Burgers and Hot Dogs

Sydney Mohr is a friend and colleague of mine whose art you will have seen in the news lately, if you are inclined to read about ankylosaurs. She's done amazing reconstructions of two ankylosaurs for me in the last year - Ziapelta and Gobisaurus - and so I asked her to take a few minutes and tell us about her process for creating her palaeoart. Also this way I get to show off more of her drawings, so yay!

Sydney decided that this Gobisaurus was named Burger, and that seemed fine with me.

Once we got started on Gobisaurus, I sent Sydney a pile of photos of both Gobisaurus and its close relative Shamosaurus, and some of my own very rough sketches of what the osteoderms might have looked like. Gobisaurus isn't completely known, so we're guessing a bit on the osteoderm arrangement in the final version and using Shamosaurus for the cervical armour. Here are the earliest sketches Sydney sent me - so many great poses and personality. Also, here's a Sydney in her natural habitat (thanks John Acorn for the photo!).

  

One of the things I really like about your art is that it's obvious you are very familiar with animal anatomy and behaviour – your dinosaurs have real animal personalities. Can you tell us about some of your inspirations for your palaeoart? 

The best inspiration any artist can have when reconstructing extinct animals are...living animals! In most cases that's the best if not the only source of reference we have, at least when it comes to external appearances. Depending on what type of fossil I'm drawing, I'll try to find an extant analogue/s that may share some characteristics, like habitat and environment, diet, colour scheme, etc. For colour in particular I often mix and modify schemes from two or more animals, all the while keeping the fossil's apparent paleobiology and habitat in mind. I'll peruse images of modern animals on the web to get an idea of the posture and stance I want the fossil animal to be in, as well as the lighting and angle. A lot of a creature's emotion comes from the face, so I really like to focus on eyes. Getting the shape, depth, colour, and light just so can make a huge difference in terms of giving a drawing personality. It also isn't a bad idea to look at other artist's work, obviously not to copy directly, but you might get ideas for new methods or techniques that you can adopt and fit into your own style. 

Mr Iridescent - a beautiful take on Microraptor. So shiny and chrome.

This reminds me, I think you said the Ziapelta reconstruction you did for our paper was inspired by a photo of a bird that you took! And that in turn reminds me that you are also a pretty great bird photographer - do you find that you get a better sense for conveying personality and movement in your dinosaurs by observing birds in the wild yourself?

So I did! The proudest grackle ever! 

I can see the family resemblence! Also, when I found out the Gobisaurus was named Burger, I asked if the Ziapelta had a name. Naturally, it was Hot Dog.

And definitely, seeing any animal in their habitat first hand can create a narrative in your mind that you can translate to paper. Birds are great to watch because a lot of the time they're always on the move and engaging in a variety of behaviours that are both interesting and fun to watch, as well as perfect fodder for a dinosaur reconstruction.  

You are also working on a Masters with Phil Currie at the University of Alberta! Would you like to tell us about what you're working on?

The thought of Mesozoic birds with bonafide teeth has really interested me for a while, so the plan is to explore the evolution of tooth loss in birds by comparing the implantation and replacement rates of small theropod (like dromaeosaurids and troodontids) and bird teeth. Looking into the anatomy of the jaw and the inner structures of the teeth of these closely related groups will hopefully yield some informative results. It's not easy because the stuff I need is comparatively rare and pretty darn tiny! I'm working entirely with Alberta material at the moment, and doing so has led me in other directions in terms of understanding the province's Cretaceous avian fauna, which is most represented in terms of numbers by, you guessed it, teeth!

Pygostylia Panoply: at the bottom, the toothy Early Cretaceous enantiornthine Rapaxavis, and up top, the duck-like (and toothless) Presbyornis.

Do you have a favourite taxon to illustrate?

