Smithsonian.com

Raptor from Tal Moskovich on Vimeo.

Remember Alan Grant’s soliloquy at the beginning of Jurassic Park about the feeding habits of Velociraptor? The one in which he terrifies the child who dared to call the Cretaceous carnivore a “six foot turkey”? Well, Tal Moskovich has created a short, alternate version of the scene using plastic dinosaurs, which, I have to admit, I also did shortly after seeing the movie. I won’t bother complaining about the lack of feathers or other inaccuracies this time, promise.

If you want to see the original, however, you might get the chance to see it in theaters. MusicRooms (among other sites) reports that Jurassic Park will be re-released for a limited theatrical run on September 23 in advance of the Blu-Ray release of the full trilogy on October 24.

Hanging with Parasaurolophus at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham, North Caroline. Photo courtesy Christine Teander.

Typically our Dinosaur Sightings are of prehistoric creatures spotted in unexpected places—that is, not at museums—but today’s submission was too darned cute not to share.

Reader Christine Teander snapped this photo at Durham, North Carolina’s Museum of Life & Science, where she got up close and personal with the crested hadrosaur Parasaurolophus. “It’s my favorite dino of all time,” Christine writes, “so to see it for real, to touch it, to climb on it was a weird little childhood dream come true.” Even better, an affinity for lambeosaurine dinosaurs seems to run in the family. Christine says, “then my daughter climbs up and says ‘Parry-sloffy’ is her favorite in the whole wide world… oh just melts mommy’s heart!” Adorable.

Have you seen a dinosaur or other prehistoric creature in an unusual place? Please send your photo to dinosaursightings@gmail.com.

Superhero dinosaurs: Captain America as Triceratops; Tyrannosaurus as the Hulk and Compsognathus as Bruce Banner; Ankylosaurus as Thor. Art by David Resto.

The superheroes of the Marvel comic universe are pretty cool—Iron Man, the Hulk, Wolverine and many others are enduring favorites—but do you know what would make them even more awesome? If they were dinosaurs.

Artist David Resto has mashed up some of the most beloved Marvel comic characters with classic dinosaurs, and the results look like what my dinosaur-loving, comic-collecting 10-year-old self dreamed of. The roguish Gambit as the crested predator Dilophosaurus, Captain America as the shield-headed Triceratops, Daredevil as the horned carnivore Carnotaurus—the amalgamations of pop culture and prehistory Resto has created look worthy of their own one-shot special issue, at least.

I recently asked Resto a few questions about the creation of his dinosaurian superheroes.

Brian Switek: What inspired the creation of superhero dinosaurs?

David Resto: Childhood fascinations, really. Dinosaurs, Superheros… it just made sense for me to get the two together. I was even contemplating doing turtles as superheroes, but somebody got to those way before I did. Ha.

Daredevil as Carnotaurus. Art by David Resto.

BS: How did you choose which superhero should be represented by which dinosaur? Do the dinosaur choices reflect something about each superhero?

DR: For the first round of dinosaurs, The Avengersaurs, I tried to incorporate the superheros element into these terrible lizards. Iron Brontosaurus was the first and most random. When I doodled him out from the reference, he already looked like he was taking flight from rockets at his feet. This spawned the rest. The bone shield of a Triceratops for the Captain. The primal anger of a Tyrannosaurus rex and his miniature Compsognathus, Bruce Banner, at his feet. Lastly, the almighty Mjolnir at the base of Ankylothaurus‘ tail in the adaptation to Thor. After the first set, I just wanted to incorporate my favorite characters to my equally as favorite superhero. I think Stegolossus could be my absolute favorite one that I’ve drawn up.

BS: I write about this topic so often, I have to ask. I noticed that some of the dinosaurs that should have feathers—like Wolveraptor and Nightcrawlimimus—don’t have any. Are they just hidden under the costumes?

DR: Ah, yes. I’ve caught a lot of slack for the Velociraptor and the use of Brontosaurus. The way I went about it is exactly as I did with my childhood. I grew up with these dinosaurs as I represented them. The Spielberg faux pas of Velociraptor is what’s engrained in popularity nowadays. But then again, just like Wolverine and other comic book character adaptations, there is a lot left to interpretation and sheer fun. I suppose if there’s some sort of dinosaur/political correctness organization, they can persuade me to revise these illustrations to best fit their models.

BS: What references did you use to create the dinosaur images?

DR: All of my dino references were discovered online. Google searches and what not. I have linked to the references on each dinosaur through my Flickr and there are also a couple of screencasts that show my process, from laying out the references of both dinos and superheros, to a minimalist trace and layering of the superhero attire. As for the backgrounds, those are fairly abstract. Watching over the screencasts, one can witness first hand the spontaneity of them.

BS: Finally, are there any more superhero dinosaurs on the way? Or even supervillain dinosaurs?

DR: Well, I didn’t expect the dinosaurs to be as popular as they are. The first month I illustrated the majority of them and burned myself out a bit. Since then, I’ve graduated from college and started working full-time and keeping up on other hobbies that I haven’t been able to get the art flow back. I’d like to go the villain route as every superhero needs its counterpart. For now though, I’m trying to get the business end of these guys together before I take another step. I want these to be in good quality and taste for people around the world to enjoy. I’m in the process of perfecting posters and maybe even T-shirts very soon. So, stay tuned.

More Superhero Dinosaurs can be found at the official website, where posters of each are also available.

The skeleton of Xiaotingia (head is to the left). From Xu et al., 2011.

Sometimes my timing is just plain awful. I had waited for years to see an authentic specimen of Archaeopteryx—the feather-covered fossil celebrated for 150 years as the first bird—but by time I finally got my chance, on the afternoon of July 27, news sources were trying to out-pun each other over the unceremonious demotion of the evolutionary icon. I scanned through the reports while sitting in the parking lot of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, where the only Archaeopteryx in North American is on display. “Archaeopteryx Knocked From Roost as Original Bird” claimed WIRED Science, and the BBC played up the drama with “Feathers Fly in First Bird Debate.”

All this hubbub was stirred up by an article published a few hours before I rolled up to the museum in Thermopolis, Wyoming. In the issue of Nature published that day, paleontologist Xu Xing and colleagues described a previously unknown species of feathered dinosaur from the exceptionally fossil-rich beds of Liaoning, China. An interesting find, but given the number of feathered dinosaurs discovered during the past 15 years, not exactly something that newspapers would flip over. (As a freelance science writer, believe me that convincing some editors that dinosaurs are worth talking about is an uphill struggle.) What made all the difference was the way the new fossil was used to challenge the traditional position Archaeopteryx has held.

The backstory for the news goes back to 2009. In that year Xu and other paleontologists described a feather-covered creature they called Anchiornis. At first they thought it was an early bird, but a follow-up paper identified it as a feathered troodontid dinosaur. The newly described creature was very similar to Archaeopteryx—so much so that the discovery made me wonder if the beloved “urvogel” might eventually be stripped of that title, especially since Anchiornis might be even more ancient than the 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx.

Now there’s Xiaotingia zhengi—another small theropod dinosaur draped in well-developed plumage. The holotype specimen which formed the basis of the new Nature paper exhibits the mostly complete skeleton on its side, and altogether the specimen looks like a tan and brown smudge of bones and feather impressions. It is said to date back to about 155 million years ago, but like many such fossils from China, the exact date is frustratingly uncertain because the fossil was purchased from a dealer and not scientifically excavated. In terms of the anatomical nitty-gritty, though, Xiaotingia looks quite similar to both Archaeopteryx and Anchiornis. Even though the skull was crushed, for example, Xiaotingia appears to have had a short skull fitted with small, peg-like teeth.

But the part of the study that garnered the most attention was the evolutionary analysis which removed Archaeopteryx and its closest kin from the base of the bird family tree. According to the paper, the dinosaurs Archaeopteryx, Anchiornis and Xiaotingia were united by several subtle characteristics, such as the lengths of the hand bones and the shape of the wishbone. The study places these dinosaurs closer to the sickle-clawed deinonychosaurs—the group which contains genera like Troodon and Deinonychus—than to the earliest birds.

Now here’s the part that was grossly underreported. “It should be noted,” the authors of the new paper wrote, “that our phylogenetic hypothesis is only weakly supported by the available data.” Headlines proclaimed the downfall of Archaeopteryx even though the actual evidence for such a change, as the authors of the study admitted, is not particularly strong. The uncertainty stems from the fact that some of the features seen in early birds may have appeared independently in more distantly related dinosaurs, so determining which traits are true signs of family ties and which evolved independently in different lineages is a difficult task. For example, the authors of the new study point out the similarity between the skulls of early birds such as Jeholornis and Sapeornis with oviraptorsaurs—all seem to have relatively deep and short skull profiles. But is this a real sign of close relationships, or a case of convergent evolution? There is no definite answer yet. When trying to tease out relationships, paleontologists must choose wisely or else features that evolved independently might be mistaken for common inheritance from a shared ancestor.

(More…)

Artist Donald E. Davis' depiction of the asteroid impact which played a critical role in the end-Cretaceous extinction. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

What if the non-avian dinosaurs didn’t go extinct 65 million years ago? Dinosaur fans love to ask the question—what if one of the most devastating extinctions of all time was cancelled?—and the speculative answers have ranged from fanciful to silly examples of our own arrogance. According to news released this week, the movie studio Pixar is getting ready to present its own version of what our world might look life had Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and their kind been given a stay of execution.

In addition to future releases such as Monsters University and Wreck-It Ralph, WIRED reports that Pixar has announced it’s working on a movie given the thrilling temporary name “The Untitled Pixar Movie About Dinosaurs.” (This announcement makes sense of rumors that have been floating around since last year that Pixar has been working on a dinosaur project.) The general idea is, “What if the cataclysmic asteroid that forever changed life on Earth actually missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never went extinct?” CNN reports that “This hilarious, heartfelt and original tale is directed by Bob Peterson (co-director/writer, Up; writer, Finding Nemo) and produced by John Walker (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant).” Pixar’s dinosaur film is set to debut in late 2013.

When I heard the news, the first question on my mind was, “What sort of dinosaurs are we going to see?” Are we going to get classic Mesozoic dinosaurs, or are we going to get novel dinosaur species that are the descendants of the Cretaceous survivors? The movie could provide Pixar with a good opportunity to take a subtle but powerful stand for evolution—of course we shouldn’t see Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Spinosaurus and other favorites because evolution would have kept on changing life during the past 65 million years! Actually, I would be a bit disappointed if Pixar didn’t try to introduce new dinosaurs. I know I’ve been critical of speculative dinosaurs before, but in this case, the premise demands species that have never been seen before. Life changes, and dinosaurs would have certainly continued to evolve.

(All this is ignoring the fact that dinosaurs are still around. We really do know what dinosaurs would look like if they survived, because birds—the modern descendants of dinosaurs—are everywhere. Since birds aren’t quite as thrilling as big honkin’ theropods and sauropods, though, it’s understandable that Pixar is focusing on the non-avian dinosaurs.)

Despite the poorly-executed cash grab that was this summer’s Cars 2, I still have faith in Pixar. Not only have they created some of the best animated films ever, they have been behind some of the best films to be released in the past few years, period. I can’t wait to hear more about their alternative history where dinosaurs still rule the earth.