#Centrosaurus

[tropinui]

Centrosaurus

(SENT-roh-SOR-us)(Late Cretaceous period)

Cow inspired colors and patterns

This piece is part of a project that fell through, the "ABC of Dinosaurs", where I illustrated a selection of extinct animals, some famous, others less well known in fanciful depictions. I do not claim full realism, only giving my take on one of my greatest passions in life.

Please enjoy.

[rabbitcruiser]

Dinosaurs Day  

Today we celebrate those large, extinct reptiles: dinosaurs.  Scientists believe they first appeared about 245 million years ago, at  the beginning of the Middle Triassic Epoch, and existed for about 180  million years, going extinct about 66 million years ago at the end of  the Cretaceous Period. The period when they lived is called the Mesozoic  Era. During this time they went through many changes, and various species of dinosaurs replaced other species.  Some dinosaurs were bipedal, meaning they walked on two legs, and some  were quadrupedal, meaning they walked on all fours. Some switched back  and forth. Some were covered with feathers, while others had what was  almost like body armor. Some ran fast, and others were slow; most were  herbivores, but some were carnivores. There were at least 700 species of  dinosaurs, and possibly more than 1,000.

There were big biotic changes at the end of the Cretaceous Period,  and many other animals and plants died at that time as well. There are  many theories as to why dinosaurs died out, including disease, heat  waves, cold spells, changing sea levels, large amounts of volcanic  activity, the emergence of egg-eating mammals, or from X-rays from an  exploding supernova. One other common theory is that an asteroid smashed  to earth, spread ash widely, and shifted the earth's climate. However,  it is not believed that all dinosaurs died out at the same time. Rather,  it is believed they had been declining during the last part of the  Cretaceous Period. Scientists also believe that some dinosaurs may have  evolved into birds.

Richard Owen, an English anatomist, came up with the word  "Dinosauria" in 1842. The word comes from the Greek word "deinos,"  meaning terrible or fearfully great, and "sauros," meaning reptile or  lizard. He applied the term to three animals whose fossilized bones had  been found over the previous few decades. The remains came from reptiles  that were both larger and had more vertebrae than any found before. The  earliest known published record of dinosaur remains was in 1820, and  many fossils were found in the 1820s and 1830s. Many other kinds of  dinosaurs were found in the years following the 1842 naming as well.  Fossils of dinosaurs have now been found on all seven continents.

How to Observe Dinosaurs Day

The best way to celebrate the day is to visit a museum or other dinosaur-related attraction, where fossils or bones may be viewed. You could also watch a documentary about dinosaurs or a film that features dinosaurs, such as Jurassic Park. If you have children, there are many dinosaur-related activities they could do today.

Source

[dinofigureoftheday]

Dino figure of the day: LEGO #6722 Styracosaurus/Triceratops/Centrosaurus/Camarasaurus Kit (2001)

[fossillad123]

[ Centro ]

" Centro's high critical-hit rate and Parting Blow ability is tempered by its terrible Accuracy. A good supporting cast is critical for success. "

[bedrotboy]

shoutout to centrosaurus tbh

[image: meme that says "my disability is invisible but your ableism isn't" surrounded by rainbows and colorful centrosaurus dinos, which is like, picture a weird small elephant hippo with a big vertical nose horn, a rounded beak, and a funky stiff head frill on the back of its head, like how turkey feathers stick upright but instead of feathers it's like bone maybe i'm not actually sure?]

[goldenchocobo]

I think she lost her herd :( I guess all this building work has confused the local fauna.

[stagbeetleboy]

Another late cretaceous dino, Centrosaurus! Their central horn could curve backwards or forward, which gave them some cool variation!

[vickysaurus]

A Centrosaurus sculpture I encountered in Fischbach.

[ornithologyorthodoxy]

5/17/23

[that-dinopunk-guy]

What's up jerks, here's some more ceratopsians I drew way back before a good percentage of this website's userbase was even born probably.

