What Really, Actually Happened to the Dinosaurs

As a response to yesterday's post, I thought I'd post Douglas Henderson's version of what really happened to the Dinosaurs. What I love about Doug's work is, just when you think you've seen every interpretation of prehistoric life, he comes up with an entirely new perspective.

I don't think I've ever seen a depiction of the asteroid's approach that is so eerie and ominous. I love the idea that dinosaurs, like any animal spooked by a coming storm, would have started acting erratically. This is the inciting incident of Act I.

In story, we're always looking for contrast as a way to show escalating drama, which is why I love the difference between the calm, cool-colored approach of the asteroid and this cold, black, existential over-the-moon's-shoulder shot of the asteroid entering atmosphere. This is the escalating action of Act II.

And, in what would only have lasted a fraction of a second, the brilliant, near black-and-white sizzle of the K-T event in progress. This is the crisis moment at the end of Act II.

The final impact puts even Mt Doom to shame.

This is the dramatic climax of Act III.

And finally, our story's resolution. A tragedy from the dinosaur's perspective, a comedy from the asteroid's. 

More of Doug's amazing paleoart can be found here.

8 days...

What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?

Way back in 2009, when folks were looking forward to a new Star Trek movie and Barrack Obama had recently been elected President--things were much different back then--my friend Mike Sundy and I collaborated on a children's book called "What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs." 

The book was about a paleontologist and his son theorizing about where all the dinosaurs had gone; whether they had left in a massive exodus aboard an alien spaceship, or been obliterated by a Cooties epidemic.

Sadly, the book was never produced, but Mike and I had a blast collaborating, and I think we contributed some very valuable ideas to the scientific community.

10 days...

Sauroniops

Last week, the colossal Moroccan theropod Sauroniops ("The Eye of Sauron") joined the ranks of Mojoceratops and Dracorex Hogwarsti, recently discovered dinosaurs named after nerd icons.

Sauroniops is so-named because the species has only been identified by a single eye socket bone with a distinctive bump. Much like the Dark Lord, who was only identifiable by a badly-burnt helmet after his death.

Peter Jackson couldn't have asked for a cooler publicity stunt.

31 days...

Pegomastax

Pegomastax ("strong jaw"), possibly a distant relative to Count Orlok and Lestat, has been discovered just in time for Halloween.  Since Pegomastax predates bats, my theory is that he turned into an Anurognathus.

Despite the gruesome appearance, Pegomastax was most likely omnivorous, meaning the most Halloweeny part of his diet was candy corn (which you can use to fashion your own set of Pegomastax fangs).

With massive canines, quills, and a sweet chicken comb, it's no surprise this guy is already generating a lot of paleo-art:

Jonathan Kuo

Life-sized bust by Tyler Keillor

26 days...

Yutyrannus

Weighing in at one and a half tons, tip-to-tail as long as a school bus, and sporting an impressive coat of feathers. Now that's a big bird.

Yesterday, scientists announced the discovery of Yutyrannus (or "beautiful feathered tyrant"), the largest feathered animal known to man. We know smaller theropods like Velociraptor had feathers and we've even been able to discern the colors and patterns in their down, but Yutyrannus (who lived long before T. rex, in the early Cretaceous) is the first evidence of fully feathered dinosaurs on a large scale. Even terror bird would have bowed to the beautiful feathered tyrant.

29 days...

Jurassic Pets

Paleontologists from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History have announced the discovery of the two smallest horned dinosaurs ever: Gryphoceratops (pictured above) and Unescopceratops. Sure, they're not actually horned, but these guys are cousins of the great Styracosaurus, Chasmosaurus, and Triceratops. Neither Gryphoceratops or Unescopceratops were longer than a meter, putting them at about the size of a beagle.

Once scientists get their acts together and bring back the dinosaurs, these guys are at the top of my list of possible dinopets.

19 days...

Pixar is Making a Dinosaur Film

Granted it's not the dinosaur film I pitched. I thought we could use a little synergy with internet/smart phone app culture. After all, dinosaurs are ancestors of all birds, especially the angry ones.

"Even the word 'raptor' means bird of prey."
"Doesn't look very scary to me. Looks more like a six-foot turkey."

People have been guessing this one for years, ever since some co-workers and I went on a dig with the Black Hills Institute back in aught nine. Ironically, the dig (which I chronicled in my Jurassic Journals) had nothing to do with this movie, but it got the rumor mill churning.

The official premise released today at D23 was, "What if that life-changing asteroid missed Earth? Director Bob Peterson’s hilarious tale depicts a world where dinosaurs never went extinct."

Stay tuned for more details from this adventure 65 million years in the making...

16 days...

Happy Shark Week!

It's easy to forget that these animals once gave dinosaurs nightmares, too. Sharks have been around for over 400 million years, with the Great White family appearing 60-65 million years ago. That's exactly the same time as the extinction of the dinosaurs. Coincidence? I think not.

O days! Happy Shark Week!

