#When Dinosaurs Roamed America

[mediasaurs]

TRM Round 1: When Dinosaurs Roamed America (Narrated by John Goodman) vs. We’re Back! (Rex, voiced by John Goodman)

When Dinosaurs Roamed America (Narrated by John Goodman) – Here we have a family of T. rexes demonstrating the power of cooperation. When one of the younger T. rexes tries hunting alone, he struggles, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Most hunts, after all, end in failure. The next day, with the whole family working together, the rexes are able to separate an Edmontosaurus from the herd and lead it into an ambush by the mother T. rex. Sadly, their victory is short-lived, as this is yet another documentary that takes place in the last moments of the Cretaceous.

We’re Back! (Rex, voiced by John Goodman) – Rex is a kindhearted Tyrannosaurus who, along with some of his prehistoric peers, is brought to the present of 1993 by the inventor Captain Neweyes. On the way, the dinosaurs are given cereal that grants them human intelligence, thus allowing Rex to perform a musical number in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Things get weirder from there, as the dinosaurs then have their intelligence drained by the inventor’s evil twin to be used in his circus of fear. Neweyes manages to rescue the dinosaurs and take them to the museum, where they can spend their lives teaching kids about dinosaurs and, in the case of Rex, telling a runaway bird his life story during a game of golf.

[coldcollectionstarfish]

The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918)

The Lost World (1925)

King Kong (1933)

Fantasia (1940)

Dinosaurus (1960)

Valley of Gwangi (1969)

Planet of Dinosaurs (1978)

Prehistoric Beast (1984)

Land Before Time (Sharptooth) (1988)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Back To The Cretaceous (1998)

Walking With Dinosaurs (1999)

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth (1999-2000)

When Dinosaurs Roamed America (2001)

Chased by Dinosaurs (2002-2003)

Dinosaur Planet (2003)

King Kong (2005)

Prehistoric Park (2006)

Grumpy Land of The Lost (2009)

Momma Ice Age 3 (2009)

Tiny The T-Rex Meet the Robinsons (2009)

Clash of The Dinosaurs (2009)

Jurassic Fight Club (2008)

Primeval (2011)

One-Eye Dino-King (2012)

Stumpy (Dinotasia) (2012)

Jurassic World (2015)

Fang Primal (2018)

Prehistoric Planet (2022)

[that-dinopunk-guy]

I keep forgetting I have this.

[vickysaurus]

Bringing this back with some recommendations of other media!

Dinosaur Sanctuary (2022-)

An absolutely wonderful ongoing manga about a dinosaur zoo! The dinosaurs are beautiful and very cute and are treated as animals, not monsters. The zookeepers deal with issues like enrichment, outreach, medical care, and animal safety. They try to help a rejected and adorable Troodon chick connect with its family. The T. rex is old and sleepy and in her chapter the big tension is about whether she'll be coming out of her nest on her birthday or disappoint a young T. rex obsessed guest. There is a single escape in its backstory, which is treated upsettingly realistic, causing a single zookeeper death, one injured, the death of the Allosaurus involved, and a lot of trauma. Overall wonderful for the way it treats both the dinosaurs and zookeeping.

Minecraft: Prehistoric Nature mod (2020-)

Link

If you are now inspired to build your own paleozoo, or go and look at all the extinct creatures just doing their thing in beautiful past landscapes, this Minecraft mod does just that. It adds the ability to build portals to geological periods, and each of them has an incredible amount of biomes and creatures in it. What you do with them is, as usual in Minecraft, up to you. I've had a lot of fun building a house on the edge of a gorgeous Carboniferous canyon with local materials and getting a small edaphosaur going 'baaaah!' wandering in. There's a Palaeopedia item that essentially works as a pokédex, giving you information about creatures when you observe them, and I've been trying to complete it lately. Which is a tall order, considering the many hundreds of animals there are, spread across loads and loads of biomes in, currently, eight periods. The plan is to eventually add all the periods of the Phanerozoic plus the Precambrian plus the Pleistocene as worlds you can visit. Right now, the periods up to the Triassic are accessible, with the Jurassic being worked on and expected to be added soon. That still gives you the entire Paleozoic and more to explore. The Triassic dinosaurs that are in so far are very cool, colourful and detailed even in the voxely style, and make really interesting and odd noises.

