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A Tyrannosaurus stares over the trees along Kentucky's I-65. Photo courtesy Callan Bentley.

Sometimes, while driving down the highway, I imagine what it would be like if dinosaurs came back to life. Would drivers have to watch out for Hadrosaurus and Dryptosaurus in addition to deer, raccoons, and opossums? Of course we will never know (and that’s probably a good thing), but a sculpture towering over the trees along I-65 in Kentucky might make drivers look twice in their rear view mirrors. Not far from Mammoth Cave National Park, an enormous fiberglass Tyrannosaurus stares over the trees at interstate travelers, announcing the presence of the local attraction Dinosaur World. It is one of three similar parks established in Kentucky, Texas, and Florida, and you can keep up with events at the parks through their blog.

Have you stumbled across a dinosaur in an unexpected place? If you have, and have a photo of the encounter, send it to us via dinosaursightings@gmail.com!

Artwork from the forthcoming Jurassic Park: Redemption series.

It is going to be a long time before the Jurassic Park franchise returns to the big screen, but if you really need your JP fix, comic publisher IDW will be launching a new series this summer. Called “Jurassic Park: Redemption,” the new story will bring back some characters from the first film that have not had to tangle with dinosaurs for a while:

It’s been 13 years since little Tim and Lex Murphy escaped from the island of Isla Sorna, and recent public opinion has reversed with the world clamoring for authorities to re-open Jurassic Park. With the help of their controversial Granddad’s inheritance and their own sharp wits, a secret deal is struck to open a new park. This time they’ll get it right… right?

I bet you can imagine what happens, especially since the first storyline will run five issues and there are plans for more. (And, if you just can’t get enough dinosaurs-run-amok mayhem, IDW will be re-releasing the entirety of the original Jurassic Park comic-book series.) To find out more about the new series, check out this interview with series writer and co-editor Bob Schreck.

The new partial dinosaur hip from Dinosaur Cove as seen from the right (B) and the front (C). It is shown compared to the hip of a known tyrannosaur (D). From the Science paper.

Almost every tyrannosaur ever discovered, from the feather-covered Dilong to the gargantuan Tyrannosaurus, has come from the northern hemisphere, but a new discovery announced last week in the journal Science suggests that tyrant dinosaurs may have roamed ancient Australia, too.

As reported by paleontologists Roger Benson, Paul Barrett, Tom Rich and Pat Vickers-Rich, a partial hip found at the appropriately-named Dinosaur Cove site in southern Australia appears to have belonged to an approximately 100 million year old tyrannosauroid dinosaur. Even though it is not much to go on, and the authors refrain from naming the dinosaur in their brief report, the specimen shows several traits that are seen only among tyrant dinosaurs (including a rough, or “rugose,” patch near the top). It is entirely possible that the bone could represent some hitherto unknown type of dinosaur, but based upon what paleontologists have discovered so far the simplest explanation is that the bones denote the presence of a southern-hemisphere tyrannosaur.

What is particularly interesting, though, is that 100 million years ago Dinosaur Cove was very close to the South Pole. Whatever this dinosaur was, it was living in a place that was probably cooler (at least seasonally) than places inhabited by other dinosaurs at the time. Many dinosaurs, including tyrannosaurs, have been discovered in Arctic deposits, and if further discoveries help us to understand this new southern dinosaur we may learn more about the lives of Antarctic dinosaurs, too.

For more on this discovery, see Darren Naish’s Tetrapod Zoology and a post from Roger Benson on Dave Hone’s Archosaur Musings.

Benson, R., Barrett, P., Rich, T., & Vickers-Rich, P. (2010). A Southern Tyrant Reptile Science, 327 (5973), 1613-1613 DOI: 10.1126/science.1187456

Paleontologist Mark Loewen points out the fossilized remains of Seitaad.

Earlier this week I reported on the discovery of a new, 190 million year old sauropodomorph dinosaur Seitaad ruessi from southern Utah, and scientist Mark Loewen of the Utah Museum of Natural History (one of the paleontologists who described the fossil) was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about it.

Brian: How was the skeleton discovered, and when did you realize it was a new kind of dinosaur?

Mark: Seitaad was discovered by Joe Pachak, a local historian, sculptor and petroglyph expert from Bluff, Utah. Joe was hiking the Navajo Sandstone on Comb Ridge in the four corners region of Utah, came across the bones, and alerted both the BLM [Bureau of Land Management] and the Utah Museum of Natural History. We received photographs in February of 2005 showing a skeleton in the side of a cliff. When we recognized the rocks in the photos as likely Navajo, we got really excited.  So little is known of the Navajo Sandstone fauna that we suspected anything we might find would be significant and probably new. When we first excavated the skeleton we mistakenly thought we had a pterosaur, with the eroded ischium being the lower jaw. As we started to prep the blocks we recognized we had it 180° backwards and were leaning toward it being a theropod. As we prepped down to shoulders and arms we knew we had a “prosauropod.” Joe Sertich and I borrowed the scant materials from this group that were previously found in the Navajo Sandstone of Arizona (from  Museum of Northern Arizona and the UCMP at Berkeley) and saw right away that we had something new. After comparing our specimen to all other known basal sauropodomorphs, we confirmed that we had something new to science.

