A Colourful Dinosaur Drawing

Amongst the many pictures, drawings and letters we receive each week we found a lovely picture of a spotty dinosaur that had been drawn by a Year 2 school girl (aged 6-7).  We read all the letters and emails we receive and we try our best to reply to them all.

“Spot” the Dinosaur

A spotty dinosaur.

The green, blue and brown spots look like armour and from the beak and the strange tail we think that this is an interpretation of an armoured dinosaur, perhaps something like an Ankylosaurus from the Late Cretaceous  of North America.

Our team members love visiting schools and teaching about dinosaurs.  Each lesson plan they prepare contains experiments and activities that dovetail into the national teaching curriculum.

Ryan – Draws Dinosaurs

At Everything Dinosaur we receive lots of pictures, illustrations and photographs from customers and general dinosaur enthusiasts.  Every single one is gratefully received and our warehouse wall and notice boards have lots and lots of artwork that has been sent in and pinned up on display.  The other day we received a jpg image of some drawings of feathered dinosaurs created by Ryan, the drawings were sent in by Amy (thanks Amy), and we think they are super.  Ryan has drawn his favourite dinosaur – Deinonychus (Deinonychus antirrhopus), a ferocious member of the Dromaeosauridae.

Dinosaur Illustrations by Ryan

Dinosaurs Illustrated by Ryan.

 Picture Credit: Ryan

It is a very useful skill to be able to draw accurately.  When examining a fossil, creating an accurate, scale drawing can help the observer to really understand the object they are studying.  When creating a detailed drawing, this can help the illustrator to understand aspects of the biology of the organism.    One of the aims of making a drawing is to help develop the practical science skills of observation and recording information from three-dimensional specimens such as fossil material.

Fantastic illustrations Ryan, a very interesting series of feathered dinosaur drawings.

American Researchers Study Changes in Body Size for Feathered Dinosaurs who were Facultative Herbivores

A team of researchers from the United States have challenged a theory regarding how the likes of the Oviraptors, Ornithomimids and the Therizinosaurs evolved over time.  Fossils of these types of dinosaur have been found in Upper Cretaceous aged rocks across the northern hemisphere.  Palaeontologists believe that these types of dinosaur, classified as Theropods, adapted to a herbivorous diet, or at least became omnivorous, eating less meat.  Oviraptors, Ornithomimids and the Therizinosaurs were descended from dinosaurs that were carnivores.  However, over time they adapted to eating plants and some of these dinosaurs, those found in Maastrichtian or Campanian aged faunal strata (the very end of the Cretaceous), evolved into giants.

Giant Feathered Dinosaurs – Researching into “Big Birds”

Scale drawings of large members of the Dinosaur families studied.

Picture Credit: North Carolina State University, with additional annotations by Everything Dinosaur

One of the theories postulated about why some of these dinosaurs grew so big, states that large size was an advantage as this enabled herbivores to evolve larger guts and digestive tracts that would be needed to help them process tough, fibrous plant material efficiently so that nutrients could be extracted.  Some genera did grow big!  For example, the dinosaur known as Gigantoraptor (G. erlianensis), fossils of which were discovered in Inner Mongolia in 2005, was tall enough to look Tyrannosaurus rex in the eye.  This fossil specimen indicates an animal over five metres tall and eight metres long, weighing perhaps as much as one and a half metric tonnes.  The Chinese scientists who made the discovery, have estimated that this individual was not fully grown so adult Gigantoraptors were probably much bigger.  Gigantoraptor has been classified as a member of the Oviraptoridae.  Most of the other members of the Oviraptor family were much smaller.

Similar examples of gigantism can be found in the Ornithomimids and the Therizinosaurids.  Therizinosaurus cheloniformis, also from Mongolia; may have been up to twelve metres in length, many time bigger than other Therizinosaurs, or as they are sometimes called Segnosaurs.  Amongst the Late Cretaceous members of the Ornithomimosauria, there were also giants.  A pair of 2.6 metre long arms discovered in the Nemegt Formation (Gobi desert of Mongolia) in 1965 have been ascribed to an enormous Ornithomimid which was perhaps up to twelve metres in length.  This dinosaur was formally named and described in 1970, the world was introduced to Deinocheirus mirificus (terrible hand).  Despite its terrifying hands, this dinosaur is not thought to have been a carnivore.