Raptor Red (1995)

A great novel about the life of a Utahraptor, the eponymous Raptor Red. She searches for a mate, helps her sister raise her kids, encounters strange creatures and phenomena, and deals with many a hardship. It strikes a good balance in making its characters distinct and memorable while also portraying them as animals and not making them too smart or anthropomorphic. It's a bit outdated, but easy enough to imagine red feathers when red scales are mentioned. Searching for an image of the cover annoyed me because like half of them call it an adventure in the Jurassic age, which it very much is not.

Dinosaurs of Antarctica (2020)

Another documentary to add to the list! I saw this one in imax format last year and had a great time with it. Despite the name, it actually has a much broader scope than just dinosaurs, dealing with Permian, Triassic, and early Jurassic Antarctica. It spends about half of its runtime on showing off the past of the continent in these periods, and the other half cutting to a modern scientific expedition searching for fossils on Antarctica. The juxtaposition of the ancient forests with the vast icy desert landscape is very striking. It actually deals with the Great Dying! Do NOT under any circumstances watch the Dutch dub, it is absolute ass and sounds like it came through google translate.

Sea Monsters (2003)

I found this one because of replies to this very post. Nigel Marven and his time machine are back, and in this one he visits seven different eras to go bother their marine wildlife. Nigel believes every zoo is a petting zoo. You get to see some stuff rarely explored on screen, my favourite segment being the Ordovician, which really goes to lengths to show off what an alien world the Earth was that far back.

If you’ve finished watching Prehistoric Planet, caught the dino bug, and want to watch more, well, I’ve got recommendations for some fantastic older Mesozoic documentaries and shows! I’m only gonna list my faves, but if you have good ones to add, feel free to do so!

Walking With Dinosaurs (1999)

The classic, the one I grew up with. A six episode miniseries that spans the entire Mesozoic, from the Triassic to the Cretaceous. Each episode focuses on a specific location and usually has one specific animal that’s more or less the main character, while also showing off others as they are encountered. The science and effects are 23 years old by now, so don’t expect much fluff or great CGI, but they used what they had very well. It helps a lot that the close-up shots are done using incredibly charming animatronics rather than CGI. The gorgeous music and Kenneth Branagh’s narration add a ton more personality to everything. You will cry about an Ornithocheirus at the end of his journey. There were three special bonus episodes released over the next few years that have Nigel Marven (more on him later) time travelling to see the dinosaurs in person. There are also two sequel series: Walking With Beasts and Walking With Monsters. WWM explores the Paleozoic but went through it too fast and suffers from some ‘Awesomebro-yness’ in my opinion but there’s not much else to turn to if you wanna see the Paleozoic unfortunately. WWB explores the Cenozoic and is every bit as good as WWD. When I had my recovery day after my third covid vaccine I put on all three in chronological order and just marathoned them and the various little aches didn’t bother me all day as I watched the history of the Earth from the Cambrian to the Quaternary.

Prehistoric Park (2006)

Time-travelling Nigel Marven returns from the Walking With Dinosaurs specials to bring back extinct animals to the present. As you might guess, it’s a bit more on the fictional side, but all the animals are really well done and scientific, as are the ecosystems they travel back to. The modern day parts are much more about actually properly running a zoo, including things like enrichment, proper animal care, and cranky zookeepers with a heart of gold becoming Ornithomimus parents than Jurassic Park type scenarios. Nigel doesn’t just get dinosaurs; he goes to the Cenozoic several times and even takes a trip to the Carboniferous for its giant arthropods. Recent enough that feathers are starting to appear on some dinosaurs, particularly the adorable Microraptors. Nigel is an absolute menace and I don’t know who gave him access to a time portal but i’m glad they did. The recent game Prehistoric Kingdom was strongly inspired by this one, to the point of having Nigel voice the tutorials and trailers. Features a friendly herd of Titanosaurs with a disregard for fences causing more havoc than any carnivores ever could.

