.

Alamosaurus under Attack by Tyrannosaurus. Alamosaurus and tyrannosaurs are known from the Ojo Alamo formation. Image from Flickr User Rodney

But the San Juan isn’t just about dinosaurs. The basin also chronicles the transition from the age of reptiles to the age of mammals. The Nacimiento formation provides rare and valuable fosils from the Paleocene epoch. This was the time right after the dinosaurs went extinct, when the world was recovering from the K/P mass extinction. Following that is the San Jose Formation, which dates to the early Eocene epoch. This was the time after the Paleocene when mammals were diversifying and becoming the major component of the fauna. So as you can see, the San Juan Basin shows a very very dramatic change in plant and animal life from two of the 4 major periods of life’s history. Much Like the JDFB, I want to tell this incredible story that no one else seems to be doing.

Plesiadapis, a forerunner to primates. (This one is from Wyoming but similar animals have been found in the Nacimiento formation). From Google Images

Multituberculate skull (extinct rodent-like mammal) from the Paleocee of New Mexico

Skull of stylinodon, a extinct mammal almost twoo wierd for words (this skull is from Utah, but similar animals have been found in the San Jose formation)

4. Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument- This one lured me in because of my initial taking to the idea of dinosaur provincialism. But now I want to go because like the others it represents a detailed stretch of time. The oldest exposures I’m interested in are the 90 million year old Tropic Shale. So right there my museum would have a source of marine reptiles. Then is the ~80 mya Wahweap formation, which doesn’t seem to be getting as much attention as the overlying Kaiparowits formation. The monument just seems like a great place to hunt for Mesozoic fossils.

Lower jaw of a pliosaur from the Tropic Shale.

Front flipper of a plesiosaur from the Tropic Shale.

Skull of Diabloceratops from the Wahweap formation.

Skeleton of the tyrannosaur Lythronax from the Wahweap formation. From Flickr User *TonyC

Skull of Gryposaurus monumententsis from the Kaiparowits formation.

Skeleton of the giant crocodilian Deinosuchus from the Kaiparowits formation. From Flickr User *TonyC

Those are the main hotspots I’d like to go looking for fossils. But that doesn’t mean other places are out of the question. These places represent specific times and places. As i can’t stress enough how you can’t generalize based on one species or one place. To understand the big picture, you need to see what was going on elsewhere. For example, the material we find in the Ojo Alamo formation can be complimented from other Maastrichtian units, like Wyoming’s Lance formation or even Utah’s North Horn formation (I have seen Jim Kirkland mention a couple times that more people need to get into the North Horn formation). And none of them talk about the Jurassic or Triassic, or the whole of the Paleozoic. To have a truly comprehensive collection we need rocks and fossils from all time periods. But i want to focus on these hotspots because of their great importance as well as the fact that they don’t seem to be getting the attention they deserve.

Of course none of that will ever happen. I am ambitious to a super high degree, perhaps too much for my own good. And paleontological ambition can only be taken as far as funding and manpower allow. As I detailed in my last post, the funding for this level of paleontological investigation could be easily attained, but never will. That’s because those with the money would rather spend it on themselves (either to fund their opulent lifestyle or to influence government to suit their interests). That could be so easily be proven wrong by donating to causes, like mine. But again, it’s only about what provides immediate benefit to them. So this list of “paleontological hotspots” will never be fully realized. Perhaps someday, a more able person can help tell at least one of their stories.

Till next time.

Hey there every peoples!

As I’m teetering on the raggedy edge, I have been trying everything to keep my mind off it. School, movies, just going out for a walk. It aint looking good. But one thing that has been helping is a book that was released near a month ago. It tells the tale of a lost world that existed not too long ago. It was a world unlike anything else on earth, and with all the press and hype concerning dinosaurs, this place is a breath of fresh air. I am of course talking about Madagascar.

Madagascar as it is today continues to fascinate us. It’s populated by strange and wonderful plants and animals, from colorful chameleons to bulbous baobab trees. Chief among Madagascar’s native life are the lemurs, thought to be the most primitive of living primates. The third largest island in the world, Madagascar is famous for its high number of endemic species (endemic= found in one place and nowhere else). Madagascar is a world apart, but what we see today is but a remnant of a much greater ecosystem. One that disappeared relatively recently and featured a bizarre assortment of beasts.

This lost world is detailed in Extinct Madagascar: Picturing the Island’s Past. It’s written by Steven M. Goodman and William L. Jungers and illustrated by Velizar Simeonovski. The book discusses the extinct fauna (mega and micro) of the island that lived during the Holocene. Comparatively puny compared to megafauna in the rest of the world, Madagascar’s megafauna is unique for going extinct after the Pleistocene. The huge beasts of the ice age died out during the late Pleistocene, between ~50,000 (Australia) and 11,000 (the Americas, Eurasia) years ago. But Madagascar’s giant animals persevered, maybe because of their isolation. Though work is continuing, it appears Madagascar’s megafauna died out ~2,000 years ago.

This book is a very welcome sight. It discusses the extinct animals, ecosystems, and climates of Madagascar in great detail. When I first learned of the island’s megafauna, i hardly knew anything. All i had heard was pygmy hippos, giant tortoise, a giant lemur (Megaladapis), and the famous Elephant Bird. It seemed like a rather depleted fauna. Not only was I left with this paltry number, but the elephant bird was the only thing I could find more information on. Later on a couple more lemurs will fill out the fauna (Paleopropithecus and Archaeolemur). But my understanding of the island was still dim… until this book came along.

A book like this comes along only once in a great while. A central, concise volume to give an excellent overview of the subject. Here, they spend the first few chapters talking about Madagascar’s geology, modern climate, human history, and other things. Then he rest of the book is spent talking about specific sites on the island. Each chapter tackles a specific fossil site (many of them are limestone caves), discussing the history of the site, it’s flora, fauna, dates, and aspects of its past climate and environment. The last two chapters talk about specific species.

The book is accompanied by 20 color plates. These are done in the increasingly popular computer painting. Now I’m not a big fan of this type of art. Most of the time they just look like dated cgi. The computer modeled creature over a modern landscape just looks disjointed and clearly photoshoped. And man is it jarring when the artist (lie images i have seen online) simply photoshops a modern animal to resemble an extinct one. Luckily, though, that is not the case here. Color plates are rather seamless. The animals blend well with the environment, save for one or two examples. The animals look natural and realistic. If only more digital art was this good!

“Cap Sainte Marie- The Ecology of Elephant Birds and their Interface with Humans” by Velizar Simeonovski. I want a poster of this to hang on my wall!

“Ampasambazimba- Reconstruction of a Montane Forest and Woodland Habitat that No Longer Occurs on the Island” by Velizar Simeonovski. Front and center is the gorilla-sized lemur Archaeoindris.

“Tsimanampetsotsa- Rapid Ecological Shifts in the Face of Natural Climate Change” by Velizar Simeonovski. A lakeside community of pygmy hippos, giant tortoises, elephant birds, giant lemurs, and others.

“Ankilitelo- A Deep Pit Cave and Inferences about Recent Ecological and Faunal Changes” by Velizar Simeonovski. A giant aye aye (Daubentonia robusta) prepares to raid a bird nest, while a vontsira looks to munch on some cockroaches.

“Ankarana II- Ecological Change of a Forest Community, a Bird’s-Eye View from the Forest Canopy” by Velizar Simeonovski. Pachylemur acrobatically reaches for some fruit while the sloth lemur Babakotia watches. Idris and sifakas forage in the background.

The book is written in a manner that anyone can understand what their are saying (a very needed trait, at least if you want to reach outside the scientific community). And what they introduce the reader to is an island overrun with creatures straight out of fantasy. Well beyond the few species I was introduced to so long ago, this is a fauna rich in unique animals. Instead of just the giant elephant bird (Aepyornis maximus), this book has introduced several species of different sizes. There was even another genus of elephant bird (Mullerornis) who was the size of an ostrich. There were giant tortoises related to the Aldabra tortoise, who is now found on a small atoll east of Madagascar. Two or three species of pygmy hippos were likely the chef grazers. Two species of a bizarre aardvark-like animal (called a bibymalagasian) are known. The cave fosa (Cryptoprocta spelaea), 50% larger than its modern counterpart, was among the top predators . The other two being crocodiles; the Nile crocodile, and an equally large extinct species Voay (whose tooth marks have been found on the bone of an extinct lemur).

Like today, the stars of the extinct fauna were lemurs. With one or two exceptions, they were far larger than their modern relatives, hence often being referred to as giant lemurs. Two species of “monkey lemurs”, Archaeolemur, lived on the ground, joined by the 90 pound Hadropithecus. Rounding out the ground lemurs was an enigmatic species called Archaeoindris. This creature is known from a complete skull with lower jaw and a few other bones. It has been estimated to have weighed 400 pounds, making it not only the largest lemur ever to live, but also one of the largest primates of all time. Features of the few bones we have suggests it could climb, but because of its size it likely spent most of its time on the ground.

Lemur diversity was even greater up in the trees. The smallest of them, Pachylemur, was the size of the largest living lemur, the Indri (demonstrating well the size discrepancies between past and present faunas: the smallest giant lemur was the size of the largest modern one). Next up is the slightly larger Mesopropithecus, with three species to its name. There was an extinct species of aye aye, 3-4 times larger than the modern species. Now we come to curious group known as “sloth lemurs”. These animals got that name because they are very, very sloth like. In fact, the first bones were thought to be sloths, in a remarkable case of convergent evolution. Babakotia was the least specialized, though they probably still spent plenty of time hanging upside down. Much more specialized for hanging was Paleopropithecus. There are three species known, two of which weigh over 80 pounds! I imagine that they were probably quicker than their namesake, since a sloth moves slow due to their extremely slow metabolism (unless Paleopropithecus also had one). King of the trees in Madagascar was the giant “koala lemur” Megaladapis, who was the size of a grown man (or an orangutan, the largest modern arboreal animal). But the trees were by no means safe. An extinct relative of the African crowned eagle has been found at numerous sites on the island. Given that the modern species regularly preys on primates its size, and has even been implicated in the death of a fossil hominin (the Taung Child, in case you weren’t in the know). This extinct species likely preyed on lemurs. Indeed, shoulder bones of a sloth lemur (Paleopropithecus) have been found with huge punctures in them. Given the size of an adult sloth lemur, the extinct crowned eagle probably went after sub adults.

“Stephanoaetus mahery- a Presumed Primate Specialist and it’s Role in the Evolution of Behaviroal Aspects of Living and Extinct Lemurs” by Velizar Simeonovski. A subadult sloth lemur (Paleopropithecus ingens) about to meet its doom at the hands of an extinct Madagascar crowned eagle.

Of course, that’s the megafauna. The book spends equal time discussing the smaller modern lemurs, rodents, bats, and birds. All these extinct animals, great and small, demonstrate how devastating Madagascar’s extinction was. Today, the largest native mammal is a 20 pound lemur (Indri). What happened? The two competing theories, like everywhere else, are climate change and over hunting. The book cautions that it’s not that simple. Indeed, studies of the fossils sites show a dramatic drying out of the island. Radio carbon dates of subfossil bones show that everything may not have died out at the same time. While many butchered bones have been found, they are currently too few in number to point to any greater trends.

The book does have one or two minor flaws. These mainly lie in the reconstructions. The bibymalagasian is portrayed as aardvark-like. But then in one plate, it looks like some tapir thing. And then the giant lemur Megaladapis. It’s always discussed as being arboreal. But in the pates it is invariably shown on the ground. What did it look like in it’s main habitat (the trees)? Not sure the reasoning behind that. And i wish there had been a couple more chapters on individual species. Like Megaladapis, since it seems to be a rather ubiquitous component of the fauna. But these are mostly minor gripes, and don’t really detract from the book as a whole.

Overall, I highly recommend getting this book. The chapters are detailed and well written, it provides a fantastic overview of the island’s past fauna, and the artwork is steller. I wish there were more books like this for specific times and places. If only someone could do a similar book on Australia (Pleistocene) and New Zealand (Holocene). Because this book has set the bar rather high.

Till next time.

Hey there every peoples!

Been a helleva long time since i last posted anything. I have had a lot of personnel things to deal with. Also been busy with traveling, family stuff. And now I’m busy working on something big (which I’ll talk about more later). But i am working on something somewhat special 100th post. So stay tuned

Hey there every peoples!

What the hell happened? Well, i don’t know. I’ll try to finish Australia when i can. But right now i want to talk about the commercial fossil trade once again. I once tried to defend the commercialists. But after a certain incident i have seen the error on my ways. Thee nothing redeemable about them. They are destroying the ancient heritage of everyone in a gross, twisted mockery of a noble scientific profession all in the name of making a buck. Commercialists need to be stopped if the fossil record is to survive at all.

Why the change of heart? Like i said, something happened to me that made me realize how despicable commercialists are. I won’t bore you with the details. But i used to defend commercialists because i knew one. He seemed different. He seemed to believe in the science of paleontology and in the Grand Vision as well. I saw that unlike what i had read, commercialists weren’t all the same and that there could be some good in them. Finally, after working with him for a while, i was given an opportunity to finally advance the Grand Vision. Me and my hopes of a Central Coast Museum were finally moving forward in a significant way. And then… i got stabbed in the back. My dreams and hopes were crushed because he didn’t think it was profitable (of course, how he handled the situation would reveal just how much of a sniveling weasel he really was). I thought he was different. But turned out he was just the same s every other commercialist: selfish, greedy, unable to think beyond anything and anyone but themselves. A lowlife who thinks only in terms of dollar value, not scientific value or the public welfare. It was difficult for me to handle. I’m still reeling from it. I’m basically back at square one.But most importantly, i have learned that these money grubbing whores are the true threat to paleontology and the natural heritage of everyone.

Let me tell you a little story:

A man named Don is putting together a puzzle at a picnic table in the park. He enjoys doing puzzles for the challenge and the thrill of seeing the finished product. He does his puzzles in the park because he likes sharing the process with people and happily showing them the whole picture. He would get many visitors, asking questions and usually just admiring his work. He is joined by a particularity interested little girl named Beth. She is not so good with puzzles and doesn’t fully understand them but likes watching the man, a pro, do it. She is always amazed when it is finished, looking at the result of hard work and determination.

Then a person walks up and picks up one of the pieces. “Ooh, this one is so pretty!” They start to put it in their pocket.
“Excuse me,” said Don, “I need that to finish the puzzle.”
The person just stared at them. “I collect blue pieces, and this one would look great in my collection.”
“But i need it to complete the puzzle!” Don protested.
“Oh don’t worry about it. You have so many pieces I’m sure you won’t miss just one.” The person walked off, ogling their new prize. Don continued working on the puzzle and Beth kept watching.

Then another person walked up and immediately seized a few pieces.
“Wow, you any idea how much these are worth?” They said in a giddy tone.
“What do you mean?” Asked Don.
“These are some pretty rare pieces. Collectors would be willing to pay a lot of money for them!”
“That’s nice but those pieces are very important. They could fill in a crucial gap in the puzzle.”
Beth chimed in: ” Besides, me and everyone else won’t get to see the whole puzzle if you take those pieces. Those pieces belong to all of us.”
The person wasn’t buying it. “But there still plenty of pieces. Besides, i could make so much money with these.” He walked off with the pieces he stole.

Don did eventually finish the puzzle. It appeared to be a duck in a pond. Except there was a hole in the water where the first person took a blue piece. The duck’s head was missing, as well as a couple pieces of the cattails from where the second person took them. Don was disappointed because he will never be able to complete the puzzle. Beth is sad because she and everyone else will never see the whole, beautiful picture. Both have been dealt a heavy blow because some people put their own self-gratification above the well being of everyone else.

I will admit it’s not my best bit of fiction but i hope it illustrates the problem here. In case you couldn’t figure it out, Don represent scientists, Beth is the public, and the two people represent private collectors and commercialists. The puzzle represents the fossil record. Without all the pieces Don couldn’t fully understand and reconstruct the puzzle. Beth wouldn’t be able to admire the finished puzzle, the product of all the work of Don. Don doing the puzzle in public so everyone can know and appreciate it was rendered pointless. Basically, when commercialists gain, everyone else looses.

Private collectors are a problem, but i wouldn’t say they are the main problem. Private collectors are usually enthusiastic and are simply ignorant of the harm they can do. Besides, many of them do eventually donate their stuff to a museum. So in the greater scheme of things they are more of a nuisance. Commercialists, on the other hand, are actively harmful. Spurred on by the possibly of big money, they scrabble to get their hands on anything they think can turn a profit, often overlooking or even destroying other important fossils. They often break the law, collecting fossils illegal from public lands. They are pillaging the scientific record and the heritage of everyone because they can’t value anything other than money. And what is more, these guys are kind of like creationists. They don’t listen to reason or logic. They usually trot out the same tired talking points. They can’t, for the life of them, see that what they are is wrong and refuse to stop doing what they are doing because their rabid faith (in this case, in money) blinds them. So lets take a look at how they try to justify themselves.

“Museums already have plenty of important specimens.”- I point you back to my puzzle analogy. Every fossil is important to unraveling the secrets of the past. The more fossils we have, the more hypotheses we can test. If we don’t have all the pieces, we will never have a full understanding of our planet’s marvelous past.

“Scientists can still study specimens in private collections. They refuse to out of their own stubbornness.”- Like i said back in my other post on this subject, there are some big reasons why paleontologists don’t touch stuff held privately. The most important thing in science is the ability to repeat the results of a study. That allows scientists to either confirm or debunk them. This is easy in a museum, where the specimens are cataloged and held in the public perpetually. In private collections, however, the fate of the specimens is uncertain. Even if the owner allows access to scientists, that scenario may not last. They may suddenly change their mind and deny access. They may sell it. They may die and then the relatives, not knowing what to do with it, either sell it or just throw it out. Only in a museum is the future of a specimen secure. That is why scientists only publish on specimens in museums.

“Most specimens are never seen by the public in a museum. We’re simply making it more accessible.”- I actually agree with you on the first point. The one of the main reasons i want to start my own museum is because my fossil heritage remains locked away, out of view, in foreign museums. So many stories go untold because museums only have so much display space and choose only the biggest, most impressive specimens to lure visitors. But the solution is not to sell fossils. You really want to make fossils more accessible? Support museums. Donate to them so can afford the lengthy process of creating online databases; so they can build more exhibit space; so they can more effectively utilize social media. And face it, you’re not making specimens more available to the public by selling them. You are making them available only to the few who could afford them. And then those will disappear into their private collection, where only that person and their few family and friends will see it. That is hardly the idea of being available to everyone.

“Scientists don’t have the manpower or resources to find all fossils. Think of all the fossils that would have been lost to erosion had we not found them.”- That is true. So many fossils are lost because museums can’t field enough people to scour the badlands. But your “rescue” is irrelevant because what you find goes to the market, not a museum. It might as well have withered to dust. My museum could put some more bodies in the field, but that’s assuming i get it up and running.

“But they are just following their passion.”- Bullshit. If they were so passionate about fossils, why are they whoring them out to the highest bidder? Why do they only invest time and work into specimens they think will bring in the big bucks? If they are so passionate, why do they often break the law by collecting on public land or smuggling specimens out of other countries? Passion is working for peanuts in a museum or univerity because you love fossils and study them for the enrichment of humanity’s knowledge base. Here’s a few examples from that shit eating worm who betrayed me:

1) I was talking to him about how when the museum was up i wanted to lead people out into the field like what the L.A. and Burpee museums do. Trying to explain to him how in paleontology you have to take what you can get, i asked him “What if we go to the field and all we find is a horse tooth?” His response? “I’d consider it a waste. I’d let them keep it.” Wow. So passionate means discarding anything that isn’t big and flashy (and therefore, worth a lot of money)?
2) Many invertebrate specimens we had found… He just left them in crates outside, in the elements. So passionate means leaving the “ok” stuff out to rot because you don’t think they’ll for as much?
3) He was completely unwilling to drive more than an hour to a site. Places like Apache Canyon and Cuyama Valley were “so far away”. Plus he avoided going out if it was hot. Jeez, if he can’t handle the weather here, he never would survive going to some of the more well known localities in the badlands. So being passionate means not willing to go the extra mile to live the dream?

That doesn’t not sound like a passionate enthusiast to me. That sounds like a deadbeat who wilts in the face of doing a little hard work. I have gone out in the sweltering heat and managed just fine. I have driven hours just to visit a little museum in the middle of nowhere just to view their fossils. And above all else, i know that fossils belong in museums, where they can be enjoyed by everyone. The pursuit of monetary gain is not passion. It is blind, naked greed.

“Scientists just don’t like competition.”- Yes, they don’t. Mainly because they can’t compete at all. The price tags of many fossils on the market are just not doable for museums. A while ago a man was hoping to get a million dollars for a Triceratops skull. The Montana Dueling Dinosaurs were expected to fetch 9 million dollars. Nine million! For most museums, that is the cost of a major renovation. For the love of Christ, you know what i could do with 9 million dollars? I could build my museum, instal some exhibits, and probably have enough leftover to fund several seasons in the field. Nine million dollars would go a very long way in funding museum operations and commercialists think they should cough up that much just on a specimen or two? Give me a break! Because these yahoos can only focus on making money, they aren’t willing to offer them to museums for less than an obscene amount.

Money truly is the great corrupter. Those who have a lot of money, who could use that money to do great things, instead use to get more money and fund their hideously opulent lifestyles. The money required to create wonderful exhibits, excellent education programs, and quality research is chump change compared to the holdings of the many millionaires and billionaires that sit atop our society. But they apparently don’t bat an eye about spending that money to influence politics, buy their fifth home, or go to the opposite end of the world for the weekend. Some even use that money to buy fossils at auctions, failing to realize that same amount of money, donated to a museum, would find many more specimens. And who supplies those fossils? The commercialists, who pretend to be noble fossils hunters who in reality are little more than loathsome vultures ripping apart and regurgitating the fossil record that represents everyone’s heritage. They need to be confronted head on and stopped. Thomas Carr once suggested using eminent domain to reclaim fossils from commercialists. I think that would create a PR nightmare, but now I’d be willing to give it a shot. We need to hit commercialists in he only thing they care about: their wallet. Money is all they understand, so if we cost them their precious money to get their attention, we need to do it.

So there’s that. I am going on a trip up north but when i get back, i hope to conclude Australia Month.

Till next time!

Please read the whole post if you wish to gain insight into what has been eating at me so much lately. Also, this will sound like a rant. I’m just trying to vent.

Hey, there are all kind of peoples.

Well despite my best efforts (including trying to distract myself by talking about video games), the demon still has a grip on me. I have decided to go with the dumping option: just belt it all out. I’m hoping that by getting these festering thoughts out of my head I might finally be able to stabilize. Let’s see if I’m right.

The Grand Vision isn’t just some career option. The quest to start a museum here on the Central Coast and the mission it represents has become a part of my identity, who I am. However, the project doesn’t really extend beyond myself at the moment. I have sent outreach letters to various museums and organizations throughout the Central Coast. But who knows how that will go. I almost had an opportunity to create a small museum that surely would have boosted the effort. But that dream was stolen from me and I found myself betrayed and back to the drawing board. Right now the Grand Vision hangs by a thread, and the stability of my mind with it. Of course, the most important thing to starting a museum is: money.

Museums need money not only to start, but also (and much more crucially) to maintain operations. Museum are mostly non-profits, so they are reliant on the generosity of others (donations, community partners, etc). A little while back, I had some ignorant dullard accuse me of being jealous of commercialists, that I couldn’t have “a piece” of their money. I don’t care about their money. My number one concern is the fossils. Besides, commercialists have dirty money. That money was made selling fossils, minerals, and artifacts. No matter the amount, I would never touch it. Trying to fund a museum by selling fossils makes about as much sense as funding elephant conservation by selling ivory. Accepting money from commercialists would be practical, but morally reprehensible.

I do covet money, but not for the conventional reasons. Commercialists are in it to make money, to line their pockets. As I said, I don’t want their money. I want to try and make this world a better place by creating a place of science. Unfortunately, science is abysmally low on everyone’s list of priorities unless it’s “practical”; that is, if it’s immediately useful and/or can be profited off of. One of the greatest problems in this world is the concentration on the self. People live in a little bubble consisting mostly of them self and maybe those closest to them. They care not for the world around them, even though they are very clearly a part of it. Selflessness is a liability, and all energy must be focused on themself. Now obviously that focus can be justified depending on how much money a person has. If someone is barely making enough to feed and house their family then yes, they should focus on that (why they should have to worry about that is another can of worms for some other time). But what about those who are doing very well for themselves?

I think there are two kinds of people in this world: those who could make a difference but can’t, and those who can make a difference but don’t. This complete lack of selflessness in people is truly exemplified by the rich. These people have the ability to really make a difference in the world, to help their fellow human beings in numerous ways. But instead what do they do? They use their wealth to fund extravagant and lavish lifestyles: expensive clothes, fancy restaurants, luxury vacations to far flung exotic locales, huge posh homes, exorbitant crafts (yachts, private jets etc), and (in the case of many folks on the coming list) polluting and trying to control the political process. These people could use their money to fund various causes and still live comfortably. But instead, they just cling to their money. Because our culture is obsessed with money. We equate having lots of it with success. We are expected to admire and worship these people because they have “made it”. Money is still treated as some kind of status symbol; the more you have, the “greater” you are supposed to be. It is all about them. They keep making more and more money and clinging to it so that they can continue serving their own interests.

So yes, I am envious of the rich. But it’s only because I see all this money sitting around and thinking about how much good I could do with it. Instead of living life a rich asshole, I could make the kinds of differences that these people refuse to do. So we are going to look at various rich folks and what I could do with the kind of money they save for themselves. Then I will tell you what I could do with it (using the website TheRichest).

1. Mitch McConnal- First up on our list is Ol’ Turtle. This guy has been one of the leaders of the most obstructive and unproductive congress in history. According to the site, his net worth is $9.8 million. While that is a huge sum to the most of us, it is rather small to the costs of starting a museum. But with nearly ten million dollars, I could likely buy a small warehouse and convert it into a curation facility. I could probably also rent some space downtown as a display site. There out to be a couple million left over to then fund our activities for a couple years.
2. Sarah Palin- The Qitta from Wasilla has made a tidy living blithering like an idiot both on stage and Fox “News”. She’s worth $12 million. That would probably allow me to do the same as in number 1, but with more money for operating costs.
3. John McCain- After failing to become president, John McCain now spends his days as an angry old white guy trying desperately to stay relevant. He lucked out by marrying a beer heiress. His net worth sits as a modest $21 million. That kind of money would actually allow me to build a custom made curation facility from scratch. Then I could use the leftovers to fund the place.
4. George W Bush- The guy who likes to act like a cowboy but lives like a king. The guy who is considered by many to be the worst president ever sits pretty at $35 million. Wow, I could probably add some initial display space to the custom built facility.
5. M. Night Shayamalan- This guy has become legendary for a career that started off beautifully… and then took a nose dive… and has gotten worse with each film. And yet he is worth a cool $50 million. That much could get the last option but be able to fund it for a few years.
6. Dick Cheney- Everyone’s favorite war criminal with a scowl not even a mother could love. Dick has done well for himself, being worth $90 million. With that, I could get the custom built curation facility, add some exhibit space, and fund it for a few years with a curator or two.
7. Morgan Freeman- Ah, now we’re getting into the big bucks. This academy award winning actor is undeniably at the apogee of talent. He is worth the not inconsiderable sum of $150 million. That could get the previous option, but have some money available for future expansion.
8. Justin Bieber- This poser/twit/little shit is somehow worth $200 million. Never mind what I would do with it… I have already talked about Bieber more than anyone ever should.
9. Adam Sandler- A decent actor who for some reason keeps making terrible movies. Sandler is currently worth $300 million. With that, I could build a proper natural history museum, with a small (to start) research staff that could be funded for a couple decades.

Alright, we are getting to the really big players. Basically, they could all contribute the same amount. They are:

Larry Page- $31 billion

Sheldon Adelson- $36.5 billion

David Koch- $49.9 billion

Now let’s start with the amount of $500 million. This would be chump change for these guys. But for people like me, it is mana from heaven. What would I do with half a billion dollars? Be sure to take your bathroom break now because I’m about to unleash a wall of text!

With half a billion dollars, I could create a veritable academy of sciences. It would be divided into three buildings, each with its own collections facility and exhibit space. Each one would have its own hierarchy of research staff. It would go something like this: each department within the building would consist of: 3 or 4 assistant curators, 2 curators, and one senior curator. Each building would then have a director that oversees the whole place. Of course the number of assistant and regular curators would vary depending on the needs of the department, but that’s the general idea.

The first building would house the ancient sciences. This would consist of: invertebrate paleontology, vertebrate paleontology, Mesozoic paleontology, geology, and archaeology (Why did paleontology get sub divisions? Because it’s what I know best.). The second building would be dedicated to the life sciences: invertebrate zoology, lower vertebrate (fish, reptiles, amphibians) zoology, higher vertebrate (birds, mammals) zoology, molecular biology (cells, DNA, etc), and human biology. Last but not least, the third building would consist of the physical sciences: chemistry, physic, and climatology (yeah I pigeon holed that last one). There would also be a fourth building, housing a space for traveling exhibits, a high tech imaging lab, research library, and offices for the various other administrative departments (education, press, financial, etc). All that, and I would be able to fund it for many decades.

Of course, I could probably shave off $150 million for various other causes. For example, when I went to Sharktooth Hill, the guy said he had sold a couple acres of the bonebed to various institutions, but there would still be 7 acres left. With the obscene amount of money I have, I could buy the remaining 7 acres. I’d keep 3 for my museum to excavate, I would give 2.5 to the Buena Vista Museum (and $5 million to develop it and curate it), and 1.5 acres to the Ray Alf Museum (and 2 million to develop it and curate it. Why not? That place is awesome and has been so good to me. Plus having a bonebed ready to go could add a new dimension to their field and education programs). I probably also give another few million to the Alf. Then I’d give $15 million the San Bernardino County Museum so they could finally finish the Hall of Geologic Wonders (keep the change)! Then how about $20 million to the Cooper Center so they could upgrade their curation facility and prep labs and maybe hire some more people to help prep their back log of fossils and artifacts. I’d also throw $5 million to the Autry National Center so they could fix up and reopen the Southwest Museum. And oh yeah, $8 million to the Charles Paddock Zoo, who is in serious need of renovation. What else? I could probably build some homeless shelters, donate to various conservation efforts, and fund the lunch programs at local schools so the kids are getting healthy, quality food (especially the ones who can’t afford it). Hell, with ten million I could buy this place.

And then convert it into an ice age park (like that one guy is doing in Siberia). Basically I’d stock the land with free roaming bison, horses, camels, llamas, pronghorn, and tapirs. Then people could come and go on a “prehistoric safari”. With a few million more, I could create a small zoo near the front to house the stuff that probably shouldn’t roam free (like elephants as well as the carnivores: lions, cheetahs, jaguars, wolves, and bears). The place would need a game warden, zoo keepers, education staff, and various other employees. That ought to create a few more jobs and boost the local economy! And if I somehow scored the full $1 billion… Well, I could do all of the above and then some.

“Oh please, you would keep it all for yourself”. Well yeah, I’d probably keep just a little bit, mainly as a safety net. I’d probably also use some so my parents can fumigate the house; so they can replace their shower with one whose floor isn’t in danger of caving in; get my sister some help with her kids so she could go back to school (as well as pay for her tuition); help my parents wipe out their credit card debt. You know, things regular people should be able to do but can’t because they have to devote most of their money to just trying to live day to day. That because the economy keeps poking along and the inequality gap keeps growing, people can’t afford to be affluent.

