Smithsonian.com

The Jurassic Park Discovery Center in Orlando, Florida. From Flickr user daryl_mitchell.

The Jurassic Park franchise has been having a rough time of it over the past few years. Jurassic Park III, released eight years ago, performed only modestly at the box office and was generally panned by critics. It is never a good sign when the audience is rooting for the dinosaurs to eat the lead actors so that the film will end sooner.

Still, the third film was enough of a success that a fourth installment was put into development. The question was where to take the franchise. Various ideas were tried out, including one involving a squad of super-smart Velociraptor trained for special ops missions, but no one could agree on a story. Then, last December, producer Kathleen Kennedy suggested that the franchise might be dropped. Michael Crichton, who wrote two novels the films were based upon, had passed away and it seemed like a good time to retire the series.

There is still some hope that the genetically-engineered dinosaurs might come back, though. A few weeks ago producer Frank Marshall mentioned that Jurassic Park IV is still up for consideration, even if he admitted that it was a “back-burner project.” The difficulty is figuring out where the films should go next, especially since the last film was so poorly regarded. The people-fleeing-from-dinosaurs-on-an-island bit has been done. The franchise needs something fresh (and not space dinosaurs), but we will have to wait and see if any writers can deliver.

Big Al the Allosaurus. From Flickr user rynoceras.

At 5 PM on June 30th the lights went out in the halls of the University of Wyoming Geological Museum for the last time. Earlier in the month, state budget cuts forced the university to cut funding to the institution, which houses the spectacular Allosaurus “Big Al” and an Apatosaurus skeleton. Pleas to keep the museum open went unheeded. Paleontologist Brent Breithaupt, who has worked at the museum for over 30 years (and who recently commented on some interesting dinosaur tracks), was shocked by the closure. He told the Laramie Boomerang:

I can’t fathom the concept that I’m not going to be coming in every day to see the dinosaurs. … I can’t fathom the concept that the dinosaurs won’t be there for other people to see; to see the little kids come in and be excited for the dinosaurs. I can’t fathom the concept that this museum will not be there for them.

Indeed, the museum was a major tool for educational outreach. Dinosaurs are not just for kids, but interest people of all ages, and now it will be closed off to everyone. The community will lose Breithaupt’s expertise, too. Not only did he run the museum, but he also worked in conjunction with the university to educate students in a variety of classes, from paleontology to literature. State and local agencies would call the museum for information about fossils and geology, too, but now they have lost that connection.

This is an all-too-common trend in academia. Paleontology programs are being shut down as older professors retire and budget cuts often place paleontology on the university chopping block. It has always been difficult for paleontologists to find work, but these days there is an ever-dwindling number of positions. As interesting and popular as paleontology is, it just does not command the same kind of respect as other scientific disciplines relatively untouched by present economic woes.

What will become of Breithaupt and “Big Al”? No one knows yet. It does not look like state funding is going to be restored anytime soon, but there is an effort underway to secure private funding for the museum. Information about donations and the progress of the initiative can be found at Keep Laramie Dinos. There is a lot of work to do, but the museum may yet re-open its doors.

One of Mark Witton's Pterosaurs, Courtesy of the artist's Flickr page

The Life Aquatic: Let’s offer a warm Dinosaur Tracking welcome to Brain Beatty’s new blog, The Aquatic Amniote, which will “share news and insights about marine mammals, marine reptiles, and generally explore the evolution of aquatic amniotes, with special reference to the transition from terrestrial to aquatic in air-breathing, amnion-bearing, vertebrates.”

A Leg Up: ArtEvolved’s newest gallery is devoted entirely to Pterosaurs—which has prompted considerable online debate about precisely where the wings were attached on the flying dinosaur’s body. British Pterosaur specialist Mark Witton weighs in with his views: “In a nutshell: there is no support for…hip attachment, one specimen may show a knee attachment (but it’s ambiguous at best), whereas specimens of Eudimorphodon, Anurognathus, Jeholopterus, Rhamphorhynchus, Sordes, Beipopterus and a Tapejarid…all give either hints of an ankle attachment or show it quite convincingly.”

