Fact: I love dinosaurs.  I like to think that in another life I might have been a paleontologist (Othniel, as in Othniel Charles Marsh, sounds almost like Nathaniel).  Pretty much from when I was able to talk, dinosaurs have been a part of my vocabulary and broader sense of interest. 

Growing up with this love of dinosaurs, I collected a vast number of dinosaur books (a lot of which I just brought down to South Carolina after our visit to Vermont), but my all time favorite of my dinosaur books was Greg S. Paul‘s “Predatory Dinosaurs of the World.”  This book was just an amazing wealth of knowledge about the coolest dinosaurs, those that ate other dinosaurs (and let’s be honest, everybody knows that the predatory dinosaurs are way cooler than the herbivores).  It wasn’t just this wealth of knowledge that made me love this book, it wasn’t just that Mr. Paul is an absurdly good illustrator (he’s amazing), but what really made this book stand out from any other dinosaur book I had at the time, was that Mr. Paul had chosen to portray a vast number of these prehistoric creatures with full feathered plumage and that fascinated me.  You see, while it has become common now to illustrate a velociraptor covered in feathers, when Mr. Paul published this book, in 1988, it was quite an extreme and an area still of much controversy.

The idea that there might be some connection between dinosaurs and birds dates back to the first discovery of an Archaeopteryx fossil in 1861 (just two years after Darwin’s publishing of “On the Origin of Species“) but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that real solid evidence was found showing that a lot of dinosaurs really were covered in some degree of feathers.  But Mr. Paul, taking some notes from the late and great Stephen Jay Gould, dared to suggest the obvious before all the details had been totally determined.

What I love about this connection of dinosaurs and birds is that I am now able to think, every time I see a bird, “Oh look, a dinosaur!”  Which is much more appealing to just thinking those great things just “lost” and are gone for good.  Does it lesson how ferocious and awesome dinosaurs look?  No!  that is ridiculous, and it isn’t about “how awesome they look” anyway.  For starters, portraying them more bird like confirms that avian connection, but also supports the furthering realization that these were not just tiny brained, cold-blooded reptiles.  Additionally, think of all the awesomeness of birds.  Birds are some of the most fantastically beautiful and complex animals alive in the world.  They are incredibly awesome.  And they came from dinosaurs.  Add to that, that new research on fossil dinosaur feathers is, for the first time, letting us put color to these creatures, and I think that the feathered dinosaur revolution is one of the coolest things in science to happen over the past decade.

Anyways, what made me think of this today was the always awesome Randall Monroe’s XKCD today:

Yeah, damn straight.  Got that right, they are totally still badass.

Anyway, if you don’t like them with feathers, well the shut up, I don’t care what you think.

Peace.

The triceratops lived in North America. The first of its bones were found in Colorado in 1887, and the horns were sent to Othniel Charles Marsh, who said that they belonged to a very large bison that lived in the Pliocene. He called this the Bison Alticornis. Marsh later learned of horned dinosaurs, however, he still believed that the horns belonged to a mammal. It took more complete triceratops skulls to convince him that the horns were not from a mammal at all, but from a reptile, which was named the ‘three horned face’ (triceratops).

Little is known about whether the triceratops lived solitary lives or in herds. There are currently few points supporting either view, and paleontologists continue to argue over this matter.

This reptiles’ teeth are thought to be better for grasping and plucking than biting, and the low  position of the triceratops’ head suggests that it ate plants that grew close to the ground.

There are many different theories on the function of the bony frill and horns. Two of the most widely accepted are:

1. they were used as protection against predators. This is supported by partially healed tooth marks.

2. they were used in combats with each other, like modern deer and other horned mammals.

Which of the theories is true has not been dicovered yet. Perhaps in the years to come, paleontologists will learn more about this extinct species.

 Sketch by Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899)

In May 1871, Marsh uncovered the first pterosaur fossils found in America. He also found early horses,  flying reptiles, the Cretaceous and Jurassic dinosaurs; Apatosaurus and Allosaurus, and described the toothed birds of the Cretaceous; Ichthyornis and Hesperornis.

