2007 | Everything Dinosaur Blog

2 10, 2007

Everything Dinosaur Helpful Postage Saving Rates

By Mike|2024-04-01T10:14:40+01:00October 2nd, 2007|Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

Thoughts turn towards Christmas – saving Customers Postage

Just 84 days to go before the big day – Christmas. My how the time flies, it hardly seems five minutes since Christmas last came and went. We still have lots to do before the end of the year and as you can imagine the period up to Christmas tends to be the busiest for us in terms of mail orders. Here is a quick guide to the postage saving rates that Everything Dinosaur offers.

Everything Dinosaur

Hopefully, this year will be better than ever for us, we have had a lot of interest from consumer magazines wanting to feature our products and services in their Christmas gift guides. It is always nice to get some publicity, we work very hard on our customer service and this time of year is when things really begin to pay off.

Everything Dinosaur Works with Several Major Parcel Companies Including Royal Mail

Everything Dinosaur team members have taken steps to help minimise disruption for customers, but due to industrial action UK and overseas deliveries of parcels will be subject to delays. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

One thing we have been very conscious of is the recent increases in UK postage costs. Whilst Royal Mail and the Post Office still represent excellent value for money, over the last 18 months or so there have been price increases on first class, second class and Royal Mail parcel service.

Delivery charges are based on the weight of the goods ordered. At Everything Dinosaur we don’t believe in charging excessive fees for postage and shipping. Where possible we try to subsidise delivery charges offering a discounted courier service (signed for 3-day parcel service) for deliveries to the UK mainland.

For orders totalling more than £25.00 Everything Dinosaur offers subsidised delivery:

– the Saver Rate for orders between £25.00 and £49.99 parcel service just £4.94

– the Super Saver Rate for orders over £50.00 parcel service just £6.94

Postage Saving Rates

Our shipping and postal charges are calculated on the Royal Mail, Parcel Force or Carrier service rates, depending on the most appropriate and cost effective service for delivery of goods. We do add a small fee onto the cost of each transaction to cover packaging, packing and handling, however, we do subsidise customer’s delivery costs by offering these additional postal options. As a business made up of teachers, parents and dinosaur experts we decided that offering short-term promotions and gimmicks wasn’t really for us. We just worked out a way of saving customers money and offered it, it was as simple as that.

Orders received by 1pm are usually despatched on the same working day. Orders placed on a Saturday/Sunday will be despatched on the next working day. To assist with the rapid turnaround of orders; we pack and despatch orders on Saturday mornings. Delivery times given are estimates only and cannot be guaranteed, but we really do try to turn around orders quickly. In the event, that ordered items are out of stock, a member of staff will always contact customers to confirm a delivery date.

UK Deliveries
For deliveries within the UK, customers can choose which carrier service they would like to use – First Class, Second Class, Standard Parcels service or a discounted Courier service (signed for parcel service). To help save customers postage; Everything Dinosaur has introduced two additional UK postage rates. For orders between £25.00 and £49.99 a subsidised postal service – the Everything Dinosaur Saver Rate; charging just £4.94 for delivery. For orders over £50.00 Everything Dinosaur offers a further subsidised postal service – the Super Saver Rate; charging just £6.94 for delivery.

The Everything Dinosaur Saver Rate and the Super Saver Rate are available for UK retail deliveries only, our aim is to deliver within 3-5 working days. The maximum weight of parcel for this service is 20KGs.

Subsidised Courier service (signed for 3-day parcel service) covers mainland UK and southern Scotland only, for any other UK areas please contact Everything Dinosaur for advice:

Our delivery terms here: Everything Dinosaur Delivery Terms.

Everything Dinosaur contacts page: Email Everything Dinosaur.

1 10, 2007

Megalosaur Miscellany – A Helpful Explanation

By Mike|2024-04-01T10:15:54+01:00October 1st, 2007|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

The Confusing World of Megalosaurus

Megalosaurus will forever hold a special place in the hearts of palaeontologists as it was the first dinosaur to be officially named and described. It was the English clergyman and geologist William Buckland who was given the task of studying a piece of lower jaw (dentary) from a fossil discovered in Oxfordshire. The year was 1824 and in his paper the Reverend Buckland named this animal Megalosaurus “great lizard”.

