Prehistoric times issue 124winter 2018

#124 Winter 2018

TOP PALEONEWS

OF 2017 BURIAN,S

THERAPSIDS DINOSAURS OF ROMANIA

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Artists in this issue: Mike Fredericks Fabio Pastori Tracy Ford Mark Hallett John Sibbick Luis Rey Doug Henderson Gregory S Paul Roz Gibson Sergey Krasovskiy Emily Willoughby

Members of the PT staff dance to take their minds off receiving no pay again from their PT editor

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Writers in This Issue:

Pat Schaefer

Lee Luckeydoo

Mike Fredericks

John R. Lavas

Wade Carmen

Tracy Ford

Steve Brusatte

Charles Greene

Randy Knol

Scott Mardis

Mike Riley

Phil Hore

Mike Howgate

Mark Witton Zhao Chuang Dino Pulera Russell J Hawley Mike Landry Meg Bernstein Aaron Natera Quentin Brendel Nick Paradimitriou Frank Lode Clinton Harris Jaime Martinez

Chrissy Spallone Diane Ramic Keith Strasser Samuel T Pickens Paulo Leite Lukas Panzarin Jorge Gonzalez Roccio “Rossy” Zapata Elliot Smith Madison Henline

Danielle Dufault

Ryan McMurry

Julius Csotonyi

Eivind Bovor

Kevin Hedgpeth

Pedro Salas

Andrew Sides

Brian Cooley

Fred Snyder

Masataka Yoshio

Sam Stanton

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All payments in U.S. funds. Credit card payment through our site only Or mail your check/MO/cash to our address. Subscription Information below: Prehistoric Times • 145 Bayline Circle • Folsom, CA • 95630-8077 Table of Contents Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017 $35 U.S. Only (one year, 4 issues) third class postage. $40 U. S. first class postage and Canada $50 South of the border & across the Atlantic $55 Across the Pacific Publisher/Editor: Mike Fredericks 145 Bayline Circle, Folsom, Ca 95630-8077 (916) 985-7986 between 8-5 PST M-F business hours only please.

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PT Interview - William Heinrich. . . . . . . . . . . .Fredericks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Burian’s Therapsids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lavas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The dinosaurs of Romania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 How to Draw Dinosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Collectors Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Dinosaur Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Knol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Interview: Author Max Hawthorne . . . . . . . . . . Mardis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Vernon Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Howgate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

PT logo by William Stout Redone above by Thomas Miller

What’s New in Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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Mesozoic Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Paleonews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brusatte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Paper Trackways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Riley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

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Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

FROM THE EDITOR

PT PIX 2017

Happy 2018, ancient animal lovers.

PLEASE send us your picks for the best (And I was just finally getting used to writing “2017”) I so hope you all of each category below. Names will be were able to be with loved ones for pulled from a hat to win a free PT subthe holiday season, had a good time scription or renewal: and got a little rest. This issue is kind of a catch-up issue in which I am able to finally run the articles that I just Best prehistoric animal book of 2017 Some of William Heinrich’s prehistoric couldn’t fit in the recent, previous Best prehistoric animal model kit animal model collection issues.

Best dinosaur toy figure of 2017 We feature the dinosaurs of Romania in Phil Hore’s article Best non-dinosaur prehistoric animal toy in this issue. A huge thanks to him and also talented artist figure of 2017 Sergey Krasovskiy, who painted our front cover of the giant pterosaur Hatzegopteryx and the dromaeosaurs Balaur fightBest scientific prehistoric animal discoving over a Struthiosaurus carcass, both from Romania. ery of 2017 Balaur is fascinating to me because its dew claw evolved around forward forming a second sickle-shaped claw, giving Please e-mail, write or call us today Balaur two killing claws on each foot. I’ll be surprised if we don’t see Balaur in a future “Jurassic World” movie. (overbecame sought after throughout the world for the quality sized, of course) Phil also writes about sea scorpions. Now, and uniqueness of her reproductions. We consider her a I love these but they give me the creeps. For one thing, even friend of the magazine and she will be missed. though I am a certified skin diver and love swimming, it has In the last issue, on page 59, Mark Hallett was accinonetheless always been a fear of mine to be pulled down to dentally credited with John Sibbick’s Ceratosaurus art at the dark deep by a “monster.” Also, when I lived in Texas as the top of the page. The PT editor responsible for this misa kid, scorpions were everywhere. We had to shake out our take has been sacked. shoes every morning because they liked to sleep in a nice MOVING?? PLEASE let us know your new address warm place like that at night. Yuck, but a great article from when you plan to move. The magazine is NOT forwarded Phil! and it costs us to resend the magazine later to your new Also in this issue, we learn that William Heinrich has a “digs.” Also, if you subscribed to PT by sending your very understanding wife. My wife allows me to display payment anywhere except directly to us, please know that many of my dinosaur models and collectibles but she would we only received a small percentage of that payment. The draw the line long before an entire room in our home became people you sent the payment to got the majority of your this packed with prehistoric animal models. Read my intermoney. When you (hopefully) renew your subscription, view with Bill inside. Our John Lavas of New Zealand conPLEASE do it by sending your payment directly to us. We tinues his articles on the art of Burian covering his beautiful therapsids. (Next issue he covers Burian’s ichthyosaurs). Inside is a very interesting are a small business and could really use your support. Thanks so much to many of interview with author Max Hawthorne and Mike Howgate discusses vintage statuary you who have started renewing directly with us. Would the rest of you please stop

by Veron Edwards. Pat Schaefer offers a really interesting article about Marx your automatic renewal with an internet subscription service? We sure thank you!

ARTISTS! PT does not pay for submissions but many artists whose work is seen dinosaur packaging and dinosaur trading card expert Mike Riley tells us a little about his hobby from around the world. Each year, I am honored to offer paleontologist in Prehistoric Times get paying work from other sources. Please send jpg files of your artwork scanned at 300 DPI resolution. Send as an approx 4” jpg Steve Brusatte’s rehash of the year of dinosaur finds. You conwith your name in the title of the image--example--Triceratops stantly see Steve’s name all over the internet discussing new

by John Smith.jpg to our e-mail address or send good copies (that dinosaur theories and finds (and recently on the TV show Nova.) you don’t need returned and that aren’t larger than our 9 x 12 scanHe is one busy scientist. As usual, I write reviews and Tracy Ford ner bed) to our mailing address in California. We need your art and and Randy Knol continue with their great, regular articles. info. For #125 Patagotitan and Barbourfelis (March 10, 2017) For Thanks to all of you for purchasing a copy of the Prehistoric #126 Wendiceratops and Cynognathus (June 10, 2017) For #127 Times - What Color were Dinosaur coloring book that Tracy Ford Rajasaurus and Platybelodon (Sep 10 2017) For #128 The preand I created and sell on Amazon.com. We sold quite a few for historic animals of The Land Before Time book in honor of its Christmas. Tracy and I have now illustrated a second coloring 100 year anniversary? Thank you! book but this time, the subject is prehistoric sharks. I never dreamed there were so many different sharks. I have done the best art I am able to but I know the majority of my time was spent on research. It’s all super interesting though. Our dinosaur coloring book is 30 pages but our new prehistoric shark coloring book is 50 pages. I really think you will enjoy it. Please go to www.amazon.com to pick up a copy or two. Next we plan to illustrate a prehistoric mammal coloring book and Tracy has suggested prehistoric crocodiles after.

PT on TV - On this British TV show “Have I Got News for You,” Prehistoric Times magazines were shown for about a second. The woman quoted my opening silliness from my editorial in issue 121 and asks the contestants to finish the rhyme about reading PT in your underwear. And then she makes two bad puns about dinosaur names and that is it. Pretty cool that PT was on TV though. See it still on You Tube around the time 38:12 (below) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vX7kYKpKMRc In other prehistoric movie news, the trailer for “Jurassic World 2” is being shown now, featuring a stampede of dinosaurs. It hits theaters June 22, 2018. The trailer for “Early Man” is also being shown. No official word yet if a character will be reading “Prehistoric Times” magazine in the film as they told us. “Early Man” hits theaters this February. The upcoming film “Alpha” tells the story of how prehistoric man and dog became friends and features prehistoric bison and a saber-toothed cat in the trailer.

Mary Jean Odano passed away this past October at the MANY MORE DINOSAUR DESIGNS AVAILABLE TOO! age of 93. Mary Jean loved fossils and nature and initially worked at the Los Angeles ALL COLORS OF SHIRTS PLUS CAPS, MAGNETS, County Natural History Museum. She volunteered at the museum laboratory, and was WATER BOTTLES, MUGS, BAGS, GLASSES AND MORE! quickly hired as a preparator. Mary Jean worked there for many years as well as at the George C. Page Museum, La Brea Tar Pits. Later Mary Jean and her husband Tosh AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT WWW.CAFEPRESS.COM/PRETIMES started their own business making replications of fossil dinosaurs, as well as rare and endangered animals called Valley Anatomical Preparations, Inc. Mary Jean quickly

r s p r o u d ly ! o l o c T P r u o y We a r t d in o s a u r s !

M a n y D if f e r e n

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

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MESOZOIC Mike, You might like these life-size sculptures (called The Circle of Life) on the grounds of the R u s s i a n P a l a e o n t o l og i c a l Institute (PIN) which houses the world’s largest palaeo collection.

I’ve not been there myself but know several of the resident academics (through my writing). I almost made it in ‘92 when we were in Czechoslovakia but because the USSR had recently collapsed, hotel and airfares to Moscow literally doubled overnight. At the top is the Russian gorgonopsid therapsid Inostrancevia (left) with Scutosaurus. John Lavas, New Zealand

MAIL

Hi Mike, I wanted to respond to Mesozoic Mail and to ECK about a book he recalled. It is "So Long Ago" by E.Boyd Smith. I have a good copy of that book. He described it perfectly. Art Israel, Bellvue, Wa. Thanks Art, yes, I have several copies of “So Long Ago” too but it just didn’t register with me what book he was looking for. (Two different dust jackets for the book are to the right.) Thanks to you and several other readers who pointed it out - editor

Mike - I'm finally making some time to send off a few quick questions/comments on stuff I've seen in PT issue 123: 1) On page 15, in the lower left-hand corner, there is a Ceratosaurus image credited to Maximo Salas. Is this THE Maximo Salas - the Mexican paleosculptor whose work was such a staple at Link & Pin Hobbies? If so, then that is a bigtime blast from the past! If it is him, please let him know his fans are still out here, and he hasn't been forgotten - I'd LOVE to see him produce some more sculpted work! (But I'll happily settle for 2D work for now....) While I brought up Link & Pin - do you have any idea for Art and Lucinda are doing these days?

2) I LUVED the article on Azhdarchids, and I'm eagerly waiting for the follow-on article on Romanian prehistoric creatures!

3) Lastly, what movie is the "Please Subscribe Today" image on page 4 from? I tried googling "Turok" and couldn't come up with any TV or movie adaptations - can you help me out? (By the way, it occurs to me that identifying this image in each issue could make for a fun game for the readership! Maybe the kind of thing where the answer gets revealed in the following issue? Just an idea.....)

OK, I thought I had more of these "quickies" that I could fire off to you tonight, but I can't come up with any more. Zack Fitzner's article is VERY thought-provoking - but that's more of a longer-form discussion that will have to wait for another day. (Plus, I want to track down that article by Brian Switek also.) Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide - Kent Stober Yes Kent, it was a very pleasant blast from the past to hear from Max Salas and show one of his illustrations in the last issue. I have not heard 6

from Art and Lucinda in years but know that (sadly) their Triceratops Hills Ranch division of Link and Pin closed a few years ago. They were one of PT’s earliest advertisers, and for many years too. The scene with the super glue joke of mine is from 1950’s “Prehistoric Women” film, I‘m pretty sure. I just used the name “Turok” myself. I use another scene from that movie in the same place in this issue - editor Hi Mike, what a great year it has been for paleontologists and dinosaur lovers alike! It has been so exciting with all the new discoveries, revisions of The Circle of Life, in Russia old theories and the emergence (three views) of many fine paleoartists.

Thank you so much for keeping all your readers informed and up-to-date on everything “Dinosaur.” I have so enjoyed receiving and reading my Prehistoric Times this year and am really looking forward to the issues in the coming year.

Sincerely, Elizabeth Cotton, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Mike, Excellent magazine. I have been a huge dinosaur fanatic since I was a kid. I’m now 64 years old and still love dinosaurs and whatever info I can find about them. Keep up the great work! Ron leech, Roseville, MI Thank you Ron and Elizabeth (in letter above you). Very kind of you both to take the time to say so. Letters like yours definitely keep me going - editor

Artist Jacek Major's son Maciek finding some quality reading time in Poland

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Tyrannosaurus named “Stan” ©Fabio Pastori

READER ART

Cryolophosaurus bust sculpted and painted by Fabio Pastori

By Masataka Yoshio of Osaka, Japan

By Masataka Yoshio of Osaka, Japan

©Keith Strasser

"The Monarch" Sculpted by Andrew Sides and built and painted by Jim Church from Saginaw, MI.

Microraptor sculpture by Pedro Salas

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

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The PT DinoStore

Vintage dinosaur collectibles for sale from PT magazine 19. hollow dinos 1. “Dinosaur Collectibles” price guide co-written and signed by PT editor $49 1. Collectibles book 2. Linde 1950s Coffee Premium plastic dinosaur figs 7 from Austria. $12ea.

3. Rare 8th Linde figure to complete above set: Rare Rhamphorhynchus $45 4. Marx orig. sm/med 50s/ 60s dinosaur toy figs (green, brown, gray) $5 5. Marx orig. Krono, T-rex (pot-belly or slender) $39, Brontosaurus $34 6. Marx original second series dinos/mammals $12 each, set of 8 - $79 7. Marx 45mm cavemen (6 diff) $7 ea Marx 6” cavemen (6 diff) $15 ea.

8. Multiple (MPC) dinosaur plastic figures many colors $5-10 each (inquire) 9. JH Miller waxy plastic 50s Dimetrodon, Tricer, Sloth, Mammoth/Mastodon or 10. Sinclair banks Stego $49 (all have damage) JH Miller Bronto (complete) $69.

20. SRG 10. Sinclair 1960s green plastic 10” brontosaur bank $19 11. Sinclair 1934 Dinosaur book $25 & Sinclair1964 Worlds Fair booklet $15 16. Sinclair bagged set 12. Sinclair 60s color Hardback “The Exciting World of Dinosaurs” $44 13. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs ‘64 NY World’s Fair dinos - many @$35 28. Palmer 14. Sinclair hollow NY Worlds Fair Brontosaurus looks backward $76 15. Sinclair album and complete stamps set 1935 $40 or 1959 $30 28. Palmer 16. Sinclair 60s solid Worlds Fair dinos (6 diff.) (bagged set $129) 17. Sinclair Oil 1960s dino chrome metal tray $59.

11. 1934 Book 2&3. Linde 18. Sinclair 1960s metal Brontosaurus bank - nice shape (no lid for bottom) $99 19. Hollow, dimestore plastic dinos, 60s/70s six different $8 each (see photo) 20. SRG Small metal dinosaurs T. rex, Tricer, Tracho, Bronto, or Stego $35.

SRG sm. Caveman, Dimetrodon, pterosaur or plesiosaur $49 ea.

SRG Large metal Dimetro, Stegosaurus, Trachodon, Bronto, Tricer or T. rex $59 each 13. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs 21. Nabisco silver prehistoric mammal cereal premiums 60s $10 ea. All 8 $75 22. Nabisco/Fritos dinosaur premiums, gray (60s) $5 each,50s green & red $10 23. Nabisco 1950s cereal mailaway dino wheel guide for toy figures $49 24. ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)plastic dinosaur figs. $15 ea, Pteranodon $25 25. View Master Prehistoric Animals 1960s comp. 3 reels/booklet $23 33.Norcrest 60s 32. Abbeon 26. Teach Me About Prehistoric Animals Flash cards (boxed) 1960s $39 white porcelain Corythosaur & 21. Nabisco cereal prehistoric Bronto or T. rex more 27. 1933 Worlds Fair Messmore & Damon 6” metal Brontosaurus $89 mammals 28. Palmer 1960s Mastodon skeleton or Brontosaurus skeleton $49 each - boxed 29. Marx Linemar 1960s 1” metal dinos. T. rex, Stegosaurus or Brontosaurus $19 30. Golden Funtime 1960s Dinosaur punch out (unpunched in book) $89 8. MPC Multiple 31.Timpo (England) 50/60s plastic 4” Dimetrodon (black or brown) Triceratops $35 dinos 32. Abbeon 60s Japan porcelain Corythosaurus, Protoceratops, Dimetrodon $45 33. 1960s porcelain Norcrest, white dinosaur statues - T. rex or Brontosaurus $89 PT back issues 31, 41, 42, 52, 66, 74-76, 78, 93-102, 104-121 $9 each or $13 each foreign. (PT issue prices include shipping) Please add $6 shipping in U.S. • Call or email me about condition.

Mike Fredericks Prehistoric Times 145 Bayline Cir. Folsom, California 95630-8077 (916) 985-7986 pretimes@comcast.net

17. Sinclair chrome tray 1960s

29. Marx Linemar tiny metal T. rex, bronto & Stego

30. 1960s Golden Dinosaur funtime punch out in book

23. 1950s Nabisco cereal dino wheel guide 13. Sinclair 1960s hardback

26. Flash cards

22. Nabisco dinos

18. Sinclair metal bank 31. Timpo Dimetrodon or Triceratops

32. Dinosauriana disc

27. 1933 WF metal Brontosaurus

25. 60’s Viewmaster 7. six inch Marx large cavemen

24. ROM plastic dinos

15. Sinclair 1959 Oil dino stamps & album

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Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

The

PT Interview:

Dinosaur model collector extraordinaire

William Heinrich

Prehistoric Times: Bill, please tell us about yourself.

William Heinrich: I am 66 years old and have been married for 37 years to my wife, Rhonda. We have 2 children, daughter Dawn who is married with 2 sons, age 7 and 11 and a son, Will with 3 children , a one year old son, 9 year old daughter and an 11 year old son. They all reside within 20 miles of our home in Granger, Indiana so we see them often. We also have a home in LaQuinta, California to get away from the cold winters here. I have been President and CEO at Ausco Products in Benton Harbor, Michigan for 13 years and plan to retire at the end of 2018.

Ausco is a major supplier and innovator of brake systems to the mobile off-highway markets. Our largest customer is John Deere, but we also do significant business with Caterpillar, Toro, Case New Holland, Polaris and JCB to name a few. I graduated from Rose Hulman Institute Of Technology with a mechanical engineering degree and later after working selling pollution control equipment in northern California, went back to college to get a Masters of Science in Industrial Administration at Purdue University. I have many interests and passions outside of dinosaurs. I love to read about history. I also love to travel and see the beautiful sites and unique cultures around the world. To date, I have visited 49 countries—my favorites are in Africa. I like safaris. My wife and I love to see the animals. We have been to Tanzania, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa.

I have also taken my grand kids to 7 zoos or animal parks and they also are dinosaur fans. I am an avid flower gardener at my home in Granger—many friends think I should contact Better Homes and Gardens. I also have redone our landscape in California with cactus and succulents and enjoy doing that as well. I also play golf. I just booked tee times in Scotland for next spring and will play Carnoustie about 6 weeks prior to the British Open being played there. My

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

family is the most important part of my life.

PT: Wow, quite a life. I would love it if my wife and I could travel more. Have you always loved prehistoric animals?

WH: As a child, growing up in the Cleveland area, I remember one Christmas Santa brought me the complete set of Marx plastic dinosaurs.

That started my interest and I collected the prehistoric mammals to add to my collection.

I still have all those figures today. My Mom also bought the J H Miller large dinosaurs for me, over time, which were so cool. Most of them got damaged, but about 15 years ago I bought all of them in mint condition on EBAY. PT: Yes, I have often said that the Marx dinosaurs, along with numerous books, sparked my childhood interest in dinosaurs.

While I own all of the J H Miller dinosaurs now, I did not have them as a kid but remember seeing them in a toy store at the time and they looked huge. Is your model collection in just one room or is it throughout the house and what does your wife say about all of this?

WH: My collection is all in one room, my son’s former bedroom. My wife has been very understanding, but has drawn the line at not expanding into other parts of the house. It is getting very tight in that room. I am currently getting 3 resin models painted by Martin Garratt. One is 24 inches long and I will really have to use my engineering abilities to find a spot for it. The other 2, a Diamantinasaurus and a Scelidosaurus are 13 and 7 inches —no problem. My focus on my collection is “variety.” At my latest count I have 461 different varieties of dinosaurs/prehistoric mammals in my collection, 355 are resin/hand-painted models—the remaining are rubber/plastic. I generally don’t try to acquire

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different models of dinosaurs that I already have, but if I see a Triceratops or T. rex that appeals to me as a very unique or creative sculpture, I may buy it. Some of my models get as large as 4 feet.

PT: Do you build and paint models yourself or do you always commission others to do it?

WH: I tried early to paint a few models; what a disaster! I am certainly not an artist. As Clint Eastwood said in one of the “Dirty Harry” movies,” a man has to know his limitations.” I have worked with various painters and assemblers over the years, such as Bob Morales, Steve Riojas and Martin Garratt. Steve is very talented, but also very busy with the great work he does for Sideshow. I currently send my models to Martin and Marilyn at UMF models. They are wonderful to work with and Marilyn is so responsive and a great communicator. Martin is so creative and they pack models so well, shipping all the way from Great Britain. I have never had a single broken piece from them. My other great painter, but also a great sculptor is Sean Cooper. I just received my 50th work from Sean, a Kubanochoerus (often called a swine-acorn). Sean has done 16 one-of-a-kind works for me, mostly prehistoric mammals such as Dinofelis, Hexameryx, Hoplitomeryx, Epigaulus, Moeroitherium, Samotherium, Sivatherium, and Teleoceras. His next project is a Eucladoceros.

PT: Do you have a favorite dinosaur and a favorite non-dinosaur prehistoric animal?

WH: That’s a tough one. The Concavenator

by Cooper which he sells on his website was commissioned by me and I was happy that Sean could offer it to others—his painting and sculpture is fantastic, but so many of his custom works for me are favorites also. I also relish Charley McGrady’s Suchomimus painted by Riojas. They also combined for a Dracorex and Stegoceras that were close seconds. I have 15 of their works. Shane Foulkes’s Kritosaurus vs.

Deinosuchus is a great action scene with a neat water sculpt and paint. His Edmontonia

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and Torvosaurus are also close seconds. I have 21 of Shane’s works.

When I first started my resin collection, my biggest collection was from Max Salas—81 resin models. His large terror birds and large prehistoric elephants were awesome. I also purchased 40 models from Cliff Green in my beginning years. As with Cliff, Sean, Steve, Bob Morales, Dan Liebman of Dan’s Dinosaurs and Martin/Marilyn of UMF models and many other artists, I have made some very good friends over the years.

PT: Max Salas sent us artwork we used in the last issue. it was nice hearing from him again. Are you still actively collecting? Are you able to show your collection to very many other people?

WH: Yes, I am still collecting—I do give tours to friends and other people who hear of this unusual collection.

PT: Have you ever made a display of your collection somewhere else for others to enjoy?

WH: No, it would be quite a challenge to move it and I would fear for damaging these delicate works. I have been on National TV. Back about 10 years ago I had a local SouthBend TV station come in to produce a video for a Saturday morning program—then a few weeks later after it aired locally, we received a phone call from a lady my wife worked with saying I was on Fox TV. PT: Cool.Sorry I missed that. Tell me more about some of your favorite models in your collection?