Of course, we all know none of this, the stuff I spent the last 3 days writing, will ever happen. The rich cling to their money like they are preparing for some kind of depression. Now obviously there are exceptions. The richest has a list of the 10 most charitable celebrities. And don’t forget George Lucas donated the $1 billion he made (selling the rights to Star Wars to Disney) to charity. But sadly these people are the exception when they should be the rule. “It’s their money. They can do what they want with it”. Yes, yes it is. It doesn’t mean I can’t condemn their greed. But like I said, none of this matters. This essay, this bloated treatise of whining and wishful thinking, is invisible. It exists only on some hack’s blog, lost in the sea of rantings and babblings that is the internet. Even if this were to be seen by more than a few people, it likely would have no effect other than as a curiosity. Like almost everything else I do, it was in vain.

People who could enact real change in this world choose not to. Meanwhile, those of us who wish to enact change must instead fight and claw our way through life and society to bring about what ever good we can. Like I said, what I could do if given the reasons will never happen because that kind of money only stays with the rich. So what am I to do? I have a few ideas. I could find the tallest building or cliff I can and take a nose dive off it. I could give a baretta a blowjob. I could just grab a humble razor blade and let loose the crimson tide. Except that wouldn’t do any good either. Seriously, what would the death of a complete nobody with delusions of grandeur possibly do to the world? There are 7 billion people on this planet. I am nothing more than a speck of dust. Meanwhile, the real movers and shakers of society, who stand heads and shoulders above most of us, can’t be bothered to think about society outside of their decadent ranks. So here I am, a glorious plan to actually make a difference in the world, left to languish over the fact that while someone could very easily make it happen, they won’t. Because society exists to serve them, when it should be the other way around.

So yeah, that is what has had me down so much lately. I feel like I have stabilized, but honestly, how long can that last? Every day I’m reminded of how insignificant I am in the world, of how powerless I am to make a difference. Meanwhile the ones who should be doing more to help their fellow man instead grow fat off the hard work of the rest of us. If you’re reading this and are one of the wealthy or you know someone wealthy… prove me wrong! Show me that these people aren’t just parasites on society who think they live in a different world than we do. Show me that they aren’t just in it for themselves.

I’d really love for this to go somewhere, but I know it won’t. No one cares. No one cares about making the hellhole of modern civilization better. They only care about themselves (although if they are on the bottom, as A LOT of people are, they simply don’t have a choice as they have to work hard just to keep their heads above water). They can’t seem to grasp the concept that we as a population, as a race, as a people, are in this together. But how can we ever hope to improve if the potential for change is never given a chance? I think I have gone on long enough. Let’s hope I can keep myself together.

Till next time…

PS- on a lighter note, if you care to say, what would you do with any of the above amounts of dough? Would it be as grandios as what I said? Feel free to elaborate in the comments.

Hey there every peoples.

Guess what… It’s my 100th post!

When I started this thing 5 years ago, i didn’t know it would grow into the marginal success it is today. But what do you do for such a special occasion? Can’t just be some run of the mill topic. It can’t be the epic rant/expose on that terrible situation almost a year ago (i wouldn’t want to soil the mood with that sordid affair). Luckily, a recent article by good ol’ Brian Switek gave me an idea.

The giant tantrum thrown by the dinosaur fanboys over the upcoming film Jurassic World also played a role. I’d say it’s all been rather pathetic (one guy on Facebook seems to have what can only be called a personal vendetta against the movie) and short sighted. Dinosaurs overwhelmingly dominate all things prehistoric. Movies, books, tv, documentaries, and museum displays. People see giant skeletons they automatically assume it’s a dinosaur. Whenever I tell people I’m pursuing paleontology, they automatically assume it’s about dinosaurs. But it still doesn’t seem to be enough for the fanboys. They are getting another love letter to their beloved “terrible lizards” but it’s still not enough. I’ll save that for another post to avoid a ranting tangent. Point is, dinosaurs reign supreme in the public conscience.

But prehistory doesn’t begin and end with them. The period after the dinosaurs, the Cenozoic era, hosted (and continues to host) a staggering diversity of creatures equally as awesome. In fact, I’d go so far to say that many of the denizens of the Cenozoic are even more spectacular than dinosaurs. That’s just me, but hopefully you’ll understand why at the end of this post. Switek’s article was brief and only touched upon mammals. While mammals dominate the Cenozoic, they weren’t the only ones to experiment wildly with size, shape, and extreme adaptations. There are so many you could write a book about them. Hell, this post was originally supposed to contain 30 entries. But I had to cram in 5 more, and even then it was only achieved by making some of the entrants share slots. So without further ado, here is my list of 35 Cenozoic Creatures as Awesome as (or even more so than) as Dinosaurs.

1. Deinotherium

Proboscideans are among my favorite prehistoric animals. So let’s start off with one. Deinotherium was an oddball even compared to the elephants we’ll see later. T has a longer neck then you would expect. And it’s bloody big too. The largest species is a contender for one of the largest mammals ever. What? Oh right. Deinotherium is best known for its tusks. Many (if not most) ancient elephant lineages had lower tusks in addition to upper ones. But not only does Deinotherium lack upper tusks, but its lower tusks have grown down and back like a giant pair of fangs. This has lead to their unofficial nickname “hoe-tuskers”. But just how they were used is still a mystery. Did they use them to dig up roots and tubers? Were they used to pull and rip branches? Or were they used to strip bark from trees, the oldest of the hypotheses? Who knows if we’ll ever know, since there is nothing else like Deinotherium today or in the fossil record. So naturally that made it a great opener for a post like this.

A pair of Deinotherium wander through the forest of Miocene Europe. By my all time favorite paleo artist Mauricio Anton, from “National Geographic’s Prehistoric Mammals”

skeleton of Deinotherium at the Stuttgart Museum, Germany. From Wikipedia

Skull of Deinotherium giganteum at the Oxford Museum of Natural History. From Wikipedia

2. Amphicyon

Dogs are cool. So are bears. So you’d think a mashup of the too would be super cool. Well that is kind of what we have in Amhpicyon. It is the largest (and arguably the most successful, judging from its presence on 3 continents and nearly 8 million year existence) of the bear-dogs. They got that name because early scientists thought they were ancestral to both dogs and bears since they had traits of both. But we now know that dear-dogs were their own distinct group, the Amphicyonids. They have no modern descendants or close relatives. Apmphicyon was essentially the biggest carnivore of its time and place. It undoubtedly ate whatever it wanted. This obviously differed over its range. For example, study of a bonebed in Spain suggests one species regularly preyed on smaller fare like deer. The largest species, Amphicyon major, it’s estimated to have weigh over 600 pounds. All species, however big, possessed large skulls with powerful jaws and sharp canines. I think I’d want this guy on my side in a prehistoric bar fight!

Cast skeleton of Amphicyon at the Raymond Alf Museum of Paleontology.

A pair of Amphicyon major fight over a hot lunch in the middle Miocene wilds of Spain. By Mauricio Anton

3. Titanoboa

Funny story. When i was a kid we would go to brunch on mother’s day and then a movie afterwards. I am not exactly sure how, but we ended up going to see Anaconda. Because nothing says “celebrating motherhood” like watching people get eaten by a giant snake! The movie of course had to take liberties with the anaconda’s size so it could prey on humans. Anacondas are the heaviest snakes on earth; pythons are longer, but not as massive as anacondas. Estimating the size of anacondas is very difficult and so we don’t truly know how big they really get. Specimens over 20 feet long and weighing over 200 pounds have been reported. Now these snakes have been reported to attack humans (with a couple bodies being found bearings marks of the anaconda’s MO). While certainly capable of killing a human, they are unable to eat them. While anacondas can eat prey the size of a small deer, a capybara, or the smaller caimen species, these prey items are all somewhat narrow. Even the extraordinary flexing and stretching of a large snake skull can’t hope to get around a human’s broad shoulders (I had heard it hypothesized that a monster snake could swallow a human if they repositioned so that the shoulders are vertical, not horizontal. But even that seems like a stretch. No pun intended).

I tell you all this because even bigger snakes have been found in the fossil record. Wonambi of the Australian Pleistocene is the usual reference, but at 15-18 feet it is no bigger than a modern rock python. Go back further to the Pliocene and we find Australia’s true monster snake. Known as the Bluff Downs giant python, this snake is estimated to have measured 30 feet long and had the girth of a dinner plate. But fossils from the Eocene of Egypt hinted at an even bigger serpent. This snake is estimated to have stretched to 36 feet long. For a while this snake (Gigantophis) was the record holder. That is, until 2004 when paleontologists began trolling the Paleocene rocks of a Columbian coal mine.

The scientists found huge turtles, a wide array of crocodiles, fish, leaves, fruits, and seeds galore- the remains of an entire ecosystem, rivers and rainforests teeming with life. But something was off. The kept turning up strange vertebra. They looked like snake vertebrae, but at over 5 inches across they were far bigger than any other snake vertebra known.

On the left is the vertebra of Titanoboa. On the left is a vertebra from a 17 foot anaconda. From the website of the Florida Museum of Natural History

The snake was christened Titanoboa, the largest snake that ever lived. Based on the fossils found, it is estimated that Titanoboa was 42 feet long and weigh as much as 1.2 tons. It would have been an unthinkable 3 feet across at its widest point. Truly a monstrous reptile. Study of the plants found alongside it revealed why Titanoboa and its fellow reptiles at Cerrejon got so big. During the Paleocene global temperature was much higher than it is today. To give you an idea of how high, check out this lush forest:

A hippo-like pantodont feeds in an Eocene swamp. Taken from the exhibit “Extreme Mammals”

That is Elesmere Island. Of the coast of Greenland. Well above the arctic circle! The tropics (where Columbia resides) are notorious for being hot and humid today. Well it was even more so ~60 million years ago. Reptiles are ectotherms, meaning their body temperature is dictated by their surroundings. Large reptiles need a constantly warm environment or they will freeze to death. Since it was insanely warm during the Paleocene, this allowed reptiles to go supersize. One turtle from Cerrejon had a shell 6 feet long and over 3 feet wide- about the size of a pool table!

Shell of the giant snapping turtle Carbonemys coffrinii. From the website of the Florida Museum of Natural History

Titanoboa was undoubtedly a top predator. What did it eat? There were 6 foot lung fish for starters. There were many crocodiles, ranging from 6 to 22 feet. Most turtles may have been too wide even for Titanoboa to swallow (although smaller juveniles would certainly be fair game). Like it’s modern cousin the anaconda, Titanoboa probably spent most of its time in the water. It’s bulk made it slow and awkward on land; but the water, able to support it’s great weight, allowed Titanoboa to move quicker and more fluid. In a world overrun with giant reptiles, Titanoboa stood out as a terrifying, colossal monster. Clearly it reigned over the ancient Cerrejon ecosystem, unchallenged at the top of the food chain.

Fleshed out model of Titanoboa devouring a crocodile (with puny humans for scale). By Getty Images, from Wired.com

Or maybe not. Tantalizing evidence hints at another gigantic cold blooded terror prowling the ancient rivers. Remember that six foot turtle shell? You’d think something like that would be relatively invulnerable to predators. But lo and behold:

Bite marks on the shell of a giant turtle. From “Titanoboa: Monster Snake” by the Smithsonian Channel

Even the largest croc known from the site couldn’t have made bite marks like that. What could have? A partial vertebra sheds some light:

Partial vertebrae of a giant crocodile. From “Titanoboa: Monster Snake” by the Smithsonian Channel

Partial vertebrae of a giant crocodile compared to the vertebra of a saltwater crocodile, the largest extant crocodilian. From “Titanoboa: Monster Snake” by the Smithsonian Channel

Based on comparison with other crocs, it is estimated the Cerrejon specimen came from an animal 40 feet long. That’s almost as long as Titanoboa (and undoubtedly much heavier)! As if a giant snake isn’t bad enough, we have a giant crocodile as well. And not only that, but multiple giant crocodilians!

4. Purussaurus

There must have been something in the water of prehistoric South America. Not only did it produce the largest snake ever to live, but also the largest freshwater turtle to ever live (Stupendemys, with a shell 8 feet long). And it has also produced two contenders for largest crocodilians of all time. We already met one (the Cerrejon mystery giant). But much later in prehistory did another juggernaut would vie for the title. It is called Purussaurus.

“Om nom nom!” from Dinopedia

Purussaurus has been found in Peru, Venezuela, and possibly Brazil. It is thought to be related to alligators and caimans, based upon it’s short rounded snout and other features. Measurements of fossils peg Purussaurus at over 40 feet long. Biomechanical studies indicate it do the “death roll”. This is a technique used by modern crocodilians to subdue and dismember their prey. And when your head is this big:

Cast skull of Purussaurus at the Raymond Alf Museum of Paleontology.

There was virtually nothing this guy couldn’t consider food. The Amazon and it’s tributaries are already considered incredibly dangerous because of all the critters that could kill you. If Purussaurus were still alive today, it would render any river goer petrified with fear.

Life-size model of Purussaurus at a museum in Peru. By deviant art user Pyroraptor42

5. Thylacosmilus

Yet another overlooked but marvelous South American native is Thylacosmilus, the “marsupial” sabertooth. Dinosaurs are always trumpeted as marvels of evolution. But I think the Cenozoic era provides the strongest examples of various evolutionary phenomena. For example, convergent evolution. Convergent evolution posits that animals lving in different parts of the world will evolve similar traits to fill similar niches. And you couldn’t ask for a better example than Thylacosmilus. It looks so much like a sabertooth cat. If you showed it to any lay person (and probably many scientists), they would think it was a sabertooth cat. But it wasn’t.

For most of the Cenozoic era, South America was an island continent, cut off from the rest of the world. The animals there evolved in complete isolation, This allowed many primitive orders of animals to fill the ecological roles occupied elsewhere by more familiar species. Dogs, cats, bears, nimravids, and other carnivores were absent in South Ameica. So several groups of primitive mammals called metatherians rose to the challenge. Thylacosmilus belongs to a group called thylacosmilids. These animals filled the niche occupied elswhere by sabertooth nimravids and true cats.

Skull of the sabertooth ripoff Thylacosmilus. From Wikimedia.

Originally, these primitive carnivores were thought to be marsupials. But more recently they have been given their own families inside the larger group Metatheria. This has really been itching my brain. Marsupials are famous for reproducing via a pouch. Did metatherians (which marsupials belong to) also reproduce this way? Because Thylacosmilus means “pouched knife”. It would be a little awkward to keep a name like that and not actually be applicable.

Fleshed out reconstruction of Thylacosmilus. By Mauricio Anton, from “The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives”

Thylacosmilus was the last and largest of the Thylacosmilids. It died out ~4 million years ago. It is thought that competition from more advanced placental carnivores drove these archaic predators to extinction. But before then, Thylacosmilus undoubtedly reigned supreme. It was short and stocky, like many sabertooth predators. But it walked on the flats of its feet, unlike true cats that walk on their toes. This means thylacosmilus was an ambush predator, using surprie and power in place of speed. Just like most sabertooths are thought to do. Thylacosmilus may have been a fake sabertooth, be he was a damn good fake.

6. Megalania*

Another record breaking reptile. While debate goes on over just how big it was, fossils show that it was much bigger than the largest giving lizard, the komodo dragon. Estimates by Ralph Molnar place Megalania at ~18 feet long an ranging from 600-1000 pounds. Of course these are just estimates. The number of Megalania fossils known number in the double digits. The paucity of fossils have made study of its life and evolution quite difficult. But if it was anything like the komodo dragon, than Megalania was certainly a top predator. There was probably nothing it couldn’t tackle, although the 3 ton Diprotodon may have been too much even for it. It has been suggested by some that Megalania may have been venomous like komodo dragons. However, there is no way at present to determine this.

Reconstructed skeleton of Megalania assembled by Gondwana Studios.

Megalania appears to have died out with the rest of the Australian megafauna between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago. This is suggested to have overlapped with the first humans to have entered the continent. Titanoboa, Purusaurus, and the dinosaurs all died out long before hominins walked the earth. But Megalania was around when humans were. It must have been a terrifying sight to the first Aborigines. Humanity at that point likely had experience with lizards a few feet long tops. But now they were confronted with a beast the size of a grizzly bear. Given these early people were armed only with spears and javelins (both probably consisting of sharpened sticks with fire hardened tips), Megalania must have been a worthy adversary.

A scene set in the Pleistocene of Australia. One Megalania feeds on the carcass of the rhino-size marsupial Diprotodon. Another Megalania, perhaps attracted by the smell of the kill (or carrion) approaches from the left. By one of my favorite paleoartists Mark Hallet. Used as the cover for “Dragons in the Dust: the Paleobiology of the Extinct Lizard Megalania” by Ralph Molnar.

In my post about Megalania, I alluded to a study by an anthropologist who thinks Megalania may have survived into the Holocene. They base this idea on analysis of a legend told by a tribe of southwest Australia. This sort of thing is exceptionally hard to prove, especially since science pays no heed to anecdotal evidence. But it may be equally hard to disprove, since Australia’s poor fossil record (compared to other continents at least) has provided so few fossils of Megalania and dingoes. It seems this awesome predator has many secrets yet to be revealed.

*(yes, I’m using the old name Megalania, even though it was officially changed to Varanis priscus. Ralph Molnar in his book said Megalania would probably live on as the common name. So that is what I’m doing. Because a name that translates to “giant ripper” is too awesome to let fall by the wayside. Besides, if Brian Switek can attempt to make the nickname “shovel-beaked” a thing, then I reserve the right to try to make Megalania the all too apt nickname of this “true dragon of the past”.)

7. Procoptodon

Kangaroos are the pretty much the official symbol of Australia. They are a ubiquitous feature of the landscape And at 150 pounds, the red kangaroo is the largest living marsupial. But not so long ago there was a kangaroo that put the modern champ to shame. Called Procoptodon goliah, it was the biggest kangaroo known. Standing 7-7 1/2 feet tall and weighing 400 pounds, it was a giant among marsupials. But size alone doesn’t set Procoptodon apart from the rest. It was part of an extinct subfamily of kangaroos called sthenurines. A trademark of these kangaroos was a short face. Procoptodon’s skull looks like a red kangaroo smashed into a wall cartoon style. The short deep skull facilitated powerful chewing muscles, a trait needed to process Australia’s rough forage.

Skull of Procoptodon goliah

Sthenurines were also very robust. Their bones are much thicker and heavier in appearance when compared to their more gracile cousins. These animals also possessed a single toe on each foot; in the case of Procoptodon, a large thick claw. It is debatable whether they were as fast as modern kangaroos. Though being browswers, they probably lived in more wooded habitats where speed isn’t as important. Speaking of browsing, sthenurines were capable of reaching up over their heads. They probably used their large claws to hook down branches to get at the leaves. Procoptodon was capable of reaching 9 feet up to grab lunch. It is because of this supposed feeding habit that I think the sthenurines were the Australian equivalent of ground sloths. Sloths are the closest fit, but basically they were the high reaching browsers; the same niche filled elsewhere by camels, giraffes, and deer. A critter further down the list has been suggested as being a ground sloth analogue, but I think these extinct kangaroos are a better fit.

Life rconstruction of Procoptodon goliah. From National Geographic

Like the rest of the Australian megafauna, Procoptodon is thought to have died out 40,000-50,000 years ago. Whether it was overhunted by humans or wiped out but by climate change is yet to be determined. What a loss I say. Australia’s deep past has always fascinated me. It reached its climax in the Pleistocene, with a fauna unlike anything in the world, before or since. I hope I have you hooked because you’ll be seeing plenty more of them.

8. Kelenken

I can hear the dino fan boys now.”You said you weren’t doing dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs! Haha, you can’t escape their awesomeness!!!1!”. Look, I won’t dispute the fact that birds are descended from dinosaurs. But I will never see birds proper as dinosaurs. I understand the joy and satisfaction you get in knowing that all those feathered things flitting around the park or your backyard are a physical connection to your favorite prehistoric animals. But does everything have to be about dinosaurs? Can’t a bird be a bird? To me, there is still a gulf of difference between this:

Great blue heron. Image from Wikipedia

And this:

Oviraptorosaur from the late cretaceous of North America. Art by Dr. Julius Csotonyi

Birds are a highly diverse, highly successful class of vertebrates. Apparently that means nothing unless we are constantly reminded that they are dinosaurs. Because dinosaurs are the COOLEST THINGS EVER!!! So yes it is technically a dinosaur, but kindly shut the fuck up about it while I talk about a bird that would make Alfred Hitchcock shit his pants.

As I said above South America was cut off from the rest of the world. While many distinct groups evolved to fill the niches fill elsewhere by more advance mammals, perhaps the most curious case is the large carnivore guild. We saw one side of this coin with the metatherian mammals. But the other side of that coin is what usually gets the attention. While the carnivore guilds of the world were dominated by mammals, South America’s landscapes were terrorized by birds.

Phorusrhacids of different sizes and bilds. By Alvarenga and Hoefling

The group is called the phorusrachids, commonly referred as “terror birds”. These flightless birds appeared in the Eocene epoch and survived until the late Pleistocene. They ranged in size from a stork to Brontornis (“thunder bird”), who towered 9 feet tall and weighed 700 pounds. I chose to do this guy because he’s relatively new and is one of the larger examples. The name Kelenken comes from a god of the local Native Americans where the remains were found (in Argentina, which I am now convinced has the best studied record on the continent). An apt name for a bird with a skull 28 inches long (the size of a horse’s). Also found was a partial foot bone. This foot bone allowed scientists to estimate its size. At 7 feet tall and 400 pounds, Kelenken is one of the larger members of the phorusrachidae.

Well the photo speaks for itself.

Kelenken was clearly a top predator, but how it dispatched prey is still a mystery. A relative, Andalgalornis, was estimated to run over 40 miles an hour. This hypothesis was reached by studying its surprisingly muscular legs. This would make it the fastest known biped. But the authors favored an alternative hypothesis: that Andalgalornis used its strong legs not to run fast, but to utilize a powerful stomp. This may have been to break open bones to access the nutritious marrow; or it may have been used to kill prey like a modern secretary bird. Keleken may have used a similar kick to kill prey. Or it may have used its strong sharp beak to jab at hapless victims. A National Geographic (before it became the crime channel) documentary suggested it may have been able to prey on the smaller species of glyptodonts by flipping them over and tearing at their vulnerable underbelly. Without more fossils of the predator and prey it’s impossible to say for certain.

A phorusrhacid tells a group of borhyaenids that this kill is taken.

Terror birds were thought to go extinct at the beginning of the Pleistocene. The cause, according to the hypothesis, was competition from mammalian carnivores. But it doesn’t look that simple. For starters, one species of terror bird called Titanis actually came north into the southeast United States and stuck around for 3.1 million years, amidst all the supposedly superior predacious mammals. Also, a fragment of foot bone of a phorusrachid found in Uruguay dates to just 40,000 years ago. Again, amongst all the “superior” mammalian predators. Was it differences in habitat, diet, or something else? There is a lot more that needs to be done on the terrifying terror birds and the strange world they lived in.

The end of the terror birds? By deviant artist Egan7

9. Odobenocetops

Convergent evolution can cause strange things to occur. So far we have seen a sabertooth cat that wasn’t, birds and lizards as top predators, and giant kangaroos. Now we come to yet another oddball born of the need to fill a niche in his own neck of the woods. During the Pliocene the marine mammal world saw the emergence of the earliest true walruses. What is not to love about walruses? They have a funny name, they make funny sounds, and they just look funny. Their most conspicuous feature is their two long tusks. Males are the ones with the long tusks, which they use to fight rivals; both sexes use their tusks to defend themselves from predators and to hook themselves up onto ice flows. Walruses are perhaps the strangest beasts of the arctic. So tell me: what happens when a dolphin tries to be a walrus?

You get Odobenocetops. This weirdo lived along the coast of Peru ~4 million years ago. The name is translated as “whale that walks on its teeth”. The walrus’s name is Odobenis, which means “tooth walker”. I doubt the name similarity is a coincidence. Anyway this guy is so weird he is placed in his own family, the Odobenocetopsidae. As if a tusked dolphin wasn’t odd enough, Odobenocetops took the weird factor to another level. Females sported tusks one foot long. The males, however, rocked one tusk a foot long and the other tusk three feet long. It is though males used their tusks to spar with each other, much like walruses do. I’m sensing a theme here…

Cast skull of Odobenocetops at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Odobenocetops lived in the warm shallow waters of a coastal ecosystem. It is thought to have vacuumed up mollusks from the sea floor. It would then use its tongue like a piston to suck the tasty invertebrates out of their shells. This feeding style is based on the fact that Odobenocetops possesses a strongly arched palette combined with a total lack of teeth (save for the tusks). How do those features suggest suction feeding? I’ll give you one guess. That’s right. It’s the same equipment used by walruses to suction feed on clams and other shellfish. Odobenocetops was a dolphin everywhere on its body… except its head, where it was a walrus.

Two male and one female Odobenocetops. From Wikipedia

Not to steal the “walrus dolphin’s” thunder, but he shared his habitat with another complete weirdo. It was called Thallasocnus. It was a ground sloth, an animal usually thought of as slowly pondering around on land. But Thallasocnus was an aquatic ground sloth. Its remains have been found exclusively in marine deposits, the same deposits as Odobenocetops, sharks, and other whales. Modern tree sloths are actually pretty good swimmers, which I guess must be a prerequisite when you live in a forest that annually floods. Scary looking marine reptiles of the Mesozoic capture the imagination of most people. But I would give anything to have seen The Aqua Sloth swimming in the sea.

10. The Tuskers

Prehistoric elephants are among my absolute favorite denizens of the fossil record. They have a fascinating, storied history, spanning 45 million years. They journeyed far and wide, becoming prominent members of any ecosystem the settled in. Majestic and grand, their remains dominate most Cenozoic halls. Mammoths and mastodons are the most commonly seen in museums. But during the Miocene there was a diverse group called Gomphotheres. Within this group there was a family affectionately dubbed “shovel-tuskers”.

Fossils of the shovel-tuskers started popping up in the late 19^th/early 20^th centuries as the American west was tossed and tumbled by paleontologists. But shovel-tuskers didn’t really enter the limelight until the 1920s. Among the many great finds of Roy Chapman Andrews’ Mongolian expeditions was a shovel-tusker bonebed. The remains belonged to Platybelodon:

Skull and lower jaw of Platybelodon. Image from Wikipedia.

A small herd of Platybelodon enjoying themselves along the banks of a Miocene river. By deviantart user MrsCoelodonta

Skulls and jaws of male (top) and female (bottom) Platybelodon from China. Note the broad nature of the tusks and jawbone symphisys. From Wang Shiqi et al, 2013

Andrews described the jaw of this animal as “resembling a great coal shovel… The jaw was five feet long. A truly stupendous organ”. And the analogy stuck.The scientific minds of the expedition, Henry Fairfield Osborn and Walter Granger even went so far as to include this image in their description of the fossils:

The lower jaw of Platybelodon compared to a shovel. From Osborn and Granger, 1932

Shovel-tuskers were viewed as using their jaws as scoops. What did they scoop? Well that’s harder to pin down. You see, there wasn’t a standard design. There were many variations:

Complete lower jaw of Amebelodon (from Florida, i believe). Image from Wikipedia.

Lower jaw of Amebelodon at the University of Nebraska State Museum. From “The Cellars of Time: Paleontology and Archaeology in Nebraska” by Voorhees et al

Lower jaw of Torynobelodon from Nebraska. From Barbour, 1931

Lower jaw of Torynobelodon compared to Platybelodon grangeri. From Barbour, 1931

Lower tusk of Torynobelodon. From Barbour, 1929

Purely conjectural reconstruction of the lower jaw of Torynobelodon, based on the curvature of the lower tusk. From Barbour, 1929

Hypothetical reconcostruction of Torynobelodon grubbing for water plants. From Barbour, 1929

Lower jaws of Serbelodon. From Osborn, 1933

Skull and jaw of Gomphotherium from northern California, on display at the Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley.

Lower jaw (front) and skull (back) of Tetrabelodon. Image from Wikipedia.

Lower jaw of Archaeobelodon from Europe. Image from Wikipedia.

Reconstruction of Stegotetrabelodon. It has a relatively short jaw with very long bottom tusks. By Mauricio Anton, from the book “Evolving Eden”

Complicating the matter is another subset: the spoonbill mastodons. These were shovel-tuskers who had no lower tusks. The flagship species is a somewhat enigmatic animal called Gnathobelodon:

Lower jaw of the spoonbill mastodon Gnathobelodon thorpi. From Barbour & Sternberg, 1935

Lower jaw and upper tusk of the spoonbill mastodon Gnathobelodon thorpi.

Reconstruction of the spoonbill mastodon Gnathobelodon thorpi scooping pondweed. From Barbour & Sternberg, 1935

Joining the spoonbill clan is Megabelodon:

Lower jaw of the spoonbill mastodon Megabelodon from Nebraska. From Barbour, 1934

Mounted skeleton of the spoonbill mastodon Megabelodon, apparently spooked by a sabertooth cat. From Barbour, 1934

Reconstruction of the spoonbill mastodon Megabelodon feeding on leaves and twigs. From Barbour, 1934

Next in the spoonbill parade is Eubelodon from Nebraska :

Skull of Eubelodon morrilli from the late Miocene of Nebraska. From the University of Nebraska Lincoln Libraries Image and Multimedia Collections.

Skull of Eubelodon morrilli from the late Miocene of Nebraska. From the University of Nebraska Lincoln Libraries Image and Multimedia Collections.

And Choerolophodon from the Aegean region:

Skull of the spoonbill mastodon Choerolophodon from the late Miocene of Greece. From Konidaris et al, 2014

The structure of Megabelodon’s jaw clearly indicates it evolved that way. But how do we know it wasn’t simply a pathology? That some traumatic injury caused it to lose the lower tusks and the bone grew back in a funky manner? A little thing called multiple specimens:

Lower jaws of different species of Megabelodon. The left specimen is from South Dakota, while the right is from Nebraska. Barbour, 1934

Skull and jaw of Megabelodon (i believe the same one from Barbour’s paper) on display at the Geology Museum at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Image by flickr user James

But of course, when dealing with such a large and diverse group, there’s bound to be at least one outlier. Enter this gomphothere on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science:

Skeleton of a gomphothere with a peculiarity in its lower jaw. From flickr user James Brian Clark.

A pdf about the history called it “Amebelodon phippsi”. However, i contacted the museum and was told it was reclassified as Gomphotherium productum. There is one problem however: it doesn’t have any lower tusks. All the images of Gomphotherium productum i can find clearly show tusks in the lower jaw. Was this specimen just found without the lower jaws? Or were they never there to begin with? The jaw appears to be symmetrical, which rules out pathology. Could it be that this is another specimen of Megabelodon? It does bear some similarities to the jaws we saw above.

Anyway, just what were shovel-tuskers doing with their jaws? The traditional view was that they used their tusks to either dredge water plants or dig up roots. I once heard it suggested that Gnathobelodon scooped aquatic plants while the shovel-tuskers, with their solid lower tusks, “attacked firmer soil”. The hypothesis for Megabelodon (at least the “main” specimen from Nebraska) was that the end of the lower jaw supported a thick gristly pad that may have been used to grab leaves and twigs. Some work has been done on Platybelodon and Amebelodon. The study looked at the wear on the lower tusks and found that rather than plowing wetlands for lunch, they may have been using their tusks to cut grass and peel bark from trees. Perhaps their tusks were Swiss army knives, used for a variety of functions. More study is needed.