Birds and feathered theropods are definitely up there.The more I do ankylosaurs though the more I enjoy drawing them. [YES FOLKS, YOU HEARD IT HERE: ANKYLOSAURS > THEROPODS.] They're so unique compared to anything else around today! I also enjoy doing mammals as well, like ungulates and carnivores (fossil or modern) and primitive examples from the Mesozoic. 

I am but a young'un: a perfectly floofular dromaeosaur chick. 

What medium/media do you like to work in?

I stick almost exclusively to traditional media; mainly pencil work, both black and white and colour, although I occasionally work in acrylic or watercolour. I prefer to work with fine tooth paper so I can vary my pencil strokes, blend more easily, and just have an overall smoother surface to work on. Coloured paper is also really fun to work with, like blue or black, because it makes drawing ocean scenes with pencil pretty simple. I've also dabbled in digital art via photoshop, but most of the time I only use it to fix mistakes and touch up scanned pencil drawings. In my case I find I have much more control with pencil and paper, and the results seem to be a bit more realistic, at least to my eyes. 

Ichthyornis dispar: a classic fossil bird, brought to life!

Do you have any advice for other people who are interested in creating their own palaeoart? Any common pitfalls to avoid, or things to think about when they are recreating an extinct animal?

I think one of the most important aspects of reconstruction is attention to detail, such as the dot of light and reflections in an eye, or the wind disturbing and ruffling fur or feathers, or the bulge of a muscle as a limb is flexed, or the crumpling of skin as it moves in a certain direction or shifts under the weight of the animal. Light, movement, and substance. Those kinds of little and almost unnoticeable features can take a simple reconstruction of a fossil to something that feels tangible and alive. In terms of pitfalls to avoid, I would say there isn't too much to worry about if you're just playing around and having fun, because hey, it's just art! That being said, if you're going for a publishable, as-accurate-as-possible, realistic style of depiction, then it's a good idea to become familiar with your subject, especially anatomy. If you can read up and get as close as possible to the original source material, like scientific papers, then you're that much closer to getting your skeletal anatomy down pat. Knowing some anatomy of modern animals is extremely helpful as well, as it informs how muscle and skin attaches to the bone and changes the outline of the body.

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Thanks Sydney! You can check out more of Sydney's amazing art and photography at her website, DeviantArt gallery, and Flickr gallery.

It's #SciArt week on Twitter!

I think we often downplay or take for granted the role that art plays in science. High quality art is obviously a hugely important aspect of public science communication. A paper describing a new species of dinosaur will have much more impact on the public if it's accompanied by an excellent life restoration of that dinosaur. Astronomers and their spacey kin use illustrations to show us satellites, the solar system, and far-off planets we can't photograph. Biologists dealing with the very small need illustrators to show us the cells in our bodies, what's inside those cells, what DNA looks like and how it works – the list is endless.

But the #SciArt tweet storm happening this week got me thinking again about the role that art plays in my own daily scientific activities. While I don't consider myself an artist, I was always drawing while I was growing up (for a while I entertained the idea of becoming an animator!). And I'm still drawing! Every time I go to a museum, I draw pretty much everything I look at. Why draw when I've got easy access to digital photography? Well, I take tons of photos, too, but drawing makes me LOOK at the specimen. 

LOOKING AROUND YOU IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Sketching slows me down, in a good way. What's that weird texture in this part of the bone, how far does this groove extend, what's with this unusual hole in this spot? Is there symmetry? Asymmetry? What's missing, and what's been filled in with plaster? What exactly was I measuring when I say 'length' or 'width'? I've filled many notebooks with drawings, stream-of-consciousness-style notes, measurements, and other bits of data. Mostly I use regular ol' pencils, but I also really like coloured pens and usually travel with a set for annotating my pencil drawings. I would love to be the kind of person that could do watercolour sketching, or proper graphite drawings.

These are some of my earliest notes from my MSc research, from a 2007 visit to the Royal Ontario Museum.