WH: I like ceratopsians and prehistoric mammals the best—I have 26 varieties of resin ceratopsians and 86 varieties of prehistoric mammals.

PT: Being prehistoric animal lovers, I think we all think of this, so, in interviews, I often ask where would you go first if you had a time machine?

WH: Great question. I think about this at times. My first trip would be

Prehistoric Times No.124 Winter 2017

65 million years ago to learn what caused the mass extinction, but I would love to see all the eras because life on Earth changed so much through all these times and there are so many unanswered questions.

PT: Thanks Bill. Is there anything in your amazing model collection you still wish you had?

WH: Yes. Every species that I don’t have in my collection—that will keep me busy in retirement....

Prehistoric Times No.124 Winter 2017

11

1. Introduction In PT # 123 we reviewed the evolution of the sail-finned pelycosaurs, the group from which the mammal-like therapsids later evolved. Both groups are classified as synapsids, as are the true mammals. The therapsids constituted a key component of the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic fauna because from the beginning of their history they followed specialized skeletal and physiological trends that would ultimately lead to the mammalian condition. Whereas pelycosaurs were known from late Pennsylvanian to early Permian times, therapsids were typical of the mid Permian to Triassic times. Although therapsids have been found in many of the world’s continental regions, they are best known from Russian and South African deposits (specifically the Karoo sequence of the latter, also rendered as ‘Karroo’) and it is with such types that this article is concerned. The accompanying illustrations include six relevant therapsid paintings by Zdenek Burian (1905-1981). Again I thank my fellow Burian enthusiasts Jan Kopecky and Paul McFarland for their assistance with this series of articles.

2. Rise of the therapsids Therapsids are thought to have evolved from sphenacodontid pelycosaurs during the mid Permian, after which they rose to become the dominant terrestrial fauna. Many therapsids were active and powerful carnivores such as the cynodonts (the group from which true mammals evolved during the late Triassic), while the herbivorous dinocephalian therapsids were amongst the largest land animals of their time.

Therapsids are particularly well represented in a series of stratigraphic 12

zones in Russia and South Africa that run from the Lower Permian to the mid Triassic. Although characterized by faunal and floral differences, there are also important similarities between the two series. The Russian zones are referred to numerically from 0 (Lower Permian) to VII (mid Triassic), whilst the African zones mostly bear the names of fossil animals typical of each one, and although some names have changed in recent years (and there is some faunal overlap), they are currently in the following ascending order: Eodicynodon, Tapinocephalus, Pristerognathus, Tropidostoma (previously Endothiodon), Cistecephalus, Dicynodon, Lystrosaurus, and Cynognathus.

Zone I includes the earliest mammal-like reptiles and records the transition from pelycosaurs to therapsids. This zone already featured a wide therapsid diversity such as the carnivorous gorgonopsids, the dinocephalians (which were originally carnivorous, then omnivorous and finally herbivorous), and the herbivorous anomodonts. The late Upper Permian fauna of Zone IV (= African Cistecephalus Zone) also includes the bulky anapsid pareiasaurs (Fig. 1) which are known from South Africa and Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere, and China and Scotland in the Northern Hemisphere.

In former decades most authorities recognised three major therapsid groups: phthinosuchians, anomodonts and theriodonts, but therapsid taxonomy has changed markedly in recent decades. While the phthinosuchians were originally assumed to have been intermediate types linking pelycosaurs to therapsids, they are now rarely considered as a valid group. The anomodonts included the dinocephalians and dicynodonts, while the theriodonts (which included the gorgonopsids and the cynodonts) were the most advanced therapsids that most closely approached the mammalian condition. Cynodonts and the dicynodont therapsids survived the extinctions that Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

marked the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, with the former not dying out until the early Cretaceous.

The principal cranial diagnostic feature of therapsids (and synapsids in general) was the single temporal skull opening bounded above by the postorbital and squamosal bones, through which the jaw muscles were attached to the skull (mammals display a variation of this skull type). In therapsids this opening tended to become enlarged so that in advanced types the upper boundary was actually the parietal bone. Advanced therapsids also featured a secondary palate to separate the nasal passages from the mouth so as to enable uninterrupted breathing while eating, an attribute related to an endothermic metabolism. Another mammal-like feature of many therapsids is the parasagittal gait whereby the limbs were held beneath the body rather than sprawled to the sides as in most reptiles (parasagittal hind-limb gaits were also typical of bipedal and quadrupedal dinosaurs).

3. Gorgonopsids The gorgonopsids were amongst the most powerful carnivores of Permian times, although early forms were no larger than a dog. They appeared in the mid Permian and were the only theriodonts to die out during the great extinctions that marked the end of that period. Well known examples include Sauroctonus progressus (Fig. 1) and Lycaenops (Fig. 2), while the largest genus was the bear-like Inostrancevia known from the River Dvina (Upper Permian) in Russia. Inostrancevia had a 45 cm long skull furnished with 15 cm canines and is often portrayed as preying on large, armoured pareiasaurs such as Scutosaurus (Fig. 1). Gorgonopsids likely also preyed on other therapsids such as dinocephalians and dicynodonts.

Sauroctonus progressus (= lizard slayer), which is known from South Africa and the Volga Basin, had a flattened triangular-shaped 22 cm long skull which retained the parietal ‘third’ eye (a primitive feature) on the

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

crown. Both jaws housed large canines and the lower jaw was widened into a ‘chin,’ while the five-toed limbs were very mammal-like. Superficially the animal was not dissimilar to a sabre-toothed cat in general appearance.

Lycaenops (= wolf-face) was a 1 m long gorgonopsid that weighed perhaps 15 kg and was quite dog-like in general morphology (Fig. 2). The canid-like skull was thin and elongated, and the dentition approached the mammalian condition and featured a pair of strong upper canines. As was the case with other gorgonopsids, there was no secondary palate. Its limb structure indicates that it progressed with a parasagittal gait with both foreand hind-legs, and was capable of swift movement. Lycaenops lived in South Africa from the late mid Permian to the early Upper Permian, with the type specimen (L. ornatus) being named in 1925 by the celebrated Scottishborn palaeontologist Robert Broom (1866-1951).

4. Dinocephalians The best known dinocephalian was the herbivorous Moschops (= calfface), one of very few therapsids with which the layperson might be familiar (Fig. 3). Moschops was a tapinocephalian (a major grouping within the Dinocephalia) and its remains were discovered, again by Robert Broom, in the early 1900s in the Tapinocephalus Zone of the Karoo deposits. Broom’s material was forwarded to the American Museum of Natural History in New York where it was described in 1911. Other dinocephalians from the Tapinocephalus Zone include Tapinocephalus itself, Titanosuchus, and Jonkeria. All dinocephalians died out at the end of the Tapinocephalus Zone. As a bulky and cumbersome beast, Moschops could not have appeared to be more dissimilar to the advanced carnivorous therapsids. The massive body was up to 5 m long and supported on strong limbs with splayed toes. The forelimbs carried the forequarters higher than the hindquarters, giving it a pronounced sloping stance. As with other

13

dinocephalians, the skull lacked a secondary palate and included a pineal orifice and attachment areas for powerful jaw muscles, but was most notable in having measured 10 cm or more in dorsal thickness. When combined with the forelimb morphology, this fact suggests that male Moschops may have indulged in head-butting contests of strength to assert their dominance.

This would also imply some degree of gregarious behaviour allied to a social-hierarchy. The dentition consisted of long-crowned, stout teeth perhaps suitable for processing fibrous vegetation such as the stems of cycads.

Some palaeontologists believe that Moschops may have been partly aquatic due to its splayed toes and heavy forequarters. Although the South African climate during the Permian was semi-arid with seasonal rainfall, the Karoo region was characterized by extensive flood plains with a number of large rivers that supported areas of riparian vegetation upon which dinocephalians would have fed. African dinocephalians shared their world with equally bulky pareiasaurs such as Bradysaurus, while Russian dinocephalians were contemporaneous with Northern Hemisphere genera such as Scutosaurus (Fig. 1). Pareiasaurs in general are thought to have frequented warm lowlying areas that featured ponds and lakes.

The Russian therapsids of Zone II were very similar to those of the

Tapinocephalus Zone, and included the carnivorous Titanophoneus, anomodonts such as Venjukovia, various carnivorous gorgonopsids, and a northern counterpart of Moschops in the form of Ulemosaurus svijagensis.

Another Russian dinocephalian, Estemmenosuchus (from Zone I), is represented not only by skeletal remains but also by mineralized skin remnants with evidence of mammalian-like dermal glands possibly used in scent marking or perspiration. However there are no traces of body pelage. Zone II climate was moderately warm with considerable rainfall that supported towering trees such as Walchia and various seed ferns, while the freshwater shorelines were fringed with swathes of Calamites (a tree-like ancestor of horsetails).

5. Triassic therapsids The Permian success of the therapsids was largely due to their ability to adapt to increasingly seasonal environments that included cooler winters.

They were unique amongst reptiles in having achieved a state of endothermy which permitted them to remain active during such periods, whereas cooler conditions restricted the less advanced ectotherms as their metabolism was dictated by environmental temperatures. In order to sustain high levels of metabolism, endotherms need to ingest very large quantities of food compared to what is required by ectotherms (hence the development of the secondary palate), and in that sense endothermy is physiologically very expensive to maintain. However, by Triassic times global climates changed again to become far warmer, thus moving the physiological advantage back in favour of ectotherms. Possibly as a result of such changes, therapsids were eventually replaced by thecodonts during the Triassic. The diminished variety of therapsids that survived into the Triassic included herbivorous dicynodonts such as Placerias and Lystrosaurus (Fig. 4), and advanced carnivorous cynodonts such as Cynognathus and Thrinaxodon (Fig. 5).

The African Lystrosaurus Zone (early Lower Triassic) is the equivalent of Russian Zone V and precedes the Cynognathus Zone (= Zone VI). Lystrosaurus (= shovel lizard) was a small (1 m long) herbivore also known from India and Antarctica at a time when the regions were closely situated. In addition its

Concluding on Page 50 14

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Dinosaurs of Romania and Hateg Island

Zalmoxes ©Sam Stanton

Bucharest, Romania, Comptes Rendus Palevol 2:97-101, 2003.]

Remember when you were a kid and dinosaurs were easy? You had a bunch you could name right off the top of your head, running around swamps filled with fern trees and a bright summer sun hanging above in a lapis lazuli sky. Here T. rex hunted Triceratops, while Allosaurus dodged the swinging tail of Stegosaurus—easy! written by Phil Hore Well, when it comes to the dinosaurs of central Europe, nothing comes kimba18@gmail.com Balaur © Sergey Krasovskiy easy; in fact things are just downright weird. This region was the Australia of the Mesozoic, a land of topsy-turvy, where black was white and things were the wrong way around, upside down, seemingly impossible.

The price of dinosaurs Even Romanian paleontologists come as hard as nails, and there was none Standing over the bed, Nopcsa places his hand on the side of his lover’s harder than Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás [‘from Upper Plum Tree’]. cheek and gently caresses the face he’d been looking at for the last two Born at a time most of Romania was part of the Austria-Hungary Empire, decades. With a shuddering sigh he lifts the revolver in his hand, places it to Nopcsa /NOHP-chah/ was a noble who came to paleontology through somethe head of Bajazid and squeezes the trigger. The gun thunders in the room, thing of an accident. Trying to identify bones found on one of his sister’s and the bright flash momentarily blinds Nopcsa; so he doesn’t see Doda Transylvanian estates, the young Nopcsa was told he should try to work out for himself what they belonged too. After enrolling at the University of shudder briefly from the impact, before falling totally limp.

Unthinkingly, he caresses the dead man’s hair, smoothing it down into a Vienna, he did exactly that and later wrote a well-received paper on Limnosaurus. more presentable style. The paleonOver time he became interested in Struthiosaurus © Eivind Bovor tologist then stands up, walks into dinosaur sexual dimorphism, or, more the kitchen, and unhurriedly takes a simply, which were boys and which seat at the table. With deliberate were girls. For research he inspected care he rereads the letter he wrote hadrosaurs because he felt the crested for what seems like the thousandth individuals were examples of males and time, making sure everything he the crestless ones were females. wants to say is there for all to see, Although he may have been on the right for all to understand. path, the fact that these hadrosaurs were Satisfied, he lifts the revolver and usually from different regions and difplaces the muzzle in his mouth. He ferent ages meant they were often not thumbs back the trigger and takes a even of the same species. deep breath. No longer interested in Nopcsa also tried to figure out what living in a world that had once been dinosaurs looked like when alive, their filled with adventure and excitebehaviors, and if some may have been ment but had since become one of warm blooded; he was one of the first bitter disappointment © Luis Rey https://luisrey.wordpress.com paleontologists to theorize that dinosaurs cared for their young followed by bitter and was one of the first to theorize ground-running small disappointment, dinosaurs evolved into birds. This work is why Nopcsa is often Franz Nopcsa pulls considered the father of paleobiology, or, as he called it, “paleothe trigger. physiology.”

Bine atsi venit la One of the paleontolacest articol despre Brian Cooley with his life-sized ogist’s major discoveries Dinozaurii din Magyarosaurus statue was the pygmy România, or dinosaurs of ‘Welcome to this Transylvania. issue’s article on The Although the Dinosaurs of species he Romania’ (Wade described were Carmen). [Perhaps similar to those of from Grigorescu, other regions, the Dan. Dinosaures de Transylvanian R o u m a n i e , dinosaurs were almost Laboratory of always much smaller.

P a l a e o n t o l o g y, This led Nopcsa to theFaculty of Geology orize that during the and Geophysics, Mesozoic the region University of Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

15

was an island, and today we know he was right on the money because we know it was a subtropical landmass called Hateg Island [note: pronounced /Hatseg/, also spelled Hatzeg; Hungarian Hátszeg ‘back-nail’(?) for the mound-valley; the Romanian t with a subscript cedilla is /ts/]. This deep marine basin sat within the Tethys Sea during the Late Cretaceous and was estimated to have been about 50,000 square miles. The Hateg basin sat 120 miles away from the Laurasian mainland, and other large islands were situated nearby, making the area a lot like the modern Caribbean.

Zalmoxes & Barbatodon

©Madison Henline

Hatzegopteryx © Roz Gibson

©Pedro Salas

The fossils and geology of this ancient landmass led Nopcsa to his most important theory, that the limited resources on Hateg led to a biological mechanism we know as “insuBalaur sculpture by Jaime Martinez lar dwarfism.”

This implies that to survive on the limited resources available on these islands, large animals shrank in size. This theory is generally only true of warm-blooded mammals; however, coldblooded reptiles (which need far less food) often

grow large on islands. Think of the Galápagos tortoises and the Komodo dragon as examples. Sadly we know this today as “Foster's rule,” because it was J. Bristol Foster who actually first published the idea in the 1960s, but make no mistake, the talented Nopcsa was all over it half a century earlier.

The first and one of the large dinosaurs Nopcsa described was a hadrosaur. In 1895 some local peasants found the skull of this dinosaur and presented it to his sister Ilona. The fossil inspired Nopcsa to learn paleontology at Vienna, and he eventually named his species Limnosaurus transsylvanicus. The ‘swamp reptile of Transylvania’ lasted only until Nopcsa discovered that O.C. Marsh already had named a crocodilian by the same name. So in 1903 he renamed it (perhaps as a nod to the man who had used the name before he did) Telmatosaurus, the ‘marsh lizard’.

Sixteen feet in length and around half a ton, this Late Cretaceous dinosaur was a basal hadrosaurid, considered a living relic in its time when parts of the world were dominated by far more advanced species. It is important, however, because one skull has been described with a large tumor on its Hatzegopteryx ©Diane Ramic

Magyarosaurus ©Meg Bernstein

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Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

jaw—the first recognized on any dinosaur.

Struthiosaurus (‘ostrich-lizard’ from the bird-like appearance of its brain case) was a 7foot nodosaur that has been found in several locations across Europe.

There are three subspecies: S. austriacus, S. languedocensis, and Nopcsa’s own (and the largest) S. transylvanicus. This was one of the first dinosaurs known, from Austrian remains unearthed

Balaur bondoc by Mike Fredericks

© Ryan McMurry

robust and likely a basal iguanodont, though more work needs to be done to really sort out the entire family and their relationships.

Amongst these remains were young and subadult specimens between 5 and 9 feet long. Their size led Nopcsa to include them in his theory on island dwarfism, but today the size is considered to be more related to their being physically closer to their smaller ancestors than their much larger descendants or sister groups like Tenontosaurus.

One species that certainly suffered from dwarfism was

Showing comparison of Magyarosaurus size to modern

Hateg Island Dinosaurs

human and pony by Mark Hallett www.markhallett.com

© Nick Papadimitriou

in 1859, and for a short time was thought to be part of a reptile group called Ornithocephala, the ‘bird heads’. It was Nopcsa who realized the fossils belonged to an armored dinosaur.

Hatzegopteryx Zalmoxes was a ©Nick Papadimitriou species of rhabdodontids, best described as small versions of iguanodonts.

Nopcsa named it first Mochlodon robustum and then later renamed it Rhabdodon robustum, but when it was recognized these fossils were more like a larger, closerrelated species described in the 1990s, it was finally renamed Zalmoxes in 2003. At 20 feet, Rhabdodon was Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Magyarosaurus. One of the smallest known sauropods, a mature adult was around 20 feet long and weighed just over a ton. Nopcsa originally named the species Titanosaurus dacus after the Dacians, ancient Europeans that lived in the region two millennia earlier. Just like other related saltasaurs, Magyarosaurus had dermal armor covering its skin, a characteristic explaining why they were originally named “titanosaurus.”

Many doubted Nopcsa’s conclusions about the miniature sauropods at the time, thinking they were just young individuals or some kind of freaks, but modern paleontologists have found he was correct in his conclusion thanks to more, similar-sized specimens being unearthed.

In 2001 eleven possible Magyarosaurus eggs were unearthed, and remarkably some still contained embryo bones—one even had clear signs of dermal armor, comparable to that found on the adults.

Yet another tiny titanosaur was Paludititan, the ‘marsh Titan’. Unearthed in 2002 with enough traits to prove it was not just another specimen of Magyarosaurus; these were nearly 7 feet tall at the shoulder and 20 feet long, and so they were hardly worthy of the name Titan.

This miniaturization of many Hateg dinosaurs compared to their enormous relatives on other landmasses may well be a back-handed indication that some were either warm-blooded or lived a warm-blooded lifestyle.

Otherwise why would a cold-blooded reptile shrink on an island?—especially as Nopcsa had recognized “the turtles, crocodilians and similar ani17

mals of the Late Cretaceous reached their normal size.”

It was not just herbivores Nopcsa found either. He also found some small bone fragments that he sold to the British Museum. These were later named Elopteryx nopcsai, the ‘marsh wing’ because the fossils were believed to belong to a seabird. More specimens and more years and more names went by, and it became obvious these were no seabird remains. No, they belonged to a giant owl!

Bradycneme draculae (how cool is that name?) and Heptasteornis andrewsi were thought to be 8-foot-tall owls until the end of the 1970s. This was when the fossils were recognized as those of a theropod dinosaur, but what sort of theropod? Was it a possible coelosaur, a dromaeosaur, a troodontid, an alvarezsaurid, or perhaps it was a bird after all? Well, it seems the answer is “all of the above.” The fossils, spanning most of Europe and collected over a century, are most likely not all from the same animal but

parts of all those listed above.

In 1901 Nopcsa began © Gregory S Paul looking at the http://gspauldino.com theropod material in other nations and noticed some large carnivore fossils from the US were similar to those he had seen; so he renamed them Megalosaurus trihedrodon (they are more likely Dryptosaurus). He also recognized that some teeth from Transylvania were similar as well and named them Megalosaurus hungaricus. Unfortunately these specimens have since been lost.

In the years since the time of Nopcsa, a lot more dinosaur material has been found around the Mesozoic archipelago. Tethyshadros insularis was a surprise, a nearly complete hadrosaur. Named after the Tethys Ocean, this 13-foot, 750-pound herbivore was also much smaller than other hadrosaurs, once more an indication that they were a dwarf species that had adapted to life on an island. They also seem to be far more adapted to bipedal locomotion, perhaps because of their small size and weight.

Balaur bondoc, the ‘stocky dragon’, was a small theropod, comparable to Velociraptor in size. Yet Balaur was unusual because, instead of having the single sickle-shaped claw, it had two toes on each foot sporting such claws.

These were held suspended off the ground, ensuring they remained sharp and dangerous.

It is the most complete European theropod known from the Late Cretaceous, which is a little odd because there’s a chance it was no carnivore at all but a herbivore. Although much of the rear is known from the Continuing on Pg. 59

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Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

19

How to Draw D i n o s a u r s (102)

By Tracy Lee Ford

Dino.Hunter@cox.net

WIDE LOAD This article stems from my visit to the Ultimate Dinosaur traveling exhibit when it was at the San Diego Natural History Museum. I was looking at the mounted skeleton of Malawisaurus and noticed that the width of the ilia versus the width of the ribs was off; the ilia were splayed out like wings, and the ribs were way too shallow (Figure 1).

The ilia are naturally that way, but the ribs are not. The pelvis of dinosaurs is made up of several elements, some of which are paired:

Figure 1. Photo of Malawisaurus in the Ultimate Dinosaur exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Figure 3. Hips of sauropods. A-C, Camarasaurus views. A, Dorsal. B, Lateral. C, Posterior. D-F, Diplodocus views. D, Dorsal. E, Lateral. F, Posterior. (All modified from Paul 1996.) ilium (plural ilia), pubis (plural pubes), ischium (plural ischia), and the single sacrum. The ilium is made of the preacetabular process (the large forward-facing flat portion), the postacetabular process (the backward-facing portion), and the acetabulum (hip joint, which is also made up of the upper pubis and ischium) (Figure 2). The sacrum is the vertebrae that attach to the ilia via sacral ribs. In dinosaurs it is mainly five fused vertebrae. The preacetabular process extends from the first sacral vertebrae forward to three or more dorsal vertebrae.

Figure 2. Diagram of the ilium of Tyrannosaurus rex. A, Preacetabular The majority of dinosaurs still have ribs on these dorsal vertebrae, and they fit inside the ilia. Not only are the ribs in front of the pelvis wider process. B, Postacetabular process. C, Acetabulum (hip joint).

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Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

than the width of the ilia, so too is the “body.”

In this issue I show how wide the bodies should be in various dinosaurs. The dinosaurs with shallow anterior ilia widths would be expected to have shallower bodies, and those with wider ilia would have wider bodies. In sauropods, titanosaurs, such as Malawisaurus, had the widest bodies, as camarasaurids did; however, diplodocids had a shallower body (Figure 3).

Figure 4. Hips of theropods. A-C, Tyrannosaurus views showing width of leg muscles. A, Dorsal. B, Lateral. C, Posterior. D-F, Allosaurus views showing width of leg muscles. D, Dorsal. E, Lateral. F, Posterior. G-H, Therizinosaur views. G, Dorsal. H, Lateral. (All modified from Paul 1996.)

Figure 6. Hips of ornithischians. A-C, Homalocephale views. D, Dorsal.

E, Lateral. F, Posterior. D-F, Triceratops views. D, Dorsal. E, Lateral. F, Posterior. (All modified from Paul 1996.)