William Buckland did not actually come up with such an evocative name as Megalosaurus, he borrowed this term from a fellow scientist James Parkinson who had used the term two years earlier. However, no matter how Megalosaurus got its name, its name is here to stay. The holotype species is M. bucklandii, named after William Buckland, a lasting legacy to one of the early pioneers of this science.

Megalosaur Miscellany

William Buckland was one of the founders of modern vertebrate palaeontology and although considered eccentric (keeping bears and jackals in his house), he continued to play an important role in the study of prehistoric animals. William Buckland is also credited as being the first person to collect dinosaur fossils from the Isle of Wight and to describe and record for scientific purposes the first dinosaur bones from the island.

Megalosaurus along with Iguanodon and the armoured dinosaur Hylaeosaurus was one of the three founding genera in the order Dinosauria. However, study of Megalosaurs has been blighted by a problem which has limited our knowledge on these meat-eaters.

Generally, fossils of carnivores are rarer than herbivores in the dinosaur fossil record. As a rule of thumb, the higher an animal is up the food chain the fewer of them there are, so there is less chance of one becoming a fossil. Limited remains of carnivores compared to herbivorous dinosaurs has been cited as evidence that these animals were warm-blooded.

In Africa for example, the ratio of lions to prey animals in a healthy diverse population is approximately 1 predator to 20 prey, in areas where Nile crocodiles are the major predator the ratio of predator to prey is nearer 5 to 20 prey. Crocodiles, being cold-blooded do not need to eat as much as their mammalian, endothermic competitors – so larger numbers of them can be sustained by equivalent populations of prey animals.

Few Fossil Remains

Only a few fragmentary remains of megalosaurs have been found in Europe. As a result, many small fossils and pieces have been attributed to the genera Megalosaurus, when in fact they may well belong to entirely different types of carnivorous dinosaur.

Skull and Jaw Material of Megalosaurus

A view of the skull and jaw material associated with the first dinosaur to be scientifically described (Megalosaurus).

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The genera Megalosaurus has been described as the “dumping ground for fossil rubbish” – rather sad considering it was the first dinosaur to be officially described.

The cladogram of dinosaur theropoda (the meat-eaters) is still poorly understood and hotly debated. Much of the attention is currently focused on the Oviraptorosauria and Eumaniraptora as scientists uncover more evidence over the origin of birds, but at Everything Dinosaur we feel that the likes of Megalosaurus deserve our attention too.

It may not have been the biggest meat-eater (perhaps 9 metres long and 3 metres tall at the hips), but it was the first dinosaur described, it got the ball rolling as it were.

Many of the fossils previously cited to Megalosaurus may actually belong to other Tetanurae (stiff-tails) such as Eustreptospondylus (also found in Oxfordshire) or other genera as yet described. The relationship Megalosaurus has had with European science goes back further than 1822, one hundred and forty-six years earlier a partial femur (thigh bone) had been described and studied. Unfortunately, enormous, extinct, bipedal reptiles were beyond the educated men who examined it – instead they claimed it was from a giant man.

Megalosaurus and its links with natural history have been noted by the Natural History museum who produce a 1:40 scale model of a Megalosaurus, complete with ferocious looking tiger stripes.

To view Megalosaurus model click here: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.

30 09, 2007

The Latest Edition of Prehistoric Times – The Dinosaur Enthusiasts Magazine

By Mike|2024-04-01T10:16:29+01:00September 30th, 2007|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Prehistoric Times – For Collectors of Dinosaur Models and So Much More..

Prehistoric Times, published by Mike Fredericks is the magazine for dinosaur enthusiasts and collectors of related prehistoric animal merchandise. Each near 60 page, full colour issue is jam packed with reviews of the latest prehistoric animal model kits, figures, books and so much more. The magazine features interviews with artists and scientists, artwork from world renowned palaeoartists (Mike Fredericks is a really good artist as well, he helped us with our 2008 calendar which is due out shortly); plus information on the latest scientific discoveries.

Click on the text link below to visit Prehistoric Times home page:

Prehistoric Times Magazine

Mike is based in California and is the editor and publisher of Prehistoric Times. As a boy he loved collecting dinosaur models and he had his love of dinosaurs reawakened when he purchased a small dinosaur model collection on a visit to a local antique shop. In 1993, Mike founded Prehistoric Times magazine with his friend and fellow collector Riff Smith. Unfortunately, Riff passed away suddenly on May 21st this year. He suffered a fatal heart attack. Although, the Everything Dinosaur team never had the chance to work with Riff his enthusiasm and sense of humour was well known amongst the dinosaur enthusiast fraternity.