When Dinosaurs Roamed America (2001)

America’s answer to Walking With Dinosaurs. A single two-hour long documentary spanning the whole of Mesozoic America and really focussing on how the dinosaurs developed between its segments. The only time I ever remember seeing the Early Jurassic depicted, and the only one on this list to treat the end-Permian and end-Triassic extinctions and how important they were for dinosaur evolution. Though it does blame asteroids for them. Very good stuff, aside from a scene where Velociraptors continue eating their prey even as a forest fire sets them on fire. It’s very America-centric, but that’s no weakness. John Goodman makes for a surprisingly good narrator and throws in a sneaky Flintstones joke or two.

Dinosaur Revolution (2011)

This is a bit of an odd one, and it might or might not be your jam, but it certainly is mine. It is essentially a mashup between a dinosaur documentary and dinosaur Looney Tunes. Very silly slapstick segments focussing on specific dinosaurs with somewhat anthropomorphic behaviours get intercut with scientists explaining the latest of 2011 paleontology. The animation is a bit naff but the designs are really good and there’s a lot of feathers. It highlights behavioural traits like intelligence and parental care a lot. Two of its episodes cover pretty much the whole Mesozoic in no particular order, two episodes do Walking With Dinosaurs style covering of a single animal’s story in a single ecosystem. Shunosaurus eats mushrooms and has a bad trip. Lots of mammals go flying after getting thrown about. In a true Blackadder Goes Forth type pivot, the final episode of this very silly slapsticky show has the most haunting and tragic depiction of the K-Pg extinction I’ve ever seen.

[ardenrosegarden]

#weirdbirds and the lost wild feel so healing to me the last dinosaur horror game i came across had a dilophosaurus with a frill spitting venom and i got so angry i nearly blacked out

[ifuckinglovedinosaurssomuchjesus]

On the subject of Dinosaur Documentaries...

So Life On Our Planet dropped a few days ago, another installment of this seeming boom of these kind of shows since Prehistoric Planet last year, and it got me thinking about this whole little niche genre.

The very first "Paleodoc" was released in 1922, made by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to educate museum goers on how the fossils they saw were collected and prepared. This began the format I like to call the "Talking Heads" Paleodoc which is mainly in the form of interviews or narration over actual footage of Paleontologists at work with the occasional "Live" Dinosaur for visual aid. These are by far the most common form of dinosaur documentary you'll find, even today, mainly because they're cheap to produce and fit in the general style of most science documentaries.

For many decades throughout the 20th century, Paleodocs were pretty rare. They would pop up time to time, and with the sudden influx of attention they got after Jurassic Park, we got some really good ones. Yet they were all the same Talking Head types. What really changed the game was the good ol Magnum Opus of the field: Walking With Dinosaurs.

WWD pioneered the second type of Paleodoc I believe to exist, which are the "In Their World" Paleodocs. These are different in the fact they focus almost entirely on the live visual aids, with the human presence being limited to narration or brief pauses for context. They're meant to simulate the modern nature documentary, like Planet Earth, that focus more on showcasing animal behavior with state of the art filming techniques than being a source of in-depth science.

The success of WWD cannot be overstated, and I have to say I do find the In Their World format a lot more engaging and easier to connect with. They portray the wonder of prehistory spectacularly, letting audiences get emotionally connected in the animal characters the story creates, even if this has lead to criticisms of anthropomorphism. These programs also almost always use real footage of modern day earth for their prehistoric creatures to roam on, which I'm sure is very sad for the people who want to see their favorite dead plants on screen.