The Red Eye: “A wide variety of chemical defenses have evolved in the natural kingdom,” notes The World We Don’t Live In. “However, squirting blood from one’s eyes may seem to be taking self-defense a little too far” (agreed)—especially since the animals in question already have ample natural protection, such as spikes.

Not to be Confused with Fraggle Rock: Chinlea has posted photos of the Coelophysis Quarry in New Mexico, including the famous “Barney Rock,” which appears to be waving at visitors. (Thankfully, it doesn’t sing or dance.) According to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, “Hundreds of skeletons of Coelophysis were discovered at Ghost Ranch (Rio Arriba County) during the 1940s. This two- to three-meter-long, meat-eating dinosaur was one of the first dinosaurs on Earth and is the best-known Late Triassic dinosaur.”

Can I Phone a Friend, Regis? Catalogue of Organisms dishes up this Completely Frivolous Taxonomy Quiz. Sample question: “Current rank-based taxonomy is based on seven primary ranks. Which two were not used by Linnaeus?” (And, that’s the easiest one.) Answers are posted here. (No peeking…)

Shut Down: Paleochick offers an extensive round-up of news related to the closing of the University of Wyoming Geological Museum, which shut its doors on June 30th due to budget cuts. The museum was founded 122 years ago—and one of its first curators was William Harlow Reed, one of the railroad workers who discovered the first dinosaur fossils at Como Bluff, Wyoming. An online petition to keep the museum open currently has nearly 2,500 signatures.

The Show Must Go On? Last March, Bob’s Dinosaur Blog reported that Michael Jackson’s anticipated comeback tour had created a scheduling conflict at London’s O2 Arena with the Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular stage show that recently scored big box office in the United States. But…“Now, sadly, that conflict…has been rendered moot, which leads one to wonder if O2 will extend the dinosaurs’ stay to make up for Jackson’s absence.”

Megalosaurus, as depicted in Extinct Monsters.

It is difficult to look at the skeleton of a dinosaur and not imagine what it might have been like when it was alive. What color was it? What sounds did it make? How did it eat? The last question, in particular, is of perpetual interest when it comes to meat-eating dinosaurs, and many writers have tried to interpret the hunting habits of “predaceous” dinosaurs, sometimes dramatically. One attempt, made over a century ago, was undertaken by the Reverend H.N. Hutchinson in his 1894 book Extinct Monsters, in which he imagined a Megalosaurus pouncing on some unsuspecting prey:

It is not very difficult to imagine a Megalosaur lying in wait for his prey (perhaps a slender, harmless little mammal of the ant-eater type) with his hind limbs bent under his body, so as to bring the heels to the ground, and then with one terrific bound from those long legs springing on to the prey, and holding the mammal tight in its clawed fore limbs, as a cat might hold a mouse. Then the sabre-like teeth would be brought into action by the powerful jaws, and soon the flesh and bones of the victim would be gone !

Just what such a large dinosaur would hide behind is left to our imagination.

It should be noted, though, that we still do not have a very good idea of what Megalosaurus looked like. Even though it was one of the first dinosaurs to be scientifically described, no one has found a complete skeleton of it. In fact, last summer paleontologists determined that most of the fossils said to belong to Megalosaurus really represented other dinosaurs. The only “true” Megalosaurus fossil we know of is the portion of lower jaw first used to describe the genus.

"ReX" (with temporary neck brace) prepares for its big move to ImaginOn.

For the past seven years, a seven-foot-tall origami Tyrannosaurus has served as the mascot for the TEA ReX Teahouse in Charlotte, North Carolina. As The Charlotte Observer recently reported, however, the company is switching to a new online format, and the giant paper dinosaur would need a new home.

Now it has one, says TEA ReX president Wayne Powers. The origami structure is being installed in the entryway of ImaginOn, an arts and library center for children.