Such is the case with Brontosaurus.  Long the icon of the dinosaur world, this genus of herbivorous sauropods whose name means “thunder lizard” was a mistake.  An Apatosaurus that had an inaccurate reconstruction of its head added to the original display (because the specimen being used was missing its head when it was discovered), it now exists in science only as a casebook example of phylogenetic inference run amok.  It is also a casebook example both of how we sometimes let our prejudices guide our decisions and how scientific competition is not always a good thing.

The original specimen, still in the great hall of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut (USA), went on display in 1905, some six years after Marsh’s death.  It remains in its original pose, based on the early twentieth belief that the animal walked with its head drooping and its tail dragging the ground behind it.  It has, however, had its head replaced with the correct one for the species.  By contrast, the specimen in the American Museum of Natural History shows what is referred to as the “modern posture”, with  its head sticking forward just higher than its body and its tail raised to body level, to demonstrate how scientists currently believe the animal actually looked in life.

The original conception of how Brontosaurus excelsus, now Apatosaurus excelsus looked, with its head drooping and its tail being dragged behind.
Image Credit: Image is from Wikipedia Commons and is in the public domain.

So, how did all of this happen?  The story goes something like this… From the late 1860s onward, two American paleontologists, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope were engaged in an open feud over the discovery of dinosaur fossils in the American West.  The feud began “back east” as they use to say in the West, when Cope accused Marsh of paying quarrymen in New Jersey to divert to himself fossils that had been paid for by and promised to Cope.  Soon, the two men were engaged snipping at each other’s fossil finds, feuding over fossil hunting rights in the western territories, and in general name calling and accusations.  They tried to out-do each other by finding and naming the largest number of fossils and the biggest specimens they could find.

In the midst of this feud, in 1879, Marsh discovered a very large specimen of a sauropod dinosaur at Como Bluff, in southeastern Wyoming (USA).  It was larger and much more complete than anything that had been found up to then, but it had one little problem.  It was missing its head.  Marsh was convinced that it was an entirely new genus and species, which he named Brontosaurus excelsus. The species name (excelsus) means “highest or sublime” and is intended to refer to the fact that it had the greatest number of sacral vertebrae of any sauropod known at the time.

Scientists started preparing the specimen for display.  Missing bones were replaced using known examples from close relatives of Brontosaurus.  The specimen was missing its feet, so sauropod feet that had been found at the same quarry were used.  But, the head was still a problem.  What to do?  What would the head of such a beast look like?  Marsh, being a thorough nineteenth century man, dismissed many of the proposal as being too effete for such a large animal.  Surely its head would be robust, virile (one at the time might have been tempted to say manly).  So, Marsh had a head constructed from bones of similar species that looked the way Marsh thought Brontosaurus‘ head should look.  This composite skull (which we now know to be mostly made of Brachiosaur bones) was duly created and fitted to the mounted skeleton.  Thus, it was not the (relatively) delicate skull of Apatosaurus excelsus, that would eventually be deemed to be the true appearance of the creature.

Othniel Charles (O.C.) Marsh, who found and named Brontosaurus.
Image Credits: Image is from Wikipedia Commons and is in the public domain.

Marsh, who died in 1899, never lived to see his specimen on display.  Cope had already died in 1897, and their great feud, now known as the Bone War, had died with them.

When it went on display, Brontosaurus was the first sauropod to be seen by the public, and it created a sensation.  It captured the public’s imagination and became a cultural icon of the science of paleontology.  And there it remained through most of the twentieth century, captured in a million images ranging from hollywood renditions in movies to corporate images for oil companies, to a thousand and one cartoon creations and magazine images.

But, even before Brontosaurus went on display, its name and identity were being challenged.  In 1903, paleontologist Elmer Riggs took another look at the fossils.  He agreed with Marsh that B. excelsus was likely its own species, but decided that it had too much in common with Apatosaurus to be a distinct genus.  Riggs reclassified the specimen as Apatosaurus excelsus, where it has remained to this day.  Most scientists over the years have agreed with him.  Yet, in the eyes of the public, it was always Brontosaurus.

Why, you might ask, didn’t Riggs reclassify Apatosaurus into Brontosaurus, since the latter was clearly the better known and more popular name?  The reason for that is the rules surrounding the naming and renaming of animals in biology.  This is governed by rules set down by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).  According to those rules, if two genera are determined to be the same, then the one that was named first has priority and the animal(s) in the one named later are reclassified into the older one.  It should be noted here that the same rule applies at all levels of scientific nomenclature (family, genera, species, etc.).  Since Apatosaurus had been named in 1877 (ironically by Marsh himself), Apatosaurus won, and Brontosaurus became what is known as a “junior synonym” and was discarded from formal use.