Deinocheirus – “Terrible Hands”

"Big Bird" - Deinocheirus.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

Most species belonging to these three types of dinosaur family possessed a horny, toothless beak and relatively small heads in proportion to the size of their bodies.  A number of fossils found also indicate that these dinosaurs may have been covered in simple, proto-feathers, designed not for flight but to help insulate these active animals and keep them warm.  Palaeontologists think that creatures such as the Oviraptors were closely related to today’s modern birds.

The research team from North Carolina, aided by colleagues from the Field Museum in Chicago, mapped out the fossil evidence from these three different types of dinosaur and attempted to model whether as the animals evolved they tended to generally increase in body size.  Statistical analysis was employed to test whether the theory that later forms of these prehistoric animals were indeed larger than their ancestors.

The scientists discovered, that although there were giant forms, there was not a clear linear trend towards gigantism with these types of dinosaur.  The evolution for the trait that makes an animal bigger than its ancestors seems to have been a passive process, there may have been large forms, but at the same time many types of Ornithomimids, Oviraptors and Therizinosaurs remained small.

The academic paper detailing the results of this analysis have been published in the scientific journal, the Proceedings of the Royal Society – Biology.   The evidence suggests that just because a dinosaur adapts to a more herbivorous diet does not necessarily mean that they have to evolve into bigger forms to accommodate a larger gut.  The work of these scientists does not rule out diet as affecting the size of animals, but suggests that other factors such as stable environments, the lack of competition and the amount of resources within a habitat play a significant part.

Where resources were plentiful, such as the area that was to form the strata of the  Nemegt Formation of Mongolia, some types of Therizinosaur for instance could grow into a giant form (T. cheloniformis), however, in other parts of the world, perhaps where there was more competition from other herbivorous dinosaurs gigantism did not occur.

The conclusions made by the researchers do challenge some of the accepted thinking about these dinosaurs.  There is a problem with this study, one that is acknowledged by the research team.  The fossil record for these prehistoric animals is far from complete and in their study, some uneven sampling of the fossil material may have taken place.  If it is assumed that smaller species tend to be more abundant in an environment than large species and if it is assumed that more specimens of smaller species will be preserved as fossils as a result, then the amount of small dinosaurs known from the fossil record may be an over representation of their actual numbers, whilst larger species the likes of Deinocheirus, Therizinosaurus and Gigantoraptor may be understated.

A Pair of Flying Reptiles

At Everything Dinosaur we are always delighted to receive pictures of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.  Here is an example of a colourful pair of flying reptiles, (Pteranodons), members of the Order Pterosauria.  With their mustard yellow bodies, bright blue wings and red faces these animals from the Late Cretaceous are certainly very colourful.

A Pair of Patrolling Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs Take to the Air.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

We think this picture is one from the Travel dinosaur colour and go sets that can be found at the Everything Dinosaur website:

Everything Dinosaur Website

If dinosaur fans want to send in pictures to us at Everything Dinosaur, they are most welcome to do so, simply send them to the contact address that can be found on the Everything Dinosaur website, or drop team members an email.

Blood from a Woolly Mammoth on Exhibit for the Very First Time

A small vial of deep red mammoth haemoglobin along with a portion of mammoth tusk recovered from Grunthal, Manitoba (Canada), are the latest additions to the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre and its first Ice Age exhibit allowing people an unprecedented opportunity to get up close and personal to an ancient creature which became extinct approximately 10,000 years ago.  With the possibility of geneticists being able to clone a Woolly Mammoth becoming closer, visitors to the museum have the opportunity to view some of the material, the like of which may play a role in the bringing back to life of an extinct species.

The exhibit was made possible thanks to a donation of the haemoglobin from Winnipeg’s Kevin Campbell, a University of Manitoba professor of environmental and evolutionary physiology and vice-president of the board for the museum.

An Opportunity to Get Close to Woolly Mammoths

Sample of Mammoth haemoglobin on display at Canadian museum.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

Campbell, whose research was instrumental in the resurrection of the haemoglobin, explained how recent advances in biotechnology enabled him to not only re-create functional genes from extinct animals, but also to faithfully assemble and study the proteins the genes once encoded. By doing so they were able to determine some remarkable ‘living’ characteristics of Woolly Mammoths.

Professor Campbell explained:

“For instance, resurrecting this red blood cell protein haemoglobin from a Woolly Mammoth has shown that the normally temperature sensitive protein evolved novel adaptations that, unlike living (tropical) elephants, enabled it to do its job of delivering oxygen to body tissues in the cold conditions these beasts faced.”