I think, as scientists, we do ourselves a disservice by not teaching students more about art skills and visual design. Being able to quickly and confidently sketch something in front of you is a useful skill to have! And understanding some of the principles of visual design – lines, shapes, negative space, colour combinations, and the like – can only make you a better communicator of science, especially in scientific papers. In addition to just being personally rewarding, drawing makes me a better scientist!

If you're a Twitterer, you should really check out the #SciArt hashtag this week (and into the future), to see the variety of techniques and approaches people take to science art. 

Nitpicking Euoplocephalus

A friend of mine posted this amazing video on Facebook, and I must share it!



I really like how the Geek Group have obviously put a lot of time into researching the anatomy of the dinosaurs they're featuring, and the stylized animations are super cool. I'm obviously biased towards this episode, but I'm looking forward to seeing more!

For those who are interested in learning more about the anatomy of Euoplocephalus, may I offer these blog posts?:

Baron von Nopcsa, Scolosaurus, and the spiky-clubbed ankylosaur.

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose...and you can definitely pick your ankylosaur's nose.

Who-oplocephalus
Who-oplocephalus: Is Euoplocephalus 'real'?
Who-oplocephalus: Heads for tails.
Who-oplocephalus: The Fellowship of the Half Ring
Who-oplocephalus: Everything old is new again.

Scaling up


And for the keeners, you can also check out a lecture I did for the Royal Tyrrell Museum's lecture series via their YouTube page!





Bonus: The Dinosaur Toy Blog also enjoys nitpicking the accuracy of dinosaur toys!

Cock-a-doodle-doo

I've finally got the time and gumption to sit down and write again, so let's do some research blogging! And let's show some skin while we're at it!

The first paper I'll talk about is not one that I'm lead author on, but which was a really fun project to be involved in. This was the description of a super cool specimen of a hadrosaur from the area around Grande Prairie with some impressive skin impressions. UALVP 53722 was collected as a large block that had fallen along the creekside. Unfortunately, the rest of the skeleton could not be located, which might mean it's still in situ somewhere with nothing visible, or it had already broken apart into unrecognizable pieces. The block preserves the back of the skull with the neck arched over the shoulders, the classic 'death pose' seen in many dinosaur skeletons. Most of the skull is missing, but what is present shows that it is an Edmontosaurus regalis, the slightly older species of Edmontosaurus. 

Flat-headed Edmontosaurus at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

And sitting on top of the skull is a round, relatively smooth lump of soft tissue, like the comb on a rooster's head. 

My primary contribution to the paper was to examine the CT scans of the specimen to confirm that there wasn't a bony structure within the crest, so that we could be confidant that it truly was a soft tissue structure only. The UofA put together a short video about CT scanning the fossil that is worth a watch:

The fleshy comb in UALVP 53722 the first time we've seen anything like this in a dinosaur, and was totally unexpected – Edmontosaurus is one of the 'flat-headed' hadrosaurs that lacks the bony crest characteristic of lambeosaurines like Corythosaurus or Lambeosaurus. I love this discovery because it is such a great example of how much soft tissues contribute to the appearance of an animal. It also goes to show how a new fossil, even for a relatively well known dinosaur like Edmontosaurus (which is known from many skeletons and bonebeds) can still give us new information. 

Crested Edmontosaurus based on UALVP 53722.

I was also a big fan of the book "All Yesterdays", and I feel like this specimen kind of fits in with some of the more adventurous reconstructions of dinosaurs with elaborate soft tissues that have become more fashionable of late. And like all good discoveries, we end up with more questions that need to be answered: did all Edmontosaurus regalis have this fleshy comb, or was it restricted to adults, or even just adult males? If males and females both had the comb, was it larger in one sex than the other? Was it brightly coloured? Did Edmontosaurus annectens have a fleshy crest? We'll only be able to answer these questions with more specimens.