I drew this Centrosaurus fleeing from an off-screen predator back in 2003. Almost as soon as the drawing was finished I remember wishing I'd made it leaning more forward on the left forelimb, because as it is it almost looks like it's doing a trick in a circus.

Also note the smudge on the tail from my dirty scanner.

This is a fictional domesticated subspecies of Triceratops I made up for my (now dead) Gondolend project. (Note the fenceposts in the background.) I originally drew this in 2002, and I was in the process of trying to clean it up digitally in 2005 when I just kind of...got tired of working on it. (I was also even worse at Photoshop then than I am now which probably influenced my abandoning it.) Also at some point I decided to replace the story's domesticated ceratopsians with Nasutoceratops so this wasn't really relevant anymore.

I believe this unfinished Protoceratops is from 2006. As I recall I never finished this drawing because while I rather liked how this guy turned out when I added a second animal I couldn't get it to look right and I just got frustrated and gave up.

[thorthevikingdork]

A Dunkleteus and Dinosaur skull tattoo designs

[paleoart]

Prehistoric Beast

Centrosaurus & Daspletosaurus

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[rabbitcruiser]

Dinosaurs Day  

Discover a lost world of colossal creatures, where gigantic predators and gentle giants once roamed the earth.

Dinosaurs have been the subject of scrutiny, fascination and even mysticism for more than 300 years, since the first dinosaur bone was discovered by scientists. Now, Dinosaur Day provides an opportunity for students, teachers and just general fans of dinosaurs to learn more about them and celebrate them just as they deserve!

History of Dinosaur Day

While no one knows exactly the dates, some scientists have researched and estimated that non-bird dinosaurs probably were roaming the planet in the time range from 245 to 66 million years ago, which was still millions of years prior to human history.

The era in which dinosaurs lived, the Mesozoic Era, which is a geological age that can be divided into three parts: Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. This may have been the time when the land on earth was originally in one piece, but eventually split into the several pieces which are now referred to as the modern continents.

It is estimated that dinosaurs became extinct from the earth around 65 million years ago, perhaps due to the impact of an asteroid, volcanic eruptions and possible climate change. Sadly, humans now can only make educated guesses about what happened to them.

The first evidence of the existence of dinosaurs on the planet that was discovered by humans happened in 1677 when naturalist and Oxford professor, Robert Plot, found a lone bone from a dinosaur. Since he didn’t really know what it was, Plot’s best guess was that it had come from a giant human.

More than 100 years later, when William Buckland became the first geology professor at Oxford University in the early 1800s, a fossil was identified as being from a dinosaur. It was in 1815 when he discovered teeth, jaw and limb bones that he found more bones in his travels. In 1824, he determined that these bones must have been from some extinct creature.

Buckland originally though this species to be some sort of ancient lizard, which he called “Megalosaurus”. The second fossil to be named was suspected to be like an iguana, so it was called “Iguanodon” in the early 1820s.

Eventually, by 1842, this family of fossils was grouped together by scientist Sir Richard Owen, who called it “Dinosauria”, which translated to “terrible lizard”. Owen would eventually go on to found London’s Natural History Museum in 1881 and that museum is still famous for its dinosaur bone collections today.

It’s no surprise that creatures with such a mysterious history would fascinate and confound even the most intelligent and educated scientists. Today, children and adults of all ages love learning more about the types of dinosaurs, how they lived, what they ate, and so much more.

Dinosaur Day is the perfect way to celebrate and pay heed to this unique and enigmatic species of creatures that preceded humans on this planet.

Dinosaur Day Timeline

245 Million Years Ago

Dinosaurs live on earth 

Scientists estimate that dinosaurs may have walked the earth somewhere beginning around this time.

65 Million Years Ago

Dinosaurs go extinct

Sadly, at least 65 million years before humankind, dinosaurs are eradicated through some type of major natural disaster, perhaps an asteroid, volcanic eruptions or climate change.

