#allosaurus jimmadseni

[makairodonx]

Jurassic June 2024 Day 26: Camarasaurus lentus

A father C.lentus protects a juvenile from an attacking Allosaurus jimmadseni with a powerful kick from one of his hind legs.

[shadowyuty]

An Allosaurus watches as a storm begins, preparing for the rain.

[saturnviper]

Thought I'd post some of my art here :) Allosaurus jimmadseni head doodle. Patterns + colours referenced from argus monitors

[fishsfailureson]

A closeup of an art piece I'm almost finished with

[palaeowhy]

Allosaurus Fragilis and A. Jimmadseni (with Fragilis being the smaller one) from the current exhibition at the natural history museum in Berlin

Hip details of A. Jimmadseni

[thecoffeeisblack]

Final for my Allosaurus jimmadseni portrait.

[esmaniottoart]

A Different Lizard_Portrait of Allosaurus.

Digital, 2022.

References

Brown, C., Currie, P., & Therrien, F. (2022). Intraspecific facial bite marks in tyrannosaurids provide insight into sexual maturity and evolution of bird-like intersexual display. Paleobiology, 48(1), 12-43. doi:10.1017/pab.2021.29

Chure, D.J.; Loewen, M.A. (2020). "Cranial anatomy of Allosaurus jimmadseni, a new species from the lower part of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of Western North America". PeerJ. 8: e7803. doi:10.7717/peerj.7803. PMC 6984342. PMID 32002317.

Hendrickx, Christophe; Bell, Phil R.; Pittman, Michael; Milner, Andrew R. C.; Cuesta, Elena; O'Connor, Jingmai; Loewen, Mark; Currie, Philip J.; Mateus, Octávio; Kaye, Thomas G.; Delcourt, Rafael (June 2022). "Morphology and distribution of scales, dermal ossifications, and other non‐feather integumentary structures in non‐avialan theropod dinosaurs". Biological Reviews. 97 (3):

Madsen (1976) Madsen JH. Allosaurus fragilis: a revised osteology. Utah Geological and Mineral Survey Bulletin. 1976;109:163.

Mayr, G. A survey of casques, frontal humps, and other extravagant bony cranial protuberances in birds. Zoomorphology 137, 457–472 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-018-0410-2

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

What’s your favorite *fossil*? Like, mine is the holotype of Allosaurus jimmadseni because it has a radioactive skull and that’s just. Cool as all hell. (Although it’s stiff competition with the Borealopelta “mummy” and any giant millipede trackways.) I’m curious about your fav. 👀

the Sinosauropteryx that changed the world. Like, yes, that's a basic answer, but here's the thing: I remember that day. My mom read the newspaper every morning, and she always shared paleontology news with me. And she was just so excited, and she showed me the fluffy dinosaur fossil picture in the newspaper, and *I* was so excited. I was four, but I knew what this fossil meant. See, at that point, all the skeletal evidence pointed to birds being dinos, but we didn't have other evidence beyond that, leading to a lot of skepticism (what we now call BANDits, but it was more common then). You can see that in PBS' The Dinosaurs!, A&E Dinosaur, and others. Birds are called dinosaurs, but with an asterisk of doubt. But this feathered dinosaur confirmed it. It sealed the deal. And in 1996, that was the coolest thing in the world. Cool enough for me, a four year old, and my mom, a social scientist & stay at home mom, to understand how important it was, and for the memory of the first time I saw it - in a grainy newspaper photograph - to be burned into my brain.

[jolly-jello]

Daily Dino Dose!

🦕 today's dino is the Allosaurus 🦖

(: because it's my favourite and a great way to start this series :)

This magnificent beast was a top notch predator that lived in the late jurassic period,with thunder thighs,dozens of teeth,around 8.3m of pure awesomeness, a light but strong skull and powerful arms -suck it T-rex- it was a fierce hunter just like the his cousins from the bipedal theropod gang and could definitely flip you off if it so desired.

This bad boy ate mainly big herbivores and the occasional form of cannibalism. Scientists still debate on its hunting strategy, ranging from caring parents that function on a pack formation to lone predators that'd defo destroy anything stupid enough to step into its territory... alas a complicated case that only gets more confusing with time.