Anyway, go check the paper out! UALVP 53722 was on display in Edmonton for a short time earlier this year – stay tuned for more information on where it will be on display next! Many thanks to Phil Bell (a former Currie Lab student and now at the University of New England in Australia) for inviting me to help out with this paper.

Bell PR, Fanti F, Currie PJ, Arbour VM. 2014. A mummified duck-billed dinosaur with a soft-tissue cock's comb. Current Biology 24:70-75.

Horner JR. 2014. Paleontology: a cock's comb on a duck-billed dinosaur. Current Biology 24.

And for those who are extra keen, here's my Quirks & Quarks radio interview from January 2014.

These are a few of my favourite things.

Well, it's been ages and ages since I posted, yet again. I have good reasons (as always) and will post more details soon, but for now I wanted to highlight some books and art by some of my friends, colleagues, and folks I just know from the blogosphere but who I think are pretty cool. Although it's probably getting too late to ship things in time for Christmas, I hope you'll keep these folks in mind throughout the year when you find yourself in need of palaeo-related gifts.

Niroot Puttapipat is an illustrator based out of London. His work is unlike anything else out there, and his dinosaurs have a lot of heart and humour. You can purchase books and prints via the Folio Society, and prints and other giftware at deviantART and RedBubble.

 

 

Lara Shychoski lives in Drumheller and is an awesome wildlife and palaeoartist! Her scratchboard illustrations always completely blow me away. You can purchase prints of her work at deviantART.

 

 

Dinosaur family crests, what more can I say? I'm a total sucker for minimalist graphic design, so I'm a big fan of David Orr's work. You can buy prints and other giftware at Red Bubble. 

 

 

 

All Yesterdays probably needs no introduction to anyone reading this blog, but having received my hardcopy in the mail last week I really have to reiterate what many others have said: it's a great book with a creative take on the way we reconstruct ancient animals. Make sure to look for the mountain manatee in the "All Todays" section. You can purchase it in ebook format from Amazon, or as a paperback from Lulu.

 

 

I'm looking forward to ordering a copy of A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and other Winged Dinosaurs after Christmas - it looks like a great compendium of information on animals that don't always get much play in popular dinosaur books. It's available at Amazon.

Published by the University of Alberta Press, Deep Alberta (by John Acorn, the Nature Nut) is a great resource for those interested in the palaeontology of Alberta - and not just the dinosaurs, either! Each two-page spread features a short story about special fossils, places, and people in Alberta.

 

The "Moment in Time" books are a little harder to get these days, but you can often find used copies through Amazon or Chapters. There are four books in the series - A Moment in Time with Troodon, Albertosaurus, Centrosaurus, and Sinosauropteryx. Each book is a little vignette into the life of a dinosaur, followed by lots of detailed information about the science behind the story.

And finally, please consider helping out the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Grande Prairie, Alberta, which recently got the go-ahead to begin construction! They are offering Cretaceous Christmas Gift Packages, which include t-shirts, fossil replicas, museum society memberships, and more. Or, you can donate directly to their IndieGoGo campaign, which has some really cool perks like signed copies of the Moment in Time books, palaeoart by Julius Csotonyi, and even the sold-out glow-in-the-dark Pachyrhinosaurus coin!
 

Ultimate ROM

This summer, the Royal Ontario Museum unveiled a brand-new exhibit all about the dinosaurs of Gondwana. When Pangaea rifted apart during the Triassic, it split into two continents - Laurasia, represented by the modern northern continents of North America, Europe, and Asia, and Gondwana, represented by the modern southern continents of South America, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica, plus India, Madagascar, and New Zealand. The dinosaurs and other extinct terrestrial vertebrates of Gondwana differed from their northern neighbours, and we don't often see them in exhibitions in North America.

 

Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants of Gondwana features lots of interesting and sometimes obscure dinosaurs, some really great artwork, and some neat technological things (of which I am sometimes skeptical, but can wholeheartedly endorse here).