For example, i think paleoenvironmental data should be taken into consideration. Microwear analysis of the teeth of Choerolophodon suggested it lived in an open, arid habitat. At the same time shovel-tuskers of the genus Gomphotherium lived in the wetter and more forested lands of Germany. Neither invaded the others range.  Eubelodon lived at a time when the vast sea of grass known as the Great Plains were taking hold. Perhaps the loss of tusks and shortening of the jaw were a response to dwindling forests and decreasing water sources. Maybe some of the shovel-tuskers did use their jaws on trees in some way. This in turn could be why they mostly went extinct by the late Miocene. The riddle of the shovel-tuskers has yet to be solved. Chief among the questions is: if these tusk and jaw arrangements evolved to browse leaves and cut grass, why the elaborate set up? Mammoths, mastodons, and modern elephants were/are able to feed on these food sources with just their trunks. Since the ancestors of these animals already had somewhat elongated jaws with lower tusks, did they just end up developing what they already had? So as you can see, a lot of work remains to be done. Truth be told I don’t know why more people aren’t studying these truly awesome and fascinating animals.

11. Sabertooth Salmon

Saber teeth have been found in four groups of mammals: creodonts, nimravids, thylacosmilids, and true cats. Saber like teeth are also known in gorgonopsids, ancient mammal-like reptiles. But the Cenozoic found yet another group to slap these stunning teeth on: salmon. Salmon are perhaps the best known food fish. They are also well known for their lifestyle. Salmon live in the sea but return to freshwater streams and rivers to spawn (the same one where they themselves were born).

Oncorhynchus rastrosus was undoubtedly the king of salmon. It grew to 9 feet long. So not only did it sport the characteristic saber teeth, but it was pretty big as well. I wish I could say more, but fish are outside my area of “expertise”

12. Gigantopithecus

King Kong is my all time favorite movie. Which one you may ask? Both of them. I don’t try to argue which one is better. They both serve different purposes, have different methods of conveying their themes, and are both reflections of their times. The ‘76 version just sucked ass. Needless to say I am looking forward to Legendary’s “Skull Island”, although I not entirely sold on setting it in the 1970s. I feel having it set in the ‘30s added to the sense of adventure and to the challenge of combating giant prehistoric monsters. Look no further than the climax of the ’76 version. Instead of a fierce and thrilling battle atop the Empire State Building, Kong was dully gunned down by helicopters armed with mini-guns. Does Skull Island seems as frightening and foreboding if your men are armed with assault rifles, modern hand grenades, and machine guns? I don’t think so. But we will have to wait and see what the film makers have planned.

BOO! Watching helicopters sit there and pump Kong full of lead is boring! Copyright Paramount Pictures.

Kong is usually thought of as pure fantasy. But the fossil record, as usual, shows fact is stranger than fiction. In 1935 a German scientist bought a fossil tooth in a Chinese apothecary. The Chinese believe fossils to be the bones of dragons and as such grind them up for medicinal purposes. The tooth proved to be that of an ape. Based on the size of the tooth, it must have been one huge ape. He named it Gigantopithecus blacki, the “gigantic ape”. Since that initial discovery 3 lower jaws and 1300 teeth have been found and that is why Gigantopithecus is such a mystery.

Life sized model of Gigantopithecus on display at the San Diego Museum of Man

Cast of the lower jaw of Gigantopithecus, with my pocket knife (5 inches closed) for scale. Taken at the San Diego Museum of Man

Teeth and jaws can be helpful in understanding taxonomy and diet, but little else. Not even a partial skull has turned up. So we have to make do with what we have. Based on the dimensions of the jaws, it is estimated (key word being estimated) that Gigantopithecus would have stood 6 feet tall on all fours, 9 feet tall on its hind legs, and weighed 1100 pounds. This makes Gigantopithecus the largest ape and largest primate by far. Of course without postcranial bones this size estimate is far from perfect. The large, robust teeth suggest it ate very tough vegetation; bamboo has been suggested as a staple. It was obviously too heavy to live in the trees and would have had to live on the ground. Without any limb and foot bones we have no idea how it walked. Anthropologist Jeff Meldrum has suggested that Gigantopithecus was bipedal since the classic ape knuckle walk would not work with an animal of that size. This is often brushed off as preposterous and just another hair brained idea to support his belief in Bigfoot. But how do you know? Some modern great apes knuckle walk, but they don’t even approach Gigantopithecus in size. It was over 7 times the weight of a chimpanzee and almost 3 times heavier than a gorilla. Many species of ground sloths equaled and exceeded the weight of Gigantopithecus, but they aren’t built like apes. The knuckle walking Chalicotherium was twice the weight, but does it serve as an appropriate analogue? Again, without any bones of the limbs and hands/feet, how Gigantopithecus got around will perhaps be the biggest enigma of all.

Dating Gigantopithecus has been difficult as well. Right now the youngest dates for the big ape are a little as 100,000 years ago. This would seem to overlap with the early human Homo erectus. Did they cross paths? Hard to say. Gigantopithecus kinda just disappears from the fossil record. Did Homo erectus have a hand in its extinction? Or was it competition from early pandas over access to bamboo? It seems we know more about King Kong than the real McCoy.

13. Deaodon

Predatory dinosaurs get all the hype. Jack Horner once said in a discussion at the Natural History Museum in London: “I’d rather be locked in a room with 4 lions and a tiger than one little Velociraptor. Because that Velociraptor will probably eat half of me before it kills me.” Evidence? Why Jurassic Park of course (ok he didn’t say that explicitly, but seriously, where else could such hyperbole come from?)! In the film series Velociraptors are huge, super fast, hyper intelligent killing machines that can eat a cow in 10 seconds and run as fast as a cheetah and leap 15 feet into the air and be lethal at 8 months old and AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!1! If only. Never mind the fact that I could take out the real Velociraptor with my pocket knife; dinosaur behavior is a very hard nut to crack. Even more difficult is saying with any certainty if they were as savage as their Hollywood counterparts. There is evidence that T. rex was pretty nasty, but raptors are harder to come by. So let’s meet an animal who was every bit the tyrant people think Velociraptor was: The Hell Pig.

The official name is Entelodont. These animals are called pigs, are related to pigs, but are their own distinct group. Entelodonts lived from the latest Eocene through to the early Miocene. Their fossils are known from Europe, Asia, and especially North America. They were very robust, not particulary fast (due to the fused nature of their lower legs). These animals were built for power. They possessed huge heads with massive jaws and teeth. And those skulls are how we know they were so vicious. Many entelodont skulls have been found with fractures and bite marks. Aside from matching up the bite marks, the only animal alive at the time place that could do that kind of damage to an entelodont… was another entelodont. Looking at the skull it is easy to see it was built to savage and get savaged back. The canines are thick and robust. The flaring cheek bones likely helped to project the eyes. Their modern relatives, the pigs are similarly equipped. The wide cheek bones and various warty calluses- the things people think make them ugly- help protect their eyes and faces when males fight each other. Hey whatever gets the job done.

The entolodont Archaeotherium scares away a pair of the primitive dog Hesperocyon from a watering hole. Oligocene of western North America. By Mauricio Anton from the book “National Geographic: Prehistoric Mammals”

Now onto the star: Daeodon. This guy was the largest of the Entelodonts. It stood 6 feet tall and weighed as much as a modern bison.

Daeodon compared to a carnivorous dinosaur. While most people would think the dinosaur would win, it’s really anyone’s guess (entelodonts certainly have the jaw power and attitude to give dinosaurs it’s size a run for their money). From the Carnivora Forum

Its massive skull was almost 3 feet long. The size of many tyrannosaur skulls (and only 1 foot shorter than the average T. rex skull).

The massive skull of Daeodon on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Image from Wikipedia.

The teeth are monstrous. In fact Daeodon means “dreadful teeth”. And bones of the contemporary herbivores show just how dreadful they were. The classic example is a humerus (upper arm bone) of a calichothere from the Agate Springs area in Nebraska, representing the bottom half of the bone. It bears several bite marks that match the teeth of Daeodon. Not only that, but the bone was bitten in half. We’re talking about an animal the size of a horse. And its bone was bitten in half.

Humerus of the calichothere Moropus that was bitten in half by a large carnivore. The marks are a great match for the tooth of Daeodon. Photo by Alton Dooley.

Whether it was killed or scavenged may be a moot point. Daeodon was big enough, powerful enough, and probably fast enough to dine on whatever it wanted. Entelodonts may have been like some bears today, using their size and strength to steal kills from other carnivores. While thought to be primarily carnivores, the heavily worn teeth of entelodonts show they ate just about anything they could get a hold of. They had the teeth and the jaw power to kill, crush, break, and grind. How many dinosaurs can claim that?

Fleshed out model of Daeodon on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Picture by Flickr User Michael.

Daeodon was not only the largest entelodont but it was also the last. It appears super sizing didn’t work out for them in the long run. Whether it was competition from new predators like bear-dogs and true dogs or climate change, one of the nastiest brutes to ever walk the earth had bitten one last thing: the dust.

14. The Giant Ground Sloth

Giant ground sloth is a common name seen in discussions about the Pleistocene. But the name really only applies to a few species. This next animal is not only giant in stature, but also the original giant prehistoric beast. At about the same time mammoths were being pulled from the Siberian permafrost a very different extinct giant was found in Argentina. It was unlike anything known at the time. To early naturalists, it looked out of this world. Here they had an animal with a wide pelvis even for a creature of that size. The rib cage flared out at the bottom to house a large gut. It had long arms and stout legs. It walked on its knuckles and the sides of its feet to protect enormous claws. The skeleton showed it could rear up on its hind legs like a bear. Its teeth have no enamel, so they were forever growing. A great trough in the lower jaw suggests it had a long tongue like a giraffe. Even to this day this animal and it’s kin are some of the strangest animals that ever lived on this planet.

This animal is Megatherium; the “giant beast”. Back before dinosaurs stole the spotlight, Megatherium and other Pleistocene wierdos from South America dominated museums and depictions of the prehistoric past. Skeletons of Megatherium and Glyptodon were the centerpieces of the most prestigious institutions in Europe. People marveled at this strange monster that towered over them. Scientists deduced that it was related to modern tree sloths. Though just looking at it no one could make that connection. Megatherium even factored into Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Looking at the fossils of this giant sloth compared to its living cousins helped illustrate extinction, that one species dies out while another related species lived on. But Megatherium’s days were numbered. Once dinosaurs started emerging as skeletons, the giant mammals of the past were overshadowed. It was all about who was bigger, scarier, toothier… Mammals having to play second fiddle to dinosaurs remains to this day.

Skeleton of Megatherium americanum stands tall and proud in the Natural History Museum, London. From Wikipedia

Megatherium lives up to its common and scientific names. Weighing five tons and able to stand 13 feet tall it was one of the largest species in Pleistocene South America. Megatherium always appears in depictions of the time. Usually it is shown resting on its haunches, pulling down branches with its claws and feeding with a long tongue (though I have heard somewhere that the tongue thing may not hold much water). Megatherium lived mostly in South America. I have heard a few reports in Central America. But there is one report that has caught my attention. According to Berkeley’s online database, there a vertebra from the Pleistocene of Santa Barbara County. The id: Megatherium sp. This could be big. This could greatly extend the range of Megatherium, showing it made it into North America along with other megafauna from the south. Hell, THE giant ground may have lived on the Central Coast! But we may never know though, at least for a while. I thought the vertebra might be a good first research project for me. So I wrote to Berkeley, even asking if they could send me a photo of the specimen, so I could determine whether or not I should drive 5 hours up there to investigate. I never heard back. I guess a prestigious institution such as Berkeley can’t be bothered with amateurs like me. Only “true” scientists allowed!

Ok, that’s a bit harsh. I of course have no idea why my efforts to contact Berkeley are a one way conversation. But it is frustrating when you are trying to make progress as an citizen scientist. And especially when you are trying to verify or debunk a potentially important fossil. And when that fossil concerns a species with a rich and intriguing history as Megatherium. Megatherium is every bit a cornerstone of the history of paleontology as Tyrannosaurus rex, Archaeopteryx, and Protoceratops. Perhaps I can help bring him back to his rightful glory.

A beautiful reconstruction of Megatherium (joined by the glyptodont Panocthus) on the pampas of Pleistocene South America. From the (ancient) Time-Life Nature Library: South America

15. Megalodon

Growing up, there were few things I loved watching more than those old dinosaur shows by Midwitch Entertainment. They were fun, well put together, and even informative now and then. But what stuck with me most was the music. While quite clearly 80s in style, they were nonetheless very evocative and really drew me in to the narrative. These qualities were perhaps most present in a song called “The Ice Age”. It was used to bring a particularly mysterious feel to the subject at hand (the woolly mammoth, Antarctic dinosaurs, and most fittingly, the Loch Ness Monster). I tell you this because this haunting tune enters my mind whenever I think about a shark that could bite Jaws clean in two. I’m of course talking about Megalodon.

This leviathan of prehistory almost needs no introduction. It has become so well known in recent years no thanks to modern B-movies and one truly dumbass Discovery Channel show (which purported to show Megalodon was still alive. It was a farce but because they presented it so seriously people actually believed it). But it has become one of the most famous mega-predators in prehistory. Despite all that has been written and done about Megalodon, we actually don’t know much about the animal proper. Being a shark it’s skeleton was composed of cartilage. Cartilage is softer than bone and thus never fossilizes (except under the most exceptional of circumstances). All we have are its teeth and a few vertebra. Sharks are contantly shedding and replacing their teeth. A single shark could go through up to 30,000 teeth in its life time. So luckily we have lots of Megalodon teeth to work with.

Teeth of Megalodon from southern California at the San Diego Natural History Museum

The teeth themselves are unholy in size. They average 5-6 inches long and are very thick for shark teeth. Looking at a Megalodon tooth, I am reminded of the sharktooth weaponry from the ancient Pacific. If Megalodon were still alive today, I can easily see those people using its teeth as spearheads and hand axes. But back on topic. Scientists have found a correlation between the size of a tooth and the size of the shark it came from. Using this formula, the best estimate for Megalodon is 50 feet long. The biggest killer shark today, the great white, rarely reaches 20 feet. I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

Life size model of Megalodon at the San Diego Natural History Museum. The model measures 34 feet long, a female according to them.

Given its great size Megalodon likely fed on large marine mammals. Whales appear to have been the main targets. Many a fossil whale bone has been found with bite marks consistent with Megalodon teeth. In fact some whale bones have been found with Megalodon teeth embedded in them. Now whales weren’t always the giants we know today. During the Miocene most measured 20-30 feet long. But when they started getting bigger in the Pliocene it appears Megalodon was able to keep pace. According to a National Geographic documentary, a whale found near Santa Barbara (Central Coast, yay!) had the tip of a Megalodon tooth in one of its bones. The hitch: this whale was the size of a modern fin whale, outweighing the mega-shark by 25 tons. Whether it killed or scavenged the whale is up for debate. There is no reason to think Megalodon was incapable of attacking a whale of this size.

A fossil whale rib bearing the tooth marks of Megalodon. In the old fossil halls at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History

Megalodon terrorized the seas for over 13 million years. There was nothing it couldn’t at least take a bite out of. So why did such an awesome predator die out? Current thought is it was a combination of climate change and prey. As the world’s oceans became cooler during the Pliocene Megalodon would have had to stay in warmer waters. Whales are thought to have adapted by developing their characteristic layers of blubber and migrating to colder waters. Without a consistent, year round food source, Megalodon starved into extinction. I’m pretty sure a lot of people, especially Jesse Cox, thank their lucky stars every day that the Godzilla of sharks is no longer with us.

16. Livyatan

For decades Megalodon was thought to be the undisputed king of the seas. It was perhaps the mightiest ocean predator that ever lived. Modern orcas are smaller and while able to prey on adult whales they need pack hunting behavior to achieve this. Sperm whales are the same size, but they only have lower teeth and feed on squid. The ancient whale Basilosaurus was as long but not as bulky, and probably didn’t tackle especially large prey (hell it was biggest animal on earth at the time). Megalodon was unchallenged. That is until 2008 when paleontologists in Peru found a whole new monster.

It was a whale, a sperm whale in fact. But it wasn’t like its modern cousin. Its 9 foot skull was much more robust. Not only were its teeth much more massive, but it had upper and lower teeth. This wasn’t some oversized squid sucker. This thing meant business. The scientists were Herman Melville fans and decided there was only one name worthy of this beast: Leviathan melvillei. Leviathan is not only a name of a Melville novel, and is not only a commonly used descriptor for giant marine monsters, but is also the name of a legendary monster in the Old Testament. Leviathan was lord of the seas and was the most feared creature in creation. Its immense size meant nothing was safe from its rapacious appetite. What better name for a whale like this? Unfortunately, the name didn’t last. Turns out some guy in the 19^th century used the name Leviathan on a mastodon tooth. So the authors had to change the name to Levyatan (the original Hebrew spelling). This is one of those instances where I feel the rules of science can just go eat a dick. The name was used on something that already had a name therefore it has to stick and cannot be used ever again. Leviathan was a much better name, so much more fitting. But that is just my opinion.

Reconstructed skull of Livyatan melvillei. By deviantart user Juandarkgraff

Livyatan is thought to have been a top predator. In fact many of the sperm whales during the Miocene were thought to be “raptorial” macropredators. These Miocene sperm whales had functional upper and lower teeth, which makes scientists think they were preying on stuff beefier than squid and fish. They were probably feeding on marine mammals in addition to large fish like modern orcas. There were many species of dolphins, pinnipeds, and sea cows to choose from. They may have even preyed on juvenile whales, or maybe even hunted cooperatively to take on adult whales. While all this is up for debate, we know it certainly had the hardware to do so. A study found that in addition to functional upper teeth and powerful jaws, these ancient sperm whales (or at least the species studied, including Livyatan) had unique knobs in their upper jaw. Analysis of these growths shows they would have acted as buttresses to reinforce the jaw; reinforced specifically during a strong up/down action. In this case, the high forces produced by a powerful bite. It should be pretty obvious that these whales were preying on things that required enormous bite force to subdue.

Skull of the sperm whale Acrophyseter, highlighting the bony buttresses that reinforced its teeth. From Lambert et al, 2014

So we had 2 giant predators prowling the coast of South America 12-13 million years ago (the other being Megalodon). How they coexisted is yet to be determined. Right now we just have the one specimen. But right now that one specimen is enough to fire the imagination. This was potentially a contender for largest predator in the history of the planet. If I ever came face to face with the gaping, spike-toothed maw of a real life sea monster, I think I’ll take my chances with those cute little mosasaurs.

Livyatan in the process of attacking a baleen whale

17. Woolly Mammoth

When I was two, my family took a visit to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Canada. I immediately fell in love with their model of a woolly mammoth. We would see some of the museum, then go back to see the mammoth. We would see some more of the museum, then go back to see the mammoth. My parents inform me they only got me to leave by buying me a poster of the big lug, which is still on my wall to this day. It’s part of why I am who I am and why I pursue paleontology. I last saw him in 2006. He still remains the best prehistoric model I have ever seen. You can go into the next gallery and see bear and elk that don’t look any more lifelike.

No photo, not matter how beautiful and well taken, cannot match the awe and power of seeing this model in person. From Wikipedia

Woolly mammoths are among my top favorite prehistoric animals. So you may be a bit surprised to learn that I’m actually not writing anything about it. I love it dearly, but let’s face facts. The woolly mammoth is not only the face of the ice age but it is one of the very icons of prehistory. Entire books, documentaries, and articles have been written about it. Not to mention it appears in just about every discussion of the ice age. Thus there is nothing more I can really add. Which is good because we are only halfway through and anything that reduces the amount of typing I have to do is welcome!

18. Elasmotherium

While we are on the subject of woolly giants, let’s explore a far less known but perhaps stranger beast. Now the woolly rhino is often depicted alongside the all too familiar mammoth. This is the species Coelodonta antiques. Remains have been found all across northern Eurasia, including mummified remains in a Polish tar pit. But he was not the only rhino running around. There was another behemoth that was bigger in every way. We are talking about Elasmotherium.

I use behemoth a lot to describe big animals, but Elasmotherium is one of the ones actually deserving of that title. It rivaled elephants in size, standing 7 feet at the shoulder and tipping the scales at 4-5 tons. Only mammoths and a couple giant sloths were bigger. Elasmotherium is not only famous for its size.

Massive skeleton of Elasmotherium caucasicum in the Azov historical and archaeological and paleontological museum-reserve. From Wikipedia

To understand the second reason, we need to look at how rhino horns work. Rhino horns are not made of bone but are made of keratin. This is the same material as your fingernails. A rhino skull has a rough built up base of bone that serves as an anchor for the horn. This is how we can estimate the size of the horns on extinct rhino. We know Diceratherium has two small horns because its skull has two small bases. We know Aphelops had no horn because its skull doesn’t have a base. Elasmotherium is different matter.

You see, rhinoceros means “nose horn”. Most rhinos follow this rule. But Elasmotherium was a hipster. He didn’t want to be “mainstream” and follow the “crowd”. His horn wasn’t on his nose. It was on his head:

Skull and reconstructed horn of Elasmotherium at the Natural History Museum, London. From Wikipedia

We know this because the dome resembles the roughened base. This makes Elasmothering look like he’s wearing a helmet (or like a pachycephalosaur).

Skull of Elasmotherium, prominantly showing the bony dome that served as the base of the horn. From Wikipedia

Based on the size of the base, the horn must have been huge. Most estimates put the horn at 6 feet long. That would skewer any would be predator. But this is really all just a round-a-bout way of showing you that unicorns are real. Just instead of beautiful horses they were giant, hairy, probably smelly rhinos…

Life reconstruction of Elasmotherium. By deviant art user WillemSvdMerwe

19. Paraceratherium

People, it would appear, are easily cowed by size. They are only awed by the biggest; they only care about the biggest. We see this problem in the public perception of paleontology, where dinosaurs rule. To the public, dinosaurs represent the biggest, weirdest things in nature. It doesn’t help that in the public arena the most extreme mammals can barely compete with the most basic of dinosaurs. I have already talked about how mammals once ruled the museums. Here we will meet one of the most extreme mammals. It is extreme for how big it is. It was found when Roy Chapman Andrews and his crew were scouring the Gobi for fossil treasures. While talking with local tribesmen, they were told of a place where they could find bones “big as a man’s body”.

The bones belonged to a type of rhino. But it was bigger than any rhino known, including the aforementioned Elasmotherium. In fact, only mammoths were on the same scale. The called the animal… well its name is a little confusing. Throughout my life I have heard it referred to as Balucatherium, Indricatherium, and Paraceratherium. The last one seems to have stuck the most so we’ll go with that. Paraceratherium lived during the Oligocene epoch (and very earliest Miocene), 34-23 million years ago. It is mostly known from Mongolia, although some remains have been through ought Asia and even into Eastern Europe. It resembled a giant cross between a rhino and a giraffe.

Life-size model of Paraceratherium at the California Academy of Sciences

Paraceratherium is the largest land mammal known. It is estimated to have stood 17 feet at the shoulder and weighed between 15 and 20 tons. But these estimates are problematic due to a lack of complete specimens (Seems all the paleontology in Mongolia is completely fixated on the dinosaurs. Maybe that’s why Andrewsarcus is only known from a skull. No one is even looking for the rest). Now Paraceratherium seems like a lightweight compared to dinosaurs. But not only is size not everything, but have you ever stoped and wondered why mammals are not as big as dinosaurs? Someone in the Royal Tyrrell Museum’s speaker series has some ideas. I’ll just let her explain it:

(Paraceratherium skeleton at the Moscow Paleontological Museum. From flickr user cazfoto)

Basically nothing came close to Paraceratherium’s size until the mammoths of the Pleistocene. Now I don’t know what may have spurred their gigantism (I haven’t read Prothero’s book). Because of its record breaking status, Paraceratherium is perhaps doomed to be mentioned mostly in countdowns of extreme mammals.

A herd of Paraceratherium crosses the grasslands of Oligocene Mongolia. By Mauricio Anton, from “National Geographic: Prehistoric Mammals”

20. Palorchestes

Back to the Land of Oz for us. Remember way back when I mentioned something in the Australian Pleistocene that is often thought of as being a ground sloth analogue? I was reffereing to this guy: Palorchestes

When Palorchestes was first described by Richard Owen he thought it was a giant kangaroo. So he named it Palorchestes which means “great leaper”. But Palorchestes was far weirder than most kangaroos. Owen described the species from the Pleistocene, Palorchestes azael. We didn’t get our first good idea of what the hell it was until the discovery of the Alcoota bonebed. Alcoota dates to around 8 million years ago and in addition to fossils of giant wombat-like animals, huge birds, and crocodiles, scientists found fossils of a new species of Palorchestes. Dubbed Palorchestes painei, fossils included a complete (albeit crushed) skull. This skull didn’t look like any kangaroo skull. In fact, it looked more like a tapir.

Reconstruction of the pleistocene species Palorchestes azael. From

It is thought that Palorchestes had a tapir-like trunk because, like tapirs, it has a heavily retracted nasal cavity:

Reconstructed skull of Palorchestes azael.From Museum Victoria.

But that is where the tapir similarity ends. Palorchestes had very robust limbs like a bear, ending in long sharp slaws like those of a ground sloth. Palorchestes teeth showed it fed on very abrasive vegetation. In fact, those teeth combined with the claws and muscles has led paleontologist Tim Flannery to call them “tree wreckers”. Perhaps a big part of their diet was tree bark. While more fossils of both species (Especially the Pleistocene one), like all Australian megafauna there is so much we have to learn about one of the strangest chapters in the history of life. Australia has a very poor fossil record when compared to the rest of the world. It is thought that this is the case because unlike some of the well known, very fossiliferous localities around the world, Australia has undergone very little geologic upheaval. Not only are new sediments not being exposed by uplift, faulting, and erosion; but without runoff from mountains and hills little new sedimentation takes place. But what Australia has generously given us thus far is one of the most fascinating tales of evolution. Animals weird and bizarre even by the standards of the fossil record evolving in isolation to produce animals like no others. Palorchestes is one of the strangest, but it is by no means the only one.

21. Meiolania

The Pleistocene of Australia was once thought to be ruled by reptiles. In fact, scientist Stephen Wroe once described it as “a b-grade rerun of the Age of Reptiles”. We now know this isn’t true (not only that, but I think Cerrajon is a better candidate for that description), that the Australian Pleistocene was a unique mixture of mammals and reptiles that was unique in earth’s history. The “reptilian domination” focused mostly on predators. But there was another odd reptile who added another twist to the surreal fauna.

Meiolania was a giant tortoise who belonged to an extinct subfamily, the Meiolanidae. These turtles were first thought to have first appeared in the Oligocene in Australia. But then Meiolanids were discovered in Argentina, one of them dating to the Eocene. This suggests they occurred before the breakup of Gondwana when Australia and South America were still connected. Some specimens of this group have been found on islands like Vanuatu, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia, and possibly Fiji. These animals must have arrived by rafting. Meilanids are characterized by their spiky heads and heavily armored tails.

Skeleton of Meiolania on display at the American Museum of Natural History. From Wikipedia

Rear view, offering a better look at the nasty looking tail club. From Wikimedia

Meiolania was the largest, stretching 8 feet long and probably weighed at least a ton. This makes it the second largest terrestrial turtle/tortoise (surpassed only by Megalochelys atlas). The horned skull and tail club feel reminiscent of the ankylosaurs. But with their domed shells and armored tails they remind me of South American glyptodonts. Now Meiolania wasn’t alone during the Pleistocene. In Queensland it was joined by its smaller cousin Ninjemys. And yes, that name means “ninja turtle” and yes it was meant to honor who you think it does. Like the glyptodonts they resemble, they were likely almost immune to attack from predators.

These giant tortoises succumbed to the same extinction that claimed Australia’s megafauna 50,000 years ago. The two sides butting heads are humans and climate change. Climate change posits that at this time there was a massive climate shift in Australia. The climate became hotter and drier. This wiped out the plants that the mega herbivores fed upon. Without mega herbivores to prey on the mega predators followed them into oblivion. Not so says the human crowd. They argue that it doesn’t make sense that these animals survived numerous climate changes before only to succumb to this one. They argue that over hunting by humans must have been the culprit. One study done on the fossil teeth of wombats and eggs of emus shows there was a huge crash in plant diversity. They argue that the abruptness can only be explained by human intervention. Humans are thought to have entered Australia ~50,000 years ago. The timing is suspicious but alone is not enough. It is argued that the sudden crash in plant diversity was caused by the Aboriginal practice of burning the bush. This is when the land is deliberately set on fire, not just to flush out game but to also make the land more suitable to the animals they like to hunt (this practice isn’t exclusively Australian). How can a population of 3 ton wombat-like animals (Diprotodon) hope to survive if humans are burning away their food?

The debate is fierce and there is no hope of it being resolved anytime soon. Too few sites that offer insight into this crucial time period have been uncovered. Was it just one factor or was it a combination of both? Whatever it was Meiolania managed to dodge it for a while. What are known as relict populations survived on the off shore islands. That is until they were settled by humans. Island ecosystems are especially vulnerable to change. With limited habitat supporting small populations and nowhere to run, it was easy for pioneering humans to wipe them out. In Vanuatu meiolanid bones have been found in a 3000 year old midden. It would have been fantastic if this lone survivor of the Pleistocene extinction had survived to modern day. Hell if any of the megafauna of Australia had survived. The wholly unique animals of Pleistocene Australia continue to call to me. While I wish the megafauna of the Americas had survived, Australia still captures my imagine the most. Perhaps if time travel is ever invented, and I could only go one place, it would the ice age in the strange and wonderful Land Down Under.

22. Kubanochoerus

Pigs are ubiquitous members of any farm. They not only make those funny oinking sounds, but also provide us with delicious bacon. Thanks to humans pigs span the globe. Many break free and become feral hogs, where they wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. In fact I have seen some people get surprised when I tell them pigs are not natives and instead are introduced invaders. Pigs are one of the ultimate survivors. They can and will eat anything, they reproduce like crazy, and are strong and fierce enough to live free from any natural predators. These pigs were in turn domesticated from wild boars, perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago.

So it should be no surprise then that pigs have a long and successful run through the fossil record. Of course back then there were large and powerful predators like sabertooth cats, bear-dogs, and hyenas that could take them (at least on occasion). Despite this pigs managed to create a diversity of forms. The strangest has to be Kubanochoerus gigas. Hailing from the Miocene of Asia, it was a hefty hog approaching the size of a cow. But it is most famous for the horn on its skull. This long horn is present only on the males, so it was probably used by males for fighting each other. So not only did rhinos try to be unicorns, but apparently pigs took a whack at it as well.

Skull and fleshed out reconstruction of Kubanochoerus gigas. By Mauricio Anton, from the book “Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids”

23. Merycochoerus

The Cenozoic era is full of migration stories. Animals spreading this way and that. There were many faunal exchanges between the old world and new. And yet despite this many regions managed to house unique groups found nowhere else. One such family was the oreodonts. These cousins of sheep and pigs thrived in North America from the middle Eocene all the way to the late Miocene. They were at their peak during the Oligocene, reaching a diversity unrivaled by any other group at the time. Probably the king of them all was Merycochoerus.

Merycochoerus was a species that lived from the middle Oligocene to the early Miocene (29 to 20 million years ago). It was 900 pounds in weight, making it one of the largest animals in the mid-late Oligocene. What makes Merycochoerus unique is that it looks like a mash up of a pig and a hippo. Observe:

Skull of Merycochoerus from the Oligocene John Day formation, Oregon

Oreodonts were wildly successful during the Oligocene but lost steam after that. They stuck around until the late Miocene before finally going extinct. What happened? One thought is that as browsers oreodonts were unable to adapt to the continuing expansion of grasslands. They thrived in the woodlands of the Oligocene, but the Miocene saw the development of the savannah. Horses and other animals adapted by evolving longer legs, hooves sturdy enough to run on open ground, and high crowned teeth designed to grind tough grass. But oreodonts stuck with their shorter legs and low crowned teeth. Perhaps oreodonts, once the most successful groups of mammals in North America, went extinct out of stubbornness.