1677

First dinosaur bone is discovered 

Though he doesn’t know it at the time, Robert Plot of Oxford, England, unearths the first dinosaur bone, which he thinks is a bone from a giant human.

1842

Dinosaurs are first given their category name 

Oxford geology professor, William Buckland, realizes that many of these ancient bones belong together in one category, so he names them “Dinosauria”.

1993

Jurassic Park is released in theaters 

This film by Steven Spielberg  combines the genres of science fiction and action to become a hit with audiences.

How to Celebrate Dinosaur Day

Kids and adults alike can enjoy the fun and adventure of Dinosaur Day with tons of different educational and creative activities to choose from:

Visit a Museum with Dinosaurs

What could be better than hanging out with actual dinosaurs and visiting a bunch of ancient dinosaur bones in celebration of Dinosaur Day? This is the day to head over to a museum, whether local or far away, to get up close and personal with these unique and interesting characters.

Here are some of the most interesting dinosaur museums in the world:

The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Featuring dinosaurs from all over the globe, including Antarctica and Madagascar, the Evolving Planet exhibit houses Sue, the world’s largest Tyrannosaurus Rex, weighing 600 pounds and revealing 58 teeth.

Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. This natural history museum hosts a giant collection of bones of many species, particularly those excavated from Tanzania, Africa in the 20th century. This museum is most famous for its 41-foot, 5-inch Brachiosaurus, which is the tallest dinosaur in the world that is on display today.

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science in Brussels, Belgium. The impressive collection of fossils at this museum is home to the largest dinosaur hall in the world. Particularly of note is its collection of 30 Iguanodons, which were the second dinosaur to be classified in the 1800s.

National Dinosaur Museum in Canberra, Australia. In addition to bones, fossils and footprints, this museum boasts an outdoor garden that features large dinosaur sculptures and even animatronics.

Subscribe to the National Geographic for Kids Magazine

Want the kids to keep up with all that’s going on in the world, including the dinosaur world? The National Geographic Magazine for Kids (sometimes called NatGeo for Kids) is a superb way to keep them interested in learning about all sorts of scientific and natural subjects, including their favorite dinosaurs, of course.

Watch a Movie with Dinosaurs

Those who just want to stay home in celebration of Dinosaur Day can still join in on the fun by taking a look at some of these delightful flicks featuring dinosaurs:

Jurassic Park (1993). Steven Spielberg directs this classic sci-fi dinosaur movie that has gained a bit of a cult following. This movie is based on a 1990 novel by Michael Crichton and becomes the first in a franchise of several films.

Night at the Museum (2006). Ben Stiller stars in this fantasy comedy that is about tons of creatures coming alive in the museum at night, including Rexy, the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton that is a major exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, USA.

The Land Before Time (1988). This heartfelt animated film features an orphaned dinosaur who faces challenges and learns how to survive after meeting up a few friends.

Land of the Lost (2009). Based on a 1970s television show of the same name, this sci-fi adventure comedy movie stars Will Ferrell as a pompous paleontologist who goes on the adventure of a lifetime and, of course, encounters dinosaurs along the way.

Dinosaur Day FAQs

Are dinosaurs real? 

Yes! Scientific evidence shows that dinosaurs are a group of reptiles that lived on planet earth for many millions of years until they became extinct.

When did dinosaurs go extinct?

Scientists estimate from ancient fossil and bone evidence that dinosaurs went extinct around 65 million years ago.

Did dinosaurs have feathers?

Yes. Preserved specimens of dinosaur feathers were found in China in the 1990s.

Have dinosaurs been found on every continent? 

Scientists have found evidence that dinosaurs lived on every continent, but it is suspected this is because all of the land masses were joined together in one during that time.

What killed the dinosaurs?

A theory presented in 1980 caused most scientists to embrace the idea that a giant asteroid killed the dinosaurs, though climate change and volcanic eruptions may also be to blame.