Figure 5. Hips of armored ornithischians. A-B, Sauropelta views. A, Dorsal. B, Lateral. C-F, Stegosaurus views. C, Dorsal, D, Lateral. E, Posterior. F, Ventral. (C-F, From Marsh via Gilmore 1914). G, Ventral view of Dacentrurus (after Ford). H, Ventral view of Wuerhosaurus (after Ford).

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Allosaurus has a fairly shallow body, as most did, but not all theropods. A recent paper on Tyrannosaurus rex hypothesized that it was a slow animal. What the paper didn’t take into account was that the ilia of Tyrannosaurus rex are nearly touching the sacral neural arches, whereas nearly all large theropods had narrow ilia over the sacrum. The reason is that the leg muscles of Tyrannosaurus rex are so huge that they pushed the ilia together, more so than in any other theropod. That wouldn’t have happened if it were a slow-moving animal and its pelvis would still have been similar to that of Allosaurus (see the dorsal view of the sacrum and the cutaway view showing the width of the leg muscles).

An example of the theropod clade with a wide body and sacrum is the therizinosaur (Figure 4).

21

Both my volumes of How to Stegosaurs had a wide body, some Draw Dinosaurs are available on wider than others, such as amazon.com along with my Dacentrurus, and Wuerhosaurus. The Generic Dinosaur Skull a Day classic picture of the dorsal view of Calendar (2 volumes) and my the pelvis of Stegosaurus by Marsh novel Dinosaur Isle. Also don’t shows a narrow, long, forward-facing forget Mike Fredericks and my preacetabular process of the ilia, book What Color were Dinosaurs? though many other stegosaur skeleThe Prehistoric Times Coloring tons show a more splayed ilium. On Book. Now Mike and I have crethe quarry wall at Dinosaur National ated a second coloring Book, Monument is a stegosaur pelvis in What Color were Prehistoric dorsal view, and the ilia are splayed. I Sharks and Rays? Prehistoric talked to Susan Maidment (an authorTimes Coloring Book. ity on stegosaurs) at the last Society of Don’t forget to visit my two Vertebrate Paleontology symposium, websites; my original and she told me that the classic image Dinohunter (http://www.dinois wrong, and Marsh made the ilia too hunter.info) and Paleofile narrow. In comparison, ankylosaurs (http://www.paleofile.com). had much wider bodies (Figure 5).

Paleofile has several areas and Another ornithischian clade that an easy index (just click on the had a wide body was pachyname, and it will take you to the cephalosaurs. They had the widest systematic list), or you can go body of a bipedal ornithopod; howevdirectly to the systematic list er, as of now, there is still no complete (eggs and ichnology included). forelimb of a pachycephalosaur, we Click on the name in the list, just don’t know how long its arms were, how many fingers they had, and and it will take you to a more so forth. Ceratopians have a round Figure 7. Hips of ornithischians. A-C, Iguanodon views. A, Dorsal. B, compressive listing: genus, body, and Triceratops, according to Lateral. C, Ventral. D-F, Kritosaurus views. D, Dorsal. E, Lateral. F, species, etymology, holotype research from Peter Larson (BHI), Posterior. (All modified from Paul 1996.) (lecto-, para-, etc.), locality, horihad a body that was actually wider zon (formation), biostratigraphy than people usually depict (Figure 6). (faunal zone if known), age, material, and referred material. There will Ornithopods in general didn’t have wide bodies or narrow ilia (Figure be two faunal lists, one in which you can check your area or any area in 7). The take-home point is to research the skeleton and the pelvis to see the world to see what animals were found there and the other will be ages. If you’re interested in Biostratigraphy, you can see which animals how wide the body should be. lived with which at that time from around the world.

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Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2016

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23

ok o N & dle n i K n eo

bl a l i a v a Also 24

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

LEFT: The third and rarest of the

By Mike Fredericks

LEFT: For our vintage Sinclair Oil collectible this time we show a one foot long, wooden figure of “Dino” the Sinclair mascot dinosaur. Not much more is known about it.

Eldon "3D Scenic" kits was Prehistoric themed. Though it's a 1967 kit, the sculpts appear to be more in line with the J. Allen art from Sinclair 30 years prior. Far rarer than the later Addar kit.

(Collection of Robert Telleria) LEFT: A 1975 Addar "Prehistoric

Dinosaurs Scene in a Bottle" kit that was painted to match the M. Kalmenoff art in the 1964 NY World's Fair/The Exciting World of Dinosaurs booklet, which was obvious inspiration for the diorama.

Like the Eldon kit before it, the painted backdrop is flexible cardboard. (Collection of Robert Telleria)

ABOVE: In the last PT we showed some Orsenigo dinosaurs. Here is Robert Telleria’s set in his revised Orsenigo article in Dinosauriana. “Mine are in as good of condition as I ever have seen, with some looking to never have been 'played with,” Robert says.

ABOVE: 1963 newspaper ad for the dinosaur trading cards available, one per box of Red Rose Tea in Canada. Also advertised is the album to place them in.

ABOVE LEFT: Four, 1960s hard plastic stegosaurs

from the Marx Flintstones Hunting Party set of three dinosaurs (also a brontosaur and a T. rex)

They were sold boxed along with Fred and Barney figures. The tan color in front is a fairly new dis-

ABOVE LEFT: Three

shots of Robert Telleria’s collection of ceramics. Ucagco complete sets of ceramics with a glossy set (top) and a matte/flat (middle).

Norcrest set (bottom) “Mammoth is definitely rarest, rarer than Napco's,” says Bob.

covery. Pat Schaefer sent us an ad showing the

three figures sold separately and he thinks the tan color was found this way, sold in store bins.

LEFT: Car Decal. As a kid, I (your PT

editor) moved a lot. My parents would

often stop at tourist spots like this (now closed) giving great dino memories.

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

25

Dinosaur Collector News

in the light of new finds. The Deluxe figure is compatible with the Popular figure and collectors should get both as a pair. When you compare 2012 with 2017, the changes are obvious. You add a hump and replace the ornithimimid beak with a duckbill. The arms, which were the only part known in 2013, remain the same, but 2017’s version has a narrower body and a base. The small lump on the head is now a feathered crest. I like the new reconstruction better but am keeping two of the originals, as I know rsknol@aol.com they will be very collectible.

The Deluxe Dimorphodon pterosaur is my favorite CollectA figure of www.dinosaurcollectorsitea.com 2017. Dimorphodon has not been a common choice for quality reconstructions. There have been only a few metal figures like the DeeZee metal gaming figures. The Jurassic World movie generated an interest Dimorphodon.

The movie-based models were not very accurate and best described as bat-winged CollectA Deluxe Deinocheirus lizards with a dinosaur head. The CollectA The major companies have announced figure is accurate; the skull is long and nartheir 2018 figures, and they are releasing row, giving it a puffin look. The articulated many new figures. It seems just the other day mouth contains fangs in the front with I waited a year to see Carnegie Safari release smaller teeth in the back, hence the name a single new figure. Papo and Schleich have two-form tooth. The model captures the diversified their range of toys. We are getting look of its short body and wings. The legs more than just another version of last years' T. have claws that are long for climbing trees rex. and rocks. The body is covered in pterosaur But first I need to finish with 2017’s modfuzz. The long expressive tail ends in a vane els. Wild Safari’s 2017 Microraptor reprecommon in other early pterosaurs. This figure is large sents the latest of the Safari reconstructions of this cutand makes a great display piece. The size, coupled ting-edge fossil. The original was part of the Feathered with superior detailing, makes a great teaching CollectA Deluxe Dimorphodon Dinosaur toob. That Microraptor used a sprawled posmoment. CollectA Popular, Gigantspinosaurus is (below) ture for gliding, utilizing feathers on all four legs. This based on Tracy Ford’s reconstruction. Earlier reconmatched the hypothetical Protoavis, the predicted bird structions of Gigantspinosaurus attached the shoulder ancestor. Later a competing reconstruction had the skispines upside-down protruding like wings and his new ing posture with legs extended down. Recently the fosreconstruction shows the spine extending somewhat silized melanosomes indicate a black, glossy colupwards.

Like most medium size stegosaurs, the oration found in modern birds. Wild Safari has incorplates and spines are small. The tail has a pincushion porated this into the 2017 model. This figure is a flyer of spikes.The body is golden brown, lighter on the in the bird style. The reconstruction looks like a robust underside for a subtle waterline. The body shape camground bird. This dinosaur has the asymmetric feathers ouflaged with brown stripes supported by short legs of a flyer. Safari Ltd is in the unique position of having two potentially valid reconstructions for collectors. Quetzalcoatlus, a giant makes for an agile animal. It shared its environment with Tuojiangosaurus. azhdarchid pterosaur from the end of the Cretaceous, is quickly replacing This is a great addition to the Jurassic selection of Asia and the range of stegosaurs.

Pteranodon as best known pterosaur toy figCollectA Gigantspinosaurus The Jurassic Hunters are the best known of ure. Azhdarchids were diverse pterosaurs & PNSO Tuajiangosaurus the GeoWorld Company’s dinosaur figures but ranging in size from large to gigantic. They are (left) I think the best Hunters are the least known; relatively common companions to T. rex and their prehistoric animal line. Embolotherium Triceratops. The Wild Safari model is longwas a Mongolian brontothere related to necked, long-jawed, and toothless with a head Brontotherium of North America. It had a brief crest. This is a long way from the “Walking cameo in “Ice Age”, an animated movie that with Dinosaurs” toothy fish eater or a vulturegenerated a few premiums, the Burger King like scavenger. Safari has captured the modern version being most common. It actually lived in vision of a Stork-like animal that soared the the Eocene; among the first large mammals. It skies preying on small animals. Coelophysis is is generally included in the same family as Geoworld Embolotherium my favorite figure for 2017. It has it all, feathers, horses, tapirs, and rhinos. This is one of my a bipedal stance, and a realistic paint job. It is one favorite GeoWorld figures. Known from skulls, the of the best-known fossils, and is the poster child body reconstruction uses fossils of relatives. This for Triassic dinosaurs. It's the same size as the reconstruction follows a rhino morph plan with Play Vision American Natural history Museum folds of rhino skin at the shoulders and hips. The Coelophysis. The Play Vision figure is green with head has a fan-shaped ram just before the nostrils. smooth skin and a prehensile tail. Wild Safari’s is In real life, the ram was hollow and may have been feathered, gold on top and white lower down with part of the nasal complex for sound. It is a unique a black waterline. The tail is raised, the forearms Kinto Anamalcaris prehistoric mammal for our prehistoric mammal colpronated, and it has a reliable bipedal posture. I use it lectors. I got mine from DeJankins.com, the purveyor to teach the changes in how our visualization of fossils of the unique and hard to find. change and it is a great guide to dinosaur painting.

Recur’s Mosasaurus is an eye catching toy that any Safari Ltd makes the toys that teach. child would want. This is a large figure, and lightCollectA Deluxe 2017 replaces the 2012 weight because of Recur’s new child-friendly technolDeinocheirus with a new model. A smaller Popular ogy. Living crocodiles inspire the toothy mouth and series figure was released and a Deluxe figure revised

by Randy Knol

26

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

coloring with the osteoderms on the broad upper body. Recur is not Kinto Marella easy to find but PT retailer DeJankins.com can help you.

Schleich’s Dimetrodon for 2017 is worth a look. Normally I do not spend a lot of time on Dimetrodon which has defied much change since the Marx and Miller epoch of the 1950s. The “not a dinosaur” default member of any respectable toy line is just there. With a second look, I see changes. The sail has an irregular profile and exposed neural spine tips. It looks like it is moving, and the jaw opens. I might have liked the Wild Safari tail to be longer or the skin smoother but it is still a worthy effort to inject a new look.

Quetzalcoatlus PNSO Tuojiangosaurus PNSO figures do show up for sale on Amazon and EBay. There are small figures marketed in individual blister packs and larger scale figures that are sold by internet vendors. The could win a free subscription/ renewal to PT. Chinese content, diverse design and detailing make them desirI feel 2018 will be an exciting year able collectibles. Tuojiangosaurus is a small figure. It is a for Collectors. Safari Ltd is producing stegosaur, related to Kentrosaurus from Africa and figures previously unavailable to Stegosaurus from North America. The model is very attractively painted in green and gold. It has 17 paired plates along the back and Collectors, like Anzu and Malawisaurus. The increase in the selection of two pair of “thagomizers.” The figure has shoulder spikes like prehistoric mammals is unexKentrosaurus. Normally Tuojiangosaurus is reconstructed without shoulder pected. CollectA is going Kinto swimming spikes. Included is a nice mini poster, and what appears to be documenta- Paleozoic in 2018 with Spinosaurus w/ tion in Chinese. It looks to be intended for the market in China. I found the Dimetrodon, Dunkleosteus and water base quality of production is equivalent to the UHA resin figures but I wonder Estemmenosuchus. Then we hear they will be releasing their about the accuracy.

Kinto seems to be only producing for the home market in Japan. I picked Augmented Reality line of dinos with electronic avatars. up their Favorite Schleich has announced a Cambrian mini models Dinogorgan and Tawa. In Burgess Shale Series.

Jurassic Park we saw that They are sold in plastic dinosaurs traveled in herds and we have herds of dinos to review in 2018. zip bags individually or Recur Mosasaurus as a boxed set. They also come in "paint your own" sets. The Schleich Dimetrodon figure comes with a mini display sheet that reminds me of the UHA display sheets.

Marrella is my favorite of the series.

It is the most common fossil from the Burgess Shale and Cambrian explosion. It is an arthropod relative with no living descendants. The head shield has two pair of horns Wild Safari Coelophysis & Play extending to the Visons Coelophysis on left back. Two antennae face forward with a second set reaching to the side. There are about 20 body Wild Safari segments each with a pair of Microraptor walking legs. The head shield has a purple wash on a white base, and the torso has a gold shield. The figure scales well with the large Anamolocaris figures.

Please be sure and send us your PT PIX vote for best dinosaur figure of 2017. I told Mike we should add a second category of best non-dinosaur prehistoric animal figure of 2017 and he agreed, so now we need both of your choices. You Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

27

KRONOSAURS, KRAKENS, AND CARCHAROCLES: KEEPING UP WITH

MAX HAWTHORNE

by SCOTT MARDIS

On November 15th, Max Hawthorne’s KRONOS RISING: KRAKEN (vol. 1), book 2 in his KRONOS RISING series, was rereleased with a wonderful new cover and revised interior. “KRAKEN” won Book of the Year at Geek Ireland’s 2016 Reader’s Choice Awards.

In addition, on AUTHORSdb, Max’s novella KRONOS RISING: PLAGUE won the gold medal in the horror category.

His KR series is about relict pliosaurs released from the refugium of an isolated caldera, and the ensuing havoc that takes place.

We caught up with Max to discuss the series, and his extracurricular activities in real marine reptile paleontology.

Q: Hello, Max. Kronos Rising: Kraken vol. 1 was just re-released with a revised text, and a fantastic new cover painting by artist Davide Bonadonna. Tell us about the changes and what the cover art is about.

A: Hi Scott. As my readers know, Kraken was originally so huge that the publisher had to split it into two parts. As a result, the cover art that was slated for Kraken didn’t work for the first half of the story. Hence, the spiky octopus cover that graced the first half.

I never liked that cover; it lacked the presence of Kraken 1. So, when the opportunity came to re-release it, I commissioned Davide to do a new cover. Hence, the painting “Old Scores.” Old Scores represents a long overdue grudge match between two of the book’s “archaic antagonists,” Typhon, a centuriesold bull pliosaur, and Ursula, a gigantic Megalodon shark. Without any spoilers, there’s lots of bad blood between these ancient enemies. And when they meet, it flows.

Q: Kraken Volume Two is coming down the pike. Any spoilers, and can we expect any new KR-related novellas in the interim?

28

A: No novellas anytime soon. In terms of spoilers, you can expect a fast buildup with lots of treachery, terror, and the commensurate death and destruction. I try to outdo myself every time, so pick up a pair of adult undies. You’re gonna need ‘em!

Q: Can you tell us about the cover contest at Author’s Database and winning the gold medal for the Plague artwork?

A: AUTHORSdb hosts an annual cover art contest for assorted book categories (sci-fi, romance, etc.). I personally crafted Kronos Rising: Plague’s cover, so it was neat to “bring home the gold” in their horror division. We would’ve won last year, with Davide’s painting for Kronos Rising, but 5,000 readers erroneously clicked the “like” Facebook icon on their site, instead of “submit your vote”!

Q: You’ve been involved in some side projects with paleontologist Dr. Mark McMenamin of Mt. Holyoke College, known for his discovery of the Triassic Kraken.

How did the two of you meet?

A: I was impressed with Mark’s theory on the Triassic Kraken. His new book Deep Time Analysis: A Coherent View of the History of Life is definitely worth checking out. It features a new coelacanth species and an exciting early marine reptile discovery. We met in Boston to discuss a possible documentary on the Triassic Kraken (currently in talks).

Q: In July of this year, you and McMenamin put together a detailed study of plesiosaur locomotion (a video and an article). Marine reptile expert Mike Everhart stated on Facebook that, although he disagreed with your theory on body flexibility, your range of motion for the flippers was “spot on”. He was also pleased to see you had done away with the alternating front/back stroke. Your study comes on the heels of two other studies done by Luke Muscutt (South Hampton University) using hydrodynamic flow simulations with robotic flippers, and another by Shiqui Liu and Adam Smith using computer generated animation simulations. Will you elaborate on the differences between these studies and the one put together by Dr. McMenamin and yourself?

A: My eureka moment over plesiosaur locomotion took place in my bathtub (of all places). I suppose Archimedes would approve. This was in mid-2015, and I discussed it on Facebook with Adam Smith, shortly thereafter. I also shared it with various science and natural history publications, and in December of 2015 posted illustrations and a crude video outlining the theory on social media.

Early this year, I asked Mark McMenamin to Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

help me refine my theory. We produced a 13-minute video documentary that was released this past May, along with a fantastic swim-cycle animation by Mark’s protégé, Matthew Lafreniere. In addition, and with Mark’s backing, a formal paper is currently in the works. As I said in the video, any notion of front or rearonly flipper use is contraindicated. All four flippers worked together. The notion of eddies, vortexes, etc. is not worth considering, at least not in terms of primary locomotion. Besides the fact it would require the animal to move at a certain pace to reap any benefits, it doesn’t apply. Sanders & Carpenter were right about the main flipper movements being vertical, not horizontal, but what everyone’s missed is that the shoulder and pelvic girdles of plesiosaurs angled in opposing directions. As a result, the respective ranges of the flippers were affected. The front flippers moved somewhat like a penguin’s, while the rear flippers pushed more laterally. The end result was two pairs of flippers traveling through separate planes of motion. This eliminated flipper redundancy and allowed the animal to move significantly faster.

I’m pleased with the level of acceptance in the paleontology community.

The animated plesiosaur swim cycle from mine and Mark’s documentary is currently on Wikipedia, and The Etches Collection Museum of Jurassic Marine Life is using our documentary and animation as part of their learning materials. Steve Etches’ museum is astounding, and comes complete with a life-size bust of a 15-meter Kimmeridgian pliosaur, crafted by gifted paleo-sculptor Andrew Cocks.

Q: Thank you for all this wonderful and stimulating information, Max. We look forward to your future endeavors, especially the second volume of Kronos Rising: Kraken.

A: Thank you, Scott. In addition to meeting the legions of fans that follow the Kronos Rising series, it’s been a true pleasure interacting with so many talented individuals in the paleo community, and working with them to spread the word about the endless wonders of our primeval oceans.

THE END Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

29

VERNON EDWARDS FROM 2-D to 3-D

by Michael E. Howgate In 1926 despite the reservations expressed by Bill Swinton of the British Museum (Natural History) Vernon Edwards was determined to abandon the cut out two-dimensional models in favour of three-dimensional plaster casts. I illustrated the 2-D models in a previous article in P.T. but one example was missing, the Pareiasaurus, which was specially requested by the Stellenbosch Museum in South Africa.

At a recent auction sale of Vernon Edwards models and archival material I came across drawings for two further 2-D models. These were of what he called a ‘Crested Trachodon’, what we would now call a Corythosaurus and a ‘Many horned Deinosaur’ (sic). This was a 1.

Ceratopsian based on the reconstruction of Agathaumas* but with many more horns. On my count of the number of horns in the sketch it would have been a Heptaceratops! The drawings are both carefully, but lightly (thank goodness), crossed through so they never even got onto the drawing board.

As Vernon Edwards explained in an article published in the Listener of 24th of September 1930 the models he set about producing were “built up on a wooden base around an armature or framework resembling the skeleton of the animal. This is then covered with the plastic material, either plasticine or clay … On this is built up the general muscular system, which is then completed and the details filled in. “ This was the basis for the master cast which had to be coated with a non-adhesive lacquer and which then had to have several limbs removed to be cast separately so that the moulding material could be removed cleanly from the master . As he explained much later “The moulder before the war **( the 1939 – 45 war M.H.) used a jelly mould from the master cast and let me have from two to six or so casts according to the number he could get.” Edwards would then take off the seams, add any missing limbs which had been cast separately and touch up the surface texture of the models before painting them up as and when required. A very time consuming procedure.

As part of a deal with the British Museum (Natural History) Vernon Edwards was allowed access to the original fossils of the creatures he was to 3. sculpt and the use of their extensive library where he could consult the latest monographs. The models would then be checked for accuracy by museum palaeontologists. For this the BM (NH) received a commission of 15% on all sales. The problems he faced with this arrangement are exemplified by what happened with the production of the Scolosaurus model.

In November 1926 as he was preparing a Stegosaurus stenops model to be sent to Ipswich Museum he received a request from Dr. Bathers***. “I want to get you to make a model of our new armoured deinosaur (sic), but I don’t know that you can very well do this until 30

2.

Baron Nopcsa’s ****account is published.” At this time Edwards was working on his models at Cumberland Studios in Richmond, Surrey just about every day but progress on the armoured dinosaur (Scolosaurus cutleri) was soon stalled. Throughout 1927 he was kept waiting for the report on the palaeontological material which was being prepared by Nopcsa in Vienna. Even though he had finished the model the museum insisted on “waiting for Nopcsa’s memoir before displaying the model.” The monograph was eventually published in 1928 in Geologica Hungarica and at last Edward’s model could be displayed. However, the kudos of having a model in the BM (NH) was a key promoter of sales which were mainly to museums and university zoology and geology departments.

In late 1929 Edwards wrote to Dr. Bather about the possibility of a permanent position at the museum. He was seeking a “job, more or less permanent in the preparation department … not necessarily as an artist”.

The reply from Bather might ring a bell with current Dino-artists seeking similar employment – “I do not see any prospect for you” but he added that the keeper did like his latest model, an Arsinoitherium, as by this time Edwards was concentrating on producing Tertiary Mammals.

However, in March 1930 he was asked to produce a model of Scelidosaurus. This was important to the museum as it was the best preserved dinosaur from the British Isles and had been described by the first Director of the BM (NH), Richard Owen. In my opinion it is the most successful of Vernon Edward’s dinosaur models but it was to be his last to be purchased by the museum.