Skeleton of Merycochoerus from the Miocene of Nebraska. From flickr user Mrs Pugliano

24. Sivatherium

The giraffe is a strange if not majestic animal. It is the tallest living animal, with males approaching 16 feet tall. They have bony knobs on the top of their heads. They slurp up leaves with blue-black tongues 18 inches long. Because of their long necks and legs they have to awkwardly squat down to get a drink of water. Amazingly though, it uses those long legs to run 20 mph. Giraffes were thought to be alone on our planet until scientists finally managed to penetrate the Congo and discovered it’s cousin the okapi. Since we are so used to the giraffes of the savannah the okapi seems like the oddball. But fossils show that the modern giraffe plan is actually the odd man out.

For most of the Cenozoic the standard giraffe design was like that of the okapi: long legs but not ridiculously long; long necks but not ridiculously long; and not small modest horns but large flamboyant horns. Ceratopsian dinosaurs are famous for their variety of horns and spikes. But mammals actually created the most bizarre and strange horn shapes known. Giraffes were no exception and Sivatherium is a prime example.

Sivatherium was one of the larger members of the group, standing over 7 feet at the shoulder and weighing over a thousand pounds. Early reconstructions showed it as like a heavyset moose but more fossils and cladistic analysis now show it with the okapi like build. There are 2 species of Sivatherium and each have their one unique horn arrangements. Sivatherium giganteum from Asia had 2 small horns over the eyes and two at the back of the head that flare in an antler-like fasion (no wonder it was originally depicted like a giant deer).

Skull of Sivatherium giganteum. From Wikipedia

Sivatherium hendeyi also had two small horns above the eyes. But its back horns swept up and back, almost looking like pair of erect cow horns.

A skeletal reconstruction of Sivatherium hendeyi at the West Coast Fossil Park, South Africa. From Trip Advisor

Sivatherium maurusium, also from Africa, had two short knobs over the eyes. Its back horns are bumpy and curve forward like actual cow horns. He certainly gets an A for creativity!

Fleshed out reconstruction of Sivatherium maurusium out of those old zoo books many of us collected as a child. From girafamania.com

Like many other groups, giraffes today are but a remnant of past glory. Elephants, rhinos, pronghorns, and even humans are all extremely low in diversity compared to their fossil history. Why this is (especially in regards to humans) is a persistent enigma. Paleontology is often looked down upon as useless. But it helps answer questions like the one above. Why is this no longer a world for elephants? What allowed humans to oust their competition? And by studying why past species went extinct we can help prevent modern ones from following in their footsteps.

25. Uber bears

Bears have had many faces throughout human culture. They have been seen as cuddly critters, symbols of nature’s beauty and freedom, scourge of happy campers, ferocious killing machines, mindless man eaters, spiritual equals, cartoon fodder, and the “Ursine Al Qaeda” (as Stephen Colbert once called them). Bears are today found in the Americas and Eurasia. They run the gamut from pure carnivore to pure herbivore, though most fall in between. However some species show regional variation that complicates the picture. This little fact has made it all the more difficult to determine the lifestyles of extinct bears. The most famous is Europe’s iconic cave bear. But the America’s have given us two species that make the Cave Bear look like a pipsqueak.

The first is Arctodus simus, also known as the short-faced bear. Despite being one of the familiar heavyweights of the ice age, Arctodus isn’t as well understood as its compatriots. For example, at the La Brea Tar Pits, a very heavily researched predator trap, scientists have found over 3000 dire wolves, over 2000 sabertooth cats, but only 34 individuals of Arctodus. At Diamond Valley, which yielded tens of thousands of Pleistocene fossils, Arctodus is represented by just a single incisor. This and the paucity of remains found throughout North America should make it clear this bear isn’t giving up its secrets easily. As a result, scientists are still in disagreement over how it lived.

Arctodus was originally thought to be a hyper carnivore, using it’s long legs to run down prey. However a recent study found that Arctodus was proportioned like any other bear; stripped of flesh, any bear skeleton looks particularly leggy. But like any modern bear Arctodus was probably capable of short bursts of speed. Then a new hypothesis emerged. Rather than being a savage predator, Arctodus may have been a master scavenger. The long legs, argued the proponents, allowed Arctodus to cover large distances in search of food. Like it’s modern cousins it probably had a great sense of smell, which would come in handy when trolling the country for rotting flesh. How did a giant bear find enough flesh to eat? The idea is that there were plenty of other kids in the schoolyard to steal lunch from. Across North America there were sabertooth cats, scimitar cats, dire wolves, lions, American cheetah, and jaguar who could have been “persuaded” to abandon their kill. Remember, Arctodus is thought to have weighed 1200 pounds, and stood 10 feet tall on its hind legs. It had paws the size of baseball gloves tipped with huge sharp claws, as well as powerful jaws. It’s easy to see how Arctodus could have stolen kills from other carnivores. Hell, modern grizzlies in Yellowstone routinely steal kills from wolves. It is also suggested that those powerful jaws could be used to crack open bones to access the nutritious marrow. So how does the scavenger idea hold up?

Skeleton of Arctodus on display at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum

Let’s start with chemical analysis. A bone recovered from Alaska underwent an isotopic study and showed elevated levels of nitrogen. This shows that its diet was almost exclusively meat. Case closed right? Not so fast. We can’t generalize based on just one find. It could be only the Arctodus in Alaska, or even just that individual, was more carnivorous. This is something that needs to be taken into consideration more. At the 2013 SVP meeting, there was supposed to be a couple posters on Arctodus from the La Brea Tar Pits (but they never got posted). One looked at microwear on the first and second molars and found that Arctodus wasn’t biting hard objects… at Rancho La Brea. Another one discussed the importance of Rancho La Brea, going so far as to say in the abstract (which is all we have): “In contrast, the material from Rancho La Brea (RLB) represents the largest sample from a single locality and provides a unique opportunity to address paleobiological questions associated with this taxon.” Yeah, but still, you’ll ultimately be understanding the Arctodus of Rancho La Brea. Reading the abstract it appears they kept this in mind. At the end they said: “Our results indicate that δ15N values varied for these bears, with some individuals in the same trophic category as sabertooth cats (Smilodon fatalis).” So it may not just be regional variation. It could be individual variation. The specimens at the tar pitsare thought to range from 40,000 to 10,000 years ago, so it could even be temporal variation.

So where does this leave Arctodus the super-scavenger? Hard to say for certain. The study above said there was no evidence of Arctodus crushing bones with its molars. But what about its other teeth? What about activities other than crushing? Numerous fossils have been found across North America showing scavenging activities by Arctodus. In each case, the size, shape, and span of the marks point to Arctodus as being the maker. The first is one of the vertebra of the Huntington Reservoir mammoth in Utah. The next is a distal femur of a mammoth from the Fairmead Landfill in California. Another is a mammoth rib from the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs, South Dakota. Finally, there is a mammoth calcaneus (ankle bone) from Saltville, Virginia, that was bitten through. While the American lion is a suspect, Arctodus is the most likely candidate. In all these instances, fossils of the bear as well as traces of its handy work were found at the site. Another odd coincidence is the fact that all the sites had mammoth and all the remains showing scavenging are mammoth. I could of course be reading too much into it.

Distal femur (the knee joint) of a mammoth that has been bitten by a large carnivore. Arctodus is implicated. At the fossil Discovery Center of Madera County

It should be obvious by now that we are nowhere near an understanding this animal. If it was as variable in its dietary habits as these studies suggest, then we have a lot of untangling to do. But it isn’t alone in this regard.
Bears were among the many “northerners” to migrate to South America. One such species was Arctotherium angustidens. The name may sound familiar because he made the news a while back. Mainly because of this image:

The mega bear Arctotherium augustidens

The scientists estimated that the owner of a gargantuan humerus may have weighed over 3,000 pounds. Remember that this is just an individual. We need a lot more fossils to be able to calculate an average. But if this is the outlier, then Arctotherium angustidens must have been one monstrous animal. But unlike Arctodus, we may have a better idea of Arctotherium’s diet. Its teeth show breakage and wear more consistent with consuming bones (whereas Arctodus appears to merely scrape and puncture them). Arctotherium angustidens is thought to have been more carnivorous than modern bears; to what degree it is hard to say. This conclusion, according to the paper, was reached by means of geometric morphometric and ecomorphology methodologies. I wonder if any isotope studies have been done?

Anyway, Arctotherium angustidens was the first, largest, and most carnivorous species of its line. There were six other species of Arctotherium that followed throughout the Pleistocene. They appear to follow a trend of reducing size and increased herbivory. The authors suggest that this may have resulted from increased competition from other carnivores, namely sabertooth cats. Again, this is just conjecture. How much hunting Arctotherium angustidens did and how much scavenging is currently unknown. We can’t just say “it was probably omnivorous like modern bears”. If the SVP poster about Arctodus at Rancho La Brea is any indication, these giant bears may have varied widely in their diets. If we are to crack this ancient puzzle, we should probably start examining (perhaps isotopic studies when possible) each individual fossil.

A gallery of short-faced bears A) Arctotherium angustidens; B) Arctotherium bonariense; C) Arctotherium vetustum; D) Arctotherium tarijense; E) Arctotherium wingei; F) Arctodus simus; G) Arctodus pristinus; H) Tremarctos ornatus (spectacled bear); I) Tremarctos floridanus. From Figueirido and Soibelzon, 2010

I’ve seen many blog posts “demythologizing” these giant bears. To me that implies that we have a solid understanding of them. It can be argued that we know more about T. rex than these bears. At least T. rex has a dozen or two partial skeletons, with a few being largely complete. So much work has been done on its size, its diet, its locomotion, its biomechanics, its cladistics and evolution. Most papers I find deal with taxonomy, biogeography, and specimen reports. I know these bears are known from mostly fragmentary and isolated remains. That just means we need to make the most of them. “More fossils” is the usual response to lack of knowledge, but we need to do something until they are found. These bears were top contenders for the largest carnivorous mammals ever known. To uncover whether or not they are as rapacious as their reputations claim, we have a lot of work to do.

26. Chin porpoise

The San Diego Museum is among the oldest in California. They don’t have that much in the way of exhibit space. But what they do have is downright phenomenal. I first visited their exhibit Fossil Mysteries not long after it opened in 2006. People fawn over the expansive halls of the big institutions like the American Museum, The Smithsonian, and Los Angeles. The collections are impressive, but I am not so easily cowed by quantity. I have been saying it for years: these big museums get away with bland and boring displays because they can rely on their huge collections and their high attendance. But I like smaller museums because they don’t have the resources (financial, scientific, etc) so by necessity they have to rely on ingenuity. This often leads to far more engaging exhibits, ones that really draw people in. Fossil Mysteries is one such exhibit. In fact, I maintain that it is one of THE best fossil displays I have ever seen.

This exhibit so beautifully tells the story of San Diego’s prehistoric past while seamlessly explaining how science works. And they really bring the fossils to life in a number of ways: half flesh/half skeleton models, a full size Eocene rainforest, models, skeletons, a fossil aquarium, and gorgeous murals by Bill Stout. Even though they aren’t from my homeland, I feel connected to these fossils. I see them much more easily as once living animals because this exhibit didn’t just throw them in a case. They took extra care to make sure these fossils were brought to life.

Since this exhibit is so damn good, I have visited it multiple times. One fossil I kept seeing was a puzzling skull in the Pliocene section:

Skull of a “chin porpoise” on display at the Sand Diego Natural History Museum

It was the third in a series of cetacean skulls discussing feeding habits. The first was a fairly robust porpoise skull with stout teeth. The exhibit reasoned it probably fed on larger fish. The next was a more lightly built skull with long slender jaws and needle-like teeth. Resembling a modern river dolphin, these jaws were used to snatch fast moving shrimp and squid. But the hird skull had no explanation of diet. That’s because nothing like it was known. It was a porpoise skull similar to the first one, but with longer jaws. The lower jaw was longer still, sticking out in front like the prow of a ship. Many times I saw that skull and the description read the same: they didn’t know how it used its funky jaw. The initial thought might have been fighting between males, jousting with their protruding chins like narwhals fight with their tusks.

Finally all was made clear a few years ago. Based on specimens from southern (San Diego formation) and northern (Purisima formation) California, scientists named the weirdo Semirostrum cerutti. Features of the jaw and skull show that there was a deeper articulation of the lower jaw and the head was more mobile and flexible; perhaps related to its super chin. They found that the closest analogue to its jaw is a group of modern birds called skimmers. They fly above the water with their lower jaw cutting through the surface to snag fish. Unless Semirostrum had a penchant for hang gliding I doubt that’s what it was using it for. There is a fish, Hemiramphus, which also has an elongated lower jaw. It feeds on microscopic plankton, so maybe the lower jaw was used to detect such minute prey. In fact, both the bird and the fish are nocturnal, so the jaw as a sensory organ makes sense. Looking closer as the jaw, the scientists found evidence of extensive nerves and blood vessels. So it appears to have been rather sensitive. I think I’ll let the authors take it from here:

Benthic probing may have evolved in low light or conditions unsuitable to extensive biosonar use for prey capture or communication (e.g., to avoid predators). The transversely thin, blade-like shape of the mandible does not seem conducive to scooping or specialized biting, as proposed in the extinct elephant-like gomphotheres, but prey may have rolled up the rostrum during a kind of skimming followed by clamping of the upper jaw after encountering prey. The streamlined mandible may have eased forward aquatic movement, with the head angled downward to monitor (via echolocation) and probe (via the mandible) for prey at the seafloor.

Today the California coast is home to many species of flatfish (halibuts, flounders, sanddabs, and soles) that are well known for hiding in the sea floor. And I’m sure there are other fish who like to hide in the sand. There is no reason to think the Pliocene was any different. Otherwise, Semirostrum probably wouldn’t have evolved such specialized gear to find them! As if that wasn’t enough, Semirostrum shares features with modern river dolphins that allow slower but more flexible swimming. The teeth are heavily worn and well rounded. This suggests the teeth were abraded and polished by a fine grained material. Like say… the kind of sand typically found on the seabed. Need I say more?

Life reconstruction of Semirostrum by by Robert Boessenecker

Semirostrum isn’t just odd for a porpoise. It’s odd for a mammal. Only the shovel tuskers had something similar, but even then the analogy is strained. This wasn’t a plow like what is thought for the elephants; this was a probe, a highly specialized organ. The Mesozoic gets all the hype for its sea monster looking marine reptiles. But it seems we are finding much stranger sea goers here in the Cenozoic. And few are more apt to lead the charge than the “chinny chin chin porpoise”

27. Top Dog and Terrible Hyena

Dogs range the world except Antarctica. From the noble wolf to the sly fox to the “baby snatching” dingo, dogs are one of the most successful groups of carnivores in the Cenozoic. So you may be surprised to learn that dogs are only recent characters on the world stage. Dogs originated in North America and remained there until just 5 million years ago. So if dogs were stuck in North America, who was doing their job elsewhere? Naturally marsupials filled the void in Australia with the wolf-like thylacines. Borhyaenids, primitive metatherian carnivores, took over in South America. As for the old world? I have another surprise for you. Filling the niche in Africa and Eurasia were hyenas.

Hyenas get a bad rap today. Often seen as ugly, nasty scavengers they have gotten the raw deal on public relations. Films like The Lion King only made matters worse, reinforcing previous perceptions that lions are strong and noble while hyenas are weak, cowardly, and even a little stupid. While modern brown and striped hyenas do scavenge, spotted hyenas are actually formidable predators. In fact, studies show that in some regions they kill more prey than lions, and in some regions lions get more food by pirating hyena kills than by killing their own prey. And the fossil record shows hyenas were never the “losers of the animal kingdom” that people often see them as.

Here we see a hyena in a typical act of scavenging /s

Throughout their evolutionary history dogs came in a range of shapes and sizes. Hyenas followed suit. One species was small and mongoose-like. Another species (Chasmaporthetes) was lightly built and probably a fast runner. There were some wolf-like species as well. So hyenas were every bit as capable as their “superior” counter parts. And since they managed to keep up with dogs it should be no surprise that when dogs produced a super-sized brute hyenas did as well.

Hyenas from the late Miocene of Europe. From left to right: Adcrocuta eximia, Hyaenotherium wongii, Ichtitherium viverrinum, Protichtitherium crassum, and Plioviverrops orbignyi. By Mauricio Anton, from the book “Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids”

Dinocrocuta gigantea. The “gigantic terrible hyena” This monster prowled Asia and far eastern Europe during the Miocene. It is especially well known from China, where several complete skulls and other bones have been found.

Skull and head reconstruction of Dinocrocuta gigantea. By Mauricio Anton, from the book “Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids”

Dinocrocuta wasn’t a true hyena though. It was a Percrocutid, a small group of hyena-like animals. Kind of like how nimravids are cat-like but not true cats. Anyway, Dinocrocuta lives up to its name on size alone: it’s estimated to have weighed 800 pounds. That is the size of a grizzly. And like a grizzly, it had a massive skull capable of crushing bite force. While grizzlies are usually salad munchers with a bad temper and occasionally prey on animals, Dinocrocuta was a full tilt predator. For starters are the teeth. Animals that spend a lot of time chewing plant matter have flat molars (like bears). The canines were long and point like we see in big cats. The cheek teeth, while robust and rounded (to facilitate crushing), were structured like the blade-like cutting teeth of cats. It may be contested that Dinocrocuta couldn’t have been as active a predator as other animals because it’s size meant it couldn’t run fast enough to chase down prey. One fossil reveals that they at least had the balls to go after big game. A fossil rhino skull from China was found with a bite mark near the eye:

The bone was in the process of growing back, a sign it was healing. Fossil bite marks always come with the disclaimer “it is impossible to tell whether it was attacked or scavenged”. However in this case the animal was attacked while it was alive and survived long enough for the bone to remodel. Dinocrocuta was the only animal alive at the time and place that could have made this wound. Obviously speed and agility aren’t that important when hunting things like rhinos. A rhino would have been a formidable opponent; perhaps this was a weak or sick individual; maybe Dinocrocuta caught it when it was vulnerable, like at a watering hole; or maybe Dinocrocuta was a pack hunter like modern spotted hyenas. But one thing is for certain. With their bone shattering jaws and mean streak, hyenas certainly earn their title (provided by Jack Tseng) as the “tyrants of the Cenozoic”.

To bring this entry full circle let us turn back to North America, to the dog Dinocrocuta was copying. While Dincrocuta was terrorizing the wilds of Asia, the savannahs of North America were being prowled by the largest dog that ever lived.

Skull of Epicyon from the late Miocene of California.

Skull and fleshed out reconstruction of Epicyon. By Mauricio Anton, from the book “Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History” by Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford

It was a member of an extinct subfamily of dogs called borophagines, which means “bone eaters”. This stems from the fact that a couple of their stock resembled hyenas (thus they were thought to be scavengers). But it is hard to imagine something whose name means “top dog” as being a trash picker. Epicyon haydeni was that top dog. Its skull rivals a bears in size. At 370 pounds, Epicyon was only half the size of Dinocrocuta. But as a dog, Epicyon was more suited to the open terrain. It probably preyed mainly on horses and camels, the most common animals at the time. We don’t know whether or not it was a pack hunter or a “lone wolf”. But we might be able to guess based on its leftovers:

Foot bone of a giant camel from the Miocene of California. One of the articular surfaces (the knobs at the top, where the toe bones connect) has been chewed off.

Many bones from Miocene North America show signs of having been chewed on. Anyone who has ever given their dog a bone can find the same bite marks as paleontologists do. Stuff like this and the hyena-like skulls of Epicyon and its cousin Borophagus caused paleontologists to initially class them as hyena mimics; that is, they scavenged carcasses, using their strong jaws to crush bones. But with the revelation that modern spotted hyenas hunt this interpretation was questioned. Carnivore expert Xiaoming Wang in his book about dogs posits a different scenario. He thinks the bone cracking could be a sign of group living. The idea is that rather than using strong jaws to break open the bones of carrion, the strong bite instead evolved as a means of quickly dismembering a carcass. Like hyenas, these dogs may have each torn off a chunk of the kill, bones, flesh, everything; they would then retreat to eat in seclusion. This quick dismemberment was not only a way to consume the kill before other predators caught wind. It was a way of getting your piece in the highly competitive social scene. In nature, your greatest rivals are the members of your own species.

Epicyon attempts to sink it’s fangs into the “slingshot deer” Synthetoceras (who was supposed to be the final entry on this list. Looks like he made it in anyway!). By Mark Hallet, from Fine Art America

There hasn’t been a dog since to rival Epicyon in size. Even the largest wolves are only half that weight. The true hyenas did produce a small-lion-sized species during the Pleistocene (Pachycrocuta brevirostrus), but even it pales in comparison to Dinocrocuta. Why did these carnivores get so big? What advantages/disadvantages came with such great size? Why didn’t this gargantuan size reappear during the megafaunal age of the Pleistocene (save for Pachycrocuta)? If only we could hold a biscuit over them and tell them to speak, only then might we get our answers.

28. Giant buffalo

You know, it can be frustrating at times when people don’t understand the basics of science. Like common names. Many common names are actually inaccurate. Stuff like “star fish”, “sabertooth tiger”, and “Irish elk”, to name a few. When we try to inform people it’s incorrect they often role their eyes and say “whatever” or “same thing” or (in the case of my old geology teacher) “god just let it go”. They don’t understand that such names are not only inaccurate but also misleading. They effectively rewrite the taxonomy of the animal. And because of that, we have to explain the difference to the person each and every time. The example relevant to this discussion is “buffalo” Buffalo is used to refer to many different kinds of hoofed mammals, some more closely related than others. Specifically, it refers to two species thought of as “true” buffalo: the cape or African buffalo and the water buffalo. But this name gets applied to another animal that, while related (both are in the family Bovidae), is quite different from its old world cousins.

It all started when early explorers and settlers encountered a giant hairy beast in the wilds of the American west. It was large, had horns, and walked on two toed hooves. It looked like a buffalo, so they called it one. We are of course talking about bison. The devils in the details as they say. Buffalo have short hair and large horns that usually meet in the middle to form a kind of boney helmet. Bison have shaggy coats (including a “ruff” or thick mat of hair between the horns), have smaller horns, and a huge shoulder hump. So using the title I did isn’t accurate as one of the subjects is a bison.

Bison are already big and powerful animals. Males can weigh up to a ton and stand six feet at the shoulder. They are usually ranked as the largest land animal in North America (though you could probably make the case for largest land animal in the Americas). So it’s hard to imagine a bovid bigger than it. But there was. During the ice age in North American there were two species of bison. The first was Bison antiquus which was about the same size as its modern descendant and sported a slightly longer spread of horns. The second was a giant in the tradition of Pleistocene mega mammals. It was called Bison latifrons. It looked other bison species… Except it was a foot taller, weighed half a ton more, and boasted an impressive 6-7 foot horn span!

Partial skull and horncore of Bison latifrons discovered in Diamond Valley, California

Reconstructed skeleton of Bison latifrons at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. From travelphotobase.com

Those horns are its claim to fame. Although the horns on modern bison are nothing to laugh at. Case in point:

Ouch…

Pwned!

Now image the same thing happening with a bigger animal with much bigger horns. People always fear the carnivores. In doing so they forget that the herbivores can be even worse. For all we know there may have been some paleo-indian hunters who met a similar fate. But the horns may have been even longer. The fossil record preserved the boney inner cores. In life horns are covered by an outer layer of keratin. These usually add some more length to the horns.

Now to move on to buffalo proper. Again, it appears to be a case of one ecosystem trying to have its own version of an animal elsewhere. This lead us to the African giant buffalo. Now this guy was only slightly larger than its modern cousin. But it was a good deal more robust. And like Bison latifrons, it is famous for its horns. Skulls of Pelorovis antiquus have been found with horns stretching 9 feet long! I’m pretty sure just one of those bad boys puts any dinosaur horn to shame. But appearances can be deceiving. The horns of Pelorovis antiquus curve much more heavily than the straight horns of Bison latifrons:

Skull of Pelorovis antiquus from eastern Africa. From Wikipedia

Fleshed out reconstruction of Pelorovis antiquus (bottom). By Mauricio Anton, from the book “Evolving Eden”

This means that while their overall length could be nine feet, the distance from point to point is shorter. And like Bison latifrons, the horns would have been longer in life because of the keratin sheath. Horns are not just good for fighting rivals and attracting mates. They can also be used for protection. While it is debated whether horned dinosaurs used their head ornaments for defense against predators, mammals could use their to thrash would be predators. Case in point:

Weeee, flying kitty! Apparently the lions were mating when the buffalo randomly attacked them. What a 2000 pound cockblocker!

The phrase “that’s gonna leave a mark!” feels like a gross understatement here… (she did survive, thanks in no small part to wildlife vets)

Yeah, mammals ain’t no wusses! They get down and dirty and ain’t afraid of a good brawl! Pelorovis antiquus probably needed all the help it could get living in Pliocene Africa. In addition to all the modern predators (lions, hyenas, hunting dogs, leopards, and cheetahs), the sabertooths were also in force. These included the lion-size Homotherium, the leopard-on-steroids Meganterion, and the beefcake Dinofelis. As the above shows modern buffalo are already very dangerous. One can only imagine how nasty a giant buffalo could have been. The same likely goes for Bison latifrons. Like a lot of mammals they were as dangerous as they are majestic. They lucked out in having horns they could use for defense. Others had to make due with less.

29. Bull rat

Rodents get no respect. They are seen as vermin, as disgusting pest who need to be eradicated. Rodents are abundant microfossils, yet hardly anyone wants to study them. All this despite the fact that rodents are actually the most successful group of mammals. Half of all mammal species living today are rodents. They live everywhere except Antarctica. They are found in just about every habitat imaginable. They are highly adaptable, thanks to their varied diet and high rate of reproduction. They serve many important roles in nature and science. Rodents are an important source of food for hundreds of species. They serve as seed dispersers. We use them for laboratory experiments. Ice age pack rats nests in the American southwest have survived to present and help reconstruct the ancient climate. One modern rodent species even predicts the weather for us. Because rodents have much shorter generational cycles, they evolve quicker than large mammals. This allows them to be used as index fossils, a method of dating prehistoric sites and geologic units. And they sometimes amuse us with their hilarious antics:

A good sized rat seems capable of scaring a good amount of people. But there are many species larger than the biggest rats. Maras, porcupines, and beavers all fit the bill. The largest living rodent is the capybara. Like a giant amphibious guinea pig, it can weigh over 100 pounds. It is native to much of central and eastern South America. You would think that this was as big as a rodent could get. After all I mentioned rodents as microfossils. As is usual with the fossil record, what we perceive as an extreme is easily outclassed. The capybara is the last in a long parade of giant rodents who occupied South America during the late Cenozoic. Funnily enough, they got bigger with each new discovery. The first was Neochoerus, a larger cousin of the capybara. Then came Telicomys. I’ve heard the name translates as “mighty mouse”, which is apt. It was 6 feet long and weighed in the neighborhood of 800 pounds. Telicomys enjoyed the spotlight as the largest rodent for a long time. Then in the 80s along came Phoberomys. This mega rodent from Venezuela pushed the envelope on rodent size to 1500 pounds. You would think that would be the end of it. It wasn’t.

Phoberomys from the Miocene of Venezuela. Here we see the creature briefly enjoying the title of largest rodent ever. From National Geographic News

In 2008, scientists reported on a giant skull found in the Pliocene of Uruguay. It measures 21 inches long- the size of a bull’s. A giant pair of curved incisors, a foot long, marks it as a rodent. Based on the dimensions of the skull, the scientists estimated that this gargantuan rodent stood 6 feet at the shoulder and tipped the scales at a full ton in weight. This beast, the largest rodent ever found was named… Josephoartigasia monesi. Huh. Could they have picked a more convoluted and mind-numbingly difficult to pronounce name? I still have no idea how to say it’s name. So I have come to call it the “bull rat”. Why that name? Well it is as big as a bull, and it’s a rodent and rats are the most familiar (even though they are in a completely different family).*.

Skull of the bull rat (reconstructed bits in grey) compared to a distant modern cousin.

Bull rat compared to the largest living rodent (the capybara) and a human. From Prehistoric Wildlife.com

So just how did the bull rat live? All we have is a skull but can provide some details. It was found in deposits consistent with a swampy, marshy type of environment with forests. It probably fed on soft vegetation, based on its small teeth and weak chewing muscles. The bull rat shared it’s environment with many predators, including sabertooth cats and terror birds. Its size alone probably served to deter some predators. For others, like any other rodent, it probably turned to its huge incisors. Rodents make their living by gnawing. Their teeth are constantly growing to keep up with constant biting. In fact, if they don’t gnaw, their teeth can grow too long with nasty consequences:

Skull of a squirrel who didn’t keep his teeth nice and trim. It ended up curling into his skull and stabbing his brain. On display at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop in Seattle, Washington

I once saw a video of anaconda preying on a capybara. Even though the snake won, the capybara managed to take a huge bite out of it. Anyone who has ever owned a rat or a hamster knows how hard they can bite. Anyone who foolishly fed the squirrels at the Grand Canyon knows the wrath of rodent teeth. Imagine being bit by a beaver, which famously uses its teeth to cut down small trees. It’s chewing may have been weak, but it may still have had a strong bite. A biomechaqnical analysis is needed.

Skulls are good, but even they can only tell us so much about an extinct species. The size estimate, while spectacular, is only guess work. Phoberomys’s size was more reliable because post cranial bones are known. Without them, we can’t know how big the bull rat truly was, how it moved, and how its body functioned. But what the size estimate helps to establish is that rodents have the second greatest size range of any group of mammals (surpassed only by the diprotodontine marsupials of Australia). And it also reveals a rodent that would have been any exterminator’s worst nightmare.

*(Yes, i’m using my own nickname for this animal. Look, this is the single most diffiuclt prehistoric name i have ever encountered (even more so than the dinosaur opisthocoelicaudia. Does that mean mammals have another record over dinosaurs: most difficult scientific name to pronounce?). It needs a common name everyone can say. Besides, if Brian Switek can attempt to make the nickname “shovel-beaked” a thing, then i reserve the right to try and make bull rat a common name!)

30. Marsupial lion

In the past marsupials had to work to gain the begrudging respect of paleontologists. Always thought to be inferior to placentals, the storied past of Australia’s fossil record has slowly overturned these prejudices. I say slowly because as I have laid out earlier Australia has a poor fossil record compared to the rest of the world. Despite a few exceptionally rich sites (Riversleigh, Alcoota, and Naracoorte Caves, as well as a few others), our picture of ancient Australia remains frustratingly incomplete. The Pleistocene remains the best known time period, but even then it took a long time for ancient marsupials to get their dues.

In the 19^th century a shipment of fossils was sent from Australia to the eminent naturalist Sir Richard Owen. Among them was a partial skull with unusual cheek teeth. They looked like the blade of a cleaver. This lead Owen to describe the animals as “the fellest and most destructive of predatory beasts.” He named this nasty piece of work Thylacoleo, the “marsupial lion”. This was something truly apart from the known mammalian predators at the time. Unfortunately that fact alone caused future scientists to doubt Owen’s assessment. As more fossils were found, it’s lack of cat and dog like canines and cheek teeth resembling carnassials were cited as evidence that Thylacoleo couldn’t have been a predator. Combine this with the fact that it is part of the larger group that includes wombats and the diprotodonts (both herbivores) and it seemed the case was closed. Thylacoleo was a harmless herbivore. This in turn fueled the idea that the Pleistocene Australian carnivore guild was “ruled” by reptiles. Fortunately this was not to be.