 

 

 

After a brief but informative introduction to plate tectonics, we're introduced to some of the earliest dinosaurs, like Herrerasaurus, Eoraptor, and the early ornithischian Pisanosaurus. In an exhibit that is definitely dominated by saurischian dinosaurs, it was neat to see this little fellow! Take note of the beautiful murals in the background, painted by Canadian palaeoartist Julius Csotonyi.

 

 

 

Ah, Cryolophosaurus. My second favourite dinosaur from Antarctica! ;)

This restoration of Cryolophosaurus definitely seems to have a more Dilophosaurus-y look to the skull, perhaps a result of recent phylogenetic analyses recovering a close relationship between the Antarctic taxon and other early, crested theropods.

 

 

 

As we move into the Cretaceous, the dinosaurs are arranged by geographic area on platforms. First off are African dinosaurs, including Malawisaurus, Nigersaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and (shown here), Suchomimus.

 

 

 

I was super excited to see a mounted skeleton of Ouranosaurus, a bizarre sail-backed iguanodontian.

 

 

 

Ok, hands-down my favourite critter featured in this exhibition was one of the smaller skeletons, and not a dinosaur! I am sorry, dinosaur colleagues! But his adorable stubby tail and marvelous coat of osteoderms stole my heart. This is Simosuchus, a herbivorous crocodilian from Madagascar.

 

 

 

 I'll perhaps also add that the Madagascar 'pod' of Majungasaurus, Rapetosaurus, Masiakasaurus, and Rahonavis was probably my favourite part of the exhibition, just because I've never seen any of these taxa as mounted skeletons before, and because they're just so, so weird. Also, Majungasaurus just wants a hug, WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME, RAPETOSAURUS?

 

 

 

I was very fortunate to get to see a lot of Patagonian dinosaurs last November during my visit to Argentina, but I'd never seen Austroraptor before. He is BIG! This 'pod' also features Buitreraptor, Carnotaurus, and Amargasaurus.

 

 

 

 

Although the dinosaurs are the main attraction, the main take-home messages of the exhibition are 1) continents move and 2) evolution happens. The dinosaurs are just the vehicle for delivering an exhibit that is actually all about the effects of plate tectonics on evolution, and I think that's awesome. Palaeogeography is prominently featured throughout the exhibition, and there's even an interactive team puzzle where you reassemble the continents into Gondwana. However, one of the most incredible things in the exhibit were the two giant Blakey palaeomap globes, animated to show the drifting of the continents. As you enter the exhibit, Pangaea breaks apart, and as you leave, the continents assemble into their current positions, and then keep going into the future! The video projections are staggeringly beautiful.

 

Honestly, I think this is one of the best dinosaur exhibits I have seen. It is bright, colourful, up to date, and packed with really good information not just about dinosaurs, but about broader themes in geology and evolution as well. Ultimate Dinosaurs is at the ROM for a limited time (I think until the end of 2012) and then it (hopefully!) goes on tour. GO SEE IT!

I almost forgot to talk about Las Vegas...

How could I forget? I'm so timely. Please accept this bedazzled dinosaur and my apologies.

What can I say about the SVP meeting? Las Vegas is a strange place. The technical sessions were, as usual, full of interesting talks and posters, and it was great to talk to people that I don't see very often. Because most of the talks are yet unpublished, I won't recap them here. Instead, here's a small sampling of the silliness that goes on after the posters come down each day.

Palaeontologists bravely set forth on grand adventures in the Paris Las Vegas.

All the latest fashions can be found at the auction, like this fetching hat modeled by Sara!

And don't forget to snap up one-of-a-kind designer pieces like these hats knitted by my friend and former Currie Lab member, Robin!

Viva Rock Vegas, y'all.

And to round off the post, all of the colourful characters of Las Vegas as interpreted by SVP - Elvisaurus, Cheratopsian, Siegfried and Rawr, Kosmo Knievel, and our Viva Rock Vegas buddies.