Up until this time, the early 1930’s, Vernon Edwards had been marketing his plaster cast prehistoric models from his home in south- west London. But he then moved to having them marketed by the prominent geological suppliers Thomas Murby & Co. Their catalogue issued in February 1934 lists 16 coloured plaster cast models of ‘Dinosauria’ at prices ranging from four guineas to nine guineas These were Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, Triceratops, Styracosaurus, Centrosaurus, Brachyceratops, Polacanthus, Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Stegosaurus, Iguanodon, Trachodon, Corythosaurus, Hypsilophodon, Tyrannosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Scolosaurus and Scelidosaurus. The company had a special exhibition of the models as a major feature in their London showroom and five pages of their sixteen page catalogue were given over to the models, photograph sets, lantern slides sets and dioramas which Vernon Edwards could supply.

In my next foray into the output of Vernon Edwards I will concentrate on his mammalian creations. * Agathaumas was the first Ceratopsian ever named but it is now considered to be a ‘nomen dubium’.

It is often seen as a ‘Triceratops’ like animal with a very spiky frill in old illustrations. ** The models were cast by the firm of D. Landi. This was an Italian

5.

family firm based in London who specialised in making religious statues and busts of famous people. *** Dr F.A. Bather was Keeper of Geology at the British Museum (Natural History) when he met Vernon Edwards. Bather was impressed by

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

4.

Edwards’s skill as a sculptor and suggested that he try his hand at making models of prehistoric creatures for the BM (NH). **** Baron Franz Nopsca (1877 – 1933) was a minor Austro-Hungarian aristocrat born in Transylvania (Romania). He worked on dinosaurs from the local Hateg Basin and also was one of the first to suggest a dinosaur – bird link.

ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Sketches by Vernon Edwards of the ‘Crested Trachodon’ and ‘Many Horned Deinosaur‘. Mike Howgate

collection.

2. Masters casts of Tyrannosaurus rex and Iguanodon at the Timeline auction in London. Note the missing limbs which were cast separately.

3. Iguanodon recently painted (1980’s) plaster model by Vernon Edwards.

Mike Howgate collection.

6.

4. Scolosaurus cutleri plaster model by Vernon Edwards probably painted in the 1970’s Mike Howgate collection 5. Scelidosaurus plaster model by Vernon Edwards probably painted in the 1970’s.

Mike Howgate collection.

6. Page from catalogue with illustration of Scolosaurus cutleri and list of the Dinosaur models (and other Jurassic reptiles). The starred models are ones specifically sculpted for the British Museum (Natural History). Mike Howgate collection.

31

What’s New in review

New CollectA Dimetrodon for 2018

By Mike Fredericks

Well, the new year has arrived and that means the arrival of new prehistoric animal figures from the toy companies you see advertising in this magazine. And Ceratosaurus wow, what an amazing assortment of new figures and so many too. There was a time when these companies would release a Bavarian dinosaur park. handful of new prehistoric animals figures Also new for 2018 is a beautiful, new Iguanodon in a for the new year or even as few as a couple. deluxe version, 11 " long. As Mantellisaurus seems to have herdFor 2018 Safari Ltd. is offering no less than thirteen, beautiful, all new prehistoric animal figures and CollectA has eleven new 2018 prehistoric ani- ed with Iguanodons the two can go together in play or dioramas notwithmal figures. And then, of course there are new figures from Papo, Mojo Fun standing the differences in size. Also coming is Estemmenosuchus with a movable jaw at about 7" long. This is the first in their new series that and Schleich. What new figures, you ask? I’m going to tell you.

But first, I would just say that the bar has definitely been raised for pre- includes animals from earlier eras than the dinosaurs. As so many of these historic animal figures and in my opinion, all of the companies have stepped are much smaller than many dinosaurs they are producing these models at the same 1:20 scale as their up and met the challenge. If you compare the look of the figures for 2018 later prehistoric mammals. with those made just a few years ago, they now are much more detailed and Dunkleosteus with movable realistic plus better researched and therefore more scientifically accurate. jaw is 11" long and is also at While little Bobby will definitely love these figures, the feeling I get is that Sciurumimus 1:20 scale in the new series. It they are designed more for the is covered with skin instead serious adult collector and Iguanodon of a lot of armor and it is enthusiast. These consumers given a heterocercal tail have let the prehistoric animal which would afford such a manufacturing companies Brontosaurus large animal a greater ability know what they want and to manoeuver in the water. expect and thank goodness, Anthony says, “it is quite a hefty they are obviously listoy, weight-wise; useful if one tening.

Roaring, feathered T. rex has a burglar in the house and far For 2018, CollectA has more humane than the ubiquitous produced eleven new American gun!” A new prehistoric animals for Ceratosaurus in 1:40 scale has you to add to your colan articulated jaw and is about lection and PT thanks Dunkleosteus 10" long. Designer Anthony has them for the review given it a bright keratin sheath copies. Two small ones and a face paint that makes the to start off with: most of it. The animal's back Mantellisaurus drinking has a row of osteoderms along it is in the popular size at and the tail is deep rather like 6" long.

CollectA that of a crocodile as it may designer Anthony Gomphotherium Estemmenosuchus have been partly aquatic in Beeson told PT that he thought its hunting. Next is a it about time that not only did Dimetrodon, also with an someone do a Mantellisaurus articulated jaw. It has a high (a gracile iguanodontid) but walk like a crocodile and a also made a dinosaur portrayed glandular, warty skin with having a drink. It is another no scales, but with scutes on British dinosaur named after his belly and underside of Gideon Mantell.

The his tail. His sail does Sciurumimus fossil is of a tiny not reach to the end of fledgling so CollectA had to its neural spines and create it at deluxe scale but it Mantellisaurus echoes the theory that is still only 5.5" long. Called the skin did not necesCollectA the squirrel-mimic due to its sarily fully cover it. It fibrous tail, this baby Mapusaurus has also sustained an dinosaur was discovered in injury, which would Germany back in 2012. The be a reality as exammodel was made at the ples of bent and fracrequest of German fans and a 34

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

tured spines have been found. Dimetrodon’s jaw is articulated. Gomphotherium in 1:20 scale is over 7" long. He is an addition to their prehistoric elephants.

He is an odd beast with his upper enamel-covered tusks recurving whilst the lower are thought to have been used for digging up roots or water plants. The length of the trunk is unknown and had to be guessed at. Brontosaurus is in their extra large popular length and is about a foot long. In celebration of the recent return of Brontosaurus, that well loved sauropod of our childhoods, Anthony thought it high time that a toy company brought out a model which is the first modern version of the species. “It has dermal spines.

There is no way of knowing if the tail spines, where present on sauropods, formed one central row or diverged into two rows like on a crocodile. I have chosen the latter position, which I believe has not been tried before on a toy. I think Matthias has again produced a lovely model under my direction.”

Matthias Geiger is a German sculptor who, in collaboration with Anthony, sculpts CollectA’s prehistoric animal figures.

Tyrannosaurus roaring with an articulated jaw is in the Deluxe 1:40 size. Anthony tells PT, “In answer both to those collectors who prefer a Tyrannosaurus without a base, and those who want them with fewer feathers, we have modelled this version of an adult Tyrannosaurus roaring that incorporates the latest theory that the adults might have had far less plumage than had previously been imagined.”

Last but definitely not least, a Mapusaurus with an articulated jaw is another Deluxe figure in 1:40 scale.

This huge Argentine theropod is one of the CollectA figures that reviewer Randy Knol and I both find especially well done. By fan request, it sports a different color scheme from the Popular model.

CollectA also offers something new now, AR (Augmented Reality.) When you point a tablet at the picture card of one of the CollectA animal figure miniatures, it “comes to life” on the screen. CollectA combines their cards and mini model in a blind bag standstill figurines with modern technology to trigger the interest of children wanting to involve their mobile devices in their daily play. With Augmented Reality (AR) CollectA’s dinosaurs come to life! Each blind bag comes with a mini dinosaur and a little card that is scannable by your smart devices and creates an onscreen dinosaur. You can enlarge the size of T. rex and control his walking speed. You can watch a Pteranodon flying and take pictures with a swimming Mosasaurus.

See AR in action at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gJhTpnFkx0

Safari Ltd American Mastodon

long. Its feathers are painted in rich detail, featuring deep reds, forest greens, slate blues and bright whites. The exposed skin areas are painted in dark grey. The Anzu wyliei is one of the latest additions to the Wild Safari® Prehistoric World collection.

Another nice new figure is Uintatherium, a large, rhinoceroslike herbivore from the Eocene Safari Ltd Anzu Wyliei

Safari Ltd Daeodon

Safari Ltd Macrauchenia

Safari Ltd Dimetrodon

Safari Ltd Regaliceratops

epoch, roughly 40 million years ago. Its unique head featured six bony knobs, and two tusks in its upper jaw. The “Beast from Uinta Mountains” figure has a detailed hide reminiscent of a rhinoceros or an elephant. This figure is 5 ¾ inches long and 2 ¾ inches tall. Its hide is grayish above, fading to a pale orange underneath. His tusks are an ivory and his eyes are brown. Please keep in mind that all of Safari Ltd’s products are Non-toxic and BPA free.

Regaliceratops means “Royal Horned Face”, referring to its head frill that features plates around the edge resembling a crown. It lived in the late Cretaceous Period, 68 million years ago, in what is now Alberta, Canada. Regaliceratops Okay, about time we talked about the huge new 2018 peterhewsi’s body was likely similar to that of line of prehistoric animal figures coming from Safari most other related ceratopsians, with short front Ltd and again, we thank Safari Ltd for the review figlegs, longer back legs, and a short tail. Its head ures. Anzu Wyliei represents the first fossil evidence of features short brow horns, a nose horn and a paroviraptorosaur dinosaurs in the United States. Anzu lived rot-like beak, with its distinctive plated frill. All Safari Ltd Megacerops of these features are reproduced in great detail in what is now North and South Dakota, and like others and are hand-painted. This Regaliceratops figure in the order Oviraptorosauria, it featured a prominent crest on its forehead, a specialized beak, and was likely covered in feathers. is 6 ¾ inches long and 2 ¾ inches tall to the top of its frill. The figure is colAnzu was large for an Oviraptorosaur, measuring over 10 feet long. “Anzu” ored a light grayish brown above with an orange underside. Its horns and is a feathered demon of Sumerian mythology, “wyliei” honors Wylie J. beak are cream-colored and its mouth is pink inside. Also new from Safari Tuttle, the grandson of a donor to the museum where the fossils are held. is Megacerops. Megacerops was similar to modern day rhinos, but was not Safari Ltd’s Anzu figure is posed in mid-run, and features intricately related. It actually belonged to a group of prehistoric animals called detailed plumage, hand-painted in striking colors. It measures 5 1/4 inches Brontotheres (“Thunder Beasts”). These animals were larger than today’s Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

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rhinos, and were the largest land mammals alive Mojo T. rex figure during the Eocene epoch around 35 million years ago. The “Large Horned Face” holds its forked nose-horn high for all to see. This figure is scientifically researched and detailed right down to its pebbly hide. It measures 6 ½ inches long to the tip of its tail. Its hide is colored a pale grayish brown.

Continuing, Safari Ltd. has also issued a cool, fearsome looking Hyaenodon, the top predators of their day, reigning for over 25 million years from the Eocene to the Miocene epochs. Though their name references the hyena, the two animals are not closely related to each other.

Hyaenodons looked like and behaved in a manner more akin to modern day wolves. This prowling Hyaenodon (“Hyena Tooth”) gigas figure is opening its mouth wide to show off its namesake teeth. The figure is individually hand-painted and sculpted in intricate, scientifically accurate detail, right down to the inside of its gaping mouth. This figure is 6 ¾ inches long and 3 inches tall. Its coat is brown above, fading to white below, with black stripes on its back, tail and legs. Its muzzle and feet are also black. It is interesting that the next new 2018 figure is Daeodon, an entelodont – a group of prehistoric hoofed mammals that resembled pigs. Daeodon was once known as “Dinohyus” which means “Terrible Pig”. Daeodons had huge heads that Mojo Allosaurus figure could measure up to three feet long, and they were omnivores, which means they ate plants and other animals. They ranged across the United States between 20 and 30 dish brown markings on its back

million years ago. This Daeodon is posed in a running stance, showing off its intimidating teeth. The figure reproduces the unique features of Daeodon, including its distinctive protruding cheekbones and thin, long legs. It features a short mane similar to that of a warthog. Its mane, hooves and tail tip are dark brown, and its color fades from brown above to a lighter brown below.

The new Safari Ltd Ankylosaurus features brown dermal plates on a darker brown upper body, with a light yellowish-brown below. The new Wild Safari Triceratops is rearing its head up, perhaps to brandish its formidable horns at a predator. This hand-painted figure is full of scaly details and scientifically accurate features, including its horns, beak, frill, stocky body and short tail and is 7 ¾ inches long. 16” long Amargasaurus cazaui, named for the La Amarga geographic formation in Argentina, is known from an almost complete skeleton that showcases its most distinct feature – two rows of large spines along the back of its neck. For a sauropod, its neck is comparatively small, and this figure replicates its unique rows of spines along its length.

Amargasaurus is a dark green above fading to a lighter shade below, with redand red tips on its spines. Also new from

Safari Ltd is a cool, new Dimetrodon, Malawisaurus (sauropod) and two, new mammals, the American Mastodon and Macrauchenia. I’ll have more photos and more Safari Ltd coverage next time.

New Prehistorix Therzinosaurus resin add-on kit

Schleich is releasing some nice looking new prehistoric animal figures in 2018. They include a Carnotaurus, a Dinogorgon (a toothy gorgonopsian from the Late Permian of Africa that people on the internet seem very excited for), an Oviraptor, Psittacosaurus, Tawa (a Late Triassic theropod from Ghost Ranch, a prehistoric man figure holding a spear in one New Mexico) and then the usual suspects - a hand and a club in the other. This is a repainted new Triceratops, a new Tyrannosaurus, and a reissue of Papo’s original version of this retired new Velociraptor figure. Papo is also reissuing their Dean Walker of Dejankins.com sent us Acrocanthosaurus in a more earth-tone paint job Mojo Fun’s nice new Allosaurus for review. from the original (thereby retiring the original, so Mojo also offers some new Tyrannosaurus rex collectors, again, be sure and grab one while you figures (in green or red) and they are doing can.) Another new figure is a Therizinosaurus repaints on several of their other prehistoric that appears to be rearing up on one foot and prefigures. On top of the beautiful new allo and senting its enormous claws. It features a moving rexes, Mojo Fun is adding four nice-looking lower jaw. An Iguanodon is another new dinosaur new dinosaurs for 2018. Their Diplodocus is a green behemoth and an figure offered from Papo. It will be posed on all fours and also feature a attractive Jurassic sauropod dinosaur. Baryonyx is going to be featured in moving jaw. Also new will be a Compsognathus figure, which in typical the second Jurassic World movie this summer and has been receiving a bit Papo style will look a lot like the “Compys” of criticism for not looking accurate enough. Mojo Fun is offering a much from Lost World, Jurassic Park. And finally better looking Baryonyx, although I’m not so sure about it’s bright blue col- there will be a beautiful Quetzalcoatlus down oring. Also cool is their on all fours. Papo will also offer a Dinosaur new Giganotosaurus, one Playset which will be made of thick cardboard Schleich Psittacosaurus of the largest theropods of and feature a volcano, cave and palm trees, etc. the Mesozoic. And finally, It is still unknown if the set will include any a feathered Deinonychus in dinosaur figures. a large size. the giganoto is almost 14 inches long and Schleich Dinogorgon Mark Kreiss of Prehistorix the Deinonychus is close to resin models sent us their latest that length too. All are for review - Therizinosaurus. exciting additions to the This is a large, add on kit that Mojo Fun line and a welutilizes the body and large tail Schleich Tawa come improvement over section of the Prehistoric some of their previous figScenes Allosaurus so cusures. In this reporter’s opintomers will have to have an ion, Mojo Fun is becoming extra allosaur laying around. a true contender in the Cliff Payne on Facebook may help you out with that as he is the go-to guy world of prehistoric animal for old Aurora parts or you can pick up a Revell re-issue and use that. figures with these new Prehistorix’s resin dinosaur models are in the style of the old Aurora sculpts and it’s very excitPrehistoric Scenes plastic model kits and can be added next to their bases. ing. For the lowest price and superior service, do all of your prehistoric ani- Therizinosaurus includes nicely sculpted head, lower jaw, tongue, right and mal figure shopping at dejankins.com. They have redone their internet site left legs, right and left arms, huge right and left claws, tail tip, large plant, and it really looks great and is so much faster to surf neck collar, base and box with instructions. through. You can find just about any figure you want This is a detailed dinosaur kit which looks really great there too and the service is always so friendly. when finished - right along the same style as the origiPapo of France is issuing a number of new dinosaur nal Aurora of the 70s. The base fits right up against the figures for 2018. Much of the information I got on the old Aurora Tar Pit. Using the Aurora (or re-issued) Papo dinosaurs came from Mike Walley of Everything Allosaurus body makes this kit well over a foot tall! You Dinosaur, his cool company in the UK. (www.everymay want to add some weight to the large tail section thingdinosaur.com) Papo presently offers a boxed set before gluing and check the placement of the feet on the with their Ceratosaurus dinosaur and an exclusive base before gluing to the body. It is sculpted by Bill young Spinosaurus figure. Previously this figure was Voyce who also did the wonderful job on the box graphnot sold separately but now it will be sold by itself and ics which were then refined, molded and cast by owner the boxed set is being retired. It will soon be a collectible Mark Kreiss. The Prehistorix Therizinosaurus add-on so you might want to grab it now. The young spinosaur resin kit is $75 plus $17.15 expedited shipping on Ebay. basically just looks like a smaller version of Papo’s adult You can also check out the Prehistorix site for this and figure. The young spino has a moving jaw. Much like other models at prehistorix.wixsite.com/prehistorix or Safari Ltd for 2018, Papo is introducing their own Robert Telleria shows us this new line of small through their Facebook.

Amargasaurus, but in a brown color. Also from Papo is skeletal dinosaur figures from Kaiyodo of Japan.

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

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Sea Scorpions

© Samuel Pickens

By Phil Hore kimba18@gmail.com

© Douglas Henderson douglashendersonehi.com Bright spears of sunlight pierce even the darkest recess of the wide lagoon, with its white sands reflecting this light through the crystal-clear water. Moving in and out of this light swims what at first looks like a small black dot but soon grows into one of the most dangerous predators of the Ordovician Seas.

Greek warship pentekonter (‘fifty-oared’) the creature will one day be named after.

The Pentecopterus (‘penteconter wing’) swims closer to shore. Its body resembles a scorpion, though no scorpion has ever been this large. At 6 feet long, the eurypterid is actually about to grow even larger soon and is looking for a calm, safe location where it can begin to molt. This growth requires shedding its old skin to allow a new, larger exoskeleton to form and space for the creature to grow.

Schools of tiny, jawless fish flit in, out, behind, and under the various

© Rocio Zapata

Pterygotus anglicus ©Frank Lode There is very little movement in the body; instead propulsion is supplied by the rearmost, paddle-like legs. The stroke of these is lazy through the water, resembling the ancient

© Luis Rey https://luisrey.wordpress.com

© Mike Landry

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Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

rocks and dead vegetation lining the shore, but these are so small and elusive that the sea scorpion could not be bothered hunting them. Below, smaller eurypterids ply through the sandy bottom, sweeping the seafloor with their front legs to sift out

© John Sibbick www.johnsibbick.com

© Diane Ramic

any morsel of food it contains. When they see the predator coming, they begin to shimmy and shake their bodies back © Sergey Krasovskiy and forth, burying themselves in the sand for protection.

Ignoring these, what does catch the arthropod’s weird, chemical-receptor eyes is the squadron of 10-foot-long nautiloids jetting their way through the slightly deeper water offshore. Their staccato swimming style is created by the pumping motion they make as they suck water in and then squeeze it out through their siphon, creating a powerful water jet.

Normally a deep-sea species, the cephalopods have become disoriented by the confusing tides created by a hurricane forming farther out to sea, and moving into shallow water places them in a precarious position. There are simply few places for them to hide or run to along the beach’s shallow edge.

Although it has not been hunting, the eurypterid is not going to allow an opportunity like this to slip by, and with the twist of its segmented body it banks and then starts to paddle faster with its legs.

T h i s © Fred Snyder motion is joined by the out and then slowing © Rossy Zapata up-and-down beat of to an almost stop as its broad tail, creating they begin sucking even more propulsion. more water in, only to What the eurypterid then jet off again. the could not understand Meanwhile Pentecopterus continis that these clear conditions also made ues to swim through every move it makes the water with dolobservable, and the phin-like flaps of its alerted cephalopods tail, closing quickly soon turn and try to when its prey slows and then seemingly falling behind when they jet away, but this is a chase of escape.

For nearly a mile endurance. Each time the cephalopods need to stop and suck in water, the the weird ballet of the sea scorpion closes the distance a little more.

On and on the chase continues until all the participants suddenly swim hunt plays out, with the nautiloids speed- across an enormous pit. The seafloor drops away sharply, and the deeper, ing up as they jet water darker water below is perfect for the cephalopods to hide in. One by one Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter2017

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E. remipes, New York State official fossil ©Meg Bernstein

they dive into the abyss, but the eurypterid is now so close that it simply will not give up the chase, and it continues to follow closely behind.

Almost immediately something seems to be wrong.

It’s as though both predator and prey have begun swimming through a thick liquid as each slows, their movements laborious and erratic. They continue to dive, though it’s now a chase in slow motion.

The deepest nautiloid is the first to succumb; its tentacles suddenly go limp and its heavy shell noses down like a spear. Trailing its long tentacles behind, the cephalopod plummets down, before planting itself shell-first in the seafloor below. It is soon joined by the rest of the squadron, but some remain reasonably buoyant because air is trapped within their long cone shell. These flutter down like a falling leaf and come gently to rest amongst the forest of dead nautiloid trees.

The eurypterid, its predatory brain ignoring the obvious danger and only recognizing the easy meal before it, follows the cephalopods down until a weird,

the entire animal’s body shudders once and then stops moving completely and drops like a stone.

The dead Pe n t e c o p t e r u s hits the seafloor with a thud, with a cloud of silt erupting all about it. When this debris finally set40

tles, it covers the remains of not just the arthropod, but also the hundreds of dead sea creatures littering the seafloor with it, their bodies untouched thanks to the deadly embrace of these anoxic waters.

What none of them could have known was they had swum into the fresh Pterygotus carmani © Elliot Smith

Jaekelopterus twitching shimmer runs along its legs and long pincers.

These begin snapping open and closed, as though fighting off a phantom enemy, before

© Rossy Zapata

© Clinton Harris

scar of a meteorite impact, and within this large ocean crater no freshwater could flow. The sharp sides of the basin, along with its high, protruding edge had created a swimming pool of water where the oxygen levels in the trapped waters had become so low that not even bacteria could survive. Here everything and anything that died will lie until their bodies are covered from sediments and the steadily collapsing crater walls perfectly preserved them

sculpture by Quentin Brendel

Prehistoric Times No.124 Winter 2017

tributaries. There is also no evidence that for all time. © Chrissy Spallone they actually injected venom with those Eurypterus—or ‘broad paddle’ after the large spiked tails either, though some paleontoloappendages that ended in the wide oar structures gists conjecture they did. they used for swimming and direction—were Their legs were covered in hair-like strucamongst the largest arthropods to have ever tures, possibly used as sensory devices, lived. while their head sported four eyes, two large First appearing in the Ordovician, like so outer eyes and two smaller ones located many extinct species they can be problematic, within. and their family relationships of the group have Despite being large, scary, hairy, and been somewhat mystifying. These were checovered with thick armor, sea scorpions licerates (/kih-LIS-uh-rayts/, ‘claw-horns’), were not invulnerable to attack or infestamaking them related to arachnids and crabs, and tion. One large fossil containing eurypterid for a long time they were believed to be ancesarmor was found to also contain some of the tral to the horseshoe crab. Today we understand oldest barnacles ever discovered. Called they are more likely a sister group.