Brian: The head, neck, and tail of Seitaad were missing. What could have happened to them?

Mark: As we completed the preparation we were able to determine that Seitaad was deposited literally standing on its head in a nearly vertical position. The skeleton was preserved with just the backbone emerging from the cliff wall. Every other bone (head, neck, pelvis, femora, and tail) would have been eroded away when the modern canyon formed. The sand immediately surrounding the fossil are consistent with dune collapse deposits and are laterally equivalent dune foresets. Similar isolated collapse deposits are repeated above in the cliff wall. Rapid burial by rare sedimentary event is the likely scenario in which the skeleton was preserved.   It wasn’t until a year ago when we CT scanned the block at the University of Utah Hospital that we realized that Seitaad was missing a single toe and the fibula. Seitaad was probably recently dead and complete when it was buried and was held together by soft tissues.

Brian: For most of the public, the process by which dinosaurs are named is mysterious. How did Seitaad ruessi get its unusual name?

Mark: We wanted a unique name for the skeleton in a local dialect and settled on the rich traditions of the Navajo language. We found a Navajo (Diné) creation legend about Seit’aad, a sand-desert monster that swallowed its victims in sand dunes. The fossilized skeleton of Seitaad was “swallowed” by a sand dune, so it seemed appropriate. The suffix ruessi is derived from Everett Ruess, a famous young philosopher poet, artist, historian, explorer and lover of the red rock country of southern Utah (where he was last seen in 1934). We wanted to honor Everett Ruess for his love of the region, its people, and for his free-spirited and adventurous lifestyle.

Brian: As described in the paper, Seitaad is a sauropodomorph dinosaur. How did it and its extinct relatives relate to the later, long-necked sauropod dinosaurs?

Mark: Seitaad is a basal member of the clade Sauropodomorpha. Many of these basal forms have in the past formed a clade that we knew as “prosauropods.” Recent work has suggested that “prosauropods” do not form a group of their own, an idea we will further be able to test as we find more animals like Seitaad. The phylogenetic analyses we ran suggests Seitaad is a close relative of the “prosauropods” Plateosaurus from Germany and Riojasaurus and Adeopapposaurus from Argentina. Either way, Seitaad is now the best known, early sauropodomorph from western North America and is closely related to the animals we think of when we say “prosauropod.”

The last survivors of the sauropodomorphs the long-necked sauropods probably evolved large body size as super food processing strategy and or to deter predators. Seitaad represents the standard run of the mill basal sauropodomorph in terms of size. Interestingly, large true sauropods had evolved in other parts of the world by the time Seitaad was living in Utah.

Brian: What kind of environment did Seitaad live in? What other creatures did it live alongside?

Mark: Seitaad lived in a vast white desert. The backdrop would have been crescent shaped barchan dunes of white sand stretching as far as the eye could see. There were wetter areas with vegetation and interdunal ponds between some of the dunes. Most of the vegetation would have been plants like horsetails and ferns. According to work by David Loope, monsoonal rains from the summer northeasterlies would have produced periodic dune slumps and collapses. Not a very hospitable environment!

From fossils we know that there was a protomammal tritylodont living in the Navajo along with one or two crocodylomorphs. We have a single specimen of the small theropod dinosaur Segisaurus halli along with trackway evidence of a 20 feet long theropod probably similar to Dilophosaurus. Other than that, we know from tracks that there was a small ornithopod and can presume that pterosaurs flew in the skies above. Seitaad was by far the largest herbivore in the area, a fact confirmed by trackway evidence.

Brian: And, to conclude on a more personal note, what inspired you to pursue paleontology as a career?

Mark: Like most kids I always loved dinosaurs. I got into science in college as a chemistry major and really took a liking to solving research problems. I was lucky enough to land a summer research internship looking for fossils in the Eocene of Wyoming and immediately switched to geology and paleontology. During graduate school, I started to see both sedimentology and paleontology as a way to travel back in time and see the past. I am personally fascinated in past worlds and what the animals that lived in them were like.

For more on this new discovery, see Mark’s interview with Andy Farke at the Open Source Paleontologist and his guest post at Dave Hone’s Archosaur Musings.

Triceratops handbags by designer Giles Deacon.

I know next to nothing about fashion, but I have to say it was pretty neat when designer Giles Deacon released some metallic Triceratops handbags earlier this year. As with just about any other piece of designer apparel, though, getting one can cost a pretty penny, so Sara Zucker of the Styleite blog figured out how to make one herself out of a Triceratops plush she had lying around. I am not nimble enough with a needle and thread to give it a try (nor do I really need a dinosaur handbag), but it looks simple enough. If you decide to give it a go, snap a photo of your project and tell us how it turned out!