Allosaurus means "weird lizard" and boy oh boy does it's history lives up to that. First appearing in 1869 during the Bone Wars,being wrongly classified, receiving many names, being forgotten for awhile, getting caught in a scientific feud,more wrong classifications, being forgotten again until finally being exposed in 1908 with the name of Antrodemus -ew- then 50 years later finally settling on the good ol Al we recognize and love.

With 6 named species but only 3 officially recognized ( A. fragilis, A. europaeus and A. jimmadseni). Fragilis and jimmadseni are found in North America with the main difference being the shape of the jaw, while europaeus are found in Portugal and don't show any anatomical singularities that would separate it from fragilis.

This dino has risen in popularity as time goes on and became one of the vastly recognized characters, especially after the release in 2000 of "The Ballad of Big Al" by BBC. It holds special value to me as "Walking With Dinosaurs" was how my father introduced me to the amazing world of palaeontology

thank you for surviving my awful writing and sorry for any mistakes be it factually or grammatically and please let me know if there are any alterations that'd make this posts better, have a good one my pre-historic friends <3

[life-in-the-garden]

A Spell Bottle for Big Al

This spell is dedicated to my boyfriend @mikk1n, who introduced me to the world of Walking with Dinosaurs and its various sub-series. The BBC walked with dinosaurs so that Prehistoric Planet could run.

outdated illustration of an allosaurus from Dinosaur National Monument, by the United States' National Park Service

Anyway...

This spell calls upon the power of the Allosaurus jimmadseni specimen identified as MOR 693—however, this fossilized creature is more commonly known as “Big Al” thanks to an imagining of his life’s story being told via a BBC television program in the year 2000. (The Ballad of Big Al was a Christmas special for the popular Walking with Dinosaurs series, and it can be watched legally on the Internet Archive—part one is here and part two is here).

Big Al’s bones currently live in the Geological Museum of the University of Wyoming in the United States (see his exhibit here), but when re-watching his story with my boyfriend late at night I was struck by the depiction of his life. Although I’m not happy with a multitude of the narrative choices that the writers made—my ire is primarily directed at the massive time skips of multiple years and the overall rushed brevity of the story—what really stuck with me was how realistic it felt.

Now, I’m not talking about the depictions of the dinosaurs or the quality of the practical and special effects; science and technology have marched steadily onward since the year 2000, and what we know now puts our prehistoric knowledge from 20+ years ago to shame. That can’t be helped. What I’m really saying is that so much of Big Al’s depicted life was spent searching for food, failing to acquire it, and ultimately dying of starvation… because of a broken toe. Yes, he was an apex predator of his era, but the show is very careful to point out how much his life teetered on the knife’s edge of his physical prowess as a predator—although he healed from a variety of injuries and illnesses throughout his less than a decade of life, ultimately Big Al was brought down by a broken bone that developed a fatal infection and rendered him unable to hunt.

While Big Al failed to reached adulthood, that doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing. This spell is designed to create part of the spirit of Big Al into an animal ally (if you’re not from an indigenous culture that incorporate usage of totems or spirit animals, please don’t use those terms) to aid you in your own efforts toward continuing to survive whatever troubles currently plague you.

Method

Now, the sky’s the limit for what you can ask Big Al’s spirit for help with. However, my own witchy intuition (aka UPG) says that an allosaurus isn’t going to understand a school/university assignment well enough to be able to help you with it. Their knowledge predates algebra. On the other hand, I’m sure theropod dinosaurs (Big Al among them) were incredibly smart in much the same way modern corvids are, so your own UPG might differ on this point…

In other words, make this spell your own! What follows is just one way that you can request aid from the spirit of Big Al; this one is designed for (since Big Al died with an infected fracture) remembering to take your pills.