He went onto add:

“Prior to these new techniques we had no way to deduce, let alone test for, these kinds of attributes from fossilised remains.  Being able to re-create and study authentic genetic material from extinct species is a whole new frontier in palaeo-biology and research into ancient life.”

The last time of species, H. sapiens got this close to a Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was something like 10,000 years ago.  The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre’s acting executive director, Peter Cantelon exclaimed:
“We are thrilled to be able to be at the forefront of palaeo-biology with this one-of-a-kind display.  If you were to go back in time with a syringe, remove Mammoth blood and separate out the haemoglobin, this is exactly what you would have.”

The cloning of extinct species such as the Quagga, the Woolly Rhino and of course the Woolly Mammoth is now a possibility thanks to developments in the extraction, storage and study of ancient DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).  However, this aspect of science is extremely controversial.  There seems to be an almost daily stream of reports related to the study of  ”Ancient DNA”, for example, team members at Everything Dinosaur recently had their attention drawn to a scientific paper (yet to be peer reviewed) that discussed the DNA evidence for the existence of “Big Foot” and where it might fit on the hominin family tree.

To read an article on the possibility of bringing extinct animals back: Resurrecting Prehistoric Animals

When working with Year 6 pupils yesterday, at a school in the Lake District (North-west England), the moral implications for bringing back a long dead animal such as a Woolly Mammoth was discussed.

Does because we can, does this mean we should?

A Pair of Pterosaurs Take to the Air

A colourful pair of Pteranodon’s soaring across the sky in this clever piece of artwork from a young dinosaur (or should that be Pterosaur) fan.

An Impression of Pterosaurs in Flight

Pteranodon Takes to the Air.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

We like the way some extra vegetation has been added to the drawing.  The illustration itself comes from the Dinosaur Colour and Go Travel set that proved a big hit with our testers.  These large Pterosaurs lived at the end of the Cretaceous, the species depicted here (Pteranodon longiceps) is best known from fossil material found in the United States.  The wingspans of some specimens are in excess of nine metres, making these creatures some of the largest flying creatures ever to exist.

Nobody knows exactly what colour these flying reptiles were, although they did probably have colour vision.  We love the blue and purple wings and the flash of red in these reptile’s mouths.

At Everything Dinosaur we are always pleased to see drawings and pictures of prehistoric animals done by young dinosaur fans, just send any images (jpg files etc.) Email Everything Dinosaur

You never know, your drawing could be published on line in our blog or on our social media pages such as Facebook.

Clever Colouring Set for Young Dinosaur Fans on the Go

With the daunting prospect of having to visit relatives over the forthcoming holidays and the subsequent long journey with the family that this entails, getting the chance to review any product that might just keep little ones travelling with you entertained was an opportunity to good to miss.  The Colour and Go Dinosaur Travel Colouring Book is a thoughtfully designed colouring set that can be used to keep young dinosaur fans occupied when travelling.

The Colour and Go Colouring Set from Everything Dinosaur

A great little travel set featuring prehistoric animals to colour in.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

The set consists of eighteen tear away prehistoric animal themed drawings all bound together in a pad which is spiral bound by a funky red spiral.  This pad fits into a study pocket book that can be flipped over so that the drawing materials can be accessed.  Fitting snugly along the side of the drawing pad are a set of ten washable marker pens, so in essence this is a self contained colouring set.  The marker pens have bright white lids so if one is dropped whilst in the car or on a train they can easily be found.  The pens themselves are of excellent quality and fit into a handy cardboard storage box which is glued to the carry case thus ensuring that the marker pens are always on hand when it is time to draw.

The pad measures a pocket-sized seventeen centimetres by fourteen centimetres and the actual illustrations are sixteen centimetres by twelve centimetres in size.

One of the Eighteen Illustrations Featured in the Set

Swishing his tail with excitement, waiting to be coloured in.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

The drawings feature a range of prehistoric animals.  There is of course a Tyrannosaurus rex but alongside the Triceratops, Stegosaurus and long-necked dinosaur, it was pleasing to see flying reptiles, Dimetrodon (not a dinosaur but a pelycosaur from the Late Permian geological period), and even a Parasaurolophus included.

The drawings have lots of detail for the young palaeontologists to colour in.  For example, there is a bright sun with a face in one picture, a volcano is shown in an illustration and a nest of dinosaur eggs in another.  The young artists who helped with the testing of this product by colouring in the drawings, all agreed that their favourite drawing was the one that featured a T. rex guarding his pile of bones.