The Walking With... series would expand into sequels and spin-offs and Nigel Marven, and other companies like Discovery would jump on the bandwagon and release their own takes on the concept, but by the mid 2010s the format had basically died out. We'd get one or In Their World style doc every few years until we just didn't get anything. Outside of the occasional TV special that reused When Dinosaurs Roamed America footage, it was empty.

It took until Disney's Live Action remake of The Lion King of all things for that pendulum to start swinging again. Seeing those expressionless CGI cats got Jon Favreau thinking about how he could use this technology and the talented people behind it to make something really cool, and we got Prehistoric Planet.

And, in a repeat of Walking With Dinosaurs, we're seeing more of these In Their World type shows. The original guys behind WWD are even making a comeback with their own series, Surviving Earth. Plus even more little hints and rumors of massive incoming projects from overexcited paleontologists trying not to break their embargo.

It looks like the 2020s will be another resurgence in these types of spectacle Paleodocs, and while a good ol Talking Head will always be there, I can't help but get excited for these animated spectacles and all the weird and wonderful ways they flash those visual aids across our TV screens.

[starmolts]

One of the reasons Dilophosaurus is my favorite dinosaur is because of the documentary, When Dinosaurs Roamed America. I always thought they looked like they had bright red lipstick on them when eating lol. Parrot colors for extra silly.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Germany returns 'stolen' dinosaur fossil to Brazil

A fossil from a rare dinosaur that roamed South America 110 million years ago has been returned to Brazil from Germany, ending a diplomatic spat triggered by charges that researchers stole it.

The small dino, called Ubirajara jubatus, which had an early form of feathers and spearlike rods jutting from its shoulders, fascinated scientists, who identified it as previously unknown species in a paper published in 2020.

But it soon sparked a scientific and ethical scandal, when Brazilian researchers accused the German team behind the paper of illegally removing the fossil from Brazil.

After a nearly three-year standoff, a delegation led by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock returned the fossil Sunday during a visit to Brasilia, officials said.

Continue reading.

[blueiscoool]

First tyrannosaur fossil discovered with its last meal perfectly preserved in its stomach

Researchers have found a tyrannosaur’s last meal perfectly preserved inside its stomach cavity.

What was on the menu 75 million years ago? The hind legs of two baby dinosaurs, according to new research on the fossil published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

Dinosaur guts and hard evidence of their diets are rarely preserved in the fossil record, and it is the first time the stomach contents of a tyrannosaur have been uncovered.

The revelation makes this discovery particularly exciting, said co-lead author Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist and associate professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta.

“Tyrannosaurs are these large predatory species that roamed Alberta, and North America, during the late Cretaceous. These were the iconic apex or top predators that we’ve all seen in movies, books and museums. They walked on two legs (and) had very short arms,” Zelenitsky said.

“It was a cousin of T. rex, which came later in time, 68 to 66 million years ago. T. rex is the biggest of the tyrannosaurs, Gorgosaurus was a little bit smaller, maybe full grown would have been 9, 10 meters (33 feet).”

The tyrannosaur in question, a young Gorgosaurus libratus, would have weighed about 772 pounds (350 kilograms) — less than a horse — and reached 13 feet (4 meters) in length at the time of death.

The creature was between the ages of 5 and 7 and appeared to be picky in what it consumed, Zelenitsky said.

“Its last and second-to-last meal were these little birdlike dinosaurs, Citipes, and the tyrannosaur actually only ate the hind limbs of each of these prey items. There’s really no other skeletal remains of these predators within the stomach cavity. It’s just the hind legs.

“It must have killed … both of these Citipes at different times and then ripped off the hind legs and ate those and left the rest of the carcasses,” she added. “Obviously this teenager had an appetite for drumsticks.”

The two baby dinosaurs both belonged to the species called Citipes elegans and would have been younger than 1 year old when the tyrannosaur hunted them down, the researchers determined.

The almost complete skeleton was found in Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park in 2009.

That the tyrannosaur’s stomach contents were preserved wasn’t immediately obvious, but staff at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, noticed small protruding bones when preparing the fossil in the lab and removed a rock within its rib cage to take a closer look.