See you next year in Raleigh!

Junk in the Trunk Redux

Today I've got another interview from Scott Persons! Scott's going to tell us all about his new paper on the tail of Carnotaurus, which follows his paper on the tail of Tyrannosaurus published last year. Enjoy!


[Persons WS, Currie PJ. 2011. Dinosaur speed demon: the caudal musculature of Carnotaurus sastrei and implications for the evolution of South American abelisaurids. PLoS ONE 6(10): e25763.]

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1. What inspired you to conduct this study?


This was a case where no inspiration was required, just thoroughness . . . and a pinch of luck. My work on Carnotaurus was part of my Master’s thesis, which looked at the tail morphology of a wide range of carnivorous dinosaurs. Carnotaurus, a member of the unusual abelisaurid group, was on my list of potential dinosaurs to examine. The first Carnotaurus material that I saw was a cast at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Examining the L.A. Carnotaurus cast fit in nicely with my schedule, but I was in California primarily to measure the tail of a Dilophosaurus skeleton at Berkley.

Fortunately, it only takes one look at a Carnotaurus tail vertebra to realize that something dramatically weird is going on with the animal’s tail.  On a “normal” theropod tail vertebra (or, for that matter, a “normal” anything-else tail vertebra), boney projections, called the caudal ribs, stick out horizontally and have a simple rod-like shape. In Carnotaurus, the caudal ribs of the basal tail vertebrae project more vertically than horizontally, and their shape is complex – with tips that are thin and shaped like half-crescents. After examining the specimen in California, I realized how interesting a Carnotaurus tail study would be, and it became a major focus of my research (which meant Dilophosaurus and several other theropods had to take a backseat).

The 6^th tail vertebra of Carnotaurus, as seen from the side (upper left), the front (upper right), and from above (lower center).

2. Why “speed demon”?

The title of the Carnotaurus tail paper (published in the online scientific journal PLoS ONE) is "Dinosaur Speed Demon". It is an unusual title. Supernatural fiends (fast or otherwise) and peer-reviewed natural history literature don't usually mix. But the explanation is straightforward:

Carnotaurus is famous for its ugly mug and two large conical horns that stick out from its forehead in an indisputably devilish style (hence “Demon”).  As for “Speed”, the conclusion that I and Dr. Phil Currie came to was that the vertically oriented caudal ribs and their bizarre half-crescent-shaped tips (which interlocked with those adjacent in the vertebral series) provided an expanded and ridged framework for one super-sized tail muscle: the caudofemoralis. The caudofemoralis is a locomotive muscle that attaches to the femur and lends considerable force to the power strokes of the legs. Except for some birds, all dinosaurs had caudofemoral muscles (that’s a major reason why dinosaurs have big tails), but I estimate that, relative to its body-size, Carnotaurus had the biggest.

A new Carnotaurus illustration created for the paper by artists Lida Xing and Yi Liu.

Big locomotive muscles mean more locomotive power, which means Carnotaurus was adapted for speed.  Some puns are too good to pass up.


3. So...could Carnotaurus outrun the Jeep in Jurassic Park?

Estimating the maximum running speed of a dinosaur or any other extinct animal is hard. (So hard that in the published paper, I stick to offering a qualitative rather than a quantitative assessment of Carnotaurus running performance.) There are lots of important variables besides absolute muscle mass that determine how fast an animal can run.

As I said in my previous blog post, just keeping pace with the JP Jeep would require a speed of 30-40 mph (48-64 kph) (remember, the black-leather-clad rump of a certain chaotician was preventing the driver from switching into high gear).  So, achieving Jeep-catching speed would mean a charging Carnotaurus was roughly 30% faster than a charging black rhinoceros – a scary thought, but not an implausible one. If I had to guess, I would say: Yes, Carnotaurus was fast enough to outrun the Jeep. Just the same, I don’t think Carnotaurus would have caught it. Here’s why:

The tree branch doesn’t move, and the T. rex doesn’t appear to see it.