If the illustrations are photocopied or scanned then they can be blown up to make larger drawing materials and us grown-ups can have for themselves a ready source of cute dinosaur images to help keep our charges amused during a rainy day.  Each drawing once completed can be carefully torn off the pad and pinned up as a mini poster.  It was best if the drawings stayed on the pad until they were safely at home, this is why there is a spiral binder for the drawing pad, as children can easily flip through the set to choose a drawing that they have not completed yet.

One of the Completed Illustrations

Great travel art set.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

The Colour and Go Dinosaur Travel Colouring Book, is light and easy for a child to carry around.  It fitted nicely into a rucksack pocket and the hidden magnet built into the side of the carry case flap ensured that everything stayed safe and secure.

What to do with the completed dinosaur drawings?  A number of ideas were explored.  Yes, the young palaeontologists can carefully tear out their drawings from the pad (each page is perforated to assist with this), then they can be put on display perhaps on the fridge or in the child’s bedroom.  However, another suggestion was to use these postcard-sized drawings as postcards, simply put a stamp on the front and write on the back – a great idea if this set is used to entertain children when going away on holidays.

Another suggestion was to use these drawings as clever party invitations.  Date, time, the place and so on can be printed on the back whilst the young invitee has a dinosaur illustration to colour in as well as a party to look forward to.  The illustrations are on quite thick card, so all these ideas are extremely practical.

An enterprising Mum of a keen dinosaur fan, took some of the drawings that her daughter had done and got them laminated.  She was then able to have a unique, bespoke drinks coaster for her daughter – very clever indeed.

It was great to see a drawing of a young explorer, equipped with a tent included in the set.  The children could imagine themselves visiting their own dinosaur land.  We loved the wooden sign that was deliberately left blank in one of the drawings, this gave the young artists the chance to create their own name for the dinosaur spotting expedition.

Designed for children from 3 years and upwards, this little, inexpensive colouring set kept our testers quiet for a long time, each drawing took in some cases more than an hour of concentrated colouring in to complete.

To view Everything Dinosaur’s range of dinosaur themed crafts and art sets: Dinosaur Painting and Dinosaur Crafts

A big hit and an entertaining diversion on long journeys.

Grandfather finds Plesiosaur Fossils

Palaeontologists in the Grande Prairie region of Alberta (Canada), have something new to study after a retired farmer and his grandson discovered the fossilised remains of a Cretaceous Plesiosaur whilst walking along the Smoky River.  For many palaeontologists, including Dr. Philip Bell who was asked to examine the fossils, this summer has been a particularly stressful one after a number of vertebrate fossil sites were attacked by vandals and looted.

For Dr. Bell the prospect of studying a potential new species of marine reptile may go some way to compensate him and his colleagues over the loss of Hadrosaur material after the spate attacks on fossil dig sites.

To read more about the vandalism: Vandals in Alberta damage Duck-Billed Dinosaur Skeleton

Norm Dyck and his young grandson were just walking along the banks of the Smoky River when they stumbled upon the large matrix of fossilised bones that had eroded out of one of the banks.  Knowing that they had found fossil bone, but not knowing quite what animal it might be, they took their discovery along to Dr. Bell.

For Dr. Bell, a project palaeontologist at the nearby Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Initiative, a preliminary examination proved that this was not dinosaur material, he stated:

“I realised that these were not dinosaur bones, they were something different”

The fossils have been identified as articulated vertebrae (back bones) from  a long-necked Pliosaur (Plesiosaur).  Plesiosaurs were a group of marine reptiles, distantly related to the Dinosauria.  These animals evolved in the Mesozoic and lived right up until the end of the Cretaceous.  Many were long-necked, fish-eaters and some specimens grew up to more than 12 metres in length.

An Illustration of a Typical Plesiosaur

Agile Mesozoic marine reptiles

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

The vertebrae and other fragments of fossil bone found by Mr. Dyck suggest that this individual may have been about three metres long.  It is not known at this time whether the fossils represent a new species.

The Grande Prairie region may be better known for its Late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils, but towards the end of the Cretaceous the Western Interior Seaway (an inland sea that covered much of Canada, the United States and ran down to the Gulf of Mexico), waxed and waned and the Grande Prairie area found itself part of this shallow, tropical sea.

Other Plesiosaur fossils have been found in the Canadian Province of Alberta.  For example, Plesiosaur fossils occur throughout the Dinosaur Park Formation across the Dinosaur Provincial Park, but they are rare and generally poorly preserved.  Other Plesiosaur fossils have been found in the south of the Province, discovered in oilsands.