“Lo and behold, the complete hind legs of two baby dinosaurs, both under a year old, were present in its stomach,” said co-lead author François Therrien, the museum’s curator of dinosaur paleoecology, in a statement.

The paleontologists were able to determine the ages of both the predator and its prey by analyzing thin slices sampled from the fossilized bones.

“There’s growth marks like the rings of a tree. And we can essentially tell how old a dinosaur is from looking at those, the structure of the bone,” Zelenitsky said.

Changing appetites of top predators

The fossil is the first hard evidence of a long-suspected dietary pattern among large predatory dinosaurs, said paleoecologist Kat Schroeder, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University’s department of Earth and planetary science, who wasn’t involved in the research.

The teen tyrannosaur didn’t eat what its parents did. Paleontologists believe its diet would have changed over its life span.

“Large, robust tyrannosaurs like T. rex have bite forces strong enough to hit bone when eating, and so we know they bit into megaherbivores like Triceratops,” Schroeder said via email. “Juvenile tyrannosaurs can’t bite as deep, and therefore don’t leave such feeding traces.”

She said that scientists have previously hypothesized that young tyrannosaurs had different diets from fully developed adults, but the fossil find marks the first time researchers have direct evidence.

“Combined with the relative rarity of juvenile tyrannosaur skeletons, this fossil is very significant,” Schroeder added. “Teeth can only tell us so much about the diet of extinct animals, so finding stomach contents is like picking up the proverbial ‘smoking gun.’”

The contents of the tyrannosaur’s stomach cavity revealed that at this stage in life, juveniles were hunting swift, small prey. It was likely because the predator’s body wasn’t yet well-suited for bigger prey, Zelenitsky said.

“It’s well known that tyrannosaurs changed a lot during growth, from slender forms to these robust, bone-crushing dinosaurs, and we know that this change was related to feeding behavior.”

When the dinosaur died, its mass was only 10% of that of an adult Gorgosaurus, she said.

How juvenile tyrannosaurs filled a niche

The voracious appetite of teenage tyrannosaurs and other carnivores has been thought to explain a puzzling feature of dinosaur diversity.

There are relatively few small and midsize dinosaurs in the fossil record, particularly in the Mid- to Late Cretaceous Period — something paleontologists have determined is due to the hunting activities of young tyrannosaurs.

“In Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park, where this specimen is from, we have a very well sampled formation. And so we have a pretty good idea of the ecosystem there. Over 50 species of dinosaurs,” Zelenitsky said.

“We are missing mid-sized … predators from that ecosystem. So yeah, there’s been the hypothesis that, the juvenile tyrannosaurs filled that niche.”

By Katie Hunt.

[cadmusfly]

So we know about dragons in the Napoleonic Wars

but do we know about

dinosaurs

in the napoleonic wars

Fifteen year old Willem lives in hiding in a small Belgian village on the edge of the great Sonian Forest. Willem and his mother have been living in secret for most of his life, since his father, a famous magician, fell out of favour with the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. It is a world not much different from our own, in which small 'saurs' are a part of everyday life. Some are farmed, some are pets, others, more dangerous are avoided. There are rumours of even greater 'saurs' roaming the uncharted islands of the Americas. When a girl from the village is killed, it becomes obvious that there are hidden terrors in the forest and that they are connected with Napoleon's plans to conquer Europe.  But Willem has a secret that could interfere with the emperor's plans and Napoléon will stop at nothing to find him. War is coming, and young Willem is no longer safe, for Gaillemarde is just a stone's throw from the fields of Waterloo -- fields which will soon run red with blood.

(Amazon Link)

Frankly, as this appears to be written in New Zealand, I consider this to be a win for us Oceanic Napoleonic Enjoyers and napoleonic scalies

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Discovery Doc includes When Dinosaurs Roamed America, Dinosaur Planet, and Dinosaur Revolution (including deleted scenes from DR, for reasons.)