Cyprilepas holmi, these small crustaceans There are two suborders recognized. The are believed to have been parasites, which Pterygotina had large pincers and simple walkburrowed into the skin of the predator. ing-digging legs, whereas the Eurypterina had Although we traditionally think of these legs forming swimming paddles. Together they as a marine group with small legs and large contain a dozen recognized families with hunpaddles for swimming, most either lived dreds of species described from sediments along the shoreline in lagoons and such, and across the world. The only continent eurypterids these species had far larger, more robust legs have not been found on is Antarctica, but fossil (like crabs) that allowed them to pull themtrackways from this frozen continent prove they selves out of the water. The Tumblagooda certainly lived there too. sandstone of West Australia contains the oldMost species are discerned by variations in est known terrestrial footprints of any anitheir legs, whether they had limbs shaped like mal, most likely made from eurypterids scutpaddles or distinct features along their bellies. tling across what was once an ancient These variations can make identifica© Jaime Martinez beach. These prints indicate some tion difficult though, because often used in-phase, hexapodous (sixsuch features are hidden if the fossil legged) gaits and others octopodous remains in the rock; for example, if (eight-legged) gaits. only the top of the specimen is visible, How these creatures breathed was how can you tell the species when the likely the same way a Scottish fossil legs and belly are hidden? millipede called Pneumodesmus newAll this should also be taken with a mani did (which is currently the oldgrain of salt though because there is est known terrestrial creature from a still a lot of work to be done with the fossil) because it appears to have poseurypterids, and so any current assosessed spiracles, an air-breathing sysciation could be considered only temtem still found in many insects today. porary. All too often when groups Jason Dunlop of the University of have been classified by shared physiManchester has reported finding slitcal features, those classifications are like structures and book lungs on later revealed to be misleading. For some eurypterid fossils. Such strucexample, as mentioned, the horseshoe tures are today known only in arachcrab is often linked to the group; others claim they are sister groups, sharing a common ancestor. Finally there is nids to help them breathe air. This led to an early belief that eurypterids were a theory that horseshoe crabs are the ancestors of both eurypterids and other terrestrial creatures until the presence of pseudotracheae (tube structures arachnids. Which is correct? No one is really sure (though sister groups is generally used for taking food up into the mouth) meant they were also capable of breathing underwater. most likely).

The oldest fossil of the group is Physically sea scorpions can be © Nick Papadimitriou old. years million 467.3 recognized by their squarish heads, Pentecopterus was found just over a followed by a twelve-segmented decade ago in Ordovician sediments body. The largest of these sections under the Iowa River. There are two was flat and rounded, followed by a things that make these fossils unusual; longer, jointed torso that tapered all the first is that they were found within the way back and ended in a long the confines of the Decorah meteorite spine, present even on the species crater. There are many small impact that had wide fluke-like tails. This sites across the central states of the gave them their famous scorpion-like USA, and all are of an equivalent age. appearance, thus the reason they’re This indicates they were part of the known as sea scorpions, despite not same meteorite impact event, and being that closely related to scorpisomehow many sea scorpions died and ons and most not actually living in were fossilized within the confines of the sea. Many fossils are found in one of these craters. sediments of lagoons and freshwater Prehistoric Times No.124 Winter 2017

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Secondly, there is simply no way Pentecopterus was the first eurypterid, despite being the oldest so far found. At just under 6 feet in length this was a large animal, and it’s doubtful the sea scorpion evolved from a similarly sized ancestor, and so it’s probable they date back even further than this; just their fossils are yet to be unearthed.

The largest species found so far was Jaekelopterus. At over 8 feet, not only was this the largest eurypterid, it was also the largest arthropod ever known and would have been one of the top predators during the Devonian. Today the Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) is wider because their legs can stretch to 18 feet, but since the crab’s body is only around 16 inches, they are far lighter than Jaekelopterus was.

Mistakes There have been many mistakes made over the years associated with this group, including right at the start. The first fossil ever unearthed was by a collector called S. L. Mitchell, who in 1818 discovered a fossil he believed belonged to a catfish because of the barbels coming from its mouth. Just a few years later James De Kay noticed the mistake, recognizing the fossil belonged to an arthropod, but he thought it was a giant brachiopod.

Palaeos.com notes that Ernst Stromer

once believed they swam upside down, “using their gill plates like huge fairy shrimps,” and it was European specimens of extraordinary quality that helped clear up this confusion.

The most famous and controversial of these fossil mistakes— and one that highlights how easily mistakes can be made in paleontology—was a specimen once considered to be an enormous spider.

Unearthed in Argentina, Megarachne servinei was the largest spider ever known and became the star of the BBC’s Walking with Monsters.

Unfortunately this series was well and truly into production and the specific episode highlighting Megarachne had already aired when news broke the world’s largest spider was in fact no spider at all. Now memory can be tricky, but I do recall its being named Megarachne when I watched the original run on TV. Its origins had always been doubted, but when a second specimen was unearthed, proving the true identity as a eurypterid, the producers of Walking with Monsters moved quickly to repair the damage when the series was released on DVD. The footage remained, but a new voiceover noted that this was now a fictional species of spider capable of hunting large reptiles—now called Mesothelae—that could have existed at the time.

Cretaceo us Cl assif ieds Free to subscribers but must be updated each issue WANTED: Thinking of selling your dinosaur collection in whole or in part? Contact me first for options. I may just be interested. jdemarco13@comcast.net or 412-901-8982

For Sale: Complete set of twenty 1950s Shreddies dinosaur premiums from UK: $400. I’m thinning out my 30+ year collection of vintage dinosaur figures and memorabilia. Also available are a complete set of original Timpo prehistoric figures, including the rare unbroken stegosaurus, which was never recast. Other available sets or figures include a few Messmore and Damon 1933 World’s Fair figures as well as the original decorative box they were sold in, World’s Fair triceratops bottle opener and WF brontosaur paperweight, Chialus, SRG, Cherilea, Alva, Brumm and other European metal flats, Sterling Lanier (Smithsonian) bronzes, William Otto prehistorics, Flintstone Hunting Party dinosaurs in various colors, a near complete set of rare Kaiyodo Dinoland figures, including the rare Quetzalcoatlus, and much more. Contact Larry at 703-5270910 or droogx47@gmail.com WANTED: David Krentz's bronze pieces and 1/72 resin apatosaurus, Michael Trcic's 1/35 T-Rex from Meso-Zoo series, Tony McVey's Deinonychus "birdwatcher" Contact me at: txhhg1984@yahoo.com.

For Sale or exchange: Australian dinosaur related figures and publications. Its not a vast collection, but includes figures that have never been released widely and obscure publications from Australia's small but perfectly formed scientific and dino enthusiast community. Please email me for a full list. denisg@tpg.com.au Wanted: I am looking to purchase a Sideshow Collectible Apatosaurus. There were two different sculptures released.

Please let me know asap. My email is ernestt@rogers.com For Sale: Large Collection of plastic prehistoric figure.

Hundreds of different Marx, MPC, Invicta, Safari & other generic figures and accessories plus prehistoric related books and comic books $260.00. Issues of Prehistoric Times #60 - #99 - $240.00 Asking $499.99 for all. Please contact Gregory Flanagan, 268 7th St., Brooklyn, NY 11215, (718) 499-1939 FOR SALE from FRANCE : WM OTTO La Brea Tar Pits (American cave bear, ancient bison, Smilodon, Colombian mammoth, Teratornis ), HENKEL / OVOMALTINE numerous figures including rare Scolosaurus, Pterichthys and Pteranodon , YOPLAIT (yellow scolosaur), STARLUX (possible complete set and many figures), very rare CAFE BOCA (= mini Starlux 35 millimeters : Brontotherium, Deinotherium, Baluchitherium, Saltoposuchus), PANINI, SCHLEICH (classics series), LINDE (several complete sets with the Rhamphorhynchus from Austria), BASEL MUSEUM Tsintaosaurus, WAGNER dinosaurs (like Shreddies), NABISCO cereals (complete sets of mammals & dinosaurs). Please contact me (Jean-Marie LEONARD) at: Jean-Marie.Leonard@egis.fr WANTED: Bullyland Dire Wolf figure. If you have one I shall offer you a higher price. Contact: teddy_lam@hotmail.com Zdenek Burian souvenirs- Post cards, coffee mugs, posters and more! See website at- http://www.zdenekburian.com/en/ e-mail: j.hochman@volny.cz SHREDDIES FOR SALE - I have the following U.K. Nabisco Shreddies (1950’s) prehistoric animals for sale. A full set of 20 in perfect condition (white) $650. A full set of 20 in perfect condition except that the Tyrannosaurus has the usual missing tip to the tail (mainly pale cream) $620. Single items all perfect except for Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Plateosaurus, Brontosaurus, Protoceratops, Palaeotherium, Mastodonsaurus, Tyrannosaurus (tip of tail missing), Woolly Rhinoceras, Iguanodon. $25 each. I can provide cream or white so please state preference and I have others with slight damage for $10 -20 each. The two time-wheels given with the ‘sendaway for’ sets $100. For Sale or Exchange: UK dinosaur toys and cards from the 1950's to the 1970's Timpo, Cherilea, Shreddies, etc. I will exchange for Sinclair, SRG, etc email Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter2017

mehowgate@hotmail.com for my list.

WANTED: offering $600 for the SRG large Neanderthal woman. Also looking for certain of the original descriptive cards that came with the SRG dinos. I am also interested in any magazines containing ads for SRG products. I have for sale some of the small SRG figures, including some of the rarer pieces. Please respond to jstahlman@yahoo.com FOR SALE: Complete collection of Prehistoric Times #1 113 plus the next eight issues. Collection of Indian Artifact Magazines 1982 - 2012; all in binders. Complete collection of Dinosaurs The Encyclopedia Vol. 1 plus all seven supplements (Don Glut). Complete set of Dinosaurs (Atlas Addition) All 103 volumes in original binders plus 3-d glasses. Many books on dinosaurs, fossil and other dinosaur magazines. 80 volumes of National Geographic magazines that cover dinosaurs and origins of man. Complete collection of CollectA dinosaurs 2006 - 2014. All standard and deluxe models plus plants, all new.

Please contact Bobby Goodman at 727-424-7881 or email me at twinmama84@yahoo.com if you are interested in anything.

Prehistoric Planet Store. “The Museum Where You Can Purchase Every Exhibit”. We have over 1000 dinosaur skulls, skeletons, models, fossil, rock and mineral items at PrehistoricStore.com. Like our Facebook Page and post on our wall why you like dinosaurs.....We’ll enter you in our monthly drawing for a free replica dinosaur claw. https://www.facebook.com/prehistoricplanetstore.com.

WANTED: Aurora Prehistoric Scenes model kit pink instructions from Canada (litho in Canada): Neanderthal man (729), Cave (732), Tar Pit (735), Cave Bear (738), Jungle Swamp (740), Three-Horned Dinosaur (741), Wooly Mammoth (743).

Please send infos to: gilbert.gaumond@polyone.com Wanted: Louis Marx 6” cavemen, Miller dinosaurs, MPC World of Prehistoric Monsters playset, any MPC dinosaurs, Marx Prehistoric Times #3988 playset, Marx Prehistoric Mountain playset, Marx Prehistoric playset #3398 w/ waxy figures, Marx World of Dinosaurs Storage Box set, Marx #2650 Prehistoric playset (The holy grail) and Ajax dinosaurs. James J. Berger, 3515 Howard St., Park City, Il 60085 1-847-625-1807 For Sale : I'm downsizing a very large collection of various pieces amassed over 20 years of collecting. I have many unique and extremely hard to find dinosaurs and mammals that are no longer in production. Call and or e-mail for more information on what's available. dwmadd@fuse.net 513-737-6695 For Sale or trade: I offer all the large J H Miller prehistoric animals/dinosaurs, caveman, cavewoman and cave. I have many SRG, both large and small, including the caveman, a complete set of Linde dinos, complete set of Battat (Boston Museum) dinos, Castagna dinos, Alva Bronto, Marx, Chialu, Starlux and more. Call Jim Van Dyke 616-669-3897 dino3045@alldial.net WANTED: RAY HARRYHAUSEN & STOP-MOTION RELATED 'ZINES Colossa #1 (1993) / Hollywood Horror Classics #4 (1996) Cinemagram #1 (1964) / Cinefantastique #2 (Mimeo - Apr 1967) Mystification #6 (1965) / Animals Magazine (Aug 1969) - British Wonder #2 (Summer 1989) / Box Office Vol. 90 #16 (Feb 6 1967) Spectre #18 (Mar/Apr 1968) / Photon #1, 7, 13 (1963, 1965, 1967) Vampire's Crypt #8 (Dec 1963) / Amazing Screen Horrors #6 (1966) Just Imagine #4 (1977) - British / Cosmos Aventuras #9 (May 1964) Ray Harryhausen Journal (1973) / Animation Journal #4 (May 1965) Stop-Motion Monsters of Filmland #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 Japanese (1990’s) King Kong: Unauthorized Jewish Fractals in Philopatry (1996) Contact: Scott McRae (scobart@yahoo.com) Wanted: PT issues 1-22 & later back issues no longer available through PT, Marx dinos in metallic green and gold, Pom Poms candy boxes w/ Aurora Prehistoric Scenes art on them, Revell Quick Snap tiny dinos Allosaurus and T. rex, SRG metal Dinychthys fish, Chialu (Italian composition) Brachuchenius & Pteranodon, La Brea (Wm Otto) T. rex, For Trade/Sale: vintage dinosaurs of most manufacturers. I’ve got a ton of old dinosaur figures for sale. I’m always buying pre-1970s dino collectibles --Please contact Mike Fredericks 145 Bayline Cir, Folsom, Ca 95630-8077, (916) 985-7986 pretimes@comcast.net WANTED: Prehistoric Times issues 79, 81, 83, and 84. Also looking for any books, magazines, and/or DVDs on whale evolution/extinct whales/dolphins, ancient marine reptiles, elephant evolution/extinct elephants, and shark evolution/extinct sharks. Will pay by money order only. Also looking for any information on fossils in Alabama, Mississippi, and the rest of the southeastern US. Please call 205-269-7054.

For Sale: 3/4'” cloisonne lapel pin that states: REUNITE GONDWANALAND and depicts Pangea and Laurasia united in one huge continent. Only a limited number are available. $8 includes the pin and postage. Contact Lynne Dickman, (406)

728-5221, lddickman@blackfoot.net Wanted: Hobby Trading Post (Nu-Card) DINOSAURS cards (B&W, post-card size) #'s 7, 13, 15, 28. I will gladly purchase these but I also have many duplicate cards available for trade. I would prefer "nice" condition cards (e.g., VG+ to Mint) without major creasing or other significant defects. Please contact me (Mike Riley) at: mmriley@dinofan.com or at 303-566-1267 (weekdays, 7:00 am to 4:00 pm, MDT).

MODELERS: PT build up writer, Sean Kotz, now has a national hobby column on line at the Examiner. I am committed to bringing paleo models, sculptors and kits to the forefront on a regular basis, as well as all other forms of modeling from plastic kits to rocket ships. Go to www.examiner.com and search for "Model Building Examiner" or my name and bookmark or subscribe. You can also search on Facebook Playset Magazine Plastic heaven, America's best info on vintage playsets by Marx and others from the Atomic Era and Beyond. Battleground, Zorro, news, classifieds to buy, color glossy. Complete website listings too! www.playsetmagazine.com, email playsetmagazine@aol.com, or call (719) 634-7430 J H Miller repaired - your broken and incomplete vintage J H Miller plastic figures -expertly repaired. Ask for Nick Lamanec (484) 274-0315 TOP DOLLAR PAID for prehistoric animal postcards including diorama scenes, statues, fossils, museum displays, etc. I also would like to purchase prehistoric animal museum or excavation site brochures and posters. If you have vintage dinosaur or prehistoric animal books or photographs from the 1900's up to 1980 please let me know since I also collect these.

I have lots for trade if that is preferable. Please contact Stephen Hubbell (253) 851-7036 or email me at morpheus@centurytel.net.

PALEODIRECT.COM Your direct source for the finest and rarest fossil specimens along with tools and weapons of primitive man. With several thousand pages of fossils and primitive man artifacts displayed online, PaleoDirect.com is truly one of the largest online paleontological suppliers across the globe. Categories include a BROAD DIVERSITY of both INVERTEBRATE and VERTEBRATE fossils. We also specialize in genuine TOOLS and WEAPONS of PRIMITIVE HUMANS from the Lower PALEOLITHIC through the NEOLITHIC Periods up to and including the Iron Age. PALEO DIRECT, Inc. is a full-time, professional supplier and a member of the American Association of Paleontological Suppliers.We acquire specimens direct from the source regions of the world through exclusive affiliations with the diggers and their management as well as conduct several of our own international collecting expeditions each year. Furthermore, many of our rare specimens are prepared in-house by our own conservation facilities and staff. New material from around the world is constantly being added. If you wish to be added to our email list for when new specimens are updated to the website, please email or call us and let us know. PALEO DIRECT, INC. P. O. Box 160305 Altamonte Springs, FL 32716-0305 (407) 7741063 www.PaleoDirect.com Trex@paleodirect.com Supplying museums, educational facilities and collectors around the world.

PT Subscribers! Did you check the address label on your PT envelope? If the number after your address is 123, it is time to re-subscribe!

43

3 Tales

books, but these were actually swimming!

Early Trilobite by

CJ squinted her eyes and saw what she

Mike Fredericks

thought were shark fins off in the distance. To be safe, she continued her exploration from the shoreline. CJ reached down into the water and carefully brought up a trilobite. It was small, about as long as her pinkie finger and

CJ’s Paleozoic Adventure

tickled as it crawled across her hand.

By Lee Luckeydoo LLuckeydoo@gmail.com

A sudden movement behind CJ startled her and she dropped both the trilobite and Mae to the ground. A couple of lizard looking reptiles were quickly moving toward her. CJ picked up

On a pleasant summer day in Texas, a little girl

Mae and began to back away from the crea-

and her family were exploring a large pit filled

tures. These lizard- like creatures, called

with fossils. Casey Jane, known as CJ by her fam-

Hylonomus, stared at CJ as they moved

ily, was holding her favorite doll named Mae;

towards the water. CJ tripped over something

they both explored the three hundred million year

on the ground behind her. She closed her eyes

old fossils as a team. Mae was dressed for adven-

as she tumbled over.

ture with her backpack, boots, and pocketed vest to hold samples and equipment. CJ even made a little spade for her to use today.

CJ suddenly opened her eyes with a gasp, dropping Mae. She was back in her car, but it was now parked at a gas station. Her eyes darted around to

“I can’t wait to take a closer look at our fossils, Mae—Let’s see if Nina has hers out yet!”

figure out what was happening.

“Did you see it?” asked the startled CJ.

CJ’s sister Nina had laid out her fossils on one of the picnic tables and was using park posters to help her identify what she found. CJ joined her and spread hers on the other end of the table.

“Did we see what?” replied a smiling Nina.

Their mom suggested they get out and stretch their legs for a few minutes. CJ picked up Mae to put her back in her seat. She noticed that Mae was

“Look at these cool crinoid stalks I dug up!” cried Nina to CJ. The crinoids looked like crooked stacks of buttons or pennies.

a lot heavier than she was before. CJ carefully raised the flap on Mae’s tiny backpack. To her amazement, a little trilobite fossil fell out into her hand.

“Amazing. Did you know you can still see distant relatives of these graceful sea creatures living today? They call them sea lilies,” explained Nina.

“What is your coolest fossil from today?” asked Nina.

CJ looked over her finds and picked up a swirly gastropod shell. It still had a sharp point and she tried to imagine the ancient snail that lived in it.

END OF THE DINOSAURS

Before long, her eyes landed on another pointed fossil.

By Charles Greene

crglstyd@att.net

“Wow, a sharks tooth!” whooped CJ. “It’s still hard to image Texas was under water way back in time.”

The television program Nova may have solved the mystery of the K-T

Digging for fossils under the broiling Texas sun made both girls sleepy.

event and may not realize they’ve done it. The episode titled Killer Volcanos

Shortly after gathering their things and buckling into the car, CJ was fast

was searching for the cause of the Little Ice Age in the thirteen hundreds. It

asleep with Mae in her lap.

concentrated on the mass burial sites near London and why so many people

CJ suddenly opened her eyes. Something wasn’t right.

had died in one year that mass graves had to be used.

Her feet were lying in water. Her back was lying on a

One key here is a time when the cold lasted longer, the

sandy river bank. Mae was still in her hand, but water

mass deaths were concentrated in a single year.

stretched out as far as she could see. Where was she? She

The show made no mention of dinosaurs. But as I

looked along the edge of the shore and saw abundant sea

watched, it became clear that an event such as they were

lilies with small creatures swimming along their bottoms: trilobites!

“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed CJ. “I must be back in time, all the way back to the Carboniferous period .”

Crinoids by Mike Fredericks

talking about would have the same effect on life at the end of the Cretaceous.

Dinosaurs and much of the animal life became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. Birds, lizards, snakes,

She peered into the water again. CJ could also see bra-

crocodilians, and fish survived, as well as most plants.

chiopods with shells just like the ones she found earlier

The animals that survived were small. An asteroid

today in the fossil pit. Right alongside of those were

struck near the Yucatan peninsula at that time. The

corals and round curly shells that looked like Nautiluses.

inland waterway dividing east and west North America

They were just like the drawings she’d seen in library

was drying up. Volcanic eruptions were frequent.

44

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Iridium has been found at the K-T boundary. Iridium is released in both The sign read NO FISHING but the ten year old ignored it. He was

asteroid strikes and volcanic eruptions.

The most popular theory today, attributes the extinction to the asteroid,

going to fish at Miller's Pond anyway and saw no reason a sign should be

but can’t explain why certain animals and plants survived when the

there in the first place. It is a tranquil area at present but unknown to him,

dinosaurs and others failed to do so. It also fails to explain why the life in

there have been three disappearances here in the last month. The ten year old

the southern hemisphere was effected. As Nova illustrated during their show,

boy named Larry had received a fishing pole from Pro Bass Shop as a birth-

when a volcano erupts, debris is flung high into the atmosphere. The ash and

day present and was anxious to try it out. He made it to a rock at the pond's

larger pieces soon return to the earth. But unless the volcano is at or near the

edge, sat upon it, and cast a line into the water. Larry was on spring break

equator all this debris stays in one hemisphere. The volcano which they

and what better time to celebrate than to fish?

located was near Java, halfway around the world from Europe. This would

After fifteen minutes he pulled the line back in. The bait was a piece

also hold true for an asteroid. The asteroid hit is in my opinion too far north

of bread so he removed it and selected something better. Larry took a four

to cause problems in the southern hemisphere. I don’t have a super comput-

inch Tournament Series Squirmin' Worm and attached it to the hook. With a

er to verify this, one way or another but there is one crucial difference

flick of his wrist the line flew and plopped into the water. He leaned back

between the two kinds of events, volcanos release sulfuric acid. According

and relaxed. Should be a good catch since there weren't other anglers here

to the show, this reflects sunlight thereby cooling the planet. The show made

competing with him.