Source

[artvianblog]

Paleogust x Smaugust 16: Clockwork Centrosaurus

After finding the paleo prompt list by @followingprehistory I had to incorporate at least one into smaugust :D

[balanceoflightanddark]

Prehistoric Beast and the Dinosaur Renaissance

Prehistoric Beast is a 1984 short experimental stop motion film directed by Phil Tippett and the first film produced by Tippett Studio. Now if the name Phil Tippett sounds familiar...

...it should.

Phil Tippett was in charge of the dinosaur effects from the original Jurassic Park. But Prehistoric Beast would be his first project with the great reptiles that would eventually pave the way towards the summer blockbuster.

Prehistoric Beast occupies an interesting place in paleotological history, during the time of the Dinosaur Renaissance. For most of the 200 years of dinosaur research, dinosaurs were typically portrayed and believed to be slow, sluggish, cold-blooded lizards. It's right in the name: dinosaur means "terrible lizard". It wasn't until the late 60s, nearly 150 years after the first dinosaur was described, that our views on them changed and old ingrained ideas were upended.

It was during this Dinosaur Renaissance that the more modern view of dinosaurs became widely known. That they weren't sluggish lizards, but highly active and perhaps warm blooded. And their relations with modern day birds was becoming better understood. At the same time, public interest in dinosaurs was renewed whhich helped spark the imagination of filmmakers. Prehistoric Beast falls right around the time when this transition takes place, being produced a few years before the first Land Before Time film started adopting many of the new revisions. So this would be a good way to discuss both the changing view of dinosaurs, and a short I happen to enjoy.

The film starts out with a fitting establishing shot of a dark and foreboding forest under the light of the full moon. Text shows up telling us this is Alberta, Canada 65 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous, right before the infamous meteor hits and kills off the dinosaurs (though it's nowhere to be seen here). We hear an animal in distress as it's being attacked and killed by an unseen assailant, the eponymous "Prehistoric Beast". We cut to a scene of said kill, a dead Edmontosaurus being gorged upon by a Tyrannosaurus rex.

We get our first transition as the morning dawns on the ancient forest, and we see a herd of Monoclonius (an outdated name for Centrosaurus), a type of ceratopsian in the same family as Triceratops but more closely related to Styracosaurus in the Centrosaur family (this family had more elaborate frills with horn adornments and much longer nasal horns than their Chasmosaur counterparts). The dinosaurs here are portrayed with stop motion, a technique as old as dinosaur portrayal in media itself dating back to the 1925 classic, The Lost World. Here though, the technique is modified with go motion where motion blur is added to smooth the movements and make them more organic. A technique later perfected in Dragonslayer, another film that involved Phil Tippett.

The camera pans to the edge of the forest where we zoom in on one Monoclonious wandering away from the herd, feeding on ferns along the way. There's no narration for this film, so the narrative is told via camera angles, music, and visuals. In this case, the Monoclonious is apparently drawn to a meadow of flowers within the forest where it spends some time happily feeding on a good chunk of the vegetation. The rest of the herd is still audible, so the dinosaur ventures further in to look for more food, probably counting on being able to make it back should it run into trouble.

Course our first sign of trouble shows itself as the camera holds still on the area the Monoclonious departed and an ominous shadow falls upon a log...

Indeed, the Rex from the opening scene is slowly beginning to stalk the unwary vegetarian, and we get a little bit of the updated portrayals I was hinting at earlier. For starters, the Rex is holding its body and tail horizontally rather than standing upright like a kangaroo and dragging its tail like earlier portrayals. A body more fit for an active predator rather than a cold-blooded reptile.

As it slinks through the wood, the Rex steps on a branch, alerting the Monoclonious to danger. It calls out to the rest of its herd...that's out of earshot. The herbivore had blundered too deep into the wood, and now it's lost. We get a hauntingly beautiful shot of towering trees dwarfing the dinosaur as it calls out for its herd, showing that it's out of its element and thoroughly lost.