Skeleton of Thylacoleo carnifex at the Melbourne Museum

Future work done by Stephen Wroe and others reaffirmed Owens original interpretation. Firstly, just because an animal has different dentition than a known predator does not automatically mean it wasn’t a predator itself (T. rex knows what I’m talking about). Thylacoleo has a pair of huge lower incisors that could have been used as bayonets. Of course, it takes a lot of bite force to cause lethal damage with a tooth. That’s where Wroe comes in. He specializes in studying the biting mechanics of modern and extinct carnivores. He examined the skull of Thylacoleo and used measurements to determine its bite force. Another bit of evidence used to peg Thylacoleo as a vegan was its size. At the size of a leopard, it was much smaller than most mammalian super predators. Studies lead by Wroe reevaluated Thylacoleo’s size as between 200 and 280 pounds, the size of a jaguar and some of the smaller subspecies of tigers. But back to the bite. Wroe and his team discovered that not only was Thlacoleo a big biter, but maybe one of the biggest biters of them all. It was found to have the same bite force as a lion: 600 psi. Thylacoleo was only half the size of a lion and yet it had just as powerful a bite. This means Thylacoleo had a much more powerful bite relative to its size.

Thylacoleo’s dentition was also looked over again. Herbivores spend a lot of time chewing, so they have flat teeth designed to grind plant matter. Thylacoleo’s cheek teeth are the complete opposite, looking more like bolt cutters than typical plant eater teeth. Compare them to the teeth of the supposedly superior placental mammal:

Comparison of the dentition of Thylacoleo carnifex and an African lion

Now which one looks more suited to slicing? My money is on the marsupial lion. Thylacoleo is now considered the most specialized mammalian carnivore of all time. Looking at the evolution of marsupial lions, we can see a trend towards increasing specialization of cutting. Observe:

Increasing specialization of the cheek teeth in marsupial lions. from bottom to top: the Miocene Wakaleo alcootaensis; the Pliocene Thylacoleo crassidentatus; and the Pleistocene Thylacleo carnifex. From “Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea” by Long et al

So Thylacoleo wasn’t only on par with placental carnivores, it surpassed them. Thylacoleo’s build offers further clues to its predatory nature. This was a very heavily built animal. It’s very robust limbs show it was built for power like sabertooth cat. It had large claws on semi-opposable thumbs, a trait not seen in any other predatory mammal. These may have allowed Thylacoleo to better grapple with it’s prey. Now with its predatory creds restored, we need to ask next what it hunted. It certainly had its pick of megafauna to snack on. A couple species of the huge wombat-like diprotodonts (Diprotodon and Zygomaturus), a large flightless bird (Genyornis), the marsupial tapir, a giant wombat (Phascolonus), and a suite of large to giant kangaroos (Procoptodon, Sthenurus, Macropus titan, and Protemnodon, a giant wallaby). Strange cut marks attributed to Thylacoleo have been found on some ribs belonging to Diprototodon, a three ton behemoth who was the largest marsupial of all time. Whether Thylacoleo killed it or scavenged it is hard to pin down. Despite being a very powerful predator, it is debatable whether or not Thylacoleo could take down such a huge animal. Whatever it went after, we can safely say that Thylacoleo was an ambush predator. It was designed to overpower its prey, not run them down.

A pair of Thylacoleo in the process of taking down the robust sthenurine kangaroo Sthenurus. By Mauricio Anton, from “National Geographic: Prehistoric Mammals”

Thylacoleo shared its spot at the top of the food chain with the giant lizard Megalania. But being a mammal, Thylacoleo had a hire metabolism and thus would have needed to hunt more than its reptilian cohort. This of course means it probably had more of an impact on the ecosystem. And like Megalania, Thylacoleo is thought to have died out ~50,000, probably following its giant prey into extinction. Or did it. A piece of rock art discovered in Kimberley in 2008 may depict a marsupial lion:

Possible depiction of Thylacoleo in aboriginal cave art. From Antiquity

The rock art may date to 30,000 years ago. That’s 20,000 after Thylacoleo is thought to have gone extinct. The short legs, large head, wide paws make some think it represents Thylacoleo. A second image may also depict Thylacoleo:

Possible depiction of Thylacoleo in aboriginal rock art. Here we see a man trying to fend off the creature with a spear. From Antiquity

Could this be the world’s oldest action movie? Of course determining that these pictures depict marsupial lions is very difficult. Especially when you consider that the youngest dates for Thylacoleo are so old (and evidence for humans at this time is very, very rare, practically nonexistent). The common counter argument is that the images depict thylacines, marsupial wolves. These critters survived on the Australian mainland until the introduction of dingoes around 3,000 years ago. After that it was restricted to the island of Tasmania until being driven to extinction by white settlers (the last one died in captivity in 1936). After all, thylacines are known to have striped backs. Being known from fossil bones, we can only guess as to what the marsupial lion actually looked like.

Thylacoleo has had a rocky history but he came out on top. He showed that marsupials could produce large predators on par with placentals. Well not only that but he turned out to be the most specialized carnivorous mammal that ever lived. It was a powerful and likely vicious animal, if it had an attitude anything like that of its distant cousin the Tasmanian devil. There is evidence it may have taken down the largest known marsupial. There is evidence it may have survived longer than previously thought and may have even done battle with humans. Why we don’t see tv shows and movies showing prehistoric Aborigines going toe-to-toe with a marsupial lion (or Megalania) like we see cavemen fighting sabertooth cats is beyond me. Why this true badass of prehistory isn’t as celebrated as other prehistoric carnivores (mammal or otherwise) is maybe one of the great crimes of modern paleo culture.

31. Crusher and Killer Walruses

A long long time ago we looked at a dolphin who thought he was a walrus. Now it’s time to look at walruses proper. The group of sea going mammals we call walruses date back to the middle Miocene and contained three subfamilies: the sea lion-like Imagotariines, the double-tusked Dusignathines, and the tusked Odobeninines (which includes the modern walrus). The two we are looking at belong to the second group. Dusignathines swam the waters of the Pacific during the late Miocene and most of the Pliocene. They get their nickname of “double-tusked” because they sport two sets of bear-like canines as opposed to the two large upper tusks of their modern cousins. This combined with their full set of teeth show their feeding habits differed significanty from those of modern walruses.

First up is a denizen of sunny Orange County, California. Named in 1991, it is called Gomphotaria pugnax; the “pugnacious wedge seal”). Hailing from the late Miocene Capistrano formation, this is one of the pretty cool animals that you never heard of not just because it sits in a museum collection no online database, but also because of the specialized nature of marine mammals. I know of it because I found it referenced in the L.A. Museum’s collections newsletter and managed to get a couple of the paper. But it’s best public exposure comes from Boesnecker’s thorough, exhaustive blog. In fact that is where a lot of my info on this guy comes from, so be sure to thank The Coastal Paleontologist. Anyway, Gomphotaria is known from a nearly complete skeleton, including a whole skull and the right lower jaw. The first thing that leaps out about Gomphotaria is its size:

Lower jaw of Gomphotaria pugnax with puny human for scale. Photo by Robert Boessenecker

I haven’t heard any size estimates for this guy, but just looking at Boesnecker’s photos, this guy may have been the size of a Steller sea lion or maybe even a mid size elephant seal. The skull is massive:

Gargantuan skull of Gomphotaria pugnax. Photo by Robert Boessenecker

Even for the double-tusked walruses, the canines of Gomphotaria stand out. They are huge and thick, looking like they were designed for crushing. So do its cheek teeth. They are short and rounded, not ideal for catching fish. Wear on the teeth seem to suggest this. Gomphotaria outright crushed its shellfish prey instead of sucking them out like a modern walrus.

So we have one walrus who didn’t pussy foot around with sucking clams. He just smashed them like a boss. But this isn’t the only extreme deviation from traditional walrus diet. What is I told you there was a killer walrus? Sounds crazy right? Not to the scientists who described Pelagiarctos. Pelagiarctos was found in the legendary Sharktooth Hill bonebed outside of Bakersfield, California. Only a few teeth and the front of a lower jaw were found:

Based on the shape of the teeth, the broken lower canine, and the fused nature of the lower jaw was at first interpreted as evidence of a carnivorous diet. Estimated to weigh 1000 pounds (the size of a modern leopard seal) it was certainly big enough to prey on a variety of marine vertebrates. And so the image stayed until just a couple years ago when another specimen belived to be Pleagiarctos showed up in Orange County.

The lower jaw wasn’t fused, and the teeth were in great shape. The authors argue that this means it was probably a fish eater and not a macro predator. I say there are too few fossils to say with any certainty. Even if it was a fish eater, it could still have preyed on other things. Its teeth are somewhat similar to a leopard seals. Leopard seals fed mainly on squid and krill, but have been known to prey on penguins, other seals, and have even been observed to have taken bites out of whales! Like I said, I think too few fossils have been found to say anything for sure (a skull would be nice for starters). So with Pelagiarctos debunked as a macro predator there seems no hope for a killer walrus. Or is there?

I have seen Boessenecker mention a few times something called Pontolis magnus. I haven’t been able to track down any literature on the damn thing, so he has been my source of info. Apparently it’s known from a cranium (the back of the skull) from Oregon as well as a lower jaw. Nothing much can be said about him. Boesnecker says it certainly ate fish but was in the size range to be a macro predator. I hope so. I just love the name Pontolis magnus. It sounds like the name of some brutal and ruthless Roman general or emperor.

Does all seem lost for the killer walrus? Maybe not. Like I said, we don’t know very much about the claimants. They may very well have been like modern leopard seals, which do occasionally prey on birds and mammals. But being a killer may run in the family. Boesnecker notes that modern walrus have been observed preying on sea birds and even seals, using their specialized feeding equipment to suck the meat and blubber off the bones. When I was a kid I read of a bizarre fight witnessed by the crew of a Russian ship in the Arctic. According to the account, a walrus was locked in a death match with a narwhal. It said the walrus won and proceeded to feed on its slain foe. So remember: behind the silly sounds and cuddly look, lurks the heart of a blood thirsty killer!

Like so many groups, scientists are left wondering why such a diverse group has left so few descendants. The modern walrus is the only species left. And they may soon be gone as well. As the climate changes, the arctic sea ice that walruses rely on is shrinking. Walruses may soon join the ranks of animals known only from fossils and museum specimens. Let’s hope not.

32. Doedicurus

Ankylosaurus are often described as living tanks. They are heavily armored and have tails ending in nasty clubs. They are often portrayed as being almost immune to attack from predators. Anything that attacks them can’t get through their and face the wrath of their tail clubs. But they aren’t the only ones. Mammals produced their own tanks-like animals. Not only were they more fortified than ankylosaurs, but one species was even able to one up them on tail clubs! These animals are the glyptodonts.

Glyptodonts are extinct relatives of armadillos. They first appeared in the early Miocene and seem to have reached their peak in the Pliocene and Pleistocene. They ranged in size from a giant tortoise to a Volkswagon bug. Like other members of Xenarthra (sloths, armadillos, and anteaters) they had no tooth enamel, so their teeth were constantly growing. Unlike ankylosaurs who had armor plates embedded in their skin, glyptodonts had a rigid shell. This shell was domed and was made up of “rosette” shaped scutes that were fused together. These scutes are different between species, so they have some taxonomic value. While the shell is similar to a tortoise’s, glyptodonts couldn’t withdraw their heads. So glyptodonts had a cap of armor scutes on their heads.

Skeleton of the glyptodont Doedicurus. From Wikipedia

Their tails were also sheathed in armor. While ankylosaurs had a fairly standard blueprint for their clubs, glyptodonts were much more diverse:

Lateral (above) and dorsal (below) views of caudal bony sheaths: Neosclerocalyptus spp. (a), Pseudoplohophorus
absolutus (b), Panochthus tuberculatus (c), Castellanosia spp. (d), Doedicurus clavicaudatus (e). The solid circles indicate the
positions of the centre of mass (xcm) and CP using 1400 kg m23 for internal density. The error range for xcm and CP based
on variations of internal density are shown. Scale bar, 15 cm. From Blanco et al, 2009

One species stands out, however. Not only did it have a tail club, but it was a club more extreme than any ankylosaurs. Its name is Doedicurus. Doedicurus was one of the largest glyptodonts, standing 5 feet tall at the top of its dome and weighed two tons. It lived throughout the Pleistocene epoch and ranged over much of South America. But its most notable feature is its tail club. Whereas ankylosaurs are content with knobs, Doedicurus took it to the next level. This thing had a frickin morning star on the end of its tail:

The glyptodonts Doedicurus (foreground) and Glyptodon (background) hanging out in Pleistocene South America. From Wikipedia

The clubs that have been found have pits that scientists think betray the prescience of spikes. It has been posited that the club, like other glyptodonts, could have been used for defense against predators (as if the armor wasn’t enough). But the club may have also been used in fights between males. Dents and fractures have been found on some glyptodont shells which authors argue could have been made by another glyptodont’s tail club. Besides, the big domed shell of your fellow glyptodont is an easier target than a smaller and more nimble predator. But how strong was it? A study by R. Ernesto Blanco et al. found that the tails and clubs of many glyptodont species were designed to exert maximum force when swung from side to side. They found the “sweet spot” of percussion wasn’t the very tip of the club, but closer to the base. This is where the largest pits (which would have supported the largest spikes) are found. Anyone would hate to be on the wrong end of that:

A terror bird reconsidering being Doedicurus’s predator. From BBC’s “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts”

How much force these biological battle maces exerted the authors did not say. But they found that tails with smaller clubs were more flexible than those with large ones. This means Doedicurus had the least maneuverable tail of the species studies. But the tail must have been capable of energetic blows, since the animal would have had to have been accurate enough to strike with the “sweet spot”. What significance all this has requires more study. Not all glyptodonts had tail clubs and the ones who did exhibit a diversity of shapes.

Glyptodonts were the giant ground sloth’s partner in crime in the early days of paleontology. Common museum displays had glyptodonts alongside giant ground sloths. They were almost as big, and were even stranger. Of course they too got kicked aside in the public eye once dinosaurs showed up; especially the nodosaurs and ankylosaurs who were not only bigger but also had strange assortments of spikes. But unlike dinosaurs, Pleistocene humans would have seen glyptodonts in person. How I envy them. South America (in addition to Australia and Madagascar) is one of the places I wish the megafauna hadn’t died out. It had so many strange and wonderful beasts roaming its wilds. It had the remains of Souther America’s old order (ground sloths, glyptodonts, litopterns, toxodonts, and terror birds) but also put twists on the immigrants from the north. The mastodonts (Stegomastodon and Cuvieronius) were members of the old gomphothere family that had died out elsewhere but thrived in South America; the horse Hippidon had a large nose and upper lip; their species of Smilodon was the biggest sabertooth cat ever. Like Australia and Madagascar, this was a fauna unlike anything else on earth. Most wish they could go back to he Mesozoic and see the “terrible lizards”. I wish I could go back to the Pleistocene, yesterday in geologic time, and see some of the most spectalucar animals who ever lived. Doedicurus among them…

Lucky stone age bastards… From ANIMALES EN VIA DE EXTINCION

33. Basilosaurus

We saw the ultimate killer whale in Levyatin. Now let’s meet the original killer whale. Whales were originally thought to have evolved from hoofed carnivores called Mesonychids (like Andrewsarchus from earlier). Numerous fossil discoveries have revealed they actually evolved from the group of even-toed hoofed mammals called artiodactyls. In addition to this, numerous fossils have helped flesh out the evolution of whales. From the early partly aquatic Pakicetus, to the fabled “missing-link” Ambulocetus, to the freely swimming Rhodocetus. But before these guys made waves in the science community, another whale provided the first clues to their terrestrial roots.

In the early 19^th century large vertebra were routinely found in the American South. A couple specimens were brought to Sir Richard Owen (him again!) and he named them Basilosaurus. Basilosaurus means “king lizard”, an allusion to how he thought they came from a giant reptile. Later much more complete skeletons were found, including skulls. They showed that rather than a reptile, Basilosaurus was actually an early whale. But due to the rules of taxonomic nomenclature, the name had to stick.

Toothy skull of Basilosaurus. From Wikipedia

Basilosaurus skeleton in the old “Life in the Ancient Seas” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. From the Smithsonian website

Basilosaurus, like so many whales, was very large. It measured 50 feet long and weighed 20 tons, making it the largest animal on earth at the time. It swam in the warm waters of the late Eocene epoch around 40 million years ago. Because it lived in warm waters it lacked the thick layer of blubber worn by its modern relatives. This gave Basilosaurus a serpentine appearance, adding more to its image as a sea monster. Basilosaurus was an archaeocete, the group of early whales who made the journey into the sea. In fact, Basilosaurus provided some of the earliest evidence of this transition. When the more complete skeletons were being found, some were found with a pair of diminutive hind limbs. They were remarkably formed, from the pelvis down to the little bones of the toes. The legs were small, no bigger than a man’s arm, clearly unable to support its weight out of water. These legs were remnants of its past on land.

The diminutive hind legs of Basilosaurus. Photo by Richard Barnes, from “Why Evolution is True”

Basilosaurus had much different teeth than modern whales. Modern toothed whales have uniform teeth. Basilosaurs, again keeping with its land dqelling ancestors, had many different teeth. At the front were incisors and canines and in the back were shearing cheek teeth. The front teeth would grab hold of prey and then the back teeth would slice through flesh so it could be swallowed. Being the largest predator on earth, there was nothing Basilosaurus didn’t consider lunch. Luckily we have gut contents (in the shape of balls of indigestible bits, called bolas):

Fossil bolas- or in laymen’s terms, a petrified ball of gut contents

Teeth and bones of fish and sharks gleaned from the bolas

These fossilized gut contents reveal what Basilosaurus ate. They contain mostly fish bones and shark teeth. However, Basilosaurus was probably able to snack on its smaller cousins like Dorudon (or at least their young). Earlier whales were only able to tackle fish, but having everything in the sea potentially be on the menu meant Basilosaurus was the original killer whale.

The archaeocetes eventually went extinct. They were an evolutionary dead end. Other whales were to give rise to the lineages that would lead to the animals we charge tourists to watch from boats today.

34. Pelagornis

What do people most fear when they go to the beach? Well yeah sharks, but that’s only if they go into the water. Give up? Seagulls! That’s right, a shark may bite you if you go in the water, but a seagull can strike anywhere! They drive people mad with their irritating cawing. Their devious methods rob the unaware of their precious food. And many unfortunate souls are claimed by their bombing raids (you know what I’m talking about!). Seagulls are the scourge of the sea, coast, and even lakes. But I’m here to tell you it could be worse. Much worse.

Yes not only do they steal our food and poop on us they also… proselytize!!! From funny-pictures.picphotos.net

Sea birds are very well known from marine deposits as far back as the cretaceous. After the K-P extinction, they diversified into all new forms and niches. One group emerged shortly after the mass estinction and forged a lineage that lasted until the end of the Pliocene. If seagulls vex people today, imagine their reactions if they saw one of these flying over head. These birds are the Pelagornithids.

These sea birds are like seagulls on steroids. They varied in size. The largest is Pelagornis sandersi. Known from the early Miocene of South Carolina, this animal is known from a skull as well as some bones of the wing and leg. Based on measurements of the wing bones, it is estimated to have had a wingspan of 20 to 24 feet. The news hailed this as the largest flying bird ever. Argentavis from the Miocene of South America has been estimated to have a wingspan of 27 feet. This estimate has been challenged, often citing the incompleteness of Argentavis (not like Pelagornis sandersi is any better). So the largest flying bird title is currently up in the air. But it is obvious that Pelagornis sandersi dwarfs the wandering albatross, whose 13 foot wingspan is the greatest among modern birds.

Comparison of Pelagornis to the two largest flying birds. From Sci News.com

So Pelagronis was plenty big but it had another feature that would give any beachgoer a healthy fright. Pelagornithids are also known as “false-toothed birds”. They get this name from the fearsome points lining their jaws. These look like teeth. But these are actually bony projections of the jawbone. These probably served the same function as the pointy teeth of other marine critters; that is, they were used to grab slippery prey. These birds were once thought to be dive bombers, like gannets and brown pelicans. But given the thin walled (and therefore highly fragile) nature of their bones, this is highly unlikely. They probably snatched prey while flying just above the surface or swimming on the surface.

Skull of Pelagornis sandersi showing off those fearsome looking bony “teeth”. From Sci News.com

These birds died out at the end of the Pliocene. I haven’t heard of any reasons for why that is. It couldn’t have been competition from mammals as they coexisted for millions of years. Bird remains are always rare in the fossil record. But perhaps we can tease enough fossils out of the earth to determine why they died out. But these giant birds in flight must have been one of the most spectacular sights in the history of the earth.

35. Sloth Lemur

Writing this post I realized that I had left something out, something from one of my favorite times and places. So this last slot got axed and handed over to one of the most bizarre primates who ever lived.

Megafauna is a word used to describe a collection of gargantuan beasts. But I have found that it can be relative. What is considered giant for one area can be puny by the standards of another. It once irked me so when I saw the Dune Center calling deer and black bears megafauna. But one ecosystem helped me understand that megafauna is merely in relation to what we see today. It had a couple giants, but the rest are pretty small by comparison. But they were behemoths when placed side by side with their modern relatives. I am talking about an island off the coast of Africa that is legendary for its strange wildlife: Madagascar.

The interesting thing about Madagascar’s megafauna is not just its size and composition, but also its age. Megafauna are usually associated with the ice age (the late Pleistocene one specifically). Madagascar’s megafauna went extinct a mere 2,000 years ago. The time when the Roman Empire was at its peak; when the pre-classic Maya were building cities in the jungle; and when a certain Jewish carpenter was supposedly born. In fact most of the remains from Madagascar’s megafauna have been found as subfossils. These are bones and other remains that are on the way to becoming fossils. But they haven’t had enough time to be completely turned to stone. These remains have been found in many open air sites but a great deal have been found in caves.

A recent (and surprising) discovery was a treasure trove of subfossils in an underwater cavern. Image from the Daily Mail

A recent (and surprising) discovery was a treasure trove of subfossils in an underwater cavern. Image from the Daily Mail

Madagascar had a collection of megafauna like nowhere else on earth. There were several species of elephant birds, the largest of which weighed 1,000 pounds and laid eggs 200 times the size of a chicken egg. There were several species of pygmy hippos the size of cows. Giant tortoises with three foot shells joined the ranks of the megaherbivores. A species of strange aardvark-like animal called the bibimaligasia trolled the forest floor for ant and termite nests. The large carnivore guild was also quite unique: two species of fossa (the modern one and a larger extinct species), two species of crocodiles (the modern nile croc and the extinct Voay), and an extinct species of crowned eagle. But the biggest component, as it is today, were lemurs. In addition to the modern species, the extinct lemurs greatly swelled their diversity. There were many lemurs who actually lived on the ground. There were two species of Archaeolemur (the larger of which was around 50 pounds in size) and a larger short skulled animal called Hadropithecus. The largest lemur of all time lived on the ground. It was called Archaeoindris and is estimated to have weighed in upwards of 400 pounds, the size of a male African gorilla (the largest modern primate). Because it was so big scientists reason it lived on the ground. Up in the trees lemurs were equally numerous. Pachylemur resembled modern ruffed lemurs but was twice as big. Megaladapis was as big as a man. There was a larger species of the curious aye-aye. Finally there was a group of lemurs who took to an extreme life style. They are known as the sloth lemurs.

There were many species of sloth lemur. There was Babokotia and then 3 species of Paleopropithecus. These animals got their names because when their remains were first found they were thought to have come from sloths. This is yet another remarkable example of evolutionary phenomena given to us by the Cenozoic (in this case, convergent evolution). The long nature of the hand and finger bones, plus the curved hand bones, strongly parallel new world tree sloths. These lemurs elected to copy sloths and resigned themselves to a life upside down. The two larger species of Paleopropithecus are estimated to have weighed 80 pounds.

Palaeoprothecus climbing the trees of ancient Madagascar. From Wikipedia

“This skelenton of a Palaeopropithecus, an extinct sloth lemur, is housed at Duke’s Division of Fossil Primates. Photo courtesy of Division of Fossil Primates.”

Sloth lemurs probably spent their days lazily climbing through the forest canopy munching on leaves. Whether it was as slow as a sloth is uncertain. Sloth are very slow because they have extremely slow metabolisms. I’m curious as to whether the upside-down lifestyle allows or even necessitates the extremely slow metabolism. Maybe Paleopropithecus had a more normal (for a lemur anyway) metabolism and so would have resembled a more active sloth.

Living in the trees likely afforded protection from predators. But not all of them. Several bones of Paleopropithecus, particularly the shoulder blades, exhibit large puncture marks. These resemble the marks on monkey bones that were killed by African crowned eagles. These eagles have been observed to prey on animals as large as juvenile antelope, but regularly prey on monkeys. These could range up to 20 pounds. Paleopropithecus is obviously much larger than that. But clearly subadults who weren’t fully grown could have been prime targets. It has been posited that the extinct Malagasy crowned eagle could have simple killed the large lemur and then let it fall to the forest floor where it could then feed on it.

“Stephanoaetus mahery- a Presumed Primate Specialist and it’s Role in the Evolution of Behavioral Aspects of Living and Extinct Lemurs” by Velizar Simeonovski. A subadult sloth lemur (Paleopropithecus ingens) about to meet its doom at the hands of an extinct Madagascar crowned eagle.

The vicious talon marks of eagles aren’t the only thing scientists have found on the bones of Paleopropithecus. Some bones from this animal were found with cut marks on them. The kind made with an iron knife. This implies that Paleopropithecus was hunted by humans. Madagascar is another ring where the causes of megafauna extinction are slugged out by scientists. Was it over hunting or was it climate change. Indeed evidence shows that about 2,000 years ago Madagascar’s climate greatly dried out. This would have stressed not only the water loving species (hippos, crocs, and certain birds) but would have reduced the forests where many lemurs lived. As the forests became more open, they had to come down to the ground to move between trees (leaving them vulnerable to predators, including humans). Just like everywhere else, so much work has yet to be done.

Like the Pleistocene of Australia and South America, I find the loss of Madagascar’s megafauna is a bitter pill to swallow. Sure the modern inhabitants are wonderful and wondrous. But imagine if the past inhabitants survived until today. Imagine zoos stocked with giant wombats, Megalania, marsupial lions, and enormous kangaroos from Australia; giant sloths, armored glyptodonts, mastodons, and sabertooth cats from South America; and cloth lemurs, pygmy hippos, and elephant birds from Madagascar. These lost worlds could have been ecotourist rivals to Africa. How would the prescence of these animals have affected the indigenous cultures? How would they hunt them: How would they factor into their stories and legends? One can only speculate. And perhaps the reason they are so fascinating is because they are gone. We can go to a zoo and see animals. People who lived on the edge of the wild see plenty of wildlife. But the extinct megafauna… they offer a shocking contrast to our modern world. We can only guess and imagine how they lived and died. There is talk about how we just might be able to bring some extinct species back to life through genetics. No dinosaurs mind you, but things like the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian wolf, and even the dodo. Many balk at the idea, while another great number think we shouldn’t do it (moral issues, because their ecology no longer exists, etc). I would be a horrible regulator, because I’d let scientists resurrect extinct species just for the chance to see them alive. But I’m not holding my breath. Science is science, after all, and the kinds of resurrection we see in movies may never be within our grasp.

So for now we must take what we can get. I am glad that most of the extinct beasts of Madagascar left us many subfossils to marvel at (except for Archaeoindris, who is curiously only known from a complete skull and a couple post cranial bones). They let us imagine in more detail about a lost world so similar to the modern ecosystem but so different at the same time. When lemurs reigned supreme, and one species dared to go the road less traveled and copied perhaps the last animal anyone would think to. Perhaps the habits and convergance of the sloth lemurs is a mystery that may remain, whether as a subfossil or a live specimen born in a test tube.

And with that ends the longest post I have ever written. I have spent over 2 months on it, so i hope you enyoyed it and got something out of it. The crazy thing is… this list could be considered incomplete. I left out desmostylians, slingshot deer, that tusked dolphin from New Zealand I learned about at SVP, dwarf mammoths, the weird horns of antilocaprids, the even weirder horns of certain artiodactyl groups, notoungulates, litopterns, moas, haast’s eagle, land crocs, killeroos, mihirungs, brontotheres, creodonts… This list could go on forever.

Despite all i have discussed here, dinosaurs will continue to reign supreme. Even though mammals are every bit as weird and marvelous, size is the only thing that matters. And most dinosaur were larger than the biggest terrestrial mammals (because whales don’t count). But i hope i have shown you a new side to prehistory, one filled with amazing oddities and evolutionary enigmas. Even after 200 years of paleontology, we still have as much to learn about the Cenozoic as we do about the “age of reptiles”.

Till next time!

ps- if you see any typos or misspellings… tough shit. I just spent over 2 months on this and have other stuff to do (going out into the field next week), so proof reading just never happened. Some might say it damages my professional image. But that implies I had one to begin with.

Hey there every peoples!

This last Friday The Avengers: Age of Ultron kicks off the summer movie season. I’ll see it, but i can’t say i was actually waiting to see it. That honor goes to Jurassic World, which opens in about a month and a half. However, i won’t be talking about the history of the film. Nor will i discuss the inaccuracies in this film, as i already about that on facebook (not because i find them bothersome, but because of the giant temper tantrum the dino fanboys threw over them). This time, i’d like to talk about a different aspect of the film: the apparently underwhelming fire power of the Jurassic World security force.

Now, real dinosaurs would probably be easy to take care of with guns (as is the case with pretty much all living animals). But in the world of the Jurassic Park franchise, apparently guns just serve to piss off the prehistoric super monsters. So you would think they would pack more heat then we see in the movies. This problem becomes especially clear in Jurassic World, where we have a fully functional theme park of dinosaurs. And then they engineer a new genetic mutant. Hell, we even hear a guy in the trailer say “you don’t have enough guns”. I mean, they couldn’t outfit their men with M1 Garands,  Tommy Guns, BARs, SMLEs, browning .30 cal guns, and such. Ok those were all WWII guns (kinda where my interest in guns ends). Let’s try again.

There is a nifty little website called the Internet Movie Firearms Database. It can tell you what the guns are in movies and just about everything you want to know about them. Based on the trailer, the ACU (Asset Containment Unit) is armed with:

The UTAS UTS-15, 12-gauge pump action shotgun with a 12 to 14 round capacity.

image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

The Heckler & Koch UMP, a sub machine gun which fires .40 caliber ammo and has a magazine capacity of 30 rounds.

image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

We also get brief glimpses of a GE m134 Minigun

image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

And a M136 AT4 missile launcher

image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

Most of those look right for the job. Except for the UMP, which looks underpowered for the job. In fact, the only gun more that looks more ill-suited to stopping a rampaging genetic monster is Owen’s gun. Judging from the trailers, he goes after the Indominus rex after the ACU has failed to subdue the beast. To take on this unstoppable freak of science he charges in with:

The Marlin Model 1895SBL lever action rifle. Image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

Really? That’s it? No wonder you need the raptor squad! This looks more like something a guy would carry while playing cowboy. So you arm the guards with sub machine guns made for fighting people and the hero has a low caliber single action rifle. Right now it leaves little doubt why the Indominus rex is able to run roughshod over the island.

Look, since dinosaurs are monsters (instead of animals) in these movies, why aren’t the armed better… armed? It seems the previous movies understood this. In Jurassic Park, when they are loading the raptor, several of the men can be seen holding M16 assault rifles. Not to mention Muldoon rocking a big shotgun. These same weapons are later seen in the emergency bunker’s gun locker.

In the Lost World, the InGen hunters came prepared not just with shotguns but also with the AKMS (a variant of the legendary AK-47 assault rifle):

Dieter, Roland’s second in command, uses a Heckler & Koch HK91 rifle:

Image from the Internet Movie Firearms Datababase

And Roland, anticipating a confrontation with the T. rexes, had the good sense to pack an elephant gun (before Vince Vaughn sabotaged it).

Image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

In Jurassic Park 3, the mercenaries again realized they needed to bring the heat. Nash packs a Heckler & Koch SL8. It is a stripped down version of the H&K G36 assault rifle. But since it uses 5.56x45mm NATO rounds it still packs a punch.