There was only the sound of nature to keep him company. Sounds made

no mention of cooling caused by dust.

The records from the middle ages show that the cooling caused by the

from birds, crickets, dragonflies, and frogs were heard. Of the latter, frogs

eruption was a short term event. The mass starvations only lasted a year.

were in decline here. Before there were frogs aplenty but now barely any

Why is that important? All the animals that survived, have strategies for sur-

remained since they were caught as food or as pets with some killed and

viving short term cool periods. Birds are known to survive winters in the

used as bait to snare larger fish.

north or migrate. Lizards and turtles will go

Larry wanted to return home with some-

underground. Snakes will do the same or in some cases den together. Mammals have fur.

thing to validate his enthusiasm for fishing.

Fossil by Mike Fredericks

Crocodilians den up. Fish migrate.

He needed merely one bite. Larry wasn't sure what species of fish dwelled here; most like-

Why didn’t the other animals survive? Nova

ly bluegill or minnow. As if on cue, a yank on

answered that. The mini ice age caused mass

his pole jolted his attention.

starvation and death due to crop failure. When

Larry fought hard to reel it in. Whatever

the plants died or dropped their foliage, the larg-

it was, it was putting up a struggle. Nothing

er plant-eating dinosaurs starved, followed by

was large enough to fight this much but if he

the meat eaters. Smaller dinosaurs died of

landed the thing he would be the talk of the

hypothermia. The sea life that perished in the

neighborhood. The force grappling with him was overwhelming and he couldn't maintain

oceans did so because of the acid rain; an event we can witness today in the die offs at coral reefs.

The scenario. A killer volcano near the equator erupts spewing ash and sulfuric acid miles into the atmosphere. Most of the ash returns to earth, but

balance on the rock he stood on. The struggle ended when Larry was violently pulled off the rock and into the water. There were bubbles and the water settled to be peaceful once more.

the sulfuric acid in an aerosol form encircles the entire world cooling it.

Poor Larry, he should have read the NO FISHING sign and took heed.

Plants die or go dormant. Plant eating dinosaurs soon starve. The meat

Another disappearance to add to the list of missing persons. He told his par-

eaters don’t last much longer, as their food source dies. Smaller animals that

ents he was going fishing nearby. They knew it was the pond and told him

have them, enact their cold weather strategies. The oceans are contaminated

not to. The sheriff will find Larry's tackle box and fishing pole but the only

by the rain and the result is similar to that on land. As the sulfuric rain

thing of Larry would be a shoe. There would be talk of dredging the pond

lessens, the world warms and the surviving plants and animals remerge and

but for now a family would grieve.

life continues.

At midnight there was a bright moon and stars were clearly seen.

One last comment. It’s impossible to tell if the asteroid impact happened

Moonlight shown upon the surface of Miller's Pond with glimmering effect.

at the same time, before, or after. It may well be its strike was the trigger for

Nature seemed to come alive in the lunar spotlight with a chorus of croak-

the eruption.

ing serenading the avenging of a species. The frogs have made a comeback following ruthless persecution. The croaking grew loader and something broke the surface and stepped forth on land. It gave a booming croak and

NO FISHING

then coughed up something into the mud. It was the severed right hand of a small boy. THE END.

by Wade Carmen wade04191967@gmail.com (To fish in troubled waters. Matthew Henig: Commentaries) Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

45

When the Revised rose to the challenge

By Pat Schaefer

The three original Louis Marx dinosaur toy figure mold groups (large, medium, small) were a great success. I got all of the figures in 1957 but I wanted MORE; more groups with new figures. Every year, I scoured the Sears Wishbook to see if any new dinosaurs were being offered.

Thirty years would pass before I spied any new figures there, but that will have to be a story for another time. Unbeknownst to me, the fourth set of Marx dinosaur figures had come out years earlier. But, NOT figures of new dinosaurs, instead, they were revisions of figures that had been already released. This was the Revised mold group. Why the heck would they have done this? It has always been a bit of a mystery why the fourth set of figures Marx released was kind of a do-over. In this article, we will shed some light on why that happened. It started with an idea.

At Marx, great ideas were just the start. Marx Toys was a manufacturing powerhouse. It was its expertise in the manufacture of tin/metal, plastic, and paper goods, coupled with a tremendous grasp of logistics, planning, and scheduling, that resulted in the great success Marx enjoyed over a span of 53 years (1919 - 1972). Author Rusty Kern has told the Marx story well. This article will be modeled after his “Inside Marx VI: Christmas to Christmas - The Assembly Line”, PFPC No. 58, Dec. 1998. The article followed Louis Marx & Company through the ins and outs of the 1959 Toy Year. We will be using this as a template, slide the process back one year and show how, in 1958, a simple idea for a toy created a problem that only a new mold could solve. Still, what was a good idea without great marketing? So Marx also created a new Marx P(aper) product, one designed to display and sell the first Revised figures. Of course, the story of the rise of the Revised had a happy ending, but as in all good stories, there was first a touch of woe and troubles surmounted.

Marx P(aper) products aside: What exactly were Marx P(aper) products?

It may have been the first thing out of the box, or the last thing, it could have been the box itself. You may have paid it little or no attention. Made of paper, somewhere on each item a Marx P-ID had been printed. The PID could have been something like “P-913”, ”P-1007”, “P-1078”, “P2246” or “P-0046 A”. The “P” in the ID was for P(aper) just like the “PL” in “PL-977” stood for P(lastic) L(ine).

The number was just an identifier and did not reveal the nature of the product. These items were generally just add ins to the sets, like instruction sheets or booklets, they occasionally played a bigger role as with boxes and cards. The story about the rise of the Revised involved just one paper product, the “P-1078”.

1) Marx had an idea. It was 1958.

Marx had already sold dinosaur figures, loose in store bins and bundled in bags, but now, how about attached to a card? The idea might have been pitched something like this: “Take the 8 most popular, most profitable figPrehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

ures and attach them to a colorful illustrated card. Get them on revolving wire racks in toy stores everywhere!” Anytime was a good time for an idea, but at Marx the idea had to have hatched by February or early March, in time to make an appearance at the annual Toy Fair in New York. Eight prehistoric animal figures: Brontosaurus, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops, Trachodon, Dimetrodon, and Tyrannosaurus, plus 2 cavemen, attached to a paper card; 1 card, 10 figures, how hard could THAT have been?

2) Marx designed and modeled figures. If new figures were needed, Marx had them designed, and models were made for mold makers to copy.

3) Marx made a prototype to show customers. To sell the idea, Marx needed something tangible, so prototypes were constructed.

For playsets Marx took this one step further, and put all the pieces together on a demo board. The board showed the figures set up and ready for action and really helped to sell the idea. Marx had to have something at least resembling the final product, in time for Toy Fair.

“Prehistoric Figures + Animals” Card P-1078 (Prototype). This was a printed photo of the P-1078 prototype. It was early in the process and no card had yet been manufactured. This image will be more easily understood in comparison with the final production item. So we will wait until we get to that part of our story to discuss it.

4) Marx made a catalog. Early on, Marx had reservations about making catalogs and sharing them with its customers. They strived for maximum flexibility, and catalogs tended to tie one down. In fact, before 1963, catalogs consisted of 3 hole punch sheets, to be filed in a notebook. Only later, were the sheets stapled together. Marx considered what was displayed in the catalog as something like a first offer to the customer.

The Marx catalog’s layout had a photo of the item, its prototype, or a photo of the playset pieces, artfully arranged, on a demo board. Below each item was the ad copy, words to sell the item. The catalog also had to be ready in time for Toy Fair.

SBS catalog aside: We do not have a 1958 Marx catalog but we found a suitable replacement in the 1960 catalog from the toy wholesaler, SBS. As a wholesaler, SBS carried toys from many manufacturers. For Marx items, it was strictly about available stock. The catalog might have displayed not only current Marx offerings, but whatever SBS may have purchased in years previous. The toy’s description included a photo of the item, its prototype, or of the toys on a Marx demo board. Our experience suggests that SBS had a very early catalog deadline or some other work process which favored using 47

photos of prototypes rather than the demo boards. Under the picture was ad copy, which was likely patterned after that found in the Marx catalog.

Marx Item No. 0889C in the 1960 SBS Catalog: “Pre-Historic Animals.

8 prehistoric monsters plus 2 cavemen figures.

Dinosaurs, Brontosaurus, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops, Trachodon, Dimetrodon.

All poly. 7-3163-0889C 3100EA67S Pkd. 12 to Ctn. 18 Lbs.” Comment: In the SBS catalog, 8 monsters were promised, 7 listed by name, the 8th, Tyrannosaurus, was in the picture but not on the list. This item sported the MAR(x) timing mark, which had last been used on products in 1958.

5) Marx pitched products to customers at Toy Fair. Toy Fair was/is an industry-wide confab, held in New York City, usually in February or early March. For Marx, the fair was not a “show and tell” but a ‘show and sell’ event. Toy Fair was where Marx turned ideas into sales. Marx 48

had a fixed queue for its customers: first came Sears, Marx’s most important customer; next came Wards; then, all the rest. The negotiations were full of give and take, which items, what prices, how many pieces. Marx was willing to negotiate and customize sets for individual customers. The “made just for YOU” pitch was a powerful weapon in Marx’s sales arsenal.

There was an initial design turned into a prototype, but after that, the toy’s design was fluid until after the deals were concluded. Once deals were struck, the design became less of a suggestion and more of a requirement.

The design was finally set by the time it was ready to be sent to the retailer for their catalog’s photo shoot. For Sears, this was by April or May. 6) Marx got their distributor’s orders and sent them to Marx Headquarters in Glendale, Virginia. That is, when “enough” orders were received, Marx sent the orders to Glendale, not before, and, NEVER, if not enough. Marx did not make toys to be sold, they produced toys to fill orders for toys that had been already sold.

Production Card Aside: Jeff Pfeiffer’s new book, Dinosaur Playsets, introduced us to another kind of card but not a P(aper) product. On page 40, he shows us a photo of a production card for the Marx No. 2650 playset. It was a kind of recipe that told the Marx factory how to make it. This was how the card read: “Date 3/15/61 Packing Information Item No.2650 Prehistoric Play Set How Packed Each in Die Cut Corrugated Box Quantity Packed 1/2 Dozen Wgt. Per Shipping Ctn. 16 LBS. Factory Specifications 2- Sets PL755 Prehistoric Animals (14 pcs.) 1- Set PL-977 Preshitoric Animals (8 pcs.) 1- PL-1026 Mountain Unit 1- Set PL-760 Palm Trees & Ferns 1- Set PL-761 Palm Trees & Ferns Bases 1- Set PL-746 Cavemen (6 pcs.) No Instruction Sheet”.

While you were reading the Factory Specifications, you might have been reminded of something, like, “Our basic premise is that dinosaur playsets are made up of mold groups not individual figures.“ (PT #89). Set Science has been vindicated!

7) Glendale plans and schedules toy production. Glendale’s role was to turn orders into toys. Their first task was to plan and schedule the entire process: from manufacturing the figures, to assembling and packaging all the pieces. In this realm, the production card was king. It translated each item into its manufactured pieces, listed them by their Marx ID and directed how to package them.

We FAKE a production card for Marx Item No. 0889C (Prototype). Using the picture of the card for the Marx No. 2650 as a template, and utilizing the information found in the SBS catalog, we have created a FAKE production card for the item.

8) Glendale manufactured toys. “Bag ‘Em and Tag ‘Em. Once the parts were molded, the shot was removed from the machines by the operator. If it contained figures, they were removed from the runner with one swift clutching movement of the hand, twisted from the sprue and dropped into a bag.

Bags had been carefully selected and placed at the machine beforehand by the scheduling department. The bagged figures would be deposited into inventory boxes in layers. Each layer was separated by a piece of cardboard. When full, the cartons would be warehoused until needed on one of the flat lines.” (Kern, op. sit., p. 21) 9) Glendale assembled and packaged toys. ‘Flat line Set-up. The flat line workers were not expected to know what exactly went into a playset. ... Frank illustrates management's thinking: “ ... They just knew how many bags of what color went in. ... It was a way to solve a manufacturing problem.“ ‘ (Kern, op. sit., p. 22, abbreviated).

What they called the “flat-line” was where all the manufactured pieces were assembled into toys and placed into boxes for shipping. The flat-line was carefully planned and organized to provide the fastest, most profitable method. Each run of the flat-line was customized; all the required pieces had been positioned in order of assembly, Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

along the long conveyer belt.

10) Glendale shipped out the orders. All the work at Glendale had to have been completed by August or September, in time for the Sears Catalog’s Drop Day. We FAKE another production card for Marx Item No. 0889C (Production). The first production card we FAKED was based on the prototype pictured in the SBS catalog. This card has been based on an actual production copy of the item.

Marx Paper Product P-1078 (Production).

The Marx P-1078 paper product was a printed 11” x 17” card.

Marx Item No. 0889C (Production). The figures which came with the Marx Card P-1078 were all from the Revised group. I will confess to replacing one figure to restore the set.

Unhappily, the original brittle-green Brontosaurus, leapt from its cracked plastic prison, and shattered on the floor. This was how I obtained 9 figures and the card on which they were once attached.

Naming convention aside: What should this combination of P-1078 with PL-977 & PL746 be called? We have followed previous writers and used the card’s P-ID to identify the entire set, both card and figures. But we have used the new P(aper) product name as suggested in PT #120. So we have called this item the “Prehistoric Monsters and Cavemen” Card P-1078. What did Marx call this combination of card and figures? Why the Marx Item No. 0889C, what else? Unfortunately, that name can have had little meaning to anyone, outside of Marx and its customers.

Comparison of the illustration: The card illustration on the prototype was incomplete, in comparison to the final production card. On the prototype, only the top of what would become the final image could be seen, maybe about 25% of the total. The prototype image introduced the clifftop scene, where cavemen prepared to rock and roll with the tyrant king, who, was having none of that. Ok, this was not a scene from prehistory, it was more like a scene from a movie. Still, it was one that played well in my imagination.

Comparison of the ad copy: Almost all of the ad copy on the catalog’s picture of the prototype was recognizable but unreadable.

At the top, the title was readable but, at the bottom, the company’s name, address and PID was only recognizable with reference to the final product. The MAR(x) timing mark was a circular smudge, printed on the bottom right side, not on the left. Each figure on the production card perched on 4 lines of text.

On the prototype, there were only 2 lines, one of which must have been the name. The position of the names and figures have been rearranged.

Comparison of the figures: The figures themselves had been changed. On the prototype, the figure of the pot-bellied T. rex was very clear. We will suggest that all of the figures on the prototype card were from the original mold groups. In contrast, all the figures from the production card were definitely from the Revised mold: eight figures in all, not mold mates but in 3 different colors.

There were only 6 figures on the prototype, the missing figures: Trachodon, Dimetrodon, Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

and cavemen, were those closest to the top of the card. Perhaps, Marx left these figures off to better display the beautiful artwork that was going to help sell the product. The prototype showed no indication as to how the figures were going to be attached: tied with string, or, encased in plastic.

Comment: The biggest difference between the prototype and production item seemed to be the dropping of the original mold groups in favor of the Revised. Why would they have done that?

Glendale would have needed a new process in order to use original mold groups. If original mold group figures were to be used, how would that have worked. From the FAKE production card for the prototype, it can be seen that to get those 8 figures one would have needed to take 2 of 3 figures from the Large, 2 of 7 figures from the Small, and 4 of 6 figures from the Medium. Specific figures from each mold group were required, a random draw would not do. Glendale would have needed a new process. In this process, someone would have to regroup the figures from each mold. That someone would have to be able to identify each figure, know which were required for the item, and bag them separately.

Glendale’s three WHOAs. This new idea, might have been greeted in Glendale something like this, “Wait a minute, where are we going to do this new process. It won’t fit on the manufacturing line, it won’t fit on the flatline either! And besides, the Large mold group is already a disaster, it snarls up the line.”

Marx takes a mulligan. Marx solved Glendale’s woes with the creation of a new Revised mold group. Kern and Ridenour have documented that the manufacture of the Large mold group took the longest time and slowed the whole process down. Furthermore, they have confirmed 1958, as the date for production of the first Revised figures, and, they have credited Large mold production issues for the rise of the Revised (PFPC #64, Rusty Kern and Glenn Ridenour).

We will suggest that even if there were NO production issues, Marx would have needed to create a new mold, because this solution better fit their mode of operation (what came off the line, went in the bag, went in the box). Marx needed no extra steps for the process, they wanted something that would fit existing and economical production practices. A single mold group of all the required figures would have done this nicely.

In the big picture, really not much would have changed. Only one figure got a massive redo, Mr. T. rex, and, some have maintained that it was the best thing to ever have happened to the King. Other original figures were distinguishable from their replacements only by details.

However, evidently, “Mr. Pot-Belly” was not the only one to shed some weight, as the prototype card checked in at 24 oz. per card, nearly twice the weight of the production card at 13.

When did all this happen? Who did what?

Well, I’m afraid some Marx mysteries will never be solved. Pat: “Now is that clear to you?”

Mike: “Yes, everything except, WHY A (new) DUCK (-billed dinosaur) ?”

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Concluding from Page 14 remains have been found in Russia, China and Southeast Asia, implying significant connections between Laurasia and Gondwana landmasses. Early Triassic landscapes were largely low-lying, with few mountain ranges (two significant examples being the Appalachians and the Urals) and there were presumably few major obstacles for animals such as Lystrosaurus to expand their ranges. Lystrosaurus fed on the abundant vegetation of its day which probably included Equisetum, although it possessed ‘tusks’ and a beaked snout. Its long cylindrical torso superficially resembled that of a pygmy hippopotamus with which it may have shared a not dissimilar lifestyle. One South African fossil preserved the remains of a crocodile-like diapsid, Proterosuchus, the skull of which had been repeatedly crushed by what appears to have been Lystrosaurus beaks. Is it possible that the predator had attempted to seize a young Lystrosaurus from amongst a herd of the small dicynodonts, only to meet its own demise? (not unlike the Nile crocodile which ventures too close to a hippo herd when seeking to snatch a hippo calf, and is then dispatched with crushing bites from a protective adult).

Thrinaxodon (= trident-tooth) was an advanced theriodont known from Antarctica and South Africa, suggesting a connection between these landmasses. Its skeleton implies that it enjoyed an advanced mammalianlike physiology with limbs positioned under its body, shortened tail, and compressed rib-cage.

The skull is reminiscent of a canid, and housed large canines for grasping prey, multi-cusped cheek teeth for processing food, and a secondary palate. Tiny openings in front of the snout suggest the presence of lips and possibly also vibrissae.

Its long, mustelid-shaped body may have been insulated in hair and if so, was perhaps supplied with rudimentary scentmarking glands. One well-preserved fossil shows a mature adult next to the skull of a very young animal, and might possibly represent the association of a mother with its new-born. If so, this would imply a level of parental care which, although strongly exhibited by many crocodilians, is not typical of reptiles in general.

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6. Publication The small number of Burian’s published therapsid paintings of which I am aware are included in this article: Lycaenops ornatus (1971), Lystrosaurus murrayi (1970), Moschops capensis (1941, 1972; with the anomodont Galepus jouberti cropped from Fig 3), Sauroctonus progressus (with Scutosaurus karpinskii; 1966), and Thrinaxodon liorhinus (1975). His first therapsid painting (Moschops, 1941), is possibly his best-known, hav-

ing appeared in several major publications.

Rendered in gouache, it was produced for Josef Augusta’s 1942 textbook Divy prasveta (The Wonders of the Prehistoric World) and later appeared in Prehistoric Animals (1956) plus all editions of Life before Man (19721995). Moschops is a difficult animal to depict convincingly but Burian’s canvas has a certain photorealistic quality. This painting was also notable for its era in showing a social group of animals with an attendant juvenile. The 1972 colour version (minus juvenile) was part of a series of stylised illustrations that Burian produced for the German edition of Bernhard Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia (Tierleben).

The composition of Burian’s Sauroctonus & Scutosaurus painting is more panoramic than many of his contempoPrehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

rary works while the distant rocky peak recalls Kotouc Hill, the local mount near the Burian family home which the artist often explored as a boy (PT # 116). His Lycaenops canvas was based on a reconstruction by John C. Germann that had been painted under the direction of Edwin Colbert (19052001) and, unlike many Burian works from this era, the animals are not at all stylised. Despite its date, the Lystrosaurus canvas also retains Augustanian elements while a solitary hill (again) features as backdrop.

Given the aforementioned example of the Thrinaxodon fossil, Burian was directed to depict this advanced theriodont with its young, as it hunted small contemporary reptiles. Typical of that period, the painting foregoes detailed near-views of fauna in favour of placing animals at a distance amidst clearly-defined foliage. Although each of Burian’s therapsid reconstructions is a worthy example of palaeo-art, the two canvases from the Augustanian era (1938-1968; namely the original Moschops and the Sauroctonus) as well as the Lycaenops canvas are the most credible and perceptive images.

As stated previously, although the cynodont therapsids gave rise to the true mammals in the late Triassic, therapsids themselves were eventually displaced by the thecodonts from which the archosaurs were later derived.

This major faunal transition was somewhat ironic in that most archosaurs retained a far more reptilian-like metabolism than the more advanced mammalian-like physiology that had been adopted by their therapsid predecessors. The archosaurs, in turn, went on to dominate the terrestrial and aerial realms for the remaining duration of the Mesozoic (all the while suppressing the evolution of the Mesozoic mammals). That story will be considered within several articles scheduled for a future date. Meantime I will depart from our terrestrial chronology so as to consider several groups of reptiles that, for various reasons, returned to the ocean and embraced a marine existence. The marine reptile series will therefore commence in the next issue (PT # 125).

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

51

Mesozoic Media

by Mike Fredericks

We received some fantastic and beautiful books for review this time, obviously timed to sell well at Christmas. Pretty much every one was written or illustrated by a friend of PT but that doesn’t change my review, but the first book is reviewed by both Don Glut and John Lavas and then the remaining reviews are all me.

PALEOART reviewed by Don Glut. Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past (Taschen 2017), by co-authors Zoe Lescaze and Walton Ford, Hardcover ISBN-10: 3836555115, ISBN-13: 978-3836555111 A simply magnificent book. Also, it’s huge – measuring approximately 12” by 15” and comprising 289 pages – and the color reproduction is stunning. As the title states, the book is an illustrated history tracing the evolution of paleoart from its naïve early 19th century origins to its bone-based refinements of the latter 20th century (more recent works and their artists are not covered (the most recent represented being Ely Kish), so most of the artists represented in Prehistoric Times are not to be found here). I was surprised to find so many artists (e.g., Heinrich Harder) and so many pieces that were new to me. I have very few quibbles with this book: More than once the pelycosaur Dimetrodon is erroneously referred to as a dinosaur (the authors and proofreaders should know better). Some works, like Charles R. Knight’s Field Museum Murals, are cropped or spread over two pages, with some of the imagery hidden by the binding (probably a fault of the book’s designer). In the case of my own 19th century Archibald M. Willard painting of Mesozoic life, the left side of the painting gets a full page 29, while the connecting right side appears six pages later, with no hint that they go together. And there are some missing artists whom I feel should have been included, e.g., the very prolific Untermann. But minor complaints aside, Paleoart is an impressive achievement and is highly recommended - by Don Glut PALEOART reviewed by John Lavas. This monumental work is a lavishly-illustrated history of palaeo-art from its inception by Henry De La Beche in 1830 through to 1990.