You will potentially need…

1 empty pill bottle

Pebbles, beads, or crystals of some kind that are small enough to fit inside the pill bottle

Sealing wax (your choice of color) or liquid glue

writing supplies OR 1 carnivorous dinosaur toy, ideally a small & cheap one

Instructions, such as they are…

(This is the boring part.) Put the containers for the pills you plan to consume in a place where they are prominent enough that they won’t blend into the background. If you have a lot of different pills to take and want help remembering the instructions for them, keep a piece of paper nearby (or make a note on your phone) with notes for what pills you are supposed to take at what time + any additional helpful information.

Cleanse the empty pill bottle, the pebbles/beads/crystals, and (if using) the dinosaur toy. You can cleanse with whatever method seems best to you—personally, my favorite method is via candlelight.

(This is the less boring part.) If using the dinosaur toy, have the toy preside over your pill bottle(s) that actually have pills in them. This toy is the embodiment of your animal ally. You can set this up on your altar if you use an altar + want to keep your pills there, but it’s not necessary. If not using the toy, use the writing supplies to draw a picture of a carnivorous, bipedal dinosaur on a piece of paper—this will go under your cleansed (and soon to be filled) pill bottle as the embodiment of your animal ally.

Put some pebbles, crystals, and/or beads into the empty and cleansed pill bottle.* Put the cap on and shake it a few times—or more than a few times, if that’s what feels right to you. If you enjoy verbal incantations, you can say one here; it can be as complex as a full-length sonnet in iambic pentameter, or it can be as simple as “amen” or “so mote it be” or what have you.

* Note: as weird as it sounds, I don’t really care about crystal correspondences in my personal practice; they are just pretty rocks to me. Therefore, I’m not going to tell you what crystals work well in this spell. Follow your intuition!

Once you’re satisfied with the pill bottle, seal it with wax or glue and keep it in a place where it’s hard to ignore. Ideally, this place will be right next to the dinosaur toy, or if you’re not using the toy then atop the piece of paper with your hand-drawn dinosaur. Shake the pill bottle full of pebbles, crystals, and/or beads every time you need to take your meds; for me, the rattling sound is part of the ritual and helps me remember to go over to the medicine cabinet and take my pills with breakfast.

And that's it! I hope Big Al and this spell inspire you in some way. If you have helpful medication of any kind, please remember to take it!

If you enjoyed this spell, please consider tossing some spare change toward my ko-fi. As a poor university student with an abusive home life, every little bit helps me get a few centimeters closer to moving out + pay for food and veterinary expenses for my cat.

[jurassicjoowan]

Stylized dinosaur headshots, featuring Monolophosaurus and Allosaurus.

The Monolophosaurus was based on the sharptooths from the original Land Before Time, with their aggressively snarling mouths and angry eyes. I'm suprised a crested dinosaur wasn't utilized in the original film, like a dilophosaurus. Would've been cool to see Don Bluth make a design like that!

Really proud of the dorky allosaur, it's based on the jimmadseni species on account of the boomerang shaped jaws. Likely shaped this way as to catch and tear chunks out of sauropods.

[makairodonx]

Allosaurus skeletal portrait

[mesozoicmarket]

A dinosaur tooth of an Allosaurus jimmadseni from the Salt Wash Member, Morrison Formation in Big Horn County, Wyoming, United States. This species of Allosaurus is only found in older layers than the original Allosaurus fragilis.

[malorisaurus]

One of my favorite things about seeing fossils and casts in person is the reminder of just how narrow these skulls actually can be. In so many illustrations, media depictions, and toys, heads can just be...chonky.

As an example, many Allosaurus' (both fragilis and jimmadseni, though the latter more so) skulls were so narrow compared to a lot of representations! Like in these photographs I took recently:

versus

(There are so many, I didn't feel like grabbing them all. You get the idea. There are also a lot of great depictions, but I don't see them as regularly outside of paleo community stuff.)

Jurassic World Evolution did seem to get closer in width based solely upon what I think of its teeth/jaw.

But, heck! I am just some nerd on tumblr with a wide gap between me and any sort of expert in the area. So, take this as hobbyist spitballing.

[fishsfailureson]

An Allosaurus jimmadseni going on a stroll.

[thecoffeeisblack]

A quick work in progress piece of Allosaurus jimmadseni.