Animal News Stories

1 10, 2009

Dinosaur Drama Saved from Extinction

By Mike|2022-12-30T07:32:54+00:00October 1st, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

ITV Primeval Saved from the Axe

The science fiction, time travelling show Primeval has been saved from the commissioner’s axe after a new deal between ITV and the digital channel Watch has been concluded. The show which features human actors battling prehistoric and future monsters which escape to present day Earth through time portals has had three series. It was originally commissioned to run against the BBC’s Doctor Who and at is peak attracted nearly 8 million viewers to ITV1 on Saturday evenings.

This is a turn around in the fortunes of this TV programme, in the spring we reported on talks between Impossible Pictures, the makers of the show and Warner Bros about a possible Primeval movie deal.

Primeval off to Hollywood: Primeval Movie Deal.

ITV and Watch will work together to make thirteen new episodes for television and BBC Worldwide will continue to distribute the show abroad. The programme is already shown in forty-five countries. The first few episodes, the start of series 4 will be shown in 2011 on ITV1. Later episodes will be premiered on Watch.

Commenting on the new venture with Watch, ITV drama commissioning editor Laura Mackie stated:

“We’re delighted to have agreed this new deal to return Primeval to ITV1. The innovative nature of this partnership will allow the show to maintain its high production values”.

This is good news for fans of prehistoric animals, although the storyline was becoming a little jaded after three series and a number of stars of the show had left before the end of the last run. Primeval featured dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, flying reptiles and huge invertebrates as well as speculating about the evolution of creatures from the future. Perhaps the break of a year will provide writers to refresh the show and explore new angles in the time travelling series.

To pick up models and toys of some of the prehistoric animals featured in the television series, take a look at Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

27 08, 2009

The Original King Kong – Gigantopithecus

By Mike|2023-03-03T17:15:31+00:00August 27th, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Gigantopithecus blacki – The Original King Kong

The original King Kong film was released in 1933. Merian C Cooper (who produced the film) along with Edgar Wallace (the writer of the screen play) wrote the story, a twist on “Beauty and the Beast” between them. It was the pioneering special effects engineer Willis H. O’Brien that brought King Kong, the gigantic ape and the prehistoric animals that shared Skull Island to life. The 1925 film “The Lost World” was a very big influence on the original King Kong movie. In the novel, the Lost World, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a team of daring explorers led by Professor Challenger venture up a remote plateau and encounter prehistoric creatures.

King Kong

Kong the great ape, is worshipped by the natives on Skull Island. Kong falls for the beautiful actress that accompanies the explorers as they visit the island. The actress is offered to Kong as a sacrifice, but the huge simian does not eat her but steals her away into the jungle. Kong is eventually captured and taken to New York as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. However, the ape escapes from his shackles and meets his end on top of the Empire State Building in perhaps one of the most memorable scenes in the whole of cinema.

A Model of a Giant Gorilla – Rebor Gorilla Model

A fearsome animal! The Rebor Alpha Male Mountain Gorilla replica in 1/11 the scale (Albino). Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view the range of Rebor replicas and figures including gorilla models (whilst stocks last): Rebor Replicas.

Giant apes the size of Kong, as far as we can tell from the fossil record did not exist, Kong was the figment of the script writer’s imagination. The fossil record for primates and early human ancestors is actually very incomplete, although there is no credible evidence to suggest that giant gorillas roamed the Earth. However, sometimes real life can reflect fiction. Two years after the film King Kong was released a German palaeoanthropologist Ralph von Koenigswald purchased a very large molar from a Hong Kong pharmacy. Animal teeth and bones are commonly used in Chinese medicine, even today.

Chinese doctors used “dragons teeth” found in remote caves in a number of traditional medicines. Koenigswald correctly identified the tooth as a molar from an unknown, giant primate species. He went onto name the animal Gigantopithecus blacki.

Gigantopithecus blacki

Gigantopithecus fossils are known from South