“ReX” was created in 1996 for an origami festival held in Charlotte every other year. According to Powers,

[The origami dinosaur] is made up of 46 pieces, each with more than 100 folds to complete the required bone shape.  It was designed by a prominent Japanese artist, Issei Yoshino, and opened up an entire new era of realistic-looking origami in the early 1990’s.  Under the direction of Southeast Origami Festival founder Jonathan Baxter, this one-quarter size prototype was folded by the Southeast Origami “D-Team”, who reside in cities throughout the southern United States and meet regularly to work on large-size origami exhibit pieces.

“ReX” was presented to Wayne Powers, in gratitude for his support of the Origami Festivals, and was prominently displayed at Powers’ TEA ReX TEAHOUSE in Charlotte’s Historic South End from 2002 until its closing in June, 2009, where he was enjoyed and regularly photographed by countless visitors from around the world.

It will be on display again next month. During the transfer, ReX will undergo “elective neck surgery,” Powers says, to reinforce a weak spot in its neck.

The Allosaurus skeleton on display at the Smithsonian.

Scientists in Spain announced this week the discovery of a large tooth from a predatory dinosaur similar to Allosaurus. Found by local residents in Riodeva, Teruel, the nearly 4-inch-long tooth is the largest predatory dinosaur tooth yet found from the country. Just what dinosaur the tooth belonged to is as yet unknown. The scientists who described it for the journal Estudios Geologicos, as LiveScience reports, are pretty confident that it came from an allosaurid, and may be closely related to the as-yet-unknown dinosaur that left similar teeth in the strata of Portugal. Whatever the dinosaur was, though, it appears to have dined on sauropods. A bone from the sauropod Turiasaurus riodevensis found in the same area as the new tooth bears a large puncture mark that appears to have been made by a large predatory dinosaur. No doubt more exciting discoveries will emerge from Riodeva.

Uncle Beazley on display at the National Zoo. From Flickr user Mo Kaiwen.

When I visited the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. earlier this year, I was a bit surprised to see a large Triceratops statue next to the giant anteater enclosure. There are a few dinosaurs at the zoo, like the Tyrannosaurus skull sculpture near the big cats exhibit, but the Triceratops seemed out of place. Why was it there?

I didn’t know it at the time, but this Triceratops was a minor celebrity. In 1956, Oliver Butterworth published a children’s book called The Enormous Egg in which a young boy discovers a large dinosaur egg. It hatches, and the boy names the young Triceratops “Uncle Beazley.” The dinosaur quickly becomes too large to handle, though, so the boy gives it to the “National Museum” in Washington, D.C.

A made-for-TV film adaptation of the story aired in 1968, and a life-sized Triceratops sculpture was created for the story. It was soon after donated to the Smithsonian by the Sinclair Oil Company, which was famous for its dinosaur logo. Uncle Beazley has been moved around a bit since that time, but today he can be seen in a special “prehistoric” garden right across from the lemur exhibit at the National Zoo.

A cast of a (real) baby Triceratops skull. From Flickr user Cryptonaut.

When I took a college course about dinosaurs a few years ago, I took the opportunity to confirm what a family member told me when I was very young. Someone had given me a small lump of irregularly-shaped rock and said it was a dinosaur bone. It certainly looked like some kind of fossil, and in 2003 I brought it to my professor to see if he knew what it was.

If my professor was sure of anything, it was that my specimen was not a fossil. It looked like a bone, sure, but it was just a small rock that had formed in a way that looked bone-like. It did not have the honeycomb-like internal structure that is a tell-tale sign of fossilized bone. Such mistakes are easily made, though, and it seems that a similar fossil-like rock has been making a bit of news lately.

This past weekend, DL-Online posted a story about a “baby dinosaur” skull discovered by Minnesota rockhound Mitchell Voss. Held the right way there is something dinosaur-like about the image on the rock, but this resemblance appears to be due to irregular swirls on the rock. This is similar to the famous (and now lost forever) Old Man of the Mountain from New Hampshire. While the side of the mountain appeared to present a human-like face, the “Old Man” was just a series of cliff ledges that, viewed from the right angle, looked like a human face. The same phenomena is at work with this “baby dinosaur”, and I have no doubt that an examination of the internal makeup of Voss’ find will reveal it to be a rock.