Image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

Udesky has a Steyer AUG, again an assault rifle:

Image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

Cooper (a “professional, he can take care of himself”) brings a Barrett M82A2, a .50 caliber sniper rifle. According to the movie it fires 20 mm (the size of small field artillery) incendiary rounds:

Image from the Internet Movie Firearms Database

Either he has lousy aim (it would have to be remarkably bad to miss a 50 dinosaur) or the  Spinosaurus is ridiculously over powered since it emerges from the scuffle unharmed.

So this all begs the question: why aren’t the ACU troops and Owen in Jurassic World packing inferior firearms? Some of them (two ground troops and a helicopter) are carrying sufficiently powerful guns, but for all we know they are the exception rather than the rule. Could this be what the guy weant when he said “you don’t have enough guns”? Again, given the circumstances and what happened to the last park they would up the ante on their security. Why not follow the military model. Have a group of men armed with assault rifles and have a couple guys with more heavy duty guns. Why not use “ol’ reliable” the M16? Or the dependable AK47? If you’re worried about length (often a disadvantage when fighting in closed spaces, like the jungle), how about the LWRC M6A2 PSD rifle? It is more compact than a typical assault rifle but because it uses 5.56x45mm NATO rounds it has plenty of stopping power.

Their shotguns are good, but perhaps against something as big and tough as dinosaurs, perhaps something a little quicker. The Russian Saiga-12 is automatic, and those few moments where you don’t have to pump could be the difference between life or death. It can use a 10 round box magazine or (if you want/need sheer volume) a 30 round drum. Ideal for dino slaying, i say!

For the guys with heavy weapons, there is always the M60 .50 caliber machine gun. Or it’s Russian equivalent the PKM. While heavy and cumbersome, a handheld mingun can lay down the suppressing fire like few others. A rocket (or missile) launcher is not bad, but you have to be careful because it can only fire once before having to reload. So how about giving a few guys Milkor MGL Mk 1L grenade launchers. They can fire six rounds before reloading

But maybe them being under armed is kind of the point. Jurassic World is a disaster movie with the disaster being a rampaging genetic mutant. Obviously that rampage wouldn’t last very long if the security force was equipped well enough to blast it into oblivion. Not only that but such a scenario would significantly reduce the body. And at the end of the day, the point of a Jurassic Park film is to watch people get eaten by dinosaurs. And Owens gun is weak but it does look pretty cool. I guess it makes sense for the hero to have a unique, stylized weapon that could become a trademark of the character. So maybe i just wrote this whole post for nothing, lol.

But to even the scales against the Indominus rex Owen isn’t just bring a gun. He also has a pack of raptors at his back. These raptors aren’t trained or domesticated, as many feared. Rather, their relationship is more complex than that. And judging from a shot in the trailer the raptors may eventually turn on the humans. Of course what i would like to see is some Cenozoic monsters taking on the dinosaurs. The dino fanboys would have you think there would be no contest. But considering how “beefed up” the dinosaurs of the Jurassic Park series are, why not do the same with mammals? They would probably argue a mamoth or mastodon wouldn’t stand a chance against a T. rex. How do you know? Because T. rex preyed on Triceratops? A mammoth/mastodon is not the same as a Triceratops. If they were anything like their modern cousins (and there is evidence they were), mammoths and mastodons could be very dangerous if provoked. Not to mention they would have been much more intelligent than any dinosaur (even if they were as smart as modern elephants, who we are finding more and more are very smart). And since many mammals are more inteligent than any dinosaur probably was, they could more easily trained to go after the Mesozoic blowhards.

Suppose the Jurassic world geneticists got a hold of well preserved dna from a bog in Patagonia or a cave in Australia and/or southeast Asia or from a tundra in Siberia. Mind you these are all from the Pleistocene, but they would give us: elephants (mammoths, mastodons, stegodons), Gigantopithecus (the largest known ape. Though “only” 9 feet tall when upright, it could still give us some pseudo King Kong action), Thylacoleo (marsupial lion), Megalania (a lizard the size of a polar bear), Quinkana (a ten foot land dwelling crocodile), sabertooth cats, terror birds (i guess that would be considered dinosaurs on dinosaurs, whatever), Arctotherium (the biggest bear ever, over twelve feet tall on its hind legs), cave lions, cave hyenas, cave bears, wooly rhinos, giant musk ox, ground sloths, and glyptodonts. If they sampled the whole of the Cenozoic, then there could also be: bone-crushing dogs, giant hyenas, bear-dogs, entelodonts, uber bears (Arctodus and Agriotherium), super sized predators (Sarkastodon, Andrewsarchus, Megistotherium), dire wolves, rhinos, giant buffalo, brontotheres, Titanoboa (49 foot snake), Purusaurus (giant alligator), and a whole range of sabertooth predators.

But that won’t happen. Remember, no matter how big, weird, or fierce, mammals will always fall short of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are big, which apparently trumps intelligence, speed, and brute strength (how many dinosaurs can lift and move a log like an elephant can?). Judging from the comments i have seen on blogs and facebook it appears the dino fanboys (obviously not all people interested in dinosaurs are like this. That is why i use fanboy in stead of scientist or lover or enthusiast) seem to take every opportunity to remind us how nothing can be as cool as dinosaurs. Remember my 100th blog post? On one share of it I saw a comment saying “Awesomeness ended at the end of the Cretaceous. The rest is mere postscript.” Another on that same share said “Post-K life is judged awesome by how closely it approaches Mesozoic forms in coolness.” So not only is everything after the dinosaurs an afterthought, but apparently the Mesozoic is the standard to which everything else is measured (and always fails to live to it). I saw a share of my post on Twitter with the tweet “35 Cenozoic Creatures Attempting to be as Awesome as Dinosaurs”. Hell, someone on facebook posted a photo of an ice age fossil asking if anyone knew what it was and one of the responses was “ewwwww… mammals”. In an article responding to someone dissing feathered dinosaurs, Brian Switek closed the article with “Feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Deal with it.”(presenting your opinion as fact. How professional). For Christ’s sake, i saw this posted on facebook:

What exactly constitutes a “feather hater”? Apparently not thinking feathered dinosaurs are the greatest thing ever. I said “what about those of us who think feathered dinosaurs are just meh?” Basically, i don’t hate them but i’m not gaga for them either. Two people told me i needed therapy. The poster said “hey, nobody’s asking you to be interested in dinosaurs. There’s plenty of echinoderms out there.” Mammals are completely glossed over. Apparently you are interested in dinosaurs or “boring, spineless bottom feeders”. Now i can hear everyone rushing in to tell me that each and every one of those was just someone joking around. I guess, but when it’s that prevalent one can’t help mistake joking for a passive aggressive mindset. I mean look at the responses i was able to bait out by calling feathered dinosaurs meh. And the ones targeted at my 100th post: it’s hard to take a joke when you spend over two months writing a defense of something you are passionate about… only to see it dismissed out of hand so casually. But then again, who would argue with that? There is no arguing with the dino fanboys. Dinosaurs just win everything. Size. Strangeness. Perceived ferocity. Perceived strength. Mammals are older? Nope since the root ancestors of dinosaurs showed up the same time the protomammals did. Mammals are still around? Nope since birds are dinosaurs. Diversity? Nope, since birds are dinosaurs and right now there are 9,956 modern species of birds against 5,416 modern species of mammals. Mammals conquered the 3 realms (land, air, sea)? Nope since most birds fly and penguins (among other species) live in the sea. I could do a picture of a cat with a dead bird saying “Mammals: 1- Dinosaurs: 0″, but then someone would just counter with a hawk or something clutching a mammal. Hell i have thought of a long line of “mammals rule” images, but those would just get countered with “dinosaurs rules” because dinosaurs will always be bigger, faster, stronger, weirder. They own all the superlatives.People only want superlatives, so dinosaurs will always hog all the glory.

Sorry, went off on one hell of a tangent there. Back on topic. Right now Jurassic World is looking solid. It could fail (every movie has the potential to). Or it could be like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, breathing new life into the franchise. We will have to wait and see. Despite my rant about dinosaurs vs mammals, i can’t wait for Jurassic World to hit theaters.

Til next time!

Hey there every peoples!

Quick post to make a shameless plug. I have long told others that my sin is envy. I’m not religious, but i think of sins more as character flaws than spiritual detriments. I could go into all the baggage that has been stirred up by this announcement, but who cares about that? This guy has less than two days to meet his goal so we better waste no time on me (again, who cares, so it would just be a waste anyway).

Brian Switek is perhaps one of the best paleo writers out there. One may disagree with some of the things he’s said, but you can’t deny his charisma and writing skill. Well now he has a most ambitious project. Called “Have Allosaurus Will Travel- Fossil Tales from the West“, he plans to spend the summer visiting the most famous fossil localities in the west, from household names like the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry,  Natural Trap Cave, and Ghost Ranch to rising stars like Tule Springs National Monument, Hanksvillle-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry, and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Not only will this odyssey (makes the one i took in April look like a weekend fling) result in a new book, but he will provide updates from the field via his blog and youtube. But he needs your help.

Getting out into the field is not easy. It requires a vehicle that can traverse rough terrain and clear obstacles. So he started a kickstarter to get himself a proper field vehicle. Nothing too fancy: a truck or suv with 4-wheel drive and plenty of clearance. Unfortunately even used cars are not cheep (unless they are right broke. My dad managed to sell my previous car for $400 when the transmission died. Of course a car that cheap would take so much money to properly fix up you’d be better off using the money on something that isn’t a broken down piece of crap!). So he is trying to raise funds to get a vehicle that can take him to hell and back (the summer time heat, rough terrain, and often imposing geology does stir up visions of hell).

Switek Descending into the depths of Natural Trap Cave. Photo by Eric Scott.

So go chip in. I have already given him what paltry sum i have left. Too he isn’t coming my way, or else i could offer what little knowledge i have (closest he is getting is Tule Springs, Nevada). But I feel like places like Barstow (type locality of the Barstovian NALMA, in California’s beautiful Mojave Desert) and the John Day Fossil Beds (A spectacular 40 million year record of geologic and biologic evolution in the backcountry of Oregon) should have been on the list given their enormous contributions to paleontology. But judging from his description they probably don’t meet his needs. Regardless, he is 3/4 of the way to his goal, so give him a hand. I have a feeling that even though he isn’t degreed, he may well earn a place alongside many of the great paleontological minds of our day, like Thomas Holts and Jack Horner.

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!

With Jurassic World just around the corner, I thought I would do something to go along with it. I have a lot of words about the fanboys, but that will come after the movie premiers. So what shall we talk about? Well with the impending release of a Jurassic Park sequel there has been chatter about how much the first one changed our perception of dinosaurs. So why don’t we talk about that. Specifically, the franchise’s main villain.

No, not the T. rex. While a brutal killing machine, it did save our heroes at the end of the movie. No, I am of course talking about the Velociraptor (or raptors for short). Jurassic Park made Velociraptor a household name. It introduced people to a then little-known family of dinosaurs called dromaeosaurs. This group is characterized by light builds, long stiff tails, and a enlarged claw on the second toe of each foot. At the time Jurassic Park was made, there were only a few species known mostly from fragmentary remains. Velociraptor was the best known, thanks to the many marvelous fossils found by Roy Chapman Andrews’ expeditions to the Gobi. The largest then known was Deinononychus, who measures 10 feet long, 3 feet tall, and weighed as much as 150 pounds.

Unfortunately, that still wasn’t big enough to properly menace humans. Plus Deinonychus just didn’t sound as cool as Velociraptor. So the film makers fudged it and blew Velociraptor up to 20 feet long and 6 feet tall. The dinosaur was portrayed as extremely fast and highly intelligent (the 3^rd movie even went so far as to say they were smarter than primates). The raptors were now the perfect match for us mighty humans. But just as production wrapped up, a discovery over in Utah upped the ante on dromaeosaurs. Dubbed Utahraptor (such an inspired name) it was the size of the raptors depicted in the film!

Size chart of various dromeosaurs. (from the book “Raptors: the nastiest dinosaurs)

Unfortunately it was too late and the movie cemented the image of Velociraptor as a big, speedy, hyper intelligent super predator.

That’s right. We can run fast as a cheetah, jump 10 feet into the air, maul and eat a cow in 20 seconds, set traps, open doors, file our taxes early, predict the weather correctly, and beat Battletoads without losing a single life! (image from Jurassic Park Wiki)

John Ostrom, the namer  of Deinonychus, was the first to push the idea that raptors were swift, fierce hunters who attacked in packs to bring down prey larger then themselves. Jurassic Park, while a work of fiction, only solidified that perception. Two bonebeds in North America preserving multiple Deinonychus were used as evidence that raptors were group hunters. Artwork even began to spring up showing Utahraptor ganging up on small sauropods. They were discussed as being the nastiest and most vicious of dinosaurs, tearing into their prey enmasse, slashing open huge wounds with their trademark “killing claws”. While T. rex and other large theropods were depicted as pondering hulks who used brute force to bring down prey, raptors were portrayed as swift, smart, and ruthless predators.

Jack Horner particularly championed this view. He used this perception of raptors to justify his view of T. rex as a scavenger. He even said in a debate/panel at the Natural History Museum in London: “I’d rather be locked in a room with four lions and a tiger than one little Velociraptor. Because I figure that Velociraptor is probably going to eat half of me before it kills me.” Raptor hype had reached an all time high. But then some began to challenge this view. Were raptors really as fast and smart and vicious and deadly as pop culture would have us believe? After over a decade of scientific research, the answer appears to be: no.

Because if it’s not like a raptor, then it MUST be a scavenger. Said only one guy ever. (from Technology.com)

Let’s start with the most famous aspect of raptors: the “killing claw”. Heavily curved and apparently sharp on the inside, these claws were carried off the ground on the second toe of each foot. The claw was likened to a switch blade. When attacking, the raptor would latch on to its prey and slash with both claws. This would create huge lacerations that would then cause the animal to bleed to death. And so raptors were portrayed eviscerating their prey without mercy (and without any thought to whether or not this was actually the case). In 2005, Manning et al. put this idea to the test. They created a synthetic raptor claw and attempted to use it to slash at a piece of pork and a section of alligator hide. The claw sunk into the pig flesh but failed to create a deadly slash. Against the alligator hide the tip of the claw actually broke off, leaving the skin untouched. Manning and his colleagues concluded that the claw was instead used to climb up larger prey, with the raptors using their sharp teeth to inflict trauma. Some artistic impressions followed suit on this new idea.

While the raptors appearence is updated, it’s method of attack has not. (from the UCMP website)

It was also hypothesized that the claw could be used to pierce the vital organs of smaller prey. As evidence they pointed to one of the most spectacular fossils ever found: the fighting dinosaurs. Discovered in the Gobi Desert, the fossil shows a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops locked in combat. The Protoceratops clamps down on the raptors arm with its powerful beak. The Velociraptor latches on to the frill of the Protoceratops with its other hand and the killing claw is thrust into the neck of the Protoceratops.

The famous fighting dinosaaurs. (from Pininterest)

While a truly unique fossil, we don’t know if this was a regular occurrence or if the Velociraptor was attacking the Protoceratops out of desperation. But it did provide the rarest of evidence: clear evidence of predation. But with the killing claw in doubt, how did these animals kill prey larger than themselves? A study into raptor bite force suggests they may have relied on their teeth and jaws to inflict damage. In 2010 Gignac and colleagues attempted to estimate the bite force of Deininychus based on bone puncture marks. They started with several bite marks found on the bones of a Tenontosaurus (a medium-size herbivore from the early Cretaceous of North America, the same time and place as Deinonychus). They made casts of the tooth marks and compared them to known carnivores of the time. Deinonychus was the best match. They then proceeded to use casts of Deinonychus teeth to puncture a cow bone. They would keep increasing the force until the tooth broke through the bone. The results were surprising. Based on the types of tooth marks and the experiment with the cow bone, they arrived at figures of 4100 newtons and 8200 newtons. That is far greater than any modern mammalian carnivore. With strong jaws and blade-like teeth, Deinonychus (and perhaps other dromaeosaurs) could cleave off chunks of flesh, causing grievous injuries to prey. But a more recent hypothesis challenges the image of dromaeosaurs as the savage big game hunters altogether.

Tenontosaurus bone bearing bite marks attributed to Deinonychus (from Gignac et al. 2010)

Tenontosaurus bone bearing bite marks attributed to Deinonychus (from Gignac et al. 2010)

Dromaeosaurs are one of the closest relatives of birds. For a long time now the link has been well known: hollow bones, wishbones, and even feathers (for starters). The bird link has been mostly anatomical. Then in 2011 Fowler et al. released a radical new version of the dromaeosaur, one that hunted more like a bird than a wolf. They note that modern birds of prey kill small prey with an enlarged second toe claw. They use their claws to puncture into prey, not only securing it but also causing crippling wounds. The birds take their new found meal to a safe location (usually up in a tree) and begin to eat the animal while it is still alive, tearing it apart with its beak. Fowler and his colleagues propose the same for dromaeosaurs. They cite the weak jaws (perhaps Deinonychus was just the exception) and the similarity of their killing claw to that of birds of prey. They propose that dromaeosaurs used their body to pin down prey, incapacitating it with their killing claws. They then proceeded to eat it alive. Fowler et al. suggest that the dromaeosaurs, while not being able to fly, could have flapped their arms (which were feathered) to steady themselves and maintain their position on top of their prey. Since this method of feeding requires body weight to subdue prey, it limits the size of animals they could tackle. The largest dromaeosaurs (Utahraptor and Achilobataar) may have preyed on animal no bigger than a few hundred pounds. Perhaps they specialized in attacking the young/juveniles of herbivores.

Deinonychus attacking a small ornithopod in the new proposed manner (from Wikimedia

This new view is a serious detriment to the popular idea of raptors as pack hunting animals who took on prey bigger than themselves. There is another serious blow to that idea but we’ll get to that later.

Hey there every peoples!

Welcome to the second part of my post about how raptors weren’t anything like what they have been built up to be.

Now, let’s talk about the fuzziest area of the raptors image: intelligence. Intelligence is rather hard to define. It is even harder to demonstrate. Dinosaurs have always been thought of as dumb because of the small size of their brains. Raptors were pivotal in breaking that sterotype because of the relative size of their brain (in Jurassic Park 3, Grant claims they were smarter than primates). Of course their brain to body ratio still pales in comparison to that of mammals. Intelligence, contrary to popular belief, isn’t necessarily tied to brain size. It has more to do with the complexity. For example, elephants have a brain 4 times the size of ours and yet we are the ones with mathematics, agriculture, and nuclear weapons. Since brains don’t fossilize, we have to rely on the impressions they left on the inside of the skull. Scans of theropod skulls (none of them raptors, at least that I know of) reveal brains similar to that of alligators, with large areas devoted to sensory perception and smaller areas devoted to information processing. Many birds are the opposite, with large areas devoted to processing information and smaller areas devoted to sensory perception. Dinosaur fanboys trumpet that birds are dinosaurs, but just because some birds show a degree of intelligence (parrots and crows mainly) does not immediately mean dinosaurs were the same. For all we know intelligence may be a mammalian trait, or at least evolved independently in some mammals and some birds.

(here we see an orca actually use bait to capture a bird)

Remember the bite force estimate for Deinonychus? When I first learned about it I was a little confused. Deinonychus has a lightly built skull with thin blade-like teeth. Compare this to mammals that specialize in jaw power like dogs, big cats, bears, sea lions, and even great apes. We find robust teeth, vaulted skulls, wide cheek bones, and of course the characteristic sagital crest. How can animal with no specializations for high bite force have such a stronger bite than animals that do? Then I had a thought: maybe it has to do with brain size? Since mammals have relatively large brains, perhaps they need all the extra hardware to have places to attach those heavy jaw muscles. Reptiles (including dinosaurs) have relatively small brains, so they have more room for jaw muscles. Just my own SWAG (stupid wild ass guess. Of course there is always the chance they misidentified the bite marks). Raptors may have been gifted by dinosaur standards, but right now it looks like it has been greatly oversold.

There is also speed. I don’t know too much about this. It was long assumed that this speed was used in hunting. Speed in animals is usually used to run from predators. When used to hunt, it is usually for short bursts. Wolves and hyenas are endurance runners, wearing their prey out rather than over taking it. However if raptors did indeed hunt smaller animals then there is no reason to think they weren’t fleet of foot. You have to be to catch little critters because they rely on short bursts of speed to escape danger (anyone who has ever tried to catch a lizard or a mouse in their yard knows what I’m talking about)

Now it is time for perhaps the most ambitious claim laid on raptors: social hunting. Social hunting among dinosaurs has been approached cautiously by paleontologists (“just because they are found together doesn’t mean they lived, let alone hunted together”). But somehow raptors have escaped this criticism, despite challenges to the pack hunting paradigm. Fowler and co were not the first. Back in 2007 some researchers decided to re-evaluate the commonly used evidence for pack hunting: bone beds. There are two bone beds known, one from Montana and one from Oklahoma, each containing the remains of a Tenontosaurus and remains from multiple Deinonychus. These were long viewed as kill sites where a pack of Deinonychus brought down a large herbivore, with several of the predators being killed in the process. But, the researchers here saw a very different scene. Instead of focusing on the composition of the animals, they instead looked at what parts were preserved. The Montana quarry preserved the massive tail characteristic of Tenontosaurus and mainly the tails and a few other elements of Deinonychus. The Oklahoma quarry preserved the tail, limbs, and ribs of Tenontosaurus and scant remains of a single Deinonychus. There is no evidence that the raptors had killed the Tenontosaurus.

Bonebed containing the remains of the dromaeosaur Deinonychus and the midsized herbivore Tenontosaurus from the cretaceous Cloverly formation of Montana. (from Gignac et al. 2007)

Bonebed containing the remains of the dromaeosaur Deinonychus and the midsized herbivore Tenontosaurus from the cretaceous Antlers formation of Oklahoma. (from Gignac et al. 2007)

They very well could have been scavenging. In fact, the composition of the bones may support this view. The tails in the Montana quarry were left behind because they were the heaviest and hardest to carry away. Same with the elements at the Oklahoma quarry. The fact that the Deinonychus were “butchered” in a similar way to the herbivore suggests they were eaten as well. The authors argue that rather than a coordinated hunt we are actually seeing a feeding frenzy. They draw parallels to modern crocodiles and komodo dragons, who don’t hunt cooperatively but will converge on a carcass to feed. The fierce competition for the best parts often leads to fighting amongst them. This can result in death (especially for smaller and younger animals) in which those animals get cannibalized. This, they argue, explains the nature of the bonebeds and thus it cannot be used as evidence for cooperative hunting.

“Deinonychus antirrhopus distal tail section (YPM 5203) and associated ungual phalanx. A. Underside of proximal portion of a distal tail section in left lateral view, showing a left manual ungual phalanx (III4, marked by arrow) lying against the centrum of caudal vertebra 11(?) and overlain by sections of two of the tail’s elongated chevron processes. Since a diagenetic cause for this unusual association is very unlikely, it may be evidence of combat between two D. antirrhopus individuals at this heavily used feeding site. B. Close up of the left manual ungual phalanx (III-4) overlain by the chevron processes (marked by arrows).” (from Gignac et al. 2007)

The other evidence used for pack hunting is a trackway from China. It shows multiple dromeosaurs all heading in the same direction. Again, this is problematic because the tracks could be individuals passing that way over a period of time. Recently a Utahraptor bonebed, containing animals of all ages, has been found in Utah. It has just recently been moved into a lab for preparation so who knows what it may reveal. But we arrive at the same problem as before: just because they were buried together doesn’t mean they lived (let alone hunted) together.

Raptor tracks from China. (from Wikipedia)

Cooperative hunting may be a mammal thing. Blah noted that the only two cooperative hunters known today are both mammals: wolves and African hunting dogs. This, however, is a short list (I have to wonder if the authors did their homework). Basically every large canid today lives and hunts together: wolves, African hunting dogs, dohls, and dingos. Even coyotes will occasionally team up to take down larger prey. And there are also other mammals that hunt cooperatively. Lions are well known for hunting in prides (mostly done by the females). Spotted hyenas, once thought to be “stumpy misshapen scavengers” (Jack Horner’s description), hunt together quite effectively. Orcas have different methods for group hunting depending on the prey (be it fish, seals/sea lions, or whales). Finally, chimpanzees work together to hunt small to medium sized mammals (mainly monkeys). This may be permitted by the mammal’s higher degree of intelligence. Chimpanzees and dolphins (which orcas are) have been described as having culture. Dogs are thought of as generally smart animals. Why lions and hyenas hunt cooperatively may be harder to pin down. But the only animals who hunt cooperatively are mammals, which suggests to me it may be due to their intelligence. And of course, you don’t need to hunt in packs when your prey is much smaller than you (per the Fowler hypothesis).

A pack of Utahraptor attacking a sauropod. Such an image may soon be regarded as a relic of the past.

(Like is said, social hunting may be due to a mammal’s higher intelligence. Could dinosaurs have really been capable of the sophisticated planning and coordination employed by these chimps (as they have long been claimed to be)? The likely answer is no, but then again we will never truly know, since behavior doesn’t fossilize)

So, raptors as fierce, intelligent, fast, pack hunting animals seems to stretch the evidence too far. It seems they were rather like their modern descendants. That is to say mostly solitary animals who hunted small prey and were in turn potential prey for others. This means that in North America and Asia during the late Cretaceous tyrannosaurs were the sole megapredators. It was long thought that dromeosaurs were the other ones, using their pack hunting prowess to bring down huge hadrosaurs and ceratopsians. Hell, Jack Horner used to crow how T. rex was nothing but a lowly scavenger while the raptors were the “true predators”. But with the image of the raptor radically changed, that could never have been the case. Besides, pack hunting or not, I fail to understand how a bunch of 50-100 pound animals could bring down something weighing between 3 and 6 tons. Anyway, raptors will continue to be worshiped because they were feathered and also because, well, old habits (or rather perceptions) die hard.

So in the end, it appears raptors don’t live up to the hype. And that’s a good thing. First, that’s just the way science works. We have often found that thinks weren’t what we thought they were. Like Pelagiarctos. It was first characterized as a killer, macropredatory walrus. But new fossils and research showed it wasn’t. Second, animals, should never be subject to hype. We can go on and on about how awesome a creature is, but at the end of the day it’s just an animal. It is bound by the rules of this universe and the laws of nature. Hyping something only serves to blind people to the truth. Not to mention that hype can lead to irrational fanboyism. We’ll see that later when Jurassic World comes out. But in the meantime, don’t think of dromeosaurs as the hyper intelligent, blood thirsty, pack hunting monsters that the popular media has made them out to be. Instead, view them as the unique, mysterious animals they truly are.

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!

Things have been very Very VERY crazy for me lately. I only managed to do that last post because I managed to catch a breather. But now I have been getting ready for Live Oak (a music festival we volunteer at every year), then go to Live Oak (in which I will be gone 6 days) and I had to take care of my grandma while my aunt was out of town. Plus Jurassic World came out last Friday. So between all that I won’t be all that active. But a recent program on the National Geographic channel warranted some discussion so i quickly pounded this out.

The show was called “Dino Death Match”. It centers on the perhaps infamous “Dueling Dinosaurs” from Montana. For you not in the know, the specimen is the complete articulated skeletons of a ceratopsian and a tyrannosaur. They were found buried together, and some features have been used to argue that they died in combat. Both have yet to be identified. The title of the show is a bit misleading. They actually spend very little time discussing the taphonomy of the specimens and how that may support the idea that they died fighting. No, the majory of the show is about trying to make the case that the tyrannosaur is a specimen of Nanotyrannus. I won’t be getting into that here because it’s a little above my pay grade. I actually want to talk about an issue the show completely glossed over.

A model of the “Dueling Dinosaurs” showing how the specimens were found.

The fossils are infamous because they are privately owned. In fact the owners even put the fossils up for auction in 2013. They didn’t sell. But the “Dueling Dinosaurs” have stirred the ire of paleontologists and fossil fans because of the fact they are privately owned. Skeletons even half complete are rare. An articulated skeleton is even more rare. Finding two articulated skeletons side by side of different species… that’s the kind of thing that gets labeled “find of the century”. And when you throw in the fact that one of the skeletons has the potential to lay down a long running debate only adds to their importance. So why aren’t they being scrutinized by hoards of scientists?

Because they are in private hands. Access is very hard to get. It is not guaranteed. Hell, the show stated that only a couple scientists were allowed in and the only cameras were the ones operated by the owners. Access is the main reason most scientists avoid privately owned specimens like the plague. Science needs repeatability in order to work. Say one scientist gets access to a private specimen and publishes on it. How do scientists try to verify his claims when they can’t get access to the specimen? And privately held specimens are shunned because their fate is unknown. They could get sold (like the owners of the “Dueling Dinosaurs” tried to do), they could get thrown out, or they could get destroyed in a fire or something. And privately owned fossils never get to be enjoyed by the public. Fossils belong to everyone. But if they are hidden away in some guy’s living room, then countless people will never get a chance to learn about and appreciate their ancient heritage. If current and future generations are to study and enjoy the past, then specimens have to be in museums.

In museums, specimens are safely stored and put on display. They are also accessible to scientists. If the “Dueling Dinosaurs” were in a museum, scientists would be pouring over them, looking at things like anatomy, mode of preservation, their positions, histology, and a host of other aspects. They could really get to the bottom of all the claims that have been flying around these things. “So why doesn’t a museum just buy them?” Museums are very strapped for cash. They can barely keep going on what they have now, let alone be able to pay the unbelievable prices commercial/private collectors want for their specimens (the “Dueling Dinosaurs” were put to auction for $9 million). Museums and their scientists do what they do for the benefit of us all. They don’t rake in piles of money. Scientists aren’t loaded like pop stars. So for little financial reward they work to educate us all and help us be better informed. The millions often slapped on specimens by sellers could fund a museum and it’s science programs for years. In that time, they could find hundreds of new specimens that would be available not only to scientists but to the public as well. So you could spend $1 million on a dinosaur skull. Or you could give that money to a museum and they will find you many dinosaurs as well as loads of other extinct species. Which do you think would be more beneficial and rewarding?

Pete Larson, who champions the “Dueling Dinosaurs” tyrannosaur as Nanotyrannus, seems to think the former. In an article (can’t remember where it was. I wish I had bookmarked it) he griped about how museums “expect something for nothing” and that if they want something they should have to pay for it like the rest of us. I refer you to my words above. So Pete appears to think that specimens should go up to the highest bidder, rather than a place that can keep them safe and make it accessible to everyone. Let’s see this come back to bite him in the ass. At the 2013 meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Larson garnered a bit of controversy by presenting a poster on the “Dueling Dinosaurs” and specifically how the tyrannosaur supports the validity of Nanotyrannus. The controversy is obvious: he went to the biggest fossil conference of all and based a presentation on a privately owned specimen. Larson, to me, made some compelling arguments why the specimen represented Nanotyrannus and why the genus is valid. He did the same on the Nat Geo show. Too bad all that work was for nothing. Everything he has said about Nanotyrannus based on that specimen will matter not in the long run. If other scientists can’t study the specimen to refute or verify his claims, then no one is going to take it seriously. To the scientific community, if a specimen isn’t in a museum, it pretty much doesn’t exist. Still think fossils should go to any where else but a museum?

Could this be the definitive specimen of Nanotyrannus? Science may never know….