Chapter one details the European genesis of palaeo-art culminating in a 10page insert of Victor Vasnetsov's biblical-like mural of Stone Age Humans (1885) at Moscow's State Historical Museum. Chapter two relates Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’s view of the antediluvian world via his paintings and Crystal Palace creations. The Marsh vs Cope 'bone war' initiates Chapter three which heralds the career of Charles R. Knight. Nine of Knight’s paintings plus three of his Chicago Field Museum murals are highlighted, each printed across two facing pages. Chapter four discusses the art of Heinrich Harder (8 images) who designed palaeo-themed mosaics for the Berlin aquarium. Destroyed in WWII these were re-created in 1982 and are depicted in 12 pages. The palaeo-art of the brilliant Danish artist/scientist Gerhard Heilmann is also discussed and accompanied by four images. A minor distraction in Chapter four is text justification (e.g. the opening of pg 112 is rendered as one long word) but such occurrences are few and are to be expected in a work of this scale.

Chapter five discusses Rudolph Zallinger and French natural history artist Mathurin Meheut who painted palaeo-scenes in Rennes during the WW II German occupation (4 images).

A highlight is a 9-page insert of Zallinger's The Age of Reptiles mural plus his less-stylised original designs.

Chapter six is dedicated to Zdenek Burian and includes 18 of his Augustanian images (the Trachodon & Tyrannosaurus 52

image is actually the 3rd 1972 version rather than the 1938 original, as stated in the caption), plus one from 1935.

Chapter seven details the return of English palaeo-art in the form of champions Neave Parker (6 images from The Illustrated London News), and Maurice Wilson (18 images, including the therapsid Cynognathus captioned as a 'dinosaur'). The main topic of Chapter eight is the art of palaeontologist/artist Konstantin Flerov (rendered as Flyorov), who accompanied the 1946-49 Russian Gobi expeditions. There are also works by his compatriots Vassily Vatagin (whose pterosaurs on p 220 are captioned as ‘plesiosaurs’), Alexei Komarov, Andrei Lopatin, and Alexei Bystrow. The chapter highlights a dozen Flerov impressionist works although he also produced numerous technical works for Russian museums (his impressionist works tended to have been sketched during expeditions). Chapter eight includes two 8-page folio sections of art at the Russian Palaeontological Institute, Moscow. The first shows the Late Cretaceous Gobi landscape mural at the main dinosaur hall, while the second details the towering (18 m) Tree of Life mosaic. Crafted by Alexander Belashov in 1984, it depicts hundreds of prehistoric animals and plants in 3-D relief. This unique concept is the palaeontological equivalent of the Sistine Chapel and is crowned with a Madonna and child. The concluding chapter includes 6 paintings by Ely Kish amidst a plea for museums to preserve their palaeo-art heritage - by John Lavas.

Dinosaur Art II by Steve White Hardcover: 188 pages, Titan Books, ISBN-10: 1785653989, ISBN-13: 9781785653988 Writer/editor (and very talented artist himself) Steve White has done it again with another beautiful, large format, coffee table book packed with some of the best prehistoric animal art of our time. You’ve seen art from half of the ten artist’s cutting edge paleoartwork many times in PT, but the other half may be new to you.

Even much of the art from the artists you are aware of may be new to you in this book. This is an amazing book you’re going to want to look at and enjoy over and over. Many are rising stars in the field. Some use digital technology plus this volume also includes state-of-the-art modellers, allowing the reader to explore restoring prehistoric animals in three as well as two dimensions. The book is accompanied by insights into paleontological research and the very latest discoveries, with commentaries by respected scientists at the top of their fields. A must for your library.

King Kong of Skull Island by Joe DeVito & Brad Strickland, illustrated by Joe DeVito, DeVito ArtWorks, LLC, ISBN: 978-1-889937-30-4.

Thanks to a Kickstarter campaign, artist Joe DeVito was able to revisit a concept he published years ago with an amazingly beautiful new adaptation of the beloved King Kong story. Told in the first person by Vincent Denham, the son of Carl Denham, who brought back the giant prehistoric, wild ape “Kong” to the 1930s “civilized” city of New York. There Kong breaks free of its chains and in search of his human love destroys much of the city before being machine gunned down by bi-planes from the top of the Empire State building.

Joe DeVito wanted to know what happened after that and got official permission to tell the story by the estate of King Kong creator Merian C Cooper. You will enjoy the stories of trips to Skull Island and of multiple Kongs and many prehistoric animals. There are too many spoilers for me to tell you more but on top of the fast-paced, engaging writing, many pages include Joe DeVito’s exquisite color and black and white artwork. Very cool and highly recommended. This present book is a very limited edition. There is going to be a non-limited E book version of it released by the time you are reading this.

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

Dinosaur Memories II: Pop-cultural Reflections on Dino-Daikaiju & Paleoimagery by Allen A. Debus Paperback: 400 pages, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, ISBN10: 1976543592, ISBN-13: 9781976543593. Within Dinosaur Memories II's thirty-eight chapters, Allen A. Debus (a name very familiar to PT readers) presents a selection of his many fanzine writings, stemming from the 1980s through recent time. Although a 'sequel' of sorts, it may be read independently of 2002's "Dinosaur Memories: Dino-Trekking for Beasts of Thunder, Fantastic Saurians, Paleo-people, Dinosaurabilia and other Prehistoria." Today, it would be difficult, time-consuming (& rather expensive) to track down the material presented in this new compilation, scattered among many different fanzines. Presenting edited zine' articles, culled from the pages of Prehistoric Times, G-Fan, Scary Monsters and other fanzines, "DM II's" chapters are organized, following a Preface, into eleven major sections covering the bases of pop-cultural paleontology and dino-monsterology. Some examples of chapter titles are; Chicagoland Dinosaurs; Paleoimagery vs. Paleoart; Science Fictional DinoMonsters; Statuesque Dinosaurs; Unsung Paleo-Monsters and more. The book melds nostalgic, personalized perspective with science and fiction of our beloved prehistoric monsters! Particular chapters offer further elaboration on topics introduced in the author's "Paleoimagery: The Evolution of Dinosaurs in Art" (2002), "Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction" (2006), and "Prehistoric Monsters" (2009). A great read of which you will find nothing similar anywhere else in the world. Get it at Amazon.com. This is Allen's 8th book overall, five of which were previously published by McFarland Publishers. This createspace platform book was edited for publication by Allen’s daughter Kristen L. Dennis of Full Proof Editing.

For your editing needs, she has tremendous skills.

Oceans of Kansas, Second Edition: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea (Life of the Past) 2nd Edition

by Michael J Everhart Hardcover: 460 pages, Indiana University Press ISBN-10: 0253026326, ISBN-13: 9780253026323 Michael J. Everhart is the Adjunct Curator of Paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas, and is an expert on the Late Cretaceous of western Kansas. He is the creator of the beloved and awardwinning "Oceans of Kansas" paleontology website at www.oceansofkansas.com. Revised, updated, and expanded with the latest interpretations and fossil discoveries, the second edition of Oceans of Kansas adds new twists to the fascinating story of the waterway that engulfed central North America during the Age of Dinosaurs. Although high and dry now, Kansas and other midwest states used to be underwater and for 5 million years made up a vast inland sea. Enormous sharks and mosasaurs, pteranodons, and birds with teeth all flourished in and around these shallow waters. Their abundant and well-preserved remains were sources of great excitement in the scientific community when first discovered in the 1860s and continue to yield exciting discoveries 150 years later.

Michael J. Everhart vividly captures the history of these startling finds over the decades and re-creates in unforgettable detail these animals from our distant past and the world in which they lived above, within, and on the shores of America’s ancient inland sea. Fortunately still packed with the amazing marine reptile art by the late Dan Varner, this second edition offers much new information and imagery. It is so wonderful to see this important book updated.

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen, Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Ecco, ISBN-10: 0062364804, ISBN-13: 978-0062364807. As new research suggests that climate change Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

played a major role in the most extreme, extinction catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on an awesome ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future. Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotinemouthed fish, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime.”

From South Africa to the New York Palisades it tells the story of each extinction piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. It takes us on an interesting tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light. Includes Doug Henderson artwork.

Sticks 'n Stones 'n Dinosaur Bones: Being a Whimsical "Take" on a (pre)Historical Event (Unhinged History) by Ted Enik (Author), G. F. Newland (Illustrator) Hardcover: 48 pages Publisher: Schiffer ISBN-10: 0764353942, ISBN-13: 978-0764353949. The first book in the “Unhinged History” series, for young readers is a ripping yarn full of adventure and deceit that brings to life the best-known public spat in all of paleontology: the bitter rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh.

This frenzy of discovery and one-upmanship known today as the Bone Wars was a gold rush–like scramble to find the most and "best" dinosaur fossils, thus bringing glory to their respective home-base universities. Very funny, witty rhyming text tells the tale with plenty of comic illustrations on every page revealing how the paleontologists' infamous rivalry began. Despite making genuine and lasting contributions to the field of paleontology, their mutual obsession with outdoing one another spun out of control. Fun and educational.

Dinosaurs of the Deep: Discover Prehistoric Marine Life Hardcover by Larry Verstraete (Author), with Julius Csotonyi (Illustrator) Hardcover: 79 pages. Turnstone Press ISBN-10: 0888015739, ISBN-13: 978-0888015730. First off, I guess we have to forgive the author for the title of this book. He knows better as he says, “What many don't know is that the term "dinosaur" refers specifically to land born prehistoric reptiles.

Despite being discovered nearly 50 years before the first dinosaur fossils, prehistoric aquatic creatures like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs have been largely overshadowed by Triceratops, Apatosaurus and the fierce T. rex. Dinosaurs of the Deep looks to change this by shedding light on the incredible diversity of prehistoric life that was living just beneath the water's surface.” So yes, he knows that prehistoric sea life were not dinosaurs but his book title will undoubtedly sell better than if he had called the book “Marines Reptiles of the Deep.” And I can assure you that world famous paleoartist Julius Csotonyi knows the different between marine reptiles and dinosaur. He, of course, beautifully illustrates this book for young readers. At the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (CFDC) in Morden, Manitoba lies one of the world's largest collections of prehistoric marine fossils, including "Bruce" the world's largest mosasaur skeleton.

Through a cooperative partnership between the CFDC and Larry Verstraete presents the fossils of the western interior seaway, with fascinating facts, full color paleoart and photos, and inspiring discovery stories. Yes, the book is packed with information. Maybe a little too much information. I have to object to the amount of times text is printed right on top of Julius’s beautiful underwater artwork.

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PALEONEWS

Borealopelta: Dinosaurs don’t get much more beautiful than the skeleton of this new ankylosaur species. It was discovered a few The Year in Review 2017 years back in an oil sands mine in northern Alberta, when a worker

by Steve Brusatte named Shawn Funk heard a University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK crunch while removing overburden from the mine. Funk and his This past year has been…interesting. The news cycle—at Daspletosaurus horneri supervisor realized immediately least in the US and the UK—is dominated by politics, poli© Dino Pulera they had a dinosaur on their hands, tics, politics, and it seems like sometimes nothing else matand an important one. Almost all ters. But meanwhile, science marches forward. We are learnof the skeleton seemed to be there. ing more about our Earth and our universe at a remarkable The fossil was sent to the Royal pace, each day bringing amazing new stories of discovery, Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, whether it’s experiments finding new subatomic particles or Alberta, where it was prepared and space probes exploring the margins of our solar system. And of course, dinosaurs. There has been lots and lots of dinosaur news this year. studied. And wow, what a skeleton! It was so impressive that it garnered its I’m writing this in early December, and already there have been 43 new non- own feature article in National Geographic this year, replete with a litany of avian dinosaur species and four new Mesozoic bird species described in gorgeous photographs of its brownish-black bones, some of which even pre2017. So all-in-all, nearly one new dinosaur has been found every week, on served bits of the keratin soft tissue that covered its bony plates. The fossil was so well preserved that its describers—Caleb Brown, Jakob Vinther, Don average. We are in the golden age, so let’s enjoy it!

There is so much to cover, that I can only skim the surface here. So here Henderson, and their colleagues—could tell that part of its body was origiare quick biographies of some of the most important and stunning new nally reddish in color, and it was even countershaded (darker above and lighter below) to protect itself from predators. dinosaurs found in 2017, followed by a few Imagine how scary the Late Cretaceous world Corythoraptor words on one of the more interesting wider ©Zhao Chuang must have been if a rhino-sized animal like studies on dinosaurs.

Borealopelta, already covered in tooth-busting armor, still had to camouflage itself from Afromimus: The long-legged, fast-running, predators… toothless, beaked ornithomimids are popularly known as the ‘ostrich mimic’ dinosaurs, and Burianosaurus: When you think of digging for good reason. These theropods really looked up dinosaurs, images of Western North like modern ostriches, all the way down to American badlands, African deserts, or their gaudy arm feathers used for display. Most Chinese quarries probably come to mind. Not ornithomimids are from the latest Cretaceous the Czech Republic. But this year, the first of North America and Asia, and some are quite Czech dinosaur was described. It is known famous. Gallimimus, for example, is a star of from only a single bone, a partial femur (thigh Jurassic Park. But we don’t know very much bone), which is about 95 million years old. about where these dinosaurs came from. The discovery of Afromimus provides a clue. It is a primitive member of the But that is enough to tell scientists that this animal is a new species—named ornithomimosaur group—the bigger cluster of species that includes after the famous Czech paleoartist Zdenek Burian, an idol of many of us ornithomimids and their closest relatives. It lived in the Early Cretaceous, long-time PT readers!—and that it is an ornithopod, a member of that familsome 110 million years ago, and as its name suggests, it’s from Africa. Its iar group of beaked, plant-eating creatures that also include Iguanodon and bones were discovered several years ago on an expedition to the Sahara the duck-billed hadrosaurs. It was described by Daniel Madzia and his colDesert, and described this year by Paul Sereno. It suggests that the laborators. ornithomimosaur group was globally widespread before becoming restrictCorythoraptor: There is no better way to say it: this new dinosaur really ed to the northern continents later in their evolution. looks like a cassowary. It is about the same size as this nasty species of modern flightless bird, Beibeilong: In the early 1990s a remarkable Beibeilong and it also had a very similar crest on the top of fossil was smuggled from China into the USA: ©Zhao Chuang its head: a tall, arching dome that covered all of a dinosaur egg with an embryo inside. the noggin. Modern cassowaries use their Nicknamed ‘Baby Louie’, the fossil became crests for a variety of functions: display ornaembroiled (or, to be punny, boiled) in controverments to scare rivals and attract mates, thersy for many years. It appeared on the cover of moregulation devices to modulate body temNational Geographic, and was sold to a major perature, and maybe even as a sound reception American museum. Only in 2017 was it formaldevice. It is likely that Corythoraptor did the ly returned to China and described. The embryo same.

This dinosaur is a new type of ovirapturns out to be the exquisite skeleton of a new torosaur, which lived in the latest Cretaceous in species of bird-like oviraptorosaur dinosaur, southern China. given the name Beibeilong by Hanyong Pu, Darla Zelenitsky, Junchang Lü, and their colDaliansaurus: One of my favorite research leagues. It also turns out that the ‘Baby Louie’ projects of the year was a trip to China in egg is only one part of a much larger nest, which February, where I met up with my friend belonged to a species of large-bodied ovirapJunchang Lü and his student Caizhi Shen. I torosaur that would have looked a lot like a realaccompanied them to the port city of Dalian in life Big Bird! far northeastern China, where we together 54

Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

examined a fossil that Shen was describing as part of his PhD thesis. It was a new type of small, dog-sized troodontid dinosaur. We concluded it was a new species, and in June 2017 we named it Dalianraptor. It is closely related to Sinovenator, Sinusonasus, and Mei—all of which are found in similar Early Cretaceous (ca. 125 million year old) rocks in China. We suggested that the bounty of small troodontids in China reflects a local diversification of these very bird-like dinosaurs, which were key components of the ‘feathered dinosaur’ ecosystems denuded by volcanoes.

Serikornis © Emily Willoughby

Daspletosaurus horneri: Around 75 million years ago, western North American was ruled by a hideous creature with peg-like teeth, a car-crushing bite, and a gnarly mask of keratin and mangled skin. Meet Daspletosaurus horneri, a new species of tyrannosaur discovered in Montana and named after the great paleontologist and Jurassic Park advisor Jack Horner. This new species was named by Thomas Carr and colleagues, who described it as a top-of-the-food-chain predator and evolutionary precursor to T. rex. The fossils were so well preserved that the team was able to make inferences about the soft tissues that covered the snout, which provides our best look yet at what the face of a tyrannosaur would have really been like. It seems like tyrannosaurs had a scale-covered face, which was very sensitive to touch, just like in modern crocodiles.

Halszkaraptor: Right as I was sitting down to write this article, a sensational story went viral online: the discovery of the first aquatic dinosaur, a new dromaeosaurid (raptor) from Mongolia called Halszkaraptor. It was described by Andrea Cau and colleagues, in the journal Nature. But, as soon as the new dinosaur hit the news, some doubts began to surface. The specimen was collected illegally by poachers in Mongolia and was smuggled across international borders to England and Japan, with little knowledge of when it was found, how long it was in illegal hands, and what modifications to the specimen may have been made during that time. Furthermore, in their paper, the scientists identified some artificial restoration of the snout and hand, demonstrating that the fosHalszkaraptor sil had been tampered with sometime in the past. That © Lukas Panzarin seems particularly problematic, as the skull is very similar to the skull of alvarezsaurids (one type of small theropod dinosaur), whereas the body looks like a dromaeosaurid. Could this fossil be a composite of two or more skeletons? It’s hard to be sure, although the authors did their best to rule it out by using highpowered x-ray CT scanning at a synchrotron, which they argue rules out any serious tampering. Research on this puzzling specimen has only just begun, and debate will probably continue for many years.

Hopefully scientists will find another specimen of this same dinosaur, which will definitively prove it is a genuine animal with an alvarezsaurid-like head on a dromaeosaur-like body.

Jianianhualong: Xu Xing, the Chinese scientist who has described more new dinosaurs than anybody alive, was at it again this year. Among his discoveries was this new species of troodontid, which lived about 125 million years ago in China. The fossil is covered in well-preserved feathers, including big quills on the arms and legs and fronds on the tail. The tail feathers are asymmetrical: they have a central vane, which is not centered on the feather but is off to one side. In modern birds, this structure is related to flight: birds need to have asymmetrical feathers so that all feathers can fit neatly together as a wing, to withstand the strong forces of surging through an airstream. Does that mean Jianianhualong was a flier? Probably not, as Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

only its tail feathers are asymmetrical, and these long fronds were likely used for display.

Perhaps asymmetrical feathers first evolved for display and were later coopted into a flightworthy wing?

Matheronodon: This new plant-eater was found in France, in rocks of latest Cretaceous age (ca. 75 million years old), and described

by Pascal Godefroit and his colleagues. It is a rhabdodontid: a member of a strange and rare subgroup of ornithopods (duck-billed dinosaur relatives) that lived in Europe during the Late Cretaceous, when high sea levels carved up the continent into a smattering of islands.

While other rhabdodontids—and other ornithopods in general—had mouths full of many small teeth (which are packed together into dental batteries in hadrosaurs), Matheronodon had only a few very large teeth, which were staggered in the jaw. It’s not clear why this dinosaur had these unusual teeth, but they may have allowed it to feed on tough vegetation.

Mierasaurus: In the Jurassic, Europe was alive with the thundering foot beats of turiasaurian sauropods—a subgroup of these long-necked plant-eating behemoths, distinguished by their particularly huge size. Then, in one of the more unexpected discoveries of 2017, a team of scientists led by Rafael Royo-Torres described a new turiasaurian…from the Cretaceous…from North America! They called it Mierasaurus, and it is known from some of the most complete remains of any North American Cretaceous sauropod. It lived about 135 million years ago, and shows that there was wide dispersal between Europe and North America before this time.

Ostromia: Has any dinosaur been studied in more extreme, obsessive detail than Archaeopteryx? Ok, probably T. rex, but that’s about it. This past year showed us that, despite over a century of work on Archaeopteryx, we still have a lot to learn about this iconic ‘first bird’. One of the most famous specimens of Archaeopteryx is held in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, in the Netherlands. As the story goes, this fossil was long thought to be part of the arms and legs of a pterosaur, until John Ostrom waltzed into the museum in the early 1970s and realized that it was part of an Archaeopteryx. That classification has stood until this year, when Christian Foth and Oliver Rauhut restudied the specimen and noted a few puzzling features, which seemed to differ from Archaeopteryx but were shared with Anchiornis and a few of the recently discovered feathered dinosaurs from China. Foth and Rauhut proposed that the Haarlem specimen actually belonged to an Anchiornis-like animal, and gave it a new name: Ostromia, in homage to the great scientist who studied it several decades ago.

Patagotitan: A few years ago a provocative find in Argentina hit the news: bones of an enormous sauropod, discovered by a farmer and still locked away in the ground. A team of Argentine scientists, led by Diego Pol and José Carballido, began to excavate the fossils, which were officially unveiled to the public in a sensational television documentary presented by David Attenborough, and in an exhibit at the American Museum of History in New York. The last step in the journey happened in August 2017, when these fossils were officially described in a scientific paper and given a new name, Patagotitan. This 100-million-year-old behemoth was one of the largest sauropods to ever live, which makes it one of the very biggest animals to ever walk the Earth. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 feet long and 70 tons in weight. That isn’t too far off from the dimensions of a Boeing 737!

Continues on Pg 60 55

Paper Trackways:

My hunt for prehistoric paper collectibles

By Mike Riley

mmriley@dinofan.com

The Dinosaur Fan (www.dinofan.com) "I collect these objects to learn from them. In some moment these things are going to teach me something. For me, this is like a library. These are my books." (Jose Bedia) Dinosaurs! Some of us imagine “terrible-lizards” with teeth, claws, spikes and tail clubs while others envision “fearfully-great lizards”; massive and majestic. No matter how you interpret the term, we all share a common yearning, to see what is known but cannot be seen. Inspired by fossilized bone, eggs, flora, trackways, skin impressions, and even poop, paleo-artists, authors, paleontologists, and Hollywood producers have attempted to breathe life into these astonishing creatures ever since the English anatomist/paleontologist Sir Richard Owen first coined the term “Dinosauria” back in 1842. It’s the resulting images that have thrilled children and adults alike on almost every continent of the World. And it’s this fascination (and its associated commercial potential) that has lead card companies, toy manufacturers, product packagers, and educational institutes to produce countless paper collectibles that feature the images of dinosaurs and other equally fascinating extinct animals.

It was from this concoction of products that my passion for dinosaur card collecting emerged though the path that began my hunt for prehistoric paper collectibles was convoluted. The year was 1962. Sports fans watched "Wilt the Stilt" Chamberlain score an NBA-record 100 points in a single game and Southern Californians attended the first baseball games in Dodgers Stadium. Hollywood celebrated the 34th Academy Awards which honored West Side Story as Best Picture and mourned the passing of the legendary Marilyn Monroe. It was the year that the World sat breathless as President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev played a deadly game of chess with nuclear weapons. It was also the year that I, a five yearold kid, sat spellbound on the family’s weathered wood picnic table flipping through a box of pastel-colored cards with prehistoric critters pictured on them. Like a moth to flame, I could not resist pausing Brooke Bond Canada whenever I saw the card with the tan colored background featuring an image of a fierce predator; the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex.