Micro Rex
Part III: Dino Soars

Image three of six for the upcoming Super Big Micro Show. I've had a lot of comments on the size of the dragonfly, and yes, they were once that big. Some fossils have been discovered with wingspans over two and a half feet. Worthy prey for a T. rex pup, I'd say.

Watercolor, prisma pen, and ink 4x6

26 days...

TALES FROM LONDON
Chapter V: The Bones

An Allosaur, playing a game of freeze-tag with a nearby Iguanodon skeleton at the London Natural History Museum. Next to Shakespeare at the Globe (which I'll share tomorrow), this was my favorite stop of the trip.

Elevated catwalks gave us an interesting perspective, looking down on the skeletons.

The one thing that bugged me was some of the messed up dino anatomy. The shoulder bones (corocoids, specifically, for you real dino nerds out there) were spaced too far apart in everything from the theropods to ceratopsians.

That's almost forgiveable, though. We're always revising our opinions about dino anatomy. The one really blatant error was displayed at kid's-eye-view on a video screen. An animated walk-cycle portrayed a Diplodocus walking like two blokes in a horse costume. One glance at any modern quadruped would have shown them that the front two appendages are still arms, even if they're walked on, and bend backward, like an elbow, not forward like a knee.

C'mon, England, this sort of sloppy thinking is why we had to save you guys in the war.

Mojoceratops
The international dinosaur of mystery.

Mojoceratops (sexy-horned head) is up there with Dracorex Hogwartsi (the dragon king of Hogwarts) and Stygimoloch (demon from the river Styx) as the coolest dinosaur names of all-time. Paleontologist Nicholas Longrich says the species was named partly for its flambouyant heart-shaped frill, and partly for the Swedish-made penis enlarger found nearby. Longrich swears it's not his.

The species was found in Canada, just like Mike Myers.

How to Build a Dinosaur
Step 1: First Blood

According to Popular Science, researchers have successfully extracted 43,000 year-old mammoth DNA and replicated mammoth blood. This is the first step in bringing back an extinct species. Next stop: baby dinosaurs.

Animated on the iPad.

In other news, the latest Toy Story 3 trailer is out. It's definitely a different direction for the studio.

Post-it-suchus

When I doodled the Australian Rex for Aaron's blog, I kind of went on a post-it binge, so here are the other dino post-its I doodled. Collect the whole set!

For those of you who take umbridge at this post's title: yes, Postosuchus here is a basal archosaur, not a proper dinosaur.

The Daily Post-It

My buddy Aaron runs a sweet blog called The Daily Post-It where he chronicles recent events in post-it form. So I figured I'd contribute the latest in prehistoric news: paleontologists have discovered the first Australian tyrannosaur.

"You call that a Rex? Now THAT'S a Rex!"

Even Ancienter Dinosaurs Discovered

If people are unsure about genetically resurrecting the dinosaurs, we could always test things out by bringing back a proto-dinosaur like Asilisaurus first. According to Science Daily, the freshly-discovered protosaur is the earliest known direct ancestor of dinosaurs, and he was golden retriever-sized, so he'd probably make a great pet!

WANTED

Asteroids...you're on notice! I could look the other way while you were smashing up TIE fighters and 8-bit space ships. I don't even mind what you've done to the moon, I'm sure he had it coming. But according to this article, paleontologists have finally proven that you and you alone are guilty for the demise of the majestic dinosaurs.

And I don't want to hear any of this "it was an accident" nonsense. You hurled into the Earth at what smart men with large calculators say was 20 times the velocity of a speeding bullet, causing a blast over a billion times worse than the Hiroshima bomb!! I just can't look the other way anymore. Asteroids, watch your cratered backs, cuz Earth is coming for justice!

Snakes...Why'd it Have to be Snakes?

According to this NPR article, Paleontologists in India uncovered a haunting scene: an 11-ft constrictor coiled inside a sauropod nest, poised to strike a baby long-neck before it could crawl to safety. Who wins in a fight between a prehistoric constrictor and a baby sauropod? Mother nature, apparently. Both animals were covered (presumably in a sand-storm or flash-flood) before they could resolve their conflict.

Fossils, gotta love em!




Full publication of the findings can be found here.

Hog Warts

I recently discovered a breed of prehistoric pig-wolves called entelodonts. Well, I didn't discover them, I learned about their existence. Below is the aptly named Daeodon, or "terrible hog". Why they chose to use a frightened bikini girl for size reference, I have no idea. Maybe daeodons were also chauvinist pigs.

Below is Andrewsarchus, my new favorite non-dinosaur animal.

These guys reminded me of the wargs from Lord of the Rings, so I thought it'd be fun to sketch my version of a warg-rider. He had to be someone real nasty who looked like he'd be right at home riding a Daeodon into battle or wrestling an Andrewsarchus into submission. Here's what I came up with.