We first came across Mike nearly ten years ago, through a mutual acquaintance Dana Cain, who along with Mike published a book on Dinosaur Collectibles. Our copy of this book sits on a shelf in our office, it is surrounded by lots of other books on dinosaurs and prehistoric animals that team members have collected over the years.

Mike is also a freelance writer, he has a number of major credits to his name, most of them to do with dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Prehistoric Times goes from strength to strength, issues are purchased by subscribers from all over the world. We subscribe and we have never had a problem receiving our copies. Everything Dinosaur staff have even contributed the odd article and picture from time to time.

If you want to keep up with the fascinating subject of dinosaur memorabilia and also read a digest of the latest palaeontological discoveries then this is the magazine for you.

29 09, 2007

Rare 70 million-year-old Snake Fossil Found in Western India

By Mike|2023-02-14T13:26:59+00:00September 29th, 2007|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

Possibly the Oldest Snake Fossil Found to Date

A team of researchers from the Geological Survey of India working in western India have discovered a beautifully preserved fossilised snake. This specimen is perhaps the earliest fossil evidence of this specialised group of animals within the order Squamata.

Snake Fossil

The fossil was recovered from the Lameta Formation of the Kheda district in Gujarat. The sediments represent Upper Cretaceous deposits traversing the Campanian and Maastrichtian stages. The snake has been dated to 70 million years ago.

Gujarat is the most western state of India, it borders Pakistan and many expeditions have been hampered because of the tensions between these two countries. The geology of this district has yet to be fully explored, so there may be other amazing discoveries about life in the Late Cretaceous to be made.

Found in Association with a Sauropod Nest

The snake was found in association with a sauropod nest and some hatchlings, in itself an important find. Scientists are debating whether the snake was in the process of raiding the nest when it and the nest were buried. Certainly, many species of snake today prey on eggs and the young of other animals, could the rise of the snakes raiding nests have been another factor leading to the demise of the dinosaurs as their dynasty came to an end 66 million years ago.

Whether the snake had a forked tongue and a Jacobson’s organ in the roof of its mouth to help it detect particles and make sense of its environment is not known at this stage. The jaws show the adaptations for swallowing large prey, but a sauropod egg would still have been a bit of a mouthful even for the most persistent of serpents.

To view models and replicas of Late Cretaceous prehistoric animals: Papo Prehistoric Animals and Replicas.

28 09, 2007

Unique 2008 Dinosaur Calendar for Young Palaeontologists

By Mike|2024-04-01T10:17:00+01:00September 28th, 2007|Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

The Everything Dinosaur Calendar for Young Dinosaur Fans

As Christmas is getting nearer and thoughts turn to the end of the year, it is time to introduce the Everything Dinosaur Calendar for 2008. The calendar is now available, inplenty of time for Christmas orders.

Everything Dinosaur Calendar 2008

This Dinosaur calendar features illustrations and dinosaur facts produced by the team of dinosaur enthusiasts at Everything Dinosaur in association with American illustrator Mike Fredericks.

No one really knows what colour dinosaurs were as colour does not fossilise in bones. Palaeontologists have to work out what colours they think these prehistoric animals were. Now it is your turn! Using the scientific drawings of famous dinosaurs such as Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex young dinosaur fans can colour them in and bring them back to life!

One dinosaur for each month of the year featuring animals such as Saltasaurus, Protoceratops, Brachiosaurus, Spinosaurus and Triceratops each illustration comes with scientific details to provide youngsters with more information on their favourite dinos.

The calendar makes an excellent Christmas present for budding palaeontologists, it will be available exclusively from Everything Dinosaur in plenty of time for Christmas.

Talking of time we are in the Holocene stage (means entirely recent), this segment of geological time began approximately 11,500 years ago and amongst other things it marks the ascent of man.

27 09, 2007

New Dinosaur species links Ceratopsia in Asia and N. America

By Mike|2022-10-31T17:56:26+00:00September 27th, 2007|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

New Dinosaur Fossil highlights links between Asian and N. American Dinosaur Faunas

A dinosaur skeleton found nearly a quarter of a century ago has been identified as a new species, linking the evolutionary line of dinosaurs such as Triceratops in North America with ancestral horned dinosaurs in Asia. This new dinosaur named Cerasinops (C. hodgskissi – after the land owner who gave permission for the researchers to excavate), is a primitive member of the Neo-ceratopsia and provides evidence of a link between Asian and North American horned dinosaurs.