Six years later ,with dinosaur-themed birthday Salo Dinosaurios parties a thing of the past, most of the toy dinosaurs dented by Stickers my BB gun, (forgive me Marx collectors), and the tattered dinosaur cards gathering dust in a closet somewhere, I began my passion for baseball with the opening of the 1968 Little League baseball season. One sunny afternoon while watching a friend’s team play, I wandered over to the concession stand to purchase one of those nauseatingly sweet blue-bubblegum snow cones. As I reached up to place my money 56

through the miniature sliding screen door, I spotted a box of baseball cards.

Had my life been a movie, I might have Cracker Jack Ice Cream heard a voice saying; “If you buy it, he will come” … so I did. The “he” was not Shoeless Joe Jackson or my dad but my childhood hero, “The Say Hey Kid,” Willie Mays whose card magically appeared in the middle of the pack. And so began a baseball card collecting obsession which lasted almost 30 years when in 1997, the cosmic tumbles of fate triggered a series of events which would forever change my collecting life.

First was a dramatic change in the baseball card collecting landscape. A spreading “malignancy” in the form of investors and card grading companies had by then infected Nabisco Pom Poms the core of the baseball card collecting hobby. Prices soared, vintage York Cards Weird & Wild cards

card availability shrank, and in the end, I joined the flow of collectors exiting the hobby; ultimately selling off my collection and in its wake, leaving an unfilled void. Second was watching the newly released film, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.”

Sometime during the film, a Prehistoric Times No.124 Winter 2017

flame burst forth from the spark of interest in dinosaurs Liebig Geological Periods ignited by the original “Jurassic Park” film four years earlier and along with it came a flood of long forgotten memories of my childhood love of dinosaurs.

And finally, my wife, who to this very day zealously contends that collecting (of any sort), is a waste of time, energy, and money, was infected by the Beanie Baby craze. For six short months, she scoured toy store shelves and the internet to capture pellet-filled treasures. And in her enthusiasm, she naively introduced me to an obscure internet auction site called E-Bay so that I could bid on items when she was not available. And then one night ….. it happened (cue the theme music from Jurassic Park), instead of searching for the “Beanie Babies Official Club kit’, I typed two words into the search box … , “dinosaur cards”, … and so began my hunt for prehistoric paper collectibles.

To date, I am aware of over 2,300 different sets and albums which include a least one dinosaur or other prehistoric animal. This count excludes post cards, philately, phone cards, and lobby cards which I never collected. So now, as an introduction to dinosaur card collecting, I invite you to follow the "Paper Trackways" which will lead you through every inhabited continent of the World. I hope you enjoy. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me at: mmriley@dinofan.com. To view thousands of collectibles and extinct life images, please visit my website, The Dinosaur Fan (www.dinofan.com).

North America (1,090 Sets) United States: Cracker Jack Ice Cream Bars Prehistoric Animals Cards (Date: 1972, Qty.: 15, Size: 1-3/4" x 1-5/16") – these tiny cards were prizes inserted in Cracker Jack Ice Cream Bars; vanilla ice cream on a stick which was coated with a thick outer layer of crushed Cracker Jack. A delightful feature of these prizes is that they all fit together to create a large Mesozoic landscape. Cracker Jack Ice Cream Bars were a test product available for a short time in a limited number of U.S. locations.

United States: Nabisco Pom Poms Prehistoric American Gum cards Scenes Cut-out Cards (Date: 1974, Qty.: 18, Size: 5" x 1-3/4") – these extremely hard to find cards were printed on the backs of "Pom Poms" candy boxes and depict, as well as advertise, Aurora "Prehistoric Scenes" model kits. One of the cards lists the 17 available kits and how to order them at prices ranging from $1.25 (human kits) to $7.50 (Tyrannosaurus Rex kit).

With both the cards and the kits selling for hundreds of dollars, who wouldn’t like to take a quick trip back in time.

United States: International Master Publishers Weird n' Wild Creatures Collector Game Cards (Date: 2003, Qty.: 720, Size: 21/2" x 3-1/2") – These massive, wonderfully illustrated, overly stylized game/trivia cards were distributed periodically through a mail Prehistoric Times No. 124 Winter 2017

order subscription service from International Master Publishers.

About once a month, a packet was mailed out containing approximately eight collector game cards and 10 related creature cards. The cards are grouped into eight topical categories; Monsters of the Past, Nightmares of Nature, Toxic Terrors, Monsters of the Deep, Tiny Terrors, Strange Wonders, Monsters of the Mind, and Monster Mania. Of the 720 cards, 140 are relatPanini Stickers ed to extinct life or cryptozoological creatures.

Canada: York Peanut Butter and Salted Nuts Prehistoric Animals Cards (Date: 1962, Qty.: 40, Size: 2-1/2" x 2-1/2") – these cool octagonal-shaped, bilingual (English & French) cards were attached to peanut butter and salted nut jars sold in Canada. The images are cropped versions of the Matthew Kalmenoff images found in Golden Play, Golden Press, Cocorico, ZuidNederlandse, and other sticker albums. An octagonal-shaped order card was also issued allowing the collector to purchase either an English text album or a French text album.

Mexico: Cigarros Furgones Cigarette Package Cards (Date: 1940’s, Qty.: 20, Size: 1.5" x 2.25") – these primitively illustrated, Spanish text cards were attached to packages of cigarettes which claimed to be “the best carton of cigarettes in market”. Packs of cigarettes with these cards were available in Mexico during the early to mid-1940’s.

South America (86 Sets) Chile: Salo Dinosaurios Stickers (Date: 1992, Qty.: 138, Size: 2-5/8" x 2-1/4") – in its heyday, Salo went toe-to-toe in South America with Panini, the sticker behemoth. In addition to the 138 regular stickers, there were two foil sticker insert sets (22 stickers each) and an album. Salo entered the sticker market in 1962 when they produced a football (soccer) sticker set in honor of the Clover Dairies World Cup which was being hosted in Chile. Salo declared bankruptcy in 2010.

Brazil: Eucalol Os Animais Prehistoricos Cards (Date: 1940’s, Qty.: 6, Size: 2-3/8" x 3-1/2") – Around 1924, the Brazilian comDongkou Match pany, Paul Stern & Cia., introduced Euclol, a eucalyptus-based, green-colored soap bar. At that time, soaps were either pink or white and consequently consumers initially rejected the odd-colored soap. However, the owners, remembering how successful Liebig advertising cards were in Europe, decided to launch their own card series (“Estampas Eucalol”) which became very popular, boosting sales beyond expectations.

The company went on to issue over 400, six-card sets including “Os Animais Prehistoricos” Cards (Series #30) which was issued sometime in the early 1940’s. Sadly, the company filed for bankruptcy in 1980.

Argentina: Bomky Saurios Gum Papers– (1940, Qty.: 12, Size: 2-5/8" x 2") –colorful, tissue-thin, glossy papers which were wrapped around individual pieces of mint and tutti-frutti Bomky gum and sold in over-thecounter display boxes containing 120 pieces of gum. Each animal has three or four different pictures (i.e., full-body image, size comparison to man, skull or distinctive feature, and close-up).

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South Africa: American Gum Animals of the Europe (625 Sets) Furuta cards Past Cards (Date: ?, Qty.: 48, Size: 3-3/4"x 2England (United Kingdom): Brooke Bond Tea 3/8")– this is one of my favorite “obscure” card Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals - Series No. 5 sets. The cards are printed on cardboard-like Cards (Date: 1963, Qty.: 50, Size: 1-7/16" x 2-11/16") – stock and include bilingual text (English and two cards were packaged in a cellophane wrapper which Afrikaans). These cards have the same Matthew was inserted into packages of tea. Two versions of this Kalmenoff images found in the York and sticker set were issued; a UK edition with black ink and a copysets discussed earlier but they are over an inch right stating, "Brooke Bond Canada Limited" along with a Canadian (Montreal) address line and the much harder wider providing a striking, more panoramic image. to find USA edition with blue ink and a copyright stating, Asia (90 Sets) "Brooke Bond Tea Co., Inc." China: Dongkou along with a USA (New York) Printissa Russian playing cards Uncle Toby’s Match Company address line. Brooke Bond also Chinese Matchbox issued an informative album to Vita Brits Labels (Date: 2000, hold the cards, a wall chart for Qty.: 24, Size: 1-7/8" the same purpose, posters, and x 1-3/8") – these thin rare Naturalist Club paper sheets served Certificates. as decorative labels Germany: Liebig Geological for small boxes of Periods I Cards (Date: 1892, matches. This set is Qty.: 6, Size: 4-1/4" x 2-3/4") – somewhat unique in these stunning Lithographic that only one of the cards were issued to promote Liebig meat extract (a black, molasses-like spread). Four linguistically different versions of the Geological Periods I set 24 labels shows a dinosaur (Stegosaurus) while the rest feature extinct mamwere distributed (German, Belgian, Italian, and Dutch). Between 1872 and mals, birds, and other extinct reptiles.

1974, Liebig issued over 2,000 different card sets depicting their factory, Japan: Furuta Dinomodels Insert Cards (Date: 2001, Qty.: 8, Size: 3-3/8" flora & fauna, history, science, inventions, and geography. At least 22 sets x 2-3/8") – a single card, some sherbet-like candies called "ramune", and a either feature or include extinct flora & fauna. plastic dinosaur were packaged into each Dinomodel box. The card image Italy: Panini The World of Dinosaurs Stickers (Date: 1997, Qty.: 144, and associated card text (Japanese), corresponds with the dinosaur toy with Size: 2-3/8" x 3-5/16") – these relatively large-sized stickers feature bright- which its packaged. The eight figures were designed by the famous ly colored, slightly cartoonish Mesozoic creatures. In addition, 14 different Japanese dinosaur figure sculptor Araki Kazunariussian Federation: Stand-Up cards were randomly inserted in the sticker packs and an album Printissa Russian Dinosaur Playing Cards (Date: 2005, Qty.: 54, Size: 2-1/2" was also available for purchase. This is one of 55 different x 3-7/8") – these are Russian playing cards which predominately, but not exclusively, feature the artwork of Joe Panini sets that I know of which include dinosaurs or aniInstant Kiwi Tucciarone. Every card in this deck has a different mated versions thereof. Panini was founded by Benito and Mesozoic beastie except for the two Jokers which both have Giuseppe Panini in 1961 and currently sells well over a bilan image of Rahonavis ostromi. Printissa was founded in lion packets of stickers a year in over 120 countries.

France: Chocolat d'Aiguebelle Les Fossiles Cards (Date: 2005 and reorganized into the RusJoker company in 2006.

1905, Qty.: 18, Size: 4-1/8" x 2-1/4") – these remarkable The combined companies produced 54 custom artistic playpaper cards were inserted between the foil wrappers covering ing card decks before closing its doors permanently in 2008. chocolate bars and their outside wrappers. The only Oceania (63 Sets) Mesozoic creatures included in this set are the Brontosaurus, Australia: Uncle Tobys Vita-Brits Prehistoric Beasts Iguanodon, Stegosaurus, and Pterodactyl.

Many Cards (Date: 1960, Qty.: 36, Size: 4" x 2-5/8") – these ephemerists contend that this set contains some of the highextremely attractive cards were inserted in boxes of Uncle est quality chromolithographs ever produced. Chocolat Tobys all natural, toasted wholegrain Vita-Brits wheat bisd'Aiguebelle was founded in 1868 by Trappist monks from the abbey Notre-Dame d'Aiguebelle. cuit cereal. An album was also available for purchase Belgium: Rich’s Zoologiske Sjaeldenheder Cards at stores where Vita-Brits were sold.

American Gum cards New Zealand: Instant Kiwi Lottery Ticket Cards (Date: 1930’s/1940’s, Qty.: 25, Size: 2-1/2" x 1-3/8") – (Date: c. 1990, Qty.: 6, Size: 11/16" x 2-1/8") – these these attractive cards were inserted into packets of are perforated “scratch-to-win” cards issued by Lotto Rich’s chicory-base coffee substitute which was usually New Zealand and are from Game Number 14 which mixed with expensive overseas coffee to save money was won by scratching off three identical values on and enable coffee supplies to last longer. This particuthe play panel. Instant Kiwi was first introduced in lar card set was apparently issued with the assistance of faculty from the original University of Copenhagen late 1989 and is the only Lotto New Zealand game Zoological Museum which is shown on the first card of with a purchase age restriction (i.e., it’s illegal to sell them to individuals under 18 years of age) which the set. C.F. Rich and Sons (Rich’s) produced colbegs the question, why print dinosaur cards if lector cards and albums from 1930 through 1964.

McGraw-Hill Teach Me kids can collect them?

Africa (3 Sets) And Finally ……..

South Africa: Clover Dairies Prehistoric About Prehistoric Animals The Card That Captured My Imagination at Animals Cards (Date: 1966, Qty.: 25, Size: 2-5/8" Age 5 x 1-3/8") – promotional cards which were distrib1962 McGraw-Hill, Inc. Teach-Me about uted with Clover Dairies’ products. The illustraPrehistoric Animals Flash Cards. tions are somewhat bland and cartoonish with most of the bipeds looking like Barney the Dinosaur of the kids TV show fame.

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were rescued.

When Albania became a free state, Nopcsa saw an unusual opportunity in the void left by the departing Turks. Talking to the Austria-Hungary species, there is no skull material and no teeth, and so the diet of Balaur can Empire, he asked that they supply him with 500 soldiers and two ships, so only be speculated. Originally believed to be carnivorous because such ani- that he could invade the country and crown himself king. His plan was to mals originally were always thought to be carnivorous, this idea has been create a monarchy with a decidedly Austria-Hungary lean and would pay for reinforced as no other predators have been recognized in the region at that almost everything by weirdly finding himself a rich American heiress to time. Today we know that a lot of theropods were herbivorous, the most marry.

The Austrians liked the idea, but they just didn’t like Nopcsa, it seems; obvious being the therizinosaurs, and the wider section around the Balaur pubis may indicate an enlarged cavity there, perfect for the guts of a herbi- so instead they backed Prince Wilhelm zu Wied for his short stay on the throne. Wied of course knew nothing vore. The enlarged feet and general about Albania, its people, its customs, stocky size of the fossils are also simMegalosaurus hungaricus ©Paulo Leite or their political persuasion, and he ilar to those found in these herbivowas soon run out of the country by an rous theropods. unruly mob wanting his head.

This is not to say they were, mind Before Nopcsa could get too you. Those feet were armed with powdepressed over this latest failure, erful claws, more than capable of however, the First World War began. holding and killing prey; so we may As an aristocrat, Nopcsa could easily not know the true answer until teeth have got himself a cushy job with a are found. What we could be seeing flashy uniform somewhere in Berlin; also was a reversion of a bird to a instead he grew his hair and beard, ground-based predatory lifestyle, dressed as a peasant, and became a meaning Balaur may well have been successful spy along the Hungarianavian after all.

Romanian border.

As we saw in the last issue of PT, At war’s end, like many of the when the apex predator was finally German aristocracy, Baron Nopcsa found from this topsy-turvy land, it lost everything because most of his turned out to be a nightmarish crealands were now placed in indepenture, the likes of which the world has dent Greater Romania. It was while visiting one of these estates that the never known.

The first partial fossils of Hatzegopteryx were unearthed and described paleontologist ran into a bit of bad luck or, to be more precise, ran into a in 1991 and were believed to belong to a theropod. More specimens changed group of club- and pitchfork-wielding peasants who weren’t all that fond of that view because it was clear the animal was an enormous pterosaur but a Transylvanian royal-ings. Nopcsa was caught and beaten,and at some stage very strange one. These had enormous skulls with an overpowered neck, his skull was fractured. It is believed this wound is what influenced much of capable of carrying 4 to 7 times its body weight. This led to comparisons what Nopcsa was about to do.

Although he had lost everything, he was still a highly skilled scientist, with a modern theropod-related predator. Large storks like the marabou and shoebill of Africa are enormous predators capable of flying but more com- and Hungary recognized this by placing him in charge of the nation’s geological survey. This work was not going to last, however, because he argued monly can be seen along shorelines hunting.

With a broad, stout, 10-foot skull attached to a large neck with strong lig- constantly with superiors and subordinates until, in a fit of rage, he stormed aments, it’s believed these giraffe-sized pterosaurs flew from island to out of the job. He then grabbed Doda, and together they jumped on a motorisland, where their size allowed them to dominate the ecosystem in a way no cycle and rode away.

The pair ended up living in Vienna, where Nopcsa tried to work on his airborne carnivore has until perhaps the giant eagles of New Zealand.

Estimates vary, but they likely had a wingspan between 30 and 40 feet, mak- papers and fossils. During this time he grew more and more depressed, and ing Hatzegopteryx one of the largest creatures to ever fly. They likely used when the money was gone, he sold his precious fossil to the London Natural this ability to hop from island to island, where they begin stalking their History Museum, depressing him further.

Finally on April 25, 1933, Nopcsa prepared tea for Doda laced with dwarf denizens, and because of their size, even adult dinosaurs on Hateg Island may have been vulnerable to a series of pecks from the pterosaur’s sleeping pills. Once his friend was asleep he placed his revolver on the Albanian’s head and shot him dead. lance-sized beaks.

Nopcsa then sat at his kitchen table Dinosaurs were not Nopcsa’s only ©Aaron Natera and wrote the following: passion; he studied and wrote on “The reason for my suicide is my geology, ethnology, and archaeology nervous system, which is at its end. and became romantically passionate The fact that I killed my long-term for Albania. He even learnt the local friend and secretary, Mr Bajazid dialects and Albanian mythologies Elmaz Doda, in his sleep, without him and histories. Nopcsa reportedly also having an inkling as to what was became a rebel leader, smuggling in going on, was because I did not want weapons and giving rousing speeches to leave him behind sick, in misery, in perfect Albanian to fire the patrioand in poverty because he could have tism of the local people. In 1912 suffered too much. I wish to be crethese men joined in the Balkan states mated.” rebellion against the Turkish Empire.

The paleontologist then placed the gun in his mouth and committed suiIt was on a trip to Albania that the paleontologist met his lifelong friend, associate, and lover, Bajazid Elmaz Doda [j = y]. In 1913 the pair were cap- cide. tured while crossing the Mirdita mountains by the infamous robber Mustafa Lita, who wanted to hold them for ransom. Nopcsa considered killing the man, but then Doda’s father arrived with a troop of armed men, and they Concluding from Pg. 18

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surely—learned in school that there www.markwitton.com are three main groups of dinosaurs: the meat-eating theropods, the long-necked sauropods, and Shingopana: Some of the most exciting new dinosaur digs have been in the beaked plantTanzania, an African country rich in fossils. One of the fossils found on eating ornithischithese trips is a new sauropod called Shingopana, which lived about 105 ans.

The million years ago, during the middle part of the Cretaceous. Strangely sauropods and enough, it is not very similar to other sauropods that have been found in Cretaceous rocks in Africa. Instead, it shares many features of its backbone theropods group together as saurischians, which can be distinguished from and ribs with a peculiar subgroup of mostly small-bodied sauropods from ornithischians based on their hips (saurischians have ‘lizard hips’ in which South America, called the aeolosaurins. These similarities speak to geo- the pubis bone points forwards; ornithischians have ‘bird hips’ in which the pubis points backwards). Based on a large new graphic connections between South America cladistic dataset of early dinosaurs and their and Africa deep into the Cretaceous. This Patagotitan © Jorge Gonzalez anatomical features, Baron and his colleagues dinosaur was described by Eric Gorscak and argued instead that theropods and ornithischicolleagues. ans formed a group relative to sauropods. They called this theropod + ornithischian clan Xingxiulong: This new dinosaur, described by Ornithoscelida. This study attracted a deafening Ya-Ming Wang and colleagues, lived about buzz of press attention, with many articles 200 million years ago in China. That is the very earliest part of the Jurassic Period, not long after the devastating vol- claiming that ‘everything we thought we knew about dinosaur evolution is cano-fueled end-Triassic extinction wiped out many of the early competitors wrong.’ Baron’s study has been met with skepticism from many dinosaur of dinosaurs, allowing dinosaurs to become dominant. Xingxiulong is a workers. I was part of a team, led by Max Langer and including several other paleontologists, that reassessed Baron’s sauropodomorph—a member of the larger group dataset and instead found the traditional family that includes the long-necked, earth-quaking tree. However, neither the traditional tree nor sauropods. It was only about 15 feet long as an adult, Baron’s tree were statistically indistinguishable and would have weighed a few tons at most, but from each other. In other words, when we ran all despite its size it shares with sauropods many feaof the numbers, we couldn’t have confidence tures of the skeleton that would later become more whether one tree was better than the other. We elaborated to support the huge weight of true also published our results in Nature. So, it seems sauropods. In particular, the limb bones are very like we are stuck in a time of uncertainty: we just robust, and there is an extra backbone (vertebra) that don’t know how the three main groups of attaches to the pelvis, to better sustain the weight and dinosaurs are related to each other, and we will the big gut of the animal. But strangely enough, it Matheronodon provincialis probably need more fossil discoveries to untangle seems like Xingxiulong still walked on only two legs. it. ©Lukas Panzarin And there we have it, a quick look at some of Zuul: Twenty feet long and weighing six tons, covered in armor and with a big bowling-ball-sized club of bone at the end of the highlights of 2017. As always, I end this article with a daydreaming exerits tail…meet Zuul, the Destroyer of Shins! Zuul is a new species of anky- cise: let’s imagine what fantastic new beasts, fluffballs, plant-guzzlers, and losaur, described by Victoria Arbour and David meat-chompers await us in 2018. I’ll also end Evans. Movie buffs among you will recognize its with a narcissistic note about something else name: it is christened after the red-eyed, multito look forward to in 2018: I have a new book horned, dog-like critter in Ghostbusters, which coming out! I’ve written some kids’ books and textbooks in the past, and thank all of you who infamously possesses the body of Sigourney have purchased and read them for your supWeaver’s character. port! Next year I’m doing something different.

For the first time I’m trying my hand at the Other News: I’ve focused here on new dinosaur adult pop science market. My book The Rise species, to introduce some of the new characters Jianianhualong tengi and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be published in that have been found over the past year. But there ©Julius Csotonyi April 2018, by William Morrow publishers in have also been many important research studies the US, Macmillan in the UK, and also in sevthat have revealed new things about dinosaur genealogy, evolution, and behavior. I don’t have much space, but I will high- eral other languages around the world. It tells the evolutionary story of dinosaurs: where they came from, how they rose light what I think is the most thought-provokup to dominance, how some of they became huge ing of these studies.

Zuul © Danielle Dufault and others evolved feathers and wings and turned The most dramatic moment in the dinosaur into birds, and how the rest of them died out. year happened in March, when PhD student Throughout, I chronicle some of my own advenMatthew Baron and his supervisors, Paul tures studying dinosaurs—the fieldwork I’ve done Barrett and David Norman, published a and the many excellent—and often weird—colprovocative cover article in Nature on the leagues I work with. I hope you’ll check it out and dinosaur family tree. They argued for a new enjoy it! family tree, breaking over a century of consensus among dinosaur workers. I—and all of us, Serikornis: Time for another feathered dinosaur. Say hello to Serikornis, a cute fluffy thing you could hold in your hands, had you been around 160-ish million years ago when it lived in China. It had feathers on its arms, legs, and tail…but its leg feathers were soft and delicate, like those in modern Silky breed chickens. The fossil was described by Ulysse Lefèvre as part of his PhD thesis work in Belgium.

Continuing from pg 55

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Shingopana songwensis © Mark Witton

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