If this guy existed during primeval times, he'd certainly give cro-magnon man a run for his money. For the colors, I googled "mottled" and found this cool texture. It has all the earthy greens and browns you'd associate with an orc. Thanks to Photoshop's eyedropping color-sampler, I was able to use this as a direct palette, and it worked pretty well!

Prehistoric Runway

Paleontologists in southwestern France have discovered fossil footprints of a landing pterosaur. This find offers a rare glimpse into the way these animals moved. The way I see it, now we have no reason not to animate pterosaurs. Wired magazine describes the researchers' conclusions:

"As it arrived, the dinosaur used its wings as brakes, then planted its dainty hind feet into the mud. This wasn’t enough to slow its momentum; it bounced momentarily back into the air before touching down again, this time dragging its feet. Once under control, it leaned forward, placed its wingtip forelimbs on the ground, and ambled away on all fours."

Here are the actual tracks and a dance-step-like breakdown of the landing sequence.

These tracks come from a smaller pterosaur (probably no more than a meter long). What I'd like to know is how a big guy like this Hatzegopteryx took off in the first place. This guy had a 40 ft wingspan (that's larger than a Cessna), and is estimated to have weighed over 500 lbs. Oh, and he was discovered in Transylvania, so I'm pretty sure he was vampiric.

EVERYTHING PREHISTORIC
The Final Installment of The Jurassic Journals

At the end of our long week of dinosaur-digging, Greg, Chuck, Brandon, Zack, and I said our fond farewells to everyone at the Waugh dig and returned to the Black Hills Institute in Rapid City, South Dakota. Having toiled for hours in the dirt and sun for every fragment of bone, the colossal skeletons in the museum took on a whole new meaning. I can only imagine what it must feel like to find something as large and awesome as a rex skull.

Pete Larson took us behind the scenes to the BHI's fossil workshop. We watched him clean-up Greg's Camarasaurus claw and he let us go through drawers and drawers of dino-bits including specimens of Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Hypsilophodon, Allosaurus, Barosaurus, Triceratops, T. rex, and (my favorite) Apatosaurus. I love how the fossil cleaning stations (seen below) could totally double as animation desks; I'm getting ideas for my future home.

While in South Dakota, we did the obligatory Mt. Rushmore trip. To be honest, it was kind of a let-down after all the prehistoric hijinks.

Our last stop more than made up for Rushmore's lameness. Matt Seney (remember the snake-handler from Journal Six?) used to work at this local attraction called Reptile Gardens. He wanted to give us a backstage tour of the joint, but due to a flash storm (more on that later) he was stuck back at the dig site in Hulett. Fortuitously, the waitress we had at lunch knew a guy who worked at the Gardens, so she hooked us up with a backstage tour anyway!

There was something poetic about ending our dinosaur trip with a visit to their descendents. This komodo dragon certainly bore a striking resemblance to his ancestors. He was pretty relaxed, but his head would perk up every time children came up to the glass.

Our tour guide introduced us to a baby alligator who quickly became my new best friend.

There was a croc handler who gave a presentation in a pen with an assortment of fifteen crocs and alligators. He'd drag em out of the water by their tail and wrestle them to the ground. Amazingly enough, he still had both arms and legs; I don't think he'd have had as much success in a pen with Deinosuchus (whose name means terrible croc). Just for reference, here's a picture Zack took of a modern man-eating croc's skull inside the jaws of the dino-eating Deinosuchus.

Meanwhile, back at the dig site...

Remember that storm I mentioned? Well, while I was cuddling up with my new gator pal, our friends at the Waugh ranch were being slammed by a massive hail storm. We had seen the storm front amassing earlier in the day, before we left camp. Since the only road out of camp was a two-mile dirt road, we said some hastey good-byes to all our friends so we could hit the road before the storm made it impassable.

A mere two hours after we sped off, hail the size of softballs began pelting the camp, smashing nine of ten car windshields.

We heard of one family who also decided to hit the dirt road before the storm washed away. They packed up their tent, their digging gear, bone fragments and dog. But they forgot one thing as they zipped away from the camp in their RV: their eight year-old son! He was still at the camp site in the hail! Everything turned out alright; they went back for him and no real harm was done. But imagine being abandoned by your family and left in this (thanks to my buddy Amar for the great footage!):

Thus ended our first great dinosaur hunt. As you can see, it was an amazing time, and we all made some fantastic friends with dino-lovers from all over the world. For any of you,who are interested in going on a dinosaur dig yourself, I highly recommend contacting the fine folks at the Black Hills Institute and volunteering for next year's Waugh Dig. You don't need any experience (heck, I'd never been camping!), just a love for everything prehistoric.

From left: Holly Barden, Oguchi Shota, Zack Keller, Amar Dosanj, Greg Dykstra, Chuck Waite, yours truly, and Brandon Hyman.

Previous Jurassic Journals
Part One: The Black Hills Institute
Part Two: Devil's Tower
Part Three: The Waugh Ranch
Part Four: The Actual Jurassic Journal
Part Five: F Quarry
Part Six: A Quarry