Cerasinops weighed about 15 kilogrammes, was primarily bipedal standing just 3 feet tall. It had no distinguishing horns or epoccipitals typical of more advanced Ceratopsidae, but it closely resembles other Neo-ceratopsia recovered from similarly aged rocks in Asia. This indicates that ceratopsians may have evolved either in North America and quickly spread to Asia or vice versa. An alternative theory is that they evolved in the Northern Hemisphere, prior to the substantial break up of Laurasia and spread quickly over land bridges as sea levels changed. This may make the Ceratopsidae a much older group of dinosaurs than previously accepted.

This fossil found 24 years ago near Choteau in Teton County, Montana is going to be put on display for public viewing, at the Montana State University Museum of the Rockies, once preparation has been completed. The specimen has taken so long to prepare as the matrix surrounding it was extremely hard and difficult to remove and the researchers required the assistance of Brenda Chinnery (University of Texas), a specialist in Neo-ceratopsia to confirm that it was indeed a new species.

An Illustration of Cerasinops hodgskissi

A family group of horned dinosaurs.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Everything Dinosaur stocks a wide range of horned dinosaur models: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models and Figures.

26 09, 2007

New Dinosaur Themed Raincoats from Everything Dinosaur

By Mike|2024-04-01T10:12:54+01:00September 26th, 2007|Everything Dinosaur Products|0 Comments

Dinosaur Themed Raincoats from Everything Dinosaur

Chase those rainy day blues away with these fabulous dinosaur themed raincoats, just part of Everything Dinosaur’s range of dinosaur themed clothing for children. Get equipped to go exploring the big wide world in this wonderful dinosaur raincoat. The raincoat has handy snap closures making it easy for a small child to fasten and the super, soft terry lining will keep them warm and snug.

A Dinosaur Raincoat – For Budding Palaeontologists Everywhere

Outdoor clothing for dinosaur fans.

Picture credit: EverythingDinosaur

Just what young dinosaur hunters need to go searching for prehistoric animals, a wonderful, hard-wearing dinosaur themed raincoat.

To view more items in the Everything Dinosaur product range: Everything Dinosaur.

25 09, 2007

Dinosaur Pyjamas and Dinosaur Raincoats available from Everything Dinosaur

By Mike|2022-10-31T17:50:44+00:00September 25th, 2007|Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

Dinosaur Pyjama sets and Dinosaur Raincoats for little Monsters!

Historically, the girls have always been given the casting vote when it comes to deciding about any dinosaur themed clothing that we stock at Everything Dinosaur. The boys tend to defer to them when it comes to sorting out suitable ranges and stock lines. They have been known to venture into clothing exhibitions and fashion shows but the sight of them wandering up and down the aisles in their big, heavy outdoor boots is enough to put even the most ardent exhibition manager off.

To read an article on one of the team member’s visit to a clothing show click here: Dinosaurs at the Fashion Show.

However, the girls have come up trumps again and we have just introduced a range of Dinosaur pyjamas plus a new raincoat for budding palaeontologists.

The pyjamas are made from 100% cotton and have proved to be a big hit with dinosaur fans, the samples we had in the Summer and the reaction to them have convinced us to add these items to our range. They are pyjama sets, consisting of a trouser with a colourful dinosaur pattern and a top which has a dinosaur applique motif on the chest. The caption on the top says “PJ Rex” we won’t get to fussy over the scientific accuracy of the theropod featured on the motif, or in the way that the manufacturers have misappropriated a species name by giving it a capital letter, but we will heartily recommend them.

To see the range of dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed items in stock at Everything Dinosaur: Everything Dinosaur’s Website.

The Dinosaur Pyjamas from Everything Dinosaur

Picture courtesy of Everything Dinosaur

Pyjamas are available in age ranges 3 to 7 years with chest sizes from 21 inches.