To read about a recent Canadian Plesiosaur fossil discovery: Plesiosaurus rises to the Surface

As Dr. Bell freely admits, some of the strata along the Smoky River has yet to be fully mapped and explored by his team.  This discovery “bodes very well for the future”, according to Dr. Bell.  It is likely more marine reptile fossils are out there awaiting discovery.  Dr. Bell and his colleagues hope to be able to explore the area where the grandfather and grandson team made their fossil find.

The fossil has been donated to collection being prepared for the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum which is under construction at the nearby town of Wembley.

For Philip Bell and his colleagues after the trouble they have had from vandalism, the discovery is a welcome silver lining to a trying summer when several sites were looted and wrecked.  Norm Dyck’s action in donating the fossil shows the supportive side to the community.

The Plesiosaur Fossil “Block”

Plesiosaur Fossils Found

Picture Credit: Dr. Philip Bell

The ruler provides scale and our dinosaur experts have annotated the diagram to show the articulated vertebrae (back bones) at the bottom of the block in this photograph.

Dr. Bell added:

“It’s really heartening to see people are genuinely interested and supportive of this work.  They want to see this museum [Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum] built, they want to see these treasures protected for future generations.”

Let’s hope that the Smoky River Plesiosaur proves a welcome tonic for the palaeontologists and field workers of Grande Prairie.

Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Reptiles (Jane Werner Watson)

Continuing the discussion amongst team members at Everything Dinosaur about favourite dinosaur books, it would be remiss of us if we did not include the beautifully illustrated “Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Reptiles”.  This hardback dinosaur book was first published in 1966 (we think), our office copy dates from 1973 and is the sixth re-print of this wonderful children’s dinosaur book.  Sub-titled “Mighty Monsters of the Past”, this book was written by Jane Werner Watson and illustrated by the fantastically talented Rudolph F. Zallinger.

The Front Cover of this Favourite Dinosaur Book

Beautiful Dinosaur Book

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

The book provides a brief preamble discussing life before the dinosaurs starting with the move onto land by certain species of fish, the lush forests of the Carboniferous before moving onto depict life in the Age of Reptiles (Triassic to Cretaceous).  The text is easy to read for a young child and inserts facts about the prehistoric animals covered within a narrative that explains what is going on in the superbly illustrated pictures by Rudolph F. Zallinger.  The artwork is simply amazing, and the award winning Zallinger depicts his subjects in  a series of lively dioramas with many of the prehistoric animals depicted as highly colourful creatures.  For example, a red and blue Allosaurus or a blue and purple Plateosaurus.

Ornitholestes and Archaeopteryx Illustrated by Zallinger

Beautiful and Detailed Drawings

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

In the above illustration, an Ornitholestes (Theropod dinosaur) is pursuing early birds such as Archaeopteryx.  This illustration draws heavily on the work of another great dinosaur illustrator Charles Knight.  Zallinger’s attention to detail and desire to show such terrific backgrounds is perhaps what makes the artwork in this book so outstanding.  Although a lot of the illustrations within this book are now outdated in terms of our knowledge about the Dinosauria, for instance Sauropods are depicted as aquatic, swamp-dwelling creatures the pictures are simply wonderful to behold.

Running through the book is a timeline starting with the emergence of mankind and then slowly travelling backwards in time to 293 million years ago (when the timeline suddenly runs out).  The last animal featured is the Eusthenopteron,

The Timeline at the Foot of Each Page

Travelling Backwards in Time

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

In the timeline, a Styracosaurus is seen preceding the emergence of Triceratops towards the end of the Cretaceous geological period.

The book may be outdated, but it still provokes many happy childhood memories for team members at Everything Dinosaur.

Megacerops – A Brontothere otherwise known as a “Thunder Beast”

Just time to post up a drawing of Megacerops, a member of a family of prehistoric mammals known as Brontotheres, or “Thunder Beasts”.  This drawing was commissioned by Everything Dinosaur so that a fact sheet on this prehistoric animal could be produced to mark the creation of the Collecta Megacerops model.

An Illustration of Megacerops

"Large Horn Face" - Megacerops

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

Although this animals superficially resembled modern-day rhinos, they are in fact more closely related to horses.  Our thanks to Mike Fredericks who we commissioned to create this drawing for Everything Dinosaur.

To view the Collecta model range: Collecta dinosaurs and Collecta prehistoric mammal models