Jurassic Park fans will recall that in the chase scene, just as the T. rex is getting close enough for Jeff Goldbloom to feel its hot breath, the Jeep drives under a low tree branch. Being the colossus that it is, the Tyrannosaurus just smashes through the branch and stays on course. At roughly one third T. rex’s size, Carnotaurus probably couldn’t do that. Instead, the abelisaurid would have had to avoid the collision. While my study indicates that Carnotaurus was evolutionarily engineered for speed, it also indicates that this speed came at the cost of turning performance.

The rigid framework provided by the interlocking caudal ribs would have limited sinuous motions, which would have disadvantageously increased the animal’s effective rotational inertia. When turning, Carnotaurus would have been forced to awkwardly swing its hips and the front half of its tail all at once, like a single stiff board. The set of a tropical Hawaiian forest just isn’t the ideal hunting ground for Carnotaurus, and I think having to swerve around the foliage would have slowed Carnotaurus down considerably.


4. Does this tell us anything about the evolution of abelisaurids?

Yes, but exactly what it tells us is a matter of debate.

Abelisaurids are known from Africa, India, Madagascar, and South America. Carnotaurus is from South America. If you look at the tails of older South American abelisaurids, you will see what I think is a clear evolutionary sequence of adaptations in the vertebrae that leads to the advanced form of Carnotaurus. I would argue this shows that, over time, South American abelisaurids were getting faster. I would also argue this strongly suggests that Carnotaurus is more closely related to other abelisaurids from South America than it is to abelisaurids from Africa, India, or Madagascar (all of which lack special tail-vertebrae adaptations). The argument is important, and a matter of contention, because it has been previously asserted (by paleontologists much more experienced than myself) that Carnotaurus is most closely related to abelisaurids from outside South America.

The evolution of South American abelisaurid tail vertebrae through time (each vertebra is depicted in frontal and top-down views, numbers are millions of years from now).

 

5. Carnotaurus may not be as famous as Tyrannosaurus, but it has popped up occasionally in film and TV. What are your favorite portrayals of Carnotaurus?

Yeah, Carnotaurus has had its chance in the spotlight, probably because its striking facial profile makes it a natural fill for villainous roles. Picking my favorite portrayals is hard . . . because most have been so terrible.

In Michael Crichton’s second Jurassic Park novel, a Carnotaurus pack poses a threat to the inexplicably resurrected character of Ian Malcolm. The book gives Carnotaurus cuttlefish-like powers of camouflage, but the dinosaurs ultimately prove no match for the tactic of annoyingly waving flashlights (really, that’s what Crichton wrote).

A pair of marauding Carnotaurus played the bad guys in Disney’s Dinosaur. But these red menaces had to suffer an anatomical redesign and wound up looking more like tyrannosaurs with horns.

By giving some of the Iguanodon a nose horn, the Mickey Mouse organization set paleontology back to the days of Gideon Mantell. The big red Carnotaurus, or “Carnotaur”, wasn’t much better.

A Carnotaurus had the starring dinosaur role in the 2008 animated movie Turok: Son of Stone. This was a film that managed to be offensive at an artistic, intellectual, and social level (kind of like Transformers 2 [Victoria's note: don't get me started on Transformers 2...]), but the Carnotaurus does get some good (though ridiculously over-the-top) action scenes.

Turok and his trusty steed prepare to go all Stone Age on a gang of Neanderthal sumo wrestlers.

Most recently, Fox TV’s Terra Nova series showed us a new CGI Carnotaurus. Terra Nova’s Carnotaurus has its flaws (though, perhaps no more so than any of its other cast members), but I enjoyed seeing it in action.

 

Outside the Terra Nova compound, a Carnotaurus squares off against what I thought was a beige version of the new Batmobile.