The Dinosaur raincoats are a real find, we have had lots of enquiries and I know that Sue and Margaret have been busy looking at a number of options and testing out ideas. These hard-wearing, durable raincoats are made from 100% waterproof polyurethane with a terry cotton lining (78% cotton, 22% polyester). They have a hood to keep the rain off and the coat has a colourful dinosaur pattern on it with lots and lots of dinosaurs (and the odd flying reptile). There are even two front pockets for young palaeontologists to keep their fossils in. We had a lot of fun deciding which prehistoric animals were represented in the artwork, there is a real mixture with Stegosaurs, Spinosaurs, lots of other meat-eaters but our favourite is the blue coloured Ornithomimid with orange spots – wonderful!

The Colourful Dinosaur Raincoats from Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Raincoats.

Picture courtesy of Everything Dinosaur

The raincoats will be available in age ranges 3 to 6 years with chest sizes from 31 and 3/4 inches. Lets hope it rains!

To view the range of dinosaur themed clothing in stock at Everything Dinosaur: Dinosaur Clothes.

25 09, 2007

Beautiful Dinosaur Pyjamas

By Mike|2024-04-01T10:10:44+01:00September 25th, 2007|Everything Dinosaur Products|0 Comments

Dinosaur Pyjamas from Everything Dinosaur

Just what young dinosaur fans and budding palaeontologists need , a range of top quality dinosaur clothing featuring lots of dinosaurs and other favourite prehistoric animals. Whatever the weather, Everything Dinosaur has it covered with this range of dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed clothing.

Dinosaur Pyjamas for Young Dinosaur Fans

Dinosaur themed pyjamas.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

These are certainly going to make young dinosaur fans roar with delight and Mums will love the quality too.

To see the range of dinosaur themed clothing in stock at Everything Dinosaur: Dinosaur Themed Clothing.

24 09, 2007

Sunburn did not wipe out the Dinosaurs

By Mike|2023-02-17T14:44:22+00:00September 24th, 2007|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

No Evidence to suggest that Gamma Rays led to Mass Extinction

Research from astrobiologists at the University of Kansas has concluded that bursts of intense gamma radiation or other cosmic rays are unlikely to have led to the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous.

Although, many palaeontologists accept that the Earth was hit by a giant extra terrestrial object 66 million years ago (mya), a theory first put forward by physicist Luis Alvarez and his son (a geologist) in 1980 and corroborated to a considerable extent with the discovery ten years later of the Chicxulub impact crater. Debate still rages amongst the scientific community over the evidence of an asteroid impact actually leading to the mass extinction.

Dinosaurs

A number of other extinction theories have been postulated, many of them linked to other dangers in outer space. Intense solar flare activity from the sun could have affected the Earth’s climate and bombarded the planet with harmful rays. The explosion of a super-nova could have led to a dramatic increase in gamma radiation, these if they did happen, would have had devastating consequences for life on Earth.

To read more about the asteroid impact theory, click link below:

End of the Dinosaurs set in motion in Jurassic.

If the Earth had been subjected to intense cosmic rays, this would have had a number of serious consequences for life, food chains would have collapsed and animals would have suffered from birth deformities, sterility, mutations and cancers caused by the radiation. Evidence of heavy doses of radiation in pre-history is difficult to identify but cancers and other abnormalities caused by the increased radiation could be detected in the fossil record. Dr Adrian Melott assisted by his colleague Bruce Rothschild carried out a study of 708 fossilised dinosaur bones from late Maastrichtian stage sediments (70-65 mya) to see if they could find evidence of increased bone cancers amongst the last dinosaurs.

Studying Close Relatives of Dinosaurs

When they compared the incidence of bone cancer with living, close relatives of dinosaurs (birds and reptiles), the team found no evidence for elevated cancer rates in dinosaurs.

However, Dr Melott is going to keep looking, his work is on-going. The results for hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs such as Edmontosaurus and Anatotitan, which lived during the final 5 million years of the dinosaurs’ reign, are intriguing. Hadrosaurs had the only case of bone cancer and the only cases of benign abnormalities called haemangiomas.

Haemangiomas

Haemangiomas are an abnormal build up of blood vessels on the skin or internal organs – sometimes called “strawberry marks”, they are found frequently in Caucasian races and are more prevalent amongst females. Evidence from hadrosaur bones show signs of haemangiomas, could this be evidence of cosmic rays or are the results of this initial stud not statistically valid. Perhaps the migratory lifestyle of these animals made them more susceptible to such conditions, or could it simple be that there are so much more Hadrosaur fossils to study that it was practically guaranteed to find bone cancer and other abnormalities in this group as they represent such a large proportion of the Late Cretaceous fossil record.