Whether you are buying or selling a fossil a question must be asked. Why does a person need to own a fossil? Why should you and you alone be in possession of a fossil that only you get to see? What purpose does it serve sitting on your mantle? Fossils belong to everyone. They benefit everyone when they are in museums. You don’t need an important piece of an ancient puzzle just so you can show it off to your friends and brag about how you own a fossil. Recently, I was shown a picture of a partial Miocene shark skull found right here on the Central Coast. He said it was privately owned (you can imagine how well that sat with me). He said the guy took it to the Los Angeles Museum and they scanned it and printed out a copy of it. The guy showing the picture said “at least they have something”. A cast is helpful, but nothing can be as informative as the original specimen. I think it should be the other way around: the museum gets the specimen, the finder gets a cast. If all you are doing with a fossil is using it as a decoration or as an ego boost, a cast serves the purpose just as well as the real thing. All the vertebrate stuff (as well as a lot of invertebrate) i have found has ended up in museums. I have pictures of the specimens that I show to people. And you know what: they are still impressed. They are amazed that I found it, not because I own it. I recognize that they don’t do anyone any good if they are just sitting around my house. It seems others need to do the same.

The “Dueling Dinosaurs” are a spectacular and very important find. But if they aren’t in a museum than that spectacle and importance is absolutely zero. Imagine what scientists could learn about it when they aren’t being shut out by ignorant and greedy owners. Imagine how many kids could be inspired to be scientists by seeing this incredible moment in time. Imagine how much interest these animals could ignite in the general public. None of that will ever come to pass unless they are in a museum. They will never live up to their potential if they are hoarded in someone’s house. That goes for every fossil. They are all vital clues to unraveling the mystery of our planet’s past. All the knowledge that goes into books, movies, and exhibits doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from the specimens. That knowledge can only be gleaned if they are safe and accessible. When a fossil disappears into private hands, scientists aren’t the only ones who lose. We all lose.

Do your part to at least stymie the damage. Take the Jurassic World Challenge. Whatever money you spend to see the movie, donate that much money to a museum for scientific research. Help send a message that you value science.

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!

Jurassic World roared into theaters a few weeks ago. It completely wrecked the box office, raking in over half a billion dollars on its opening weekend. The movie itself has proved polarizing, with people either liking it or hating it. Some even hate it with an inhuman passion. But before we get into that (the later the better), let’s talk about the film itself. There are probably going to be spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie abort now (though at this point you should have seen it).

I enjoyed it. I think it’s the worthy sequel to Jurassic Park the film makers wanted it to be. Sure it has its weak spots, but what movie doesn’t? It’s just a lot of fun to watch. I do understand some of the criticisms. Like the kids fixing up a jeep. We all know that just sitting around for 20 years would render that car utterly useless: The tires would be flat and rotten, the batteries would be dead, the tubes in the engine would be cracked and deteriorated, and everything would be rusted up. Or Bryce Dallas Howard running around in high heels. It looked like she split her skirt to facilitate running, so why not re-purpose hers shoes as well (ala Romancing the Stone)?

Classic! (Copyright 20th Century Fox)

I have seen people call this movie sexist. Yeah, I’m not seeing it. Watching internet reviews for that last few years, I thought the stereotype was that all women want is to find that special man, get married, and squeeze out some kids. So now we have a woman who chooses to focus on her career instead of a social life but now that’s sexist too? Make up your minds! And the bit where her sister tells her “when” in reference to having kids? It’s just something people say. Whenever I despair (you know, cause of the depression) about how I’ll never meet anyone, people always tell me “you never know”. My sister used to say she was never having kids, my mom would tell here “never say never” or “you say that now”. These are just things we say to people to help them stay optimistic. Clair does just fine. She manages a park of 20,000 people every day. And she isn’t just some damsel in distress. She slams and tranqs a pterosaur, she drives the truck with the boys (and manages to dodge the raptors), and she’s the one who goes and gets the T. rex. She gets shit done. Look, I know there is sexism in the world. I see real world examples of it all the time over at Crooks and Liars. But I feel like sometimes people do make claims of sexism where none exists. Like in this movie. Of course, as good ol’ Hement Mehta says “If you are looking for something to be offended at, you’ll eventually find it”. I feel like this sexism business is just people who hate the movie reaching for straws so they can have another reason to hate it.

I rather enjoyed the meta plot running through the movie. I think they did a good job mirroring the real world evolution of dinosaurs in cinema. In the movie, they create a new dinosaur because people have gotten bored with their current stock. So the geneticists get to work designing a beast that is bigger, scarier, more teeth, and more claws. This is like the story of the franchise itself. In 1993 Jurassic Park wowed audiences with its special effects. But flash forward to today and CGI dinosaurs are “been there, done that”. So what are film makers supposed to do? Genetic engineering has always been at the heart of the franchise. So why not create a genetic monstrosity to run rough shod over the island?

I also liked the subtle jabs at real theme parks. Like the bit about the Indominus rex having a corporate sponsor. Theme parks do that all the time. The Enchanted Tiki Room, for example, is “brought to you by Dole”. And then there was the video in the gyrosphere, featuring Jimmy Falon. The Tram Tour tour at Universal Studios does the same thing.

But another reason I enjoyed Jurassic World was seeing the functioning park come true. The original film was set before the park was finished. Many years I contemplated what a fully operational dinosaur amusement park would look like. And I think they delivered. The gift shops, the restaurants, the rides… they all feel real, like that would be something a real life theme park with dinosaurs would be like.

A lot of people describe this movie as dumb fun. They praise the action but lament the lack of character development and plot. But it is more to me. I can appreciate those things, but for me a movie is about escape. I watch movies to be transported to another world. I like watching how the characters and creatures interactive with that world and others within it. Its why I love movies like Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Planet of the Apes (reboot anyway), and even Avatar (god I get so much shit for that last one). They are impressive bouts of world building that are just as much about exploring the world as it is about storytelling. It’s why I even enjoy watching the Jurassic Park sequels. I love the clash of raw wild jungle with the cold, industrial look of InGen’s infrastructure. I love seeing the dinosaurs chase and crash through the modern buildings (new or in ruins). I mean, even movies that are well known for characters and plot have to have some kind of element not of our present world to keep me interested. Like Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan, which both take place in historical settings. Firefly (and its feature film Serenity), greatly renowned for its characters and storytelling, still takes place in space and in the future. It may seem shallow and “low brow” of me to put spectacle above story and characters. But for me, movies give us an ability, an opportunity, to create whole new worlds limited only by our imagination. Two people talking and walking around is so easy to do. It is also over done, with little to actually draw me in. In a way this is why I’m so tired of zombies, vampires, and humanoid aliens, but that’s a discussion for another time. I like paleontology because it is about going to other worlds that were actually our own at one point or another. I think that is why I prefer movies that go outside the reality of our world and into something fantastic.

The movie has been the subject of hyper critical review, though. And to that I ask: why? It’s a summer blockbuster. It’s supposed to be fun. Look, nothing is going to top the first movie in the minds of the people. But who says that’s what the filmmakers were trying to do? They didn’t say they were trying to top the first one. They said they were trying to create a worthy sequel. Let’s face facts here. The plot of Jurassic Park was a one film premise. So after that why not just go full b-movie? Have fun with it. But how about I let Movie Bob (about the only movie reviewer I can take seriously) tell you about it:

Of course, one has to wonder how much of the hate directed at the film has to do with nostalgia for the first one.

So that’s what I think of Jurassic World. It’s a flawed but fun summer blockbuster. And a worthy sequel to the first. But the divide over this movie isn’t just about how it measures to its nostalgic predecessor. There is another debate over this movie. One that on its face is entirely silly and unwarranted, but nonetheless exists because of the worship of the original. Join me next time when I tackle the question everyone is tired of: do movies have to adhere to scientific accuracy?

Till next time!

Hey there every peoples!

Welcome to part 2 of my coverage of Jurassic World. This time we’re going to look at a problem that has plagued so many people. It’s something that pops in every now and then and leaves everyone wondering why it’s even being discussed. Is it just an exercise in passion? Or is it just the prattling of those who take something far more seriously then they ought to? And why does the media shove it in our face whenever it happens? Here we go looking into science and the movies.

It seems to happen whenever a movie comes out that is based on some real world phenomena. News writers seek out the words of scientists to see how much the movie “got wrong”. It’s an exercise in nitpicking more than anything. It’s as if some people can’t grasp the fact that movies are fiction and play by their own rules. Jurassic Park only served to muddy the waters. The original is hailed as a triumph of science in movies. It brought paleontology back into the public eye and introduced people to the then new concept that dinosaurs were active, fast moving animals. Or so everyone says.

So when Jurassic World’s director said that he was going to keep his dinosaurs scaly, the paleontology community (or rather, the dinosaur focused section) flipped their shit. How can the movie so blatantly ignore the fact that many dinosaurs were feathered? Why would a franchise that valued science go backwards in its portrayal of dinosaurs? What kind of moron doesn’t think feathered dinosaurs could be scary (ok, those are the words of the fanboys, and not necessarily of paleontologists in general)? This was the biggest afront to science ever!

Naturally, the media jumped on this outrage. It was basically “controversy” and as we all know, controversy sells. So when the movie finally hit theaters, articles popped up all over the place featuring paleontologist’s bemoaning of the movie’s scientific inaccuracies. It proved be another point to divide people over the movie, with those wanting the movie to essentially be a documentary and those who thought the dino guys were overreacting. The issue is of course more complex than they realize. The filmmakers do have reasons for what they did (of course the dino fanboys, being fanboys, had none of that). And the problem may also be rooted in how we perceive the original.

Perhaps the angriest screed was an opinion piece written over at CNN. It was written by Darren Naish, scientist and science blogger. His article perhaps represents the epitome of not just the dinosaur fanboys but also of the science communities reaction to the film (mind you, he penned it before he even saw the movie. He maintains that doesn’t matter, that the point still stands. While not only did his point not stand very well in the first place, but we see how he tries to support his argument with something that wasn’t even in the movie).

So showing new-look dinosaurs would have been wholly consistent with the rest of the “Jurassic Park” franchise.

 

Would it now? While minor tweeks were made to dinosaurs they still looked the same overall throughout the franchise. The T. rex in the 3rd film still looks pretty much the same as the first. While they tried to incorporate new data they still had an internal consistency to maintain.

Indeed, we’re told in Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park,” the book the movie was based on, that the animals are released in upgraded batches, improved over time as more genetic data is discovered.

That’s the book. While based on the book, the movie universe is still its own entity. And I thought all the dino fanboys kept saying “the more there movies move away from Crichton the better”? Or is ok for you to use Chrichton when it suits your purposes?

And given the disasters associated in the movies with InGen’s projects prior to the time of “Jurassic World,” it would make sense to use updated, new-look animals less like the chimaeras of previous outings.

How? How does updating the appearance of the animals render them, in the mind of the paying public, unable to go on a rampage? They are still dinosaurs. Would everyone just forget that after they are plastered with feathers? Lipstick on a pig and all that…

…our hopes came crashing down with the tweeting of two words from “Jurassic World” director Colin Trevorrow: “no feathers.”

Your hopes I’m sure. I don’t think everyone was as devastated as the dino fanboys when the news came that the dinosaurs wouldn’t have feathers. After 2 subpar sequels and 12 years in development hell, I think people just wanted a serviceable Jurassic Park sequel.

Rather than feature new-look dinosaurs and present audiences with something wonderful, “Jurassic World” appeared to have made the “bold” decision to stick with the dinosaurs of yore.

Wonderful is a matter of opinion (you have to remember not everyone shares your feather lust). I also mentioned earlier that there is the continuity issue. Every movie is a risk. Especially something like Jurassic World. Some things you just have to play safe. Judging from all the rolling eyes at the announcement of a genetically modified dinosaur, they were already taking a big risk.

Never mind all those fossils that demonstrate the presence of feathering in all bird-like dinosaurs, or the bony feather attachment knobs present on the arm of Velociraptor. Judging from the trailers, “Jurassic World” has opted to stick with scaly-skinned raptors, scientific advancement be damned.

I don’t remember him denying the existence of feathered dinosaurs. He simply made an aesthetic choice. Again, if you had waited to see the movie you would have learned that these are not real dinosaurs. They have been spliced with other animals and were designed to cater to people’s popular notion of dinosaurs.

And the raptors aren’t the only animals in the film to be weirdly anachronistic — “Jurassic World’s” pterosaurs are not the attractive, furry beasts they should be, but shiny-skinned horrors with grotesque, gnarly faces. The herbivores Stegosaurus and Triceratops, meanwhile, seem to be depicted with tails that droop or even drag on the ground. And the movie’s super-sized mosasaur (a paddle-limbed, sea-going lizard, not a dinosaur) is not the sleek, shark-tailed reptile of 21st century understanding, but a lumpy-skinned behemoth with a frill running down its back.

Again, attractive is a matter of opinion. And how do we know mosasaurs didn’t have frills or weren’t lumpy? I only know of one exceptional specimen and obviously it can’t speak for the whole group. I’d love to know how you know so much about the appearance of things known just from bones.

Even the movie’s big new reveal — a genetic mash-up called Indominus rex — appears from early glimpses to be a chunky, fat-headed beast that looks as if it was plucked from the pages of a book published three decades ago. Everything, it seems, is decidedly old school.

Even without seeing the movie… did you not hear the director explain that the Indominus was designed (in universe) to cater to people’s expectations of dinosaurs? In the movie Clair even mentions focus groups. Indominus rex didn’t evolve, it wasn’t resurrected; it was the product of corporate marketing. It is even more fake than the other dinosaurs. And I think it served its function as a rampaging monster just fine. Of anything in the film, it is the least worthy target of your frothing demand for strict scientific adherence.

And to those of us that are particularly interested in these animals (and involved in outreach and public education too), it’s a huge leap backwards and a bitter disappointment.

Dinosaurs dominate the public conscience concerning paleontology. You are getting yet another love letter to your beloved “terrible lizards” and you people bray like asses because they took some creative liberties. How about you ask us Cenozoic folks or Paleozoic people how we feel about how the stuff we are interested in is depicted in movies. Oh right, you can’t. Because there is practically none to speak of. Sorry if I don’t feel your pain.

Yes, yes, we know that it’s just a movie. We know it’s not a documentary, and that it exists to entertain.

Ah, the good ol’ “yes, but” gambit. Totally not a cop-out phrase used by someone who wants to give the appearance of understanding the other side of the argument. Despite the fact they vehemently reject it.

But the reason this irks so much is that the “Jurassic Park” franchise has a gargantuan influence on the public’s perception of ancient animals.

Dinosaurs. It influences people’s perceptions of dinosaurs. As well as a couple pterosaurs and a mosasaur. When there are actually things outside of the Mesozoic in movies, then we can talk.

Indeed, “Jurassic Park” did more to update public understanding of dinosaurs than any other single event.

Did it? You sure it wasn’t just a happy accident? While ground breaking, I don’t think the original Jurassic Park is quite the paragon of science people have made it out to be.

Maybe that’s why “Jurassic World” can only be regarded as a disappointment. Previous installments in the franchise went to some trouble to get things right, with the look of the animals being guided by consultants. So why does “Jurassic World” seem determined to disregard this record? Why ignore the progress of knowledge and stick to safe and boring?

Once again, boring is a matter of opinion. I already talked about how movies are always risky and do have to play it safe to a certain extent (especially with an established and beloved franchise, you can only deviate so much). And as usual, there are still gross inaccuracies in the other movies. The Velociraptor were still too big, too smart, and had the wrong head. And even in the bonus dvd material there are glaring errors. I actually got into an argument once with a guy who actually believed Horner when he said (in a featurette on the Jurassic Park 3 dvd) that Spinosaurus was known from several skeletons and the largest one had a skull 9 feet long.

Some have suggested that it’s a practical choice, that fuzz or feathering are too difficult or expensive to render. But other movies have depicted fuzzy or feathery skin just fine — just look at the latest “Planet of the Apes” film. And the continuity argument? Well, as I said, an in-universe feature of the franchise concerns the continual tweaking of dinosaur genomes.

It was an aesthetic choice because these are movie monsters. They need to be scary blood thirsty beasts. And what feature is that? I have watched those movies all my life and I don’t remember the “continual tweaking of dinosaur genomes” in anything but the first. Yeah it was a major plot point in the first. But in the second and third there is nothing resembling laboratory science. In the second movie people go to watch and capture “wild” dinosaurs living on the second island (which the workers and scientists had completely abandoned). They get stuck and have to figure out how to get rescued. Then they bring a T. rex to the mainland and it gets loose. The overall lesson being that like any other animals these dinosaurs need to be left alone to their own devices. Where in any of that did you get “continual tweaking of dinosaur genomes”? In the third movie, a kid gets trapped on the second island (which has been quarantined by the Costa Rican government, so obviously no one has gotten in there to do any gene tampering). His parents hire a couple paleontologists and some mercenaries to find him. They get stranded and have to figure out how to escape. All the while they are stalked by raptors and chased by a Spinosaurus. Again, where in any of that did we see “continual tweaking of dinosaur genomes”? I will concede this may happen in the expanded universe (books, games, comics, etc) but most people only know the movies, so that’s what we are discussing here. But with that utterance, I am starting to think that in your fury you are starting to make shit up.

Furthermore, “Jurassic World” even describes how the dinosaurs now have their DNA repaired with data from birds (you know, those feathery animals), not with that of frogs as described in the first film. So, the only explanation for the retro look could be that the animals have been genetically designed to look like old-school reconstructions.

Yeah the website says that. It also says they use crocodile DNA, so why don’t any of the dinosaurs have alligator scutes? And how do you know the genes for feathers are getting spliced in? And nowhere is bird DNA even mentioned in the movie. Dr Wu explains to the executive that nothing in Jurassic World is real. “Bigger, scarier, um… “cooler”, I believe, was the word you used in your memo.” He continues: “But we are doing what we have done from the beginning! We have always filled the gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. In fact if their genetic code was pure many of them would look quite different. But you didn’t ask for reality you asked for more teeth!” (see, this is why it’s usually a good idea to see the movie before writing an editorial about it).  Dr. Wu mentioned cuttlefish and tree frog DNA. But no bird. Dr. Wu succinctly explained that the dinosaurs look the way they are from a combination of gene gaps and tampering to make them look the way they want them to look. But I’m arguing with a guy who had a burning, irrational hatred for a movie before the damn thing even came out. (“Look, I don’t give a crap- it’s a dumb movie. But if you ask me about the animals I will keep saying the same thing: it’s a dumb movie, with crap looking animals, and it shows that the makers don’t give a crap about science, or in-universe back story”. This was a few weeks before the premier)

So yes, “Jurassic World” is just a movie. And it may get plenty of other things right. But this reboot was also an incredible chance to do something special — to bring new-look dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mosasaurs to modern audiences. And that chance looks like it might have been lost.

The purpose is to entertain. And it wasn’t just a reboot, it was also a sequel, which means certain aspects had to be maintained. The dinosaurs of the Jurassic Park franchise have a certain look to them. Pick a dinosaur from any movie and you can tell it’s from the Jurassic Park movies. And you seem to be operating under the delusion that scientific accuracy was the “something wonderful” the filmmakers wanted to create. They wanted to create a thrill ride. They wanted to create a fun monster movie (which is all the films have really been). Science is cool and it would be nice to see more of it in movies. But their objective is to entertain, not educate. We have books and museums and documentaries to do that. But take this line from another article (from my friend Alton Dooley, which makes this rather painful):

I don’t think it did anything to advance science at all

But was that ever the aim of any of the movies? Of any movie? Why expect something that is not on their checklist of goals? Shouldn’t it be the job of you know… science… to advance science? I know science has real trouble with outreach and a summer blockbuster as successful as Jurassic World would be a tremendous help (and it seems to be stirring interest in science, but we’ll get to that later). Everyone keeps citing the original Jurassic Park as doing so much to advance science. But as I said, how do you know that wasn’t a happy accident? Could this over heaping of praise (mixed with nostalgia) have set these people up for disappointment over Jurassic World?

I think it did. Jurassic Park really brought dinosaurs back into the public conscience. But another result was people putting it up on a pedestal as a paragon of science meets cinema. It portrayed dinosaurs as active, dynamic animals, using the most up to date knowledge on appearance and behavior. But riddle me this (sorry, been watching lots of Arkham Knight lately): if Jurassic Park was so scientific, why did I have to grow up constantly telling people how dinosaurs weren’t like they were in Jurassic Park? The science of these movies was dubious from the start. I actually gave a speech in 7^th grade going over the inaccuracies. Let’s go over them here:

• How did dinosaur DNA survive even in that fragmented state for millions of years?
• How is it that the prehistoric mosquitoes only bit the most charismatic and marketable of dinosaurs?
• The brachiosaurs looked too big to me, especially their heads.
• Dilophosaurus was too small
• Dilophosaurus had a frill
• Dilophosaurus spat venom
• The adult Triceratops had upturned horns and full epiossifications on its frill (juvenile traits)
• rex’s eyesight was based on movement like a lizard
• rex, a 6 ton biped, was able to keep up with a jeep in 3^rd gear
• Scientists found a Velociraptor in North America when they are only known from Asia
• The Velociraptor were able to maul and devour a cow in 10 seconds
• The Velociraptor were cited by Muldoon to be able to run 60-70 miles per hour
• The Velociraptor were too big
• The Velociraptor heads were wrong; they were big and boxy instead of low and sleek
• The Velociraptor were shown to be extremely intelligent (given how difficult it is to gauge the intelligence of an extinct animal)
• And the grand daddy of it all: how were they able to splice dinosaur and frog DNA together and not end up with some grotesque, malformed, half dino/half frog abomination? The very mechanic need to get the whole plot going is utter bullshit!

Yes, we were truly treated to the most up to date information science had to offer. So now riddle me this (sorry!): Why does Jurassic Park get a free pass on all these inaccuracies while Jurassic World gets utterly savaged? Because it did some things right you just gloss over the rest? Why is Jurassic Park, with that great big litany of problems, hailed as the perfect storm of science and cinema while Jurassic World is mercilessly torn to pieces and labeled anti-science? Oh right because Jurassic World doesn’t have 20 years of nostalgia shielding it from criticism.

Speaking of anti-science, yes, this movie has been called such:

Welcome to misogynistic, anti-science world!

Uh no. Not even close. They made creative choices for the sake of plot, suspense, and action (you know, like the first one did). They simply didn’t employ certain scientific principles and they explained in the movie why the dinosaurs are the way they are. The movie and its makers aren’t denying the existence of feathered dinosaurs or anything else in paleontology. I have been following the depressing world of politics and religion for years. The shit that I have seen and continue to see… That is anti-science. I don’t see Jurassic World telling people that vaccinations lead to cancer and AIDS. I don’t see Jurassic World killing the planet because it tells people (including the politicians who make the laws) global warming is a hoax. I don’t see Jurassic World pushing conspiracy theories (like the Atlantean “theory” or that Shakespeare was a fraud) ala Roland Emerich. I don’t see Jurassic World telling people that the earth is 6,000 years old, that all dinosaurs were vegetarians in the Garden of Eden, and that all dinosaurs were killed and buried in Noah’s Flood. I don’t see Jurassic World shutting down museums or turning them into glorified day care centers because the people running them think science shouldn’t be the goal of a museum. Where is all your outrage over that? Why aren’t you in a bitching apoplectic frenzy over that? Why does a movie, who simply doesn’t incorporate the latest science, garner such hate? When all the real world stuff that actually threatens science doesn’t? No, Jurassic World is not anti-science. The anti-science shit is anti-science.

Alright back on track. Look, movies are movies. They need to stand on their own merits. Scientific accuracy should be an afterthought. Jurassic Park made all kinds of changes for the sake of the movie. I have a feeling a truly scientific accurate Jurassic Park (the same level of accuracy being demanded of Jurassic World) wouldn’t have been the roaring success it is today. Without the crap about T. rex’s vision being based on movement, we wouldn’t have that tense moment when it’s staring down Alan and Lex. If T. rex ran at its scientifically predicted speed, that thrilling chase would have been over before it even began. If the Dilophosaurus were true to the real animal, it would have simply mauled Nedry (as opposed to the game of cat and mouse, and the revelation that the cute little dinosaur was really a horrifying, venom spewing monster). If the Brachiosaurus’ head was life size, it wouldn’t have been as imposing and Lex realizing not all dinosaurs are bad would have been a non-event. And if the Velociraptors were 100% scientifically accurate, the climax would have been like this:

Ow my ass! But at least it’s scientifically accurate! OW!

But again, it’s ok when the first movie has inaccuracies but not the new one. But it seems that science in movies can be selective for no reason. Back when I was in high school Hollywood released two films: King Kong and Superman Returns. National Geographic News released two articles about the movie. One was about how King Kong was “pure fantasy” and brought people in to talk about how implausible the movie was. The other was about the “science of Superman”. It talked about all the scientific explanations for Superman’s powers. Make of that what you will…

I understand scientific accuracy may make or break a movie for some of you, but not everyone is like you. You really think people love The Thing because it accurately portrays what a shape-shifting alien that assimilates its victims would be like? No, they love for its suspense and impressive practical effects. You think people loved Braveheart because of its accurate portrayal of history? No, they loved it for its excellent acting, beautiful score, and cool battle scenes. You think Peter Jackson’s King Kong did so well because the dinosaurs, giant ape, and their home strictly adhered to scientific principles? No, people loved it because the dinosaurs were savage prehistoric monsters, Kong was a badass but also emotionally resonant, and because Skull Island was literally hell on earth where all kinds of adventure could be had . You think Pacific Rim was the fun thrill it was because the Kaiju and Jaegers were scientifically sound? No, it’s fun because we get to see giant monsters and mechs beat the crap out of each other. You think people hate the Wrong Turn series because it doesn’t accurately portray inbreeding? No, they hate it because of its annoying unlikable characters, boring plots, and implying that the side effects of inbreeding are super strength, immunity to pain, and immortality. You think people hated 2012 because it was scientifically dubious? Possibly, but they mainly hated it for its stereotypes, implausible scenarios, and just being an empty orgy of CGI destruction porn. Science may be vital to our world, but it shouldn’t be the sole judge of a movie. And if you’re worried about movies coloring people’s perceptions… then maybe we should focus on telling people that movies are not a good source of information. Just saying.

So that’s it for part 2. I think science and movies represent completely different realms of the human psyche. Movies are meant to entertain, to help people escape into another world for a couple hours. Science helps us understand the world and help guide us where we go through time and space. They can coexist, they can even blend. But to hate a movie so much because it sacrifices some science for aesthetic and plot related reasons? Well not only does that make you look bad, it makes science look bad. It makes scientists look like curmudgeonly sour sticks in the mud, turning their noses up and despising anything that doesn’t get every little detail right. And if you want people to listen to you, maybe toning down your attitude will help. How about turning this into an opportunity. The movie seems to have stirred interest in paleontology. How about just calmly explaining the differences between Hollywood and the real world. Kathleen Springer seems to think San Andreas, for all its faults (sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me!) can serve to at least make people aware of earthquakes. Even Alton Dooley had this to say:

After that movie (Jurassic Park), I had to explain maybe 500 times that the Dilophosaurus was not poisonous… But then, that means I talked to 500 people about dinosaurs that I would not have otherwise.

When life gives you lemons… you can either bite the lemon, leaving a sour taste in your mouth. Or you can make lemonade. I’m resorting to tired old clichés so maybe I should stop now.

But, unfortunately, we are not done here. There is a darker side to this story, a story of hate and irrationality over a simple movie. Brace yourselves. We are about to slog into the disturbing fever swamp… of dinosaur fanboys.

Till next time.

Hey there every peoples

Here we are. About to dig into the hideous, cancerous world of dinosaur fanboys  (and fangirls. They certainly exist, but I’m using fanboy as a shorthand. Plus most of the hate i have encountered has come from the male variety). There are no winners here. We all lose. Oh deep unabiding joy. Let’s get this over with.

Now I know what you are saying. “Doug, these people are just passionate. They just love dinosaurs so much. They were simply voicing their opinion over what they saw as disrespect towards something they care deeply about.” And to that I say:

YES, they are fanboys! Let me count the ways!

Let’s see, they present their opinion as fact:

Feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Deal with it.

Well I thought it was terrific. So there -> response -> well you’re wrong. fact

They call others fanboys while engaging in the behavior themselves:

Dear Collin JW and Trevarrow (AKA He Who Relies on Nostalgic 90s Fanboys)

… attempting to explain scary freathered dinosaur to a 90s fanboy

I think the movie is being made by fans of the original Jurassic Park. I doubt they care about or even understand any of it.

Hollywood is a braindead parasite and it couldn’t give a toss about accuracies or bastardizing books, tv shows, and comic books written by far better people

Condescension towards differing opinions/arguments:

people keep coming up with excuses to not do the creatures accurately. That fact alone should tell you something isn’t right

“It didn’t satisfy him emotionally”… And I guess having aliens in an Indiana Jones movie did, eh? Hmmmmm… sounds like someone has an emotional imbalance.

(trivializing mental issues to look down on someone who did something that you disagree with. as some who does suffer an emotional imbalance… fuck you, you arrogant jerkoffs)

They nitpick like hell:

Gallimimus:… arms are attached in the wrong place

The Apatosaurus had the wrong feet

The hadrosaurs chewed wrong

Triceratops… close up of paw was not accurate

Nothing is good enough:

”Maintain aesthetic continuity” sounds like “be lazy and keep it safe”. yawn.

Ok…. I’m going to be really witty and coin a new term for what is going on here… Jurassic Park Apologetics”

I call bullshit. They can easily correct it in cannon

Jurassic World delivers boom in prehistoric interest ->response -> it is an ill wind that blows no good

They feel the need to constantly take pot shots to prove how “above” the movie they are:

“Look, they found a rubber tire with eyes!” (Photo copyright Universal Pictures)

-“Does anyone here recall seeing the shopped JW scene where the gyrosphere is caked in dinosaur shit?” -“Made by David Krentz. All glory to him.” -“Not the only shit in this movie…”

They brush everything off as an excuse:

people keep coming up with excuses to not do the creatures accurately

but this becomes a lazy excuse quite quickly

And, of course, they judge something without even seeing it:

Nothing could convince me to see this stinkbuger of a film

… I haven’t seen it yet- but without feathers its CRAP!!!!

I saw the clip on youtube

Your podcast will be the closest I get to seeing it

Now, we have already discussed a lot of their ire in the last post. Now being a fanboy about fiction is one thing. Except they seem to act like fanboys about real world things. You see, I get the distinct feeling that all this impotent rage isn’t just about being scientifically accurate. I think all the gnashing of teeth and foaming-at-the-mouth hate has to do with their obvious affinity for feathered dinosaurs.

I mean, when you get right down to it, the majority of the hate directed at this movie is because the dinosaurs don’t have feathers:

I already talked about how movies don’t HAVE to be scientifically accurate. So why do they rage like they do? It appears because their beloved feathered dinosaurs weren’t given their proper (in their eyes) respect. The director said he didn’t find feathered dinosaurs scary. How dare he! Then came the onslaught of “feathered dinosaurs are scary!”

Anyone who isn’t afraid of feathered dinosaurs clearly hasn’t manhandled a goose or gone into a hen house with a rooster in it.

Yeah, I have been around those things at my aunt’s ranch and my cousin’s place. Apparently bir- sorry, feathered dinosaurs- are no match for a small dirt clod. No biggie.

Tigers are fuzzy too, but you don’t see the producers of Life of Pi shaving Richard Parker

Consider the mane on a lion or the fuzz on a gorilla’s arm.

Yeah but there is just one problem: lions and tigers have had thousands of years of interaction with humans to establish their deadly predator cred (Maneaters of Tsavo, anyone?). And they have always looked like that. They weren’t depicted for a century as scaly and then had fuzz added on in the last 10 or so years.