I would have to say my favorite media portrayal of Carnotaurus is in the absurd Japanese cartoon series Dinosaur King. In the show, a Carnotaurus named Ace is the loyal companion of a young boy and helps him fight evil.

Ace and Rex take the bus (the pet dinosaur is named “Ace” and the boy is named “Rex”).

The Dinosaur King’s CGI cartoon Carnotaurus actually suffers from fewer anatomical inaccuracies than ether Disney’s or Terra Nova’s, and it’s nice to see a theropod get to play the hero for a change. From what I’ve seen, Dinosaur King is a something of a Pokemon rip-off, and all the dinosaurs get special super powers -- some of the dinos breathe fire, others cause earthquakes, etc. And what is Ace’s special power? Super speed!

Valiantly defending us from alien invaders, mad scientist, and temporal paradoxes, Ace (seen here in his grownup form) is a two-horned, purple, people protector.

I'm a Palaeontologist, and I liked Dinosaur Revolution.

There. I said it. I liked Dinosaur Revolution.

I was pretty sure I'd be hooked from the moment I saw the trailer and saw this recreated with Cryolophosaurus. Hot dang, the raging dino fanboy in me loves me some Charles Knight.

I have been following with great interest the various perspectives on Dinosaur Revolution at palaeoblogs around the net - see Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs, Dinosaur Tracking, and a whole slew of posts over on Art Evolved. As with any dino documentary (and probably ALL documentaries, regardless of subject matter), there are inaccuracies to point out. However, I was surprised by strong backlash Dinosaur Revolution has seemed to receive around the palaeo blogosphere. I've only caught the first two episodes so far, but I'm looking forward to seeing the next two.

I view Dinosaur Revolution as kind of like an animated children's storybook about dinosaurs - something like the A Day in the Life of... series, which has a story followed by a discussion of the scientific research behind the story. Would we criticize a children's storybook for using narrative and some anthropomorphism to get the story across? Or how about, would we criticize it based on its art style - cartoons get a pass (the I Am A... series), but more photorealistic portrayals don't?

I think the show does a pretty good job of getting some science across within the context of what the show is supposed to be. The short interstitials with the palaeontologists provide a bit of context for some of the ideas being presented, there's footage of fossils and fieldwork, and there's even AN EXPERIMENT! at the end of The Watering Hole. I agree with many reviews that the second episode was the stronger of the first two, and that the first episode was somewhat uneven. I didn't love every part of Dinosaur Revolution, but I liked more than I disliked. I disliked Gigantoraptor's crazy inflatable wattle, but not because it was crazy - I disliked it because it took away from the potentially more interesting story about display feathers in oviraptorosaurs. I disliked Saurosuchus not eating the Eoraptor that it bit and threw away, because that was crazy. But I liked a lot of the (I guess) controversial bits - the Looney Tunes homages, the therapsid getting thrown into the Saurosuchus' mouth, the Glacialisaurus hacking up a wad of sap. Those things were funny, and I think in the context of this particular program that the humour worked well and was ok.

And seriously, how cool is it to have the Ischigualasto, the Hanson, and the Iren Dabasu formations all in one episode? Have we ever seen Eoraptor, Glacialisaurus, or Gigantoraptor on TV before? I hope that the portrayal of all these marvelous dinosaurs inspires people to head to Wikipedia and learn more.

So I'm wondering - a lot of the controversial things in Dinosaur Revolution seem, well, cool to me. And I think it's ok to be cool. And I think that Dinosaur Revolution was marketed to be cool, and to be more storybook, less documentary sensu stricto. They advertised it at Comic Con! How often do dino documentaries get advertised at geek conventions?

That Tyrannosaurus has a skull for a face, and that is cool. He's like Ghost Rider!

So I liked Dinosaur Revolution, and I think it's a shame more people didn't. Perhaps context is everything. Perhaps the biggest problem is that even though the marketing indicated this was not a typical documentary, airing this on the Discovery and Science Channels was just the wrong context.