It might have remained that way, with the general public knowing Brontosaurus and scientists knowing Apatosaurus, but for the U.S. Postal Service.  In 1989, they issues a series of four dinosaur stamps, one of which was of Brontosaurus.  A number of paleontologists went ballistic, accusing the post office of promoting inaccurate science.  From that hoopla, the general public first became aware of the whole Brontosaurus fiasco and the fact that their “beloved” Brontosaurus was actually something else.  In the eyes of some in the public, it called into question the reputation that paleontologists had worked so hard to established.  It seemed that the Bone War had done more harm to paleontology, nearly a century after it had ended.

Others point out that it has shown paleontology as a science that learns from its mistakes and is honest and strong enough to make the necessary changes and go on.

In any case, it certainly shows that men of science can have their own issues.  Aside from the rivalry between Cope and Marsh, it shows how we are slaves to our times.  Marsh could not see that his fossil’s head was smaller and more delicate than the burly version he envisioned, largely because his society said it was supposed to be that way.

It also demonstrates the nineteenth century European fascination with naming and categorizing things, often to the exclusion of anything else, especially if that something else disagreed with the way they thought things should be.

Alas, we have our own prejudices.  Will we be able to stand the scrutiny of our successors a hundred years from now?  Only time will tell, but in any event, Brontosaurus was the dinosaur that never was, except in our own imaginations.

iBrontosaurus is about the life of a Brontosaurus in a 21st century world.

MC Mikey Megatron's "Stegosaurus"

This is such a great start to MC Mikey Megatron‘s dinosaur “pantleg”. (“Stocking”? Either of those terms working for you?) I can’t wait to see the next installment! Tattoo by Evan Lovett at Bayside Ink Tattoo in Beachwood, NJ.

littlest foot's "little stego, pile of dinos"

Littlest foot shows off her cute stego tattoo by Ethan at Brass City Tattoo in Waterbury, CT. She also has a colorful (and also cute) half sleeve featuring a pair of “apatosauruseseseseses” done at Hartford County Tattoo in Bristol, CT!

Stego tattoo from Cossix's photostream

I like this little guy! Interesting how it is in the same position as MC Mikey Megatron’s; bonus ink nerd points to anyone who can find a link to the source artwork! I asked Cossix for info about tattooer or tattooee (this collector seems to be female… Tatooine, perhaps? Sorry, I couldn’t resist.), but got no response.

UPDATE: Briana has informed us that she is the Tatooine, and this stego was done by one of the artists at Marks of Art in San Jose, CA!

maurosourousrex's baby stego tattoo

We’ve been following the progress of maurosourousrex’s baby stego tattoo for a while now, and are looking forward to the “waterfall and possible tree still to come”. I love the the blue and green (and purple!) color scheme and the interesting markings; it reminds me of a tropical fish! No word yet on artist or locale.

Roulettedares00's stegosaurus skeleton tattoo

We first saw Roulettedares00‘s meticulously detailed stego skeleton on Carl Zimmer’s Science Tattoo Emporium, and we were very pleased when he saw fit to add it to the Dinosaur Tattoos group. In case you’re interested, it seems to be based on this illustration by pre-eminent paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh done in 1896.

This man, by the way, is a walking museum of nerd ink, representing a trifecta close to my own heart: Star Wars (Hoth, no less! The best part of all 6 movies!), dinosaurs, and comics. If he gets a Lego tattoo, I will found the Official Church of Roulettedares00 of Latter Day Ink Nerds, or, at the very least, swear eternal fealty to my true liege. A “Mutants in Asgard” tattoo would also qualify for this honor.

UPDATE: All of Roulettedares00′s tattoos were done by Myles Karr, currently working at Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn!

The Gnome's dinosaur tattoos

One of the very first members of the group was The Gnome, who gets bonus ink points for symmetry with these two excellent specimens. No artist info available.

Thanks to everybody who has submitted photos to the Dinosaur Tattoos group; keep ‘em coming!

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