Of course, this is not a new development. Back before any of this (in the forgotten age of 2012), science writer Brian Switek made a bizarre attempt at trying to prove the “superiority” of feathered dinosaurs. (What I don’t get, though, is this was after Yutyrannus came onto the scene. So why he didn’t use it is beyond me). A couple days before, he railed against someone who thought feathered dinosaurs are “lame”. A simple matter of opinion. Doesn’t change the fact that there are fossils of dinosaurs with feathers. But to the fanboys, any opinion that isn’t theirs is a giant affront to their favorite dead animals that must be proven wrong. Switek proclaimed at the end of his post “feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Deal with it”. Presenting opinion as fact, how professional. Indeed, the subtitle of the article was “Feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Why do so many people hate them?” I know, right? Why doesn’t everyone agree with my opinion that feathered dinosaurs are awesome?

Sinocalliopteryx, truly the scourge of the ancient Liaoning forest. Except for that big Yutyrannus thing… Art by Cheung Chungtat, from Xing et al., 2012.

So in covering a new paper, he decided he had to prove to the world that he was right and that feathered dinosaurs are the most awesomest thing EVAR!!1! His post concerned a small predatory dinosaur from the early Cretaceous of China. Called Sinocalliopteryx, it was 3 feet tall, 8 feet long, and weighed about 40 pounds. The paper discussed two specimens with preserved gut contents. One had eaten the hind leg of a small dromaeosaur (Microraptor) while the other had snatched a couple of small birds (Confuciusornis). Switek crowed:

Earlier this week, I got into a snit over the blinkered assertion that feathery dinosaurs are lame. I argued the opposite point–as I wrote at the time “Feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Deal with it.” How fortunate that a new paper this week offers proof of fuzzy dinosaur superiority.

Um, how does that make it superior to non-feathered dinosaurs? Because it ate things? As opposed to scaly dinosaurs… that also ate things? Even when we can’t tell whether it caught and killed its lunch or simply scavenged it? And if eating a couple of little tweety birds makes you superior to non feathered dinosaurs, then my cat is superior to non feathered dinosaurs. Hell that means spiders are superior to non-feathered dinosaurs. So we have a dinosaur barely taller than a goose and weighing no more than my dog. Ignoring the 30 foot, one and a half ton feathered brute revealed earlier that year, Switek instead declared Sinocalliopteryx to be

… a great example of a fluffy dinosaur you wouldn’t want to mess with.

Really? Ok, Sinocalliopteryx:

BRING

Gile knife used by the Afar tribe of Ethiopia. Those east African herdsman were some tough bastards!

IT

Mayan war club, reconstructed by moi from Stele 5, Uaxactun.

ON!

Polynesian thrusting spear (ihe in Hawaiian, tao in Maori)

You know, I showed Sinocalliopteryx to my uncle and cousin, asking them what they would do if they found this thing on their property. Rather than cower in fear or gasp “hell no, I ain’t going near that thing”, they simply said they would shoot it like any other varmint. In fact, with few exceptions (Yutyrannus, Therizinosaurus, Gigantoraptor, Deinocheirus), pretty much all feathered dinosaurs could be easily dispatched with Uncle Colt:

Or the 12 Gauge Twins:

But all of that seems rather excessive. The dreaded Sinocalliopteryx looks like it could be fended off with a cricket bat. But what do I know about the oh so “superior” feathered dinosaurs? (and a suggestion: if you want feathered dinosaurs to be taken seriously, to be viewed as scary and awesome, then maybe you should stop describing them as “fuzzy” and “fluffy” and “enfluffled”, and when they eat something they “snaffled” it up, and how you “adore them”. You can write however you want, I just wanted to throw that out there.)

Another prime example this is all about feathers: the “build a better fake theropod” challenge.  The first entry:

“Quilled Slasher” by Alex Lovegrove.

Just bigger claws and feathers. Maybe the next will be better:

My Version of Indominus rex (Second Pass) by DeinonychysEmpire

Again, just looks like some generic theropod.

“Suckertip” by Traheripteryx

What?! You didn’t build a better fake theropod, you just spliced an oviraptorsaur with Ahnold. Alright, you have one more chance and it is:

“Cryptonychus arborealis” by Brian Engh.

Seriously? Your answer to the Indominous rex is the dinosaur equivalent of Trumpy ? Hey Brian Engh, you can do stupid things (+20 internet points to anyone who knows where that’s from). And again, the only difference is feathers. So basically, the only thing the fanboys think is an improvement is feathers. The dinosaur could have machine guns for hands, giant bat wings, a chainsaw at the end of its tail, laser vision, acid blood, fire breath, titanium teeth that double as self-replenishing rockets, and host a late night talk show… but as long as it has feathers, it’s ok and certainly a step up from the I. rex. I know you, in your infinite humility, believe that are right no matter what and always do better than the preproduction artists who designed the I. rex. But I don’t think those are any better. I mean, the only difference I see is feathers. You couldn’t have used your imaginations? Or was all this just another hissy fit because the movie didn’t have feathers on their dinosaurs? Just an exercise in self congratulating that you are so much smarter and better than a movie? You are of course free to do so, it’s your opinion and all. Just don’t expect everyone to take it seriously because you think science backs your opinion.

Amongst the waving of pitchforks and torches, this caught my eye:

I think it’s clear that nobody able to raise the dollars required to make a big budget dinosaur-themed film is interested in doing anything interesting.

Ok, that’s your opinion and that’s fine and all but… could you maybe elaborate on what you mean by “interesting”?  Again, that word is subject to the personal views and tastes of the person using it. Remember what I said in my last post about movies being risks? Different and interesting don’t always mean success at the box office. Jurassic World was trying to keep things interesting with the genetic monstrosity that is the Indominus rex. Comment sections in the preceding months were showing reservations over that decision. Avatar was different in that it wasn’t (outright) based on any franchise or property. And yet it is probably the most hated movie in the last decade (I get torn a new one anytime I mention that I actually enjoy it). Batman: Arkham Asylum tried to do something interested with the Joker by having him get injected with Titan. Fans disliked that aspect of the game because “Joker isn’t a brute. He’s supposed to be smart, not strong”. The second Jurassic Park movie tried to do something interesting by bringing a dinosaur to the mainland. People still talk about how “stupid” and “silly” that was . Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tried to keep it interesting with inter-dimensional beings (basically aliens), which are a big part of the lore of the Crystal Skulls. Judging from the fanboy hate that rages to this day, you’d think that movie was the biggest crime against humanity since… any of the appalling genocides of the 20^th century (equal opportunity Godwin, because I do my best to keep this blog progressive). Jurassic Park 3 tried to keep things interesting by replacing the T. rex with Spinosaurus. That wasn’t well received either. In fact:

Right now, your lot’s definition of interesting seems to be limited to feathers on dinosaurs. How do you know putting feathers on the dinosaurs would have made it better in everyone else’s eyes? How do you know the people who aren’t as obsessed with dinosaurs as you would have found the feathers interesting? Not everyone is you!

We’ll get back to the fan rage in just a moment. Right now I want to talk about feathered dinosaurs themselves. You see, the fanboys weren’t just outraged that the Velociraptor didn’t have feathers. They were mad that the T. rex didn’t have feathers. Now the matter of feathers on T. rex is a matter of debate. Some of it’s earlier, more basal relatives have feathers or protofeathers. But no advanced tyrannosaurids (ie Daspletosaurus, Albertosaurs, and T. rex itself) have been found with feathers. A few skin patches have been preserved, showing large and bumpy scales. Of course, the fanboys have an answer to everything:

Nor does a patch of skin automatically mean that the entire animal was covered in only that sort of integument. (The same, of course, goes for feathers and their forerunners.)

True, but why do I get this sneaking suspicion that if a tyrannosaurid is found with a little tuft of fuzz, you would be crying “we told you so! We told you so!” and start slathering feathers all over it. Except you already do that. Reconstructing the appearance of an extinct animal is always going to be an exercise in speculation. There is no physical evidence that tyrannosaurids had feathers. Of course, the fanboys have an answer to everything:

Based on it’s a phylogeny, it’s almost certainly a mix of the two(scales and feathers)

Firstly, phylogenetic bracketing is evidence…

For those of you who don’t know, phylogeny is the practice of using relationships to predict soft tissues in animals. It isn’t airtight, however, and modern animals show that there are always exceptions. T. rex may be “surrounded” by things with feathers, but how do you know there wasn’t some circumstance that could have stripped it of its fuzzy integument? It’s size, its habitat, its climate may have all favored a scaly, “nude” body. Jingmai O’Conner said that we should even take taphonomy into consideration when trying to determine integument. Of course, when the discussion concerns feathers on T. rex, the fanboys always gleefully point to Yutyrannus as if it’s some magic bullet. Yutyrannus means feathers on T. rex! But Yutyrannus, while big, is only a quarter the weight of T. rex. Large animals have more issues with heat loss, so maybe T. rex lost its feathers to help it stay cool. Yutyrannus! But it has been suggested that Yutyrannus lived in a rather cold climate. The feathers likely served as insulation to shield it from the cold. Since T. rex lived in a warmer climate, it wouldn’t have needed them. Yutyrannus! But Yutyrannus is one species. How do you know it’s the rule and not the exception? Isn’t painting with a broad brush kind of frowned upon in science? Yutyrannus! But Yutyrannus is a tyrannosauroid. Yes it shares a larger group with T. rex and its cousins, but they are in a different family, the tyrannosaurids. YUTYRANNUS! Yutyrannus, the deus ex machina of feathered dinosaurs!

Cassowaries are covered with feathers and they live in the sweltering tropics. Their feathers are even black, the most heat absorbing color.

Cassowaries aren’t 40 feet long and 6 tons in weight.

Scales-only cannot be taken as the default any more than totally-feathery tyrannosaurids can. But given how the story of dinosaur feathers has unfolded, I’d bet on the fuzz.

Ok, but you people seem to be taking feathers as a default, decrying anything that doesn’t have them. And bet all you want. Doesn’t mean you are or will be right. We’ll need to wait for that little thing called… evidence. Unless you have some magical ability to see the future that the rest of us don’t.

I’m sorry but really can’t take serious someone defending any kind of featherless coelorosaur for “not enough evidence” reasons anymore. Its nostalgia and people just don’t want to admit it.

Well I can’t take you seriously, not least for resorting to “nostalgia” in response to people who don’t share your feather lust. This right here encapsulates my problem with what has been dubbed the “all yesterdays movement”. Named after the book of the same name, it posits not just feathers but all sorts of weird and extravagant soft tissue (and even behaviors) on dinosaurs . The point is sound: dinosaurs may have had all kinds of soft features and behaviors that haven’t preserved. Art is a form of opinion, and if you want to make a fuzzy T. rex with a giant cock’s comb and fins on its tail, you can do that. However, science deals in evidence. Usually hard evidence. Fanboys like the above quote seem to want to engage in rampant speculation, reconstructing dinosaurs more to what they find awesome than what science has to say. Their desire to see feathers on anything they can find any reason to feels just as much like an obsession with the changing look of dinosaurs. Yes, our perception of dinosaurs is changing like never before, but for god’s sake it doesn’t give you an excuse to draw dinosaurs however you like and call it science. I mean, Brian Switek once wrote an article titled “I am tired of seeing naked dinosaurs.” Well, we have evidence for feathers in lots of dinosaurs and they are depicted accordingly. If that makes you view “naked” dinosaurs with contempt then that is your problem. But putting feathers on everything is stretching the evidence too far. Like I said, you can portray dinosaurs however you want. But when it comes to scientific reconstructions, you have to follow within the confines of the evidence. It may not be “right”, it may not be “cool”, it may be “boring”, but it is what we have to do until a new discovery says otherwise. If you go outside the bounds of that evidence, then you need to let people know that. But you won’t, because you have decided that you are right and everyone else is wrong.

The dinosaur’s appearance is open to multiple hypotheses.

Really? If we are supposed to be open to all possibilities, then why are you guys throwing such a tantrum over a T. rex in a movie being shown without feathers?

I can’t take depictions of a featherless T. rex seriously anymore

Oh yeah, clearly he’s open to all possibilities. I mean, to listen to the fanboys, you’d think phylogeny was this magic wand that lets them put feathers on anything they like. Because a Psittacosarus was found with a few bristles, that means all ceratopsians most likely had them too. Phylogeny!

Ah yes, so rather than acknowledge that people have different opinions and address problems (even if they are scientific) with a feathered tyrannosaurid, just regurgitate some stupid internet meme and then act like you won.

But the fanboys have one more desperate ploy left: mammals. As if dinosaurs and mammals were completely alike. I mean, hair is used as a defining trait of mammals. There are some exceptions, but it is clearly universal. Feathers, on the other hand, have only been seen in one group of dinosaurs (theropods, and even then only certain groups). And some bristle-like structures have only been found in a couple dinosaurs. But facts are irrelevant to fanboys:

There is also no physical evidence that Hyaenodon had fur.

If you discovered the skeleton of a prehistoric cat you’d reconstruct it with fur

There is no evidence ancient hominids had hair. But we can infer they did.

There is a lot here, but to start with it should be obvious that even those are up to interpretation. First off, the hominins. Yes we infer hair, but have you ever noticed that the amount of hair on a fossil hominin is proportional to how “human” we think they are? And mammal reconstructions are not set in stone. Because Bison latifrons is a bison, it has long been depicted as a modern bison with longer horns. But according to Jerry McDonald, it probably didn’t look that way. The occipital condyles are angled differently, implying that B. latifrons held its head in a more horizontal position. And it probably didn’t have a ruff either. American bison have shorter horns than European bison and other ancient bison species. This means it can’t lock it’s like the others. If you watch American bison fight, they include more butting. The ruff acts like a cushion. Compare that to European bison. When they fight, they lock horns and push each other around. And guess what, their head hair is a mere mat compared to the American bison’s afro. Cave art and frozen carcasses show that Bison priscus also had reduced hair. So based on all this, and its more robust limbs, McDonald’s Bison latifrons looks more like a Texas longhorn than the classic bison:

From the top going clockwise: Bison latifrons, Bison antiquus, Bison bison, and Bison priscus. from McDonald, ’81, scan curtesy of Eric Scott

(By the way, that book was written in 1981 . So why did it never catch on?)

And what if there were no elephants alive today? All we would have are woolly mammoths to go on. So all elephants would be depicted hairy. Or say we found preserved skin from Indian elephant, Columbian mammoth, and Stegodon, but not woolly mammoth. We would depict it naked. Some would argue it was hairy because of the cold climate it lived in. But its “surrounded” by bare-skinned animals, so it must have been bare skinned as well. Or pinnipeds. Most have some kind of fur (except walruses). But if pinnipeds were known only from fossils, we would portray them naked because they lived in the sea, like whales and sea cows. But what about Andrewsarchus? This animal, from the Eocene of Mongolia, is known from a single skull without a lower jaw. It was originally thought to be a mesonychid, and so for much of the 20^th and 21^st century it looked like this:

Andrewsarchus as it appeared in Walking with Prehistoric Beasts (copyright BBC)

But a recent study completely rewrote its taxonomic status. They found Andrewsarchus to be an artiodactyl (even-toed hoofed animals), specifically related to entelodonts. So along came this new reconstruction:

New reconstruction employing new phylogenetic data. By Mike Ellison

According to the fanboy definition of phylogeny, that is how Andrewsarcus looked in life, no if, ands, or buts. But how do they know? We don’t have ANY body fossils! Maybe it looked more like a mesonychid (leading the original describers astray) because it may have converged on them. We won’t know until we actually find the rest of the bloody thing. And dinosaur taxonomy, it seems, is being rewritten all the time. So how can we be so confidant when something is “surrounded”? It may not be tomorrow.

Here is a rather facepalm worthy tidbit. This is a comment from a youtube video actually calling for a boycott of the film:

What’s wrong with raptors evolving on the island? That’s way better than saying the made them on wrong on purpose.

No. Just no. The dinosaurs suddenly “evolving” feathers is waaaaaay more stupid than the in movie explanation. Evolution doesn’t work like that. It takes more than the 20 years the dinosaurs have been on the islands. Besides, these are dinosaurs, not pokemon.

So because the fanboys’ fee fees were bruised, they decided to go on a meme campaign to “prove” how scary feathered dinosaurs are. To do that they used… birds. Oh right, birds aren’t birds, they are feathered dinosaurs. Here we go:

Nice try, but clearly you don’t know much about horror movies. Any horror movie fan worth their salt can tell you that gore is never scary. Fear comes from what we don’t see, what they can’t make sense of. When all you do is spray blood and fling body parts all over the place, you don’t get people running in terror. You get people trying to stifle their vomit. Hell, James Cameron said so himself: “You don’t get fear from gore. You get disgust.”

Again, that’s gross, not terrifying. And are you implying that anyone who doesn’t share your feather fetish deserves to have their eyes pecked out by birds? Classy.

Congratulations you can beat up a 10 pound fox.

Whoa. You do know golden eagles can and do kill wolves. Right?

And they can kill domestic calfs over 100 kg?

And they have killed reindeer, pronghorn, white-tailed deer, roe deer, coyote…

Ok then, why aren’t you showing that? Why can your fearsome, terrifying bir… sorry, feathered dinosaur- only be seen pounding small fry? And really? All you can muster in terms of oh-so scary and terrifyingly deadly bir- sorry, feathered dinosaurs- is just one example? Ok the golden eagle is a fearsome predator. But it seems to be the only one that can even be considered on par with mammalian carnivores.

This string of self-satisfying memes not only unleashed a circle jerk of feather worship, but also something that further cemented their status as fanboys: crowing about how dinosaurs are superior to mammals. For example, this exchange from the last image:

Wow that’s an amazing… fox!

Response: mammal lover

Now I know you can’t get emotions from type, but am I the only one detecting a sneering tone in the response?

Being the idiotic masochist that I seem to be, I waded into the cesspit:

And what about those of us who think feathered dinosaurs are meh

Didn’t say they were lame, didn’t say they sucked, and didn’t say they weren’t scary. Just wondered about those of us who don’t think feathered dinosaurs are so holy. And what did I get?

I suggest therapy

Therapod therapy

Hey jackasses. I’m already in therapy. And it isn’t because I don’t get down and lay prostrate before the golden dinosaur altar.  It’s partly because of idiots like you who think it’s a-ok to judge people on trivial issues.

… hey, nobody’s asking you to be interested in dinosaurs. There are plenty of echinoderms out there

Echinoderms. He doesn’t say mammals or reptiles or fish or amphibians or birds (oh right, they are feathered dinosaurs, never mind). Not brontotheres or squalodonts or machairodonts or catarhines or xiphodonts or gomphotheres or plessipines or camelids. Not phytosaurs or aetosaurs or metoposaurs or ryhnchosaurs or rauisuchians or pterosaurs or mosasaurs. Not gorgonopsids or dicynodonts or cynodonts or dinocephalians or pelycosaurs or pareiosaurs or rhizodonts or temnospondyls or placoderms or even them Paleozoic sharks . No, he said that if I am not interested in dinosaurs, then my only alternative is little invertebrates that hardly anyone gives a crap about. Now tell me that wasn’t intentionally derisive.

In the third meme, I tried to stick up for mammals. I said “I’ll take brains over brawn any day” and shared a video of an orca at Seaworld using a fish to bait a seagull into reach of its jaws. Oh silly me. Because dinosaurs are superior and birds are dinosaurs, anything involving modern birds is a trump card. And I just had to be put in my place:

Yeah using bait to catch gulls, old news. Cue the green-backed heron videos.

Yep brains over brawn. Brains over brawn.

So after that further display of asshatery, I found myself asking the question: “So basically there is nothing mammals can do that bird… sorry, feathered dinosaurs can’t do better?”

Not only did he like that, but the feather fanboys just had to rub salt in the wound.

Milking: Mammals top pride

… what about flamingo and pigeon crop milk?

Caecillian claocal milk, Sauropod milk

So one of the defining traits of mammals is on the same level as bir- sorry, feathered dinosaur- barf and something secreting fluid out its ass? Are you starting to see why I have written at length why you are a bunch of reprehensible fanboys?

And it’s not just here. When my “35 More Awesome” post was shared, it apparently warranted these comments:

Coolness ended at the end of the Cretaceous. The rest is mere postscript.

Post K life is judged awesome by how closely it approaches Mesozoic forms in coolness

And when Andy Farke was nice enough to share with me a “top ten list of mammals cooler than any dinosaur”, well…

Uh… top 10? There ain’t even ONE that’s cooler that ALL of dinosauria!

When someone posted a picture of a Pleistocene bone asking for id ideas, someone felt compelled to say

Ewww… mammals

The eye one seemed pretty popular:

“Lighten up Doug”, I hear you say, “they are just joking around.” Maybe, but how are we supposed to know that? Mind you, most of the stuff I used here was harvested from facebook. It is all too clear from… well anywhere on the internet, that people tend to act like jerks when they are hidden behind the anonymity of the internet. They think they can get away with it because no one knows who they are. Or in the case of facebook, only their inner circle will see it, protected by the echo chamber of their friends and followers. They could be nice people in life, but in the consequence free and hazy world of the internet, they feel free to reveal an ugly side to themselves. A lot of the quotes I used came from a well known scientific figure. I used to think pretty highly of him. I used to think that if I ever met him at a conference, I’d have to shake his hand for being such a great scientist and science writer. But after all this, if I ever saw him in person, I’d have to fight off the urge to kick him in the nuts for being such an insufferable jerkass.

Look, some people may be joking, some might not be, so how do you parse it out? Furthermore, you got so offended when someone didn’t fully respect your feathered dinosaurs but you had no problem dumping on mammals. Maybe you should take a break from whining and crying and take a moment to reflect on just how good you have it. Dinosaurs overwhelmingly dominate the public’s impression of prehistory. Dinosaurs have been featured in countless movies, books, tv shows, documentaries, and theme park attractions (for starters). The Mesozoic is always described as the “age of dinosaurs”. Stuff about the Paleozoic and Cenozoic are often titled “before the dinosaurs” and “after the dinosaurs”, as if they are somehow the focal point of the history of life (much like the arrogance of early Christian historians who thought the birth of their god- Jesus- was the center of human history). Go to any museum and dinosaurs have way more space and attention than anything else. I mean, the dinosaur hall at the Los Angeles Museum is expansive, it feels well done, while the fossil mammal hall feels like an afterthought. I am always being asked about dinosaurs, despite the fact I specialize in the Cenozoic. So when another dino feature comes out, you bray like asses over how it doesn’t absolutely 100% perfectly cater to your sensibilities.

Only dinosaurs deserve to have millions of dollars spent recreating their world. Boring old mammals deserve a boring bland hole-in-the-wall.

The dinosaur hall has a wall of 100 dinosaur fossils. Because they are just that special!

Dinosaurs get the Siebel Dinosaur Complex. Mammals get a couple cases to fill some space.

I know Museum of the Rockies specializes in dinosaurs (even though Utah is really giving them a run for their money), but Montana has some good Cenozoic stuff as well, from the Eocene, Miocene, Pleistocene, and even rare Paleocene fossils. Look at this beautiful Miocene dog skull:

It was actually found by the Raymond Alf Museum Of Paleontology (which is awesome. Stop by anytime you’re in southern California). Probably because they are the only ones interested in Montana’s Cenozoic (everyone else is trolling for dinosaurs). But because it was found on state land, it had to be reposited in Montana. So it is now at the Museum of the Rockies. Why do I get the feeling it’ll just sit around in some forgotten cabinet because all anyone cares about is dinosaurs?

Perhaps the perfect example of dinosaur privilege and over-focus is this thing:

Reconstructed skull of “Chomper” (photo: Museum of the Rockies)

It’s called “Chomper”. It’s a baby T. rex from the latest Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation in Montana. It is billed by the Museum of the Rockies as the smallest T. rex in the world. But “Chomper” was incomplete. So they recruited the Witmer Lab to scan the fossils and reconstruct the skull using knowledge of T. rex ontogeny. All this was for a new display about tyrannosaurus. Not unusual, you say. Museums do that all the time. Yeah, but this is the original fossil:

All known material from “Chomper”, compared with the tooth of an adult T. rex (Photo: Witmer Lab)

That has to be one of the most incomplete, fragmentary, scrappy dinosaur fossils I have ever seen. They did all that work to turn that into this:

When was that ever done for a mammal? When was that ever done for a juvenile gorgonopsid or a pelycosaur or a mammoth or a horse? Do you know because I’m drawing a blank here.

This cartoon kept popping up in the fanboy circles (I have occasionally seen it pop up on facebook in non-fanboy contexts as well):

Because only the changing face of dinosaurs (hell, only dinosaurs in general) can get people interested in science. God forbid the scenario ever go like this:

Back to movies, you know what we Cenozoic folks get? Just Pleistocene mammals and that’s only so they can battle cavemen. The best representation of Cenozoic life put to film? 10,000 B.C. The most beautiful, most accurate Cenozoic animals put to screen are in a fucking Roland Emerich movie! The public already shares your attitude of “dinosaurs rule, everything else sucks!” You don’t have to struggle to get people interested in dinosaurs. Try getting them interested in fossil horses or dogs or camels. Try getting them interested in Devonian fish or Permian synapsids. The one thing mammals had was that they are still around. Except…

I once saw an eminent scientist say that calling birds dinosaurs adds to the richness of our world. But for me, it actually takes away from it. In my eyes, birds are no longer descendants of dinosaurs, a distinct lineage carrying on the legacy of their forbearers. No, they are dinosaurs, so even when talking about the modern world I have to deal with dinosaurs. Birds aren’t a highly successful group who managed to diversify and fill countless niches. Nope, they are just continuing the rule of dinosaurs. The terror birds weren’t a unique case of birds rising to the ranks of top predators in a mammal dominated world. Nuh uh, they were just dinosaurs continuing to dominate those stupid mammals after their “official” reign ended. New Zealand isn’t the land of the birds it’s the land of the dinosaurs! The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s Dennis M. Power Bird Hall is really the Dennis M. Power Dinosaur Hall. With almost 500 mounts, the Santa Barbara Museum has one of the largest displays of dinosaurs on the west coast (without even knowing it!). A Pleistocene hawk isn’t a hawk, it’s a Pleistocene dinosaur (yeah, that’s sure to never cause any confusion).

I mean, when looked at through your infantile eyes, dinosaurs win everything. Still around? Birds are dinosaurs. Have been around longer? Birds are dinosaurs, increasing their time through the Cenozoic. Mammals are smarter? Birds are dinosaurs, and parrots and crows are smart. Mammals conquered land, air, sea. Birds are dinosaurs; ratites and other birds live on the ground, most birds fly, and penguins swim. Dinosaurs are bigger. Dinosaurs are weirder. Since birds are dinosaurs, dinosaurs are more diverse than mammals can ever hope to become. Dinosaurs are bigger (whales don’t count, don’t cha know). Dinosaurs are weirder (you can have this giant reptile with all this weird stuff on its head. Or you can have an extinct horse, which you can go see down at Bubba’s farm so why even bother). No matter what weird or extravagant feature a mammal has, it will never be as weird or extravagant as what dinosaurs have. And the public thinks so. I have seen loads of people in museums look at any large fossil skeleton (be it a mammoth, a sloth, or anything else) and call it a dinosaur. People are always asking me about dinosaurs. So when birds aren’t called birds and are instead called dinosaurs, it seems there is no escape from the damnable things. So are we to just bow down to the god-like awesomeness of dinosaurs? Are all other forms of life expected to submit to dinosaurs and let them own the animal world unquestioned, unchecked, unchallenged?

drawing by Flickr user brianfbarker

In this publicity image released by Universal Studios Hollywood, King Kong battles a dinosaur in a scene from the attraction “King Kong 360 3-D,” created by Peter Jackson. (AP Photo/Universal Studios Hollywood)

Look, I don’t deny that birds are in the dinosaur family. But I will never see them as dinosaurs. I will never call them dinosaurs. Because not everything has to be about god damn fucking dinosaurs!

Yes, i will forget. It’s bad enough hearing “birds are dinosaurs” everywhere but I will not let it taint my favorite holiday.

You know what here is the plot of the next Jurassic Park movie. It will be called Prehistoric World. Another company with a genetics division has set up a park in South America. However, it is not an amusement park but rather a game preserve, where the animals are allowed to roam free and interact with each other like they did in the past. And unlike the other parks, there are no dinosaurs. The company has instead decided to focus on Pleistocene megafauna recovered from well preserved bones from around the world. A bog in Patagonia has yielded: Stegomastodon, Megatherium, Hippidion, Macrauchenia, Toxodon, Doedicurus, Smilodon populator, terror birds, wolf-like dogs, and the large bear Arctotherium. A cave in Australia produced: Diprotodon, Procoptodon, Zygomaturus, Phascolonus, Geniornis, Simosthenurus, Megalania, Thylacoleo, Quinkana, and thylacines. Permafrost in Russia has provided: steppe mammoth, steppe bison, irish elk, woolly rhino, horses, giant hyena, cave bear, and steppe lion. The park is rather successful, since the animals are easier to manage than dinosaurs and the predators are easier to fend off on the rare occasion they get too close to the tour transports. But not everyone thinks the park so great. A small but very vocal movement of dinosaur fanboys thinks they need to create and release dinosaurs into the preserve because they are so much cooler and interesting, including one of the parks lead geneticists. The park’s heads say that is out of the question, given what has happened before. Besides, there are terror birds in the South American fauna and thunder birds in the Australian section. Since birds are dinosaurs, they still have their beloved feathered monsters to faun over. But those aren’t enough. They want “real dinosaurs”. So they go to InGen and obtain dinosaur DNA. The geneticist then begins to engineer some dinosaurs. They of course put feathers on the dinosaurs, even the non-theropod ones (because feathered dinosaurs are superior and feathers on non-theropod dinosaurs are not totally unreasonable (“But we shouldn’t be too quick to roll our eyes at depictions of fuzzy tyrannosaurids or even illustrations as heretical as sauropods with some kind of protofeather equivalent”)). With the geneticist’s help they sneak the dinosaurs into the park and things go haywire (as they always do). However, the park’s current residents turn out to more of a match than the fanboys initially thought. The mammals are able to go toe to toe with their saurian usurpers. The climax consists of the survivors running the T. rex into a huge bull steppe mammoth who is in musth and ready to fight anything in sight. The two prehistoric titans duke it out, but the mammoth’s strength and sharp tusks prove too much. It knocks its weakened foe over and crushes the T. rex’s skull with its foot . Roll credits. Oh right, dinosaurs are bigger and fiercer and stronger and everything else than mammals. I forgot who I’m dealing with.

So I’m just gonna cut it here. Dinosaurs were a big part of my life growing up and I still hold some interest in them. But even that token interest isn’t going to last much longer if the dinosaur fanboys keep up their rancor. I’m the kind of person where hype kills things for me. And calling birds dinosaurs means I have to put up the “terrible lizards” 24/7. Dare I say that feathers didn’t ruin dinosaurs for me, but dinosaurs ruined birds for me? I would love something on the level of success as the Jurassic Park franchise that contained the equally wonderful beasts of the Cenozoic era (and even some of the stuff from the Paleozoic). But that isn’t going to happen because the only thing people care about is dinosaurs. So what if Jurassic World didn’t have the most accurate of dinosaurs? Given their domineering status over all things prehistoric, it’s just a matter of time before you get an accurate portrayal. Meanwhile, we Cenozoic folks are stuck with those Ice Age movies (which quickly went downhill after the first one).

I’m sure I’m going to get a veritable flood of unmitigated hate for my Jurassic World series. People howling and snarling at me because I don’t understand science or that I’m a fanboy myself or that my writings are just ignorant diatribes. I expect even being dismissed out of hand. Comments will run at length about how I know nothing about dinosaurs and I’m just bitter over them. That and loads of other things that I could list (but I’ve held you long enough). And to be perfectly honest, I don’t care. No two craps or even a flying fuck. I have TOO much on my mind lately only exasperated by dire family emergencies. Hell, I’ll probably be lucky to even be around to hear your impotent abuse. But hey, somebody had to call the fanboys out on their bullshit. Thanks for reading. It is after all you that I do this for.

Till next time!