Nervously, it starts trudging through the wood trying to find its way back out by following a trail. It's here when the camera pans looking up at the wanderer, showing that while it's lost, the Monoclonious isn't defenseless, being a big herbivore that can put up a fight even if cornered. These shots are intermixed with the Rex stalking its prey, growling as it's illuminated by sun shining through the trees.

The trail abruptly ends with a fallen tree...and the remains of the previous victim, picked clean of meat. Cue an ominous shot of the Monoclonious looking at the skeletal remains...and the enormous Rex lurking in the background behind the trees.

An interesting note here is that the Rex is surprisingly stealthy. Most portrayals of T.rex before now depicted a bloodthirsty monster that attacks its prey head-on while roaring. This Rex on the other hand behaves more like a rational predator, using the trees as cover to get to a good ambush spot, showcasing its intelligence to make a clean kill rather than risk injury.

And indeed, it does spring the ambush, though it makes its surprise attack head-on. This allows the Monoclonious to back up and protect its vulnerable neck as the Rex bites down on its tougher hide. We get a frantic fight scene as the two dinosaurs jockey for a better position, the Monoclonious trying to spear the Tyrannosaurus with its horn, while the Rex is able to dance out of the way while it continues the attack, showcasing it's a bit more nimble than previous portrayals. Unfortunately, its luck doesn't last forever as the vegetarian is able to spear the Rex through the leg with its horn.

It's not a killing blow, but it does give the Monoclonious breathing room to face down the Rex and slowly begin to back away. While the predator is certainly hurt, it doesn't back down as it slowly approaches the herbivore. And here we get that predatory cunning I mentioned earlier. Predatory dinosaurs were portrayed as bloodthirsty brutes that run head first into a fight regardless of their safety. Here though, the Tyrannosaurus is cautious, not charging the Monoclonious and clearly respecting the sharp horn that skewered it. It's also likely the herbivore might be worse off than the hunter so it might be worth the risk to finish it given the vicious mauling from earlier.

The ceratopsian though manages to hold the Rex back...until it hits the dead-end tree right next to the previous victim. Now cornered and badly wounded, the Tyrannosaurus's shadow looms overhead as its massive jaws rush to the camera to make the killing blow. We don't actually see the kill, but we do see the herd from earlier calling out for their lost friend. The film itself ends with the T. rex stalking off into the night looking for a place to rest on a full stomach, and to presumably lick its wounds.

Prehistoric Beast is in many ways indicative of the shifting attitudes towards how dinosaurs were portrayed. Rather than being portrayed as a mindless killing machine, the Tyrannosaurus is portrayed as being more stealthy and safety conscious like a real predator. The Monoclonious isn't portrayed as being a hapless prey item either since it was able to wound the Rex and hold it at bay for a little bit. Again, dinosaurs prior to this were mainly portrayed as...well, "dumb" for lack of better terms. Evolutionary dead ends effectively. Hear though, they're portrayed as being respectable animals in their own right.

The film itself was shown at various film fests where it got the attention of Robert Guenette who commissioned Tippett to provide more dinosaur sequences for the documentary Dinosaur!, presented by Superman himself Christopher Reeves. The documentary featured new segments, as well as portions of Prehistoric Beast. His experience with dinosaurs later on down the line eventually got him his position in Jurassic Park as dinosaur supervisor even though the special effects had shifted from the previously planned stop-motion to modern CGI. And the rest, was history.

As for me personally, this is a great short film dripping with atmosphere, good animation that characterizes the dinosaurs, and an aura of tension that heightens the mood. It serves as a time capsule to when public perception of dinosaurs was shifting, and it helped pave the road for one of the all-time classics that would be remembered for years to come.

The short film itself was later remastered and uploaded on YouTube by Phil's official channel right here. Feel free to take a look:

Phil Tippett's Prehistoric Beast - YouTube

[antiqueanimals]

From The Great Dinosaurs, written by Zdeněk Špinar and Philip J. Currie. Illustrated by Jan Sovák. Published in 1994.

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