[o-craven-canto]

Nearly all the megafauna we associate with Africa today is immigrants. For the last 30 million years or so, its dominant mammalian families have been Bovidae (antelopes, gazelles, gnus, buffaloes), Giraffidae (giraffes), Hippopotamidae (hippos), Camelidae (dromedaries), Felidae (lions, leopards), Canidae (jackals, wild dogs), Hyaenidae (hyaenas), Rhinocerotidae (rhinos), Equidae (asses, zebras), Hystricidae (African porcupines)... nearly all came from outside. Mostly Asia; some from America! (The big exception is elephants).

For the first half of the age of Mammals, say 60 to 30 million years ago, Africa was an island-continent, cut off from the rest of the world by the warm currents of the Tethys Sea:

(Map by Chris Scotese; other pics from Wiki unless noted otherwise)

And, much like Australia in later times, it had developed its own unique fauna of endemic mammals, unknown in the rest of the world. It mostly formed a single clade, appropriately called Afrotheria, which had branched off other placentate mammals in the time of the last dinosaurs. And what were these Afrotheria?

Some of the smallest are still among us. Tenrecs and golden moles (order Afrosoricida), elephant shrews (order Macroscelidea), and hyraxes (order Hyracoidea), the African answer to hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and rabbits, respectively. They are not closely related to their Amero-Eurasian analogues, but they live in much the same way, and much in the same way they did when Africa was an island.

But some of them could grow quite large! Alas, Titanohyrax is known only from its jaws. Thankfully, the jaws and teeth of mammals are very distinctive and allow very precise identification.

And as for the true giants? Behold magnificent Arsinoitherium (order Embrithopoda), which was a rhino before there were rhinos. No close relation -- in fact, its horns were hollow cones of bone, whereas those of rhinos are made of solid keratin, like giant fingernails. (Sketch by Mauricio Anton, from this wonderful paper by him and Alan Turner).

Then there were the early Sirenians, the still only semi-aquatic ancestors of dugongs and manatees (and the first who broke containment: the proto-manatees Pezosiren and Prorastomus ended up in Jamaica when Africa was still an island, and they still had legs!)

And of course there were early Proboscideans, the grandparents and granduncles of elephants, like Moeritherium, who roamed Egypt when it was still a tropical swamp...

But no isolation lasts forever. Around 40 million years ago, Africa had drifted close enough to Eurasia for some animals to cross through the Tethys. As the seafloor was crushed between continents, the smoking islands that would become Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Iran were rising in between.

Among the first to cross were Primates, such as Afrotarsius, a sort of midway between tarsiers and true monkeys. They did well in the jungles on both sides of the Tethys, spawning macaques, vervets, langurs, baboons and eventually, in the woodlands around Lake Victoria, the first apes.

Another such groups were Rodents -- specifically the Phiomorpha subgroup, in which we find all sorts of distinctly African species such as Old World porcupines, cane rats, and naked mole rats. This is to say that Primates and Rodents did well for themselves after sneaking in.

But then, 30 million years or so, Africa crashed into Eurasia. All barriers to migration went away (well, they came and went with the sea level, but the point is, Africa was no longer super-Australia anymore). And then what we think of today as "African fauna" rushed in.

Here is what African macrofauna looked like at that point, as ungulates and carnivorans were starting to show up:

(H. B. S. Cooke, 1968)

The usual rule of thumb is that when two landmasses meet, the faunas of the smallest and/or most isolate landmass lose out. The later interchange between North and South America is a more famous example, but this is no exception.

The great Embrithopods vanished forever; other orders were relegated to small, humbler sizes. In came Bovidae, Giraffidae, Hippopotamidae, Rhinocerotidae, Felidae, Canidae, Hyaenidae, all sharpened by competition on a larger scale in the great grasslands of Eurasia. In came Equidae and Camelidae, which had appeared in North American plains alongside pronghorns (where did you think llamas come from?), and had gone all the way through Bering and Asia.

And by later ages, you see it yourselves: elephants and apes actually do quite well, but Eurasian carnivorans and ungulates now rule the land.

To be fair, many groups of pre-invasion African fauna did more than just endure. In the Miocene epoch, soon after the great exchange, apes would be found throughout Eurasia from Spain to China, and perhaps some key part of our own evolution took place there. Elephants were even more widespread, getting as far as South America; manatees invaded warm seawaters all around the Equator. Rock hyraxes and African porcupines had some success in the Near East and southern Europe. But I don't think any of these transformed the Eurasian landscape on the same scale as the African landscape was.

And to be sure, the newcomers were impressive!

The wheel of ages turns and turns, caring little for who thrives and who falls -- but life as a whole, somehow, always falls on its feet.

[mediasaurs]

T. rex Madness Round 1 Masterpost

All round 1 polls are here!

Prehistoric Planet (Hank) vs. Dinosaur Office (Terry)

Extreme Dinosaurs (T-Bone) vs Doctor Who (Deep Breath T. rex)

Fossil Specimen (Black Beauty: RTMP 81.6.1) vs There Are Tyrannosaurs Trying On Pants in My Bedroom

DC Comics (Batcave T. rex) vs Old grocery store T. rex toy

Doraemon: Nobita’s Dinosaur (T. rex) vs Ice Age (Momma Dino)

Dinosaur Revolution (Junior) vs Dinosaur Island (2014/2015)

Prehistoric Park (Terrence) vs Barney (Barney)

T. Rex the band vs. Prehistoric Park (Matilda)

Digimon (Tyrannomon) vs. Prehistoric Kingdom T. rex

Project for Awesome (T. Rax) vs. Safari Ltd. Feathered T. rex

You are Umasou (Heart) vs. Fossil Specimen (Jane BMRP 2002.4.1)

Jurassic Park (Rexy) vs. Dinosaurs (Roy Hess)

Night at the Museum (Rexy) vs. The Lost World (1925)

Beast Wars (Megatron) vs. Chrome game T. rex

Pokémon (Tyranitar) vs. Pokémon (Tyrantrum)

Fossil Specimen (Stan BHI 3033) vs. Toy Story (Rex)

Charles Knight T. rex vs. Transformers (Grimlock)

Theodore Rex (Theodore Rex) vs. Walking With (Mother T. rex)

Super Mario Odyssey (T. rex) vs. Banjo Tooie (T. rex Banjo)

Fossil Specimen (Sue FMNH PR 2081) vs. Jimmy Neutron “Sorry, Wrong Era” T. rex

King Kong 1933 (Tyrannosaurus rex) vs. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers (Tyrannosaurus Dinozord)

Marvel Comics (Devil Dinosaur) vs. Fossil Specimen (Rexy AMNH 5027)

When Dinosaurs Roamed America (Narrated by John Goodman) vs. We’re Back! (Rex, voiced by John Goodman)

The Magic School Bus (T. rex) vs. Sinclair Dinoland 1964 World’s Fair

King of the Dinosaurs by Michael Berenstain vs. Dinosaur Train (Buddy)

The Good Dinosaur (Ramsey) vs. Meet the Robinsons (Tiny)

Fossil Specimen (B-rex: MOR 1125) vs. Primal (Fang)

The Land Before Time (Chomper) vs. Project G.e.e.K.e.R. (Noah)

Saurian T. rex vs. Gravity Falls (T. rex in amber)

Jurassic Park (Lost World family) vs. 3D Dinosaur Adventure (Assembled T. rex)

Fantasia (Rite of Spring T. rex) vs. Prehysteria! (Elvis)

Yu-Gi-Oh! (Ultimate Conductor Tyranno) vs. Prehistoric Planet (Flirt Man)

[mrmoviemakr]

Prehistoric Planet 2 has finished its course in a rather mixed bag. Despite retaining some of the best aspects of the first season from excellent visual effects and animation, memorable dinosaur moments, and an epic musical score from Hans Zimmer, the episodes this time run a little shorter than before with the remainder discussing a behind-the-scenes look on the science of certain dinosaurs like in earlier productions like Planet Earth, but it causes some pacing issues and doesn’t leave room to develop more on certain sequences and it sometimes feels like it abruptly ends. One thing I appreciated in this season was the more inclusion of other animals that lived in the late Cretaceous including early mammals and other reptilians.

While it had some cool moments, the final episode of the season, “North America,” makes me wish more content was added into this for the big finale. We see an old Alamosaurus using the last of its strength to lay down on a beach and pass on which was subtly effective. The body is soon food for troodontids, a tyrannosaurus, and two Quetzalcoatlus in an epic showdown. This contrasts from the last time I’ve seen a confrontation between T-Rex and the Quetz in “When Dinosaurs Roamed America” in which it seemed everything was food to the T-Rex and the pterosaur fled from its feast. In this show, the Quetzalcoatlus and its relatives have been shown that these are just as dangerous as the T-Rex and won’t back down.

Next, we go to the seawaters in the Gulf of Mexico to find a Globidens mosasaur hunting Sphenodiscus or tiger ammonites who’ve come from deeper waters to lay their eggs by crushing their shell, releasing the air which keeps them buoyant in the water, causing them to sink. This episode talks much about the rising of the Rocky Mountains and how it’s affecting some of the landscapes including the disconnection of a lake from many rivers and the amount of salt dissolved in it makes it toxic to drink. A male Pectinodon travels there with its young to hunt a flock of Styginetta, prehistoric ducks that act like flamingos, while the young amuse us by hunting the brine flies.

We then watch male Triceratops fight for the right to mate, showing that the females prefer those with experience, especially with an older male with some freaking huge horns. The episode ends, to my disappointment, with a female Nanuqsaurus hunting a flock of Ornithomimus to feed her young. I was disappointed due to hoping for more content featured in the finale since this is home to some popular dinosaurs, and maybe the final sequence could’ve shown more of the Nanuqsaurus and her babies.

3/4 stars.

[zessdynamite]

hey sket u know how a bit ago sacabambaspis was a huge meme. do u know of any other cool rocks or fossils that u wish more people knew about (as in either were more popular in general or that there was more general info discovered about it in the science community)

OMG AKIRE THIS IS A GREAT QUESTION TYSM

ok so i thought of both silly and cool examples (just two of each tho) here's the silly ones that i think should be mentioned more

first off is this dinosaur called the Pisanosaurus which is rly funny to me because pis is pee and ano is anus in Spanish literally making him the Pee anus lizard. also this specific reconstruction is funny bc it reminds me of the "ppl with blue eyes" memes

THEN it's not a specific mineral but a habit, which is basically a way certain crystals can grow. this habit is specifically called the mamelon habit, and mamelon in french is nipple. and in uni they taught us that they have "the shape of breasts" (mamas in Spanish) AND IT KILLS ME BC. WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABT IT. WHO WAS THE HORNY GEOLOGIST THAT SAW THIS AND SAID YEAH THAT'S BOOBS. MANS NEVER SAW A PAIR OF TIDDIES IN HIS LIFE

OK now for cool stuff i can't come up with cool fossils on the top of my head rn but basically any fossil outside of North America and sometimes Europe. All the movies, books and documentaries about dinosaurs literally only show dinos from the US when there's really cool and even the biggest CREATURES that roamed the Earth from South America (i.e Patagotitan, Giganotosaurus). So media being US centric as always :^)

as for minerals i don't see these mentioned often. this one's called galena it has lead in it and it's cool bc it breaks and also forms in these cubic shapes! and since it's metallic it looks like something man made or like from a sci fi film, it's cool

AND THEN this is bornite it's called the peacock ore, usually it's like a light brown color but when exposed to the surface it'll oxidize so you'll p much always see it with these pretty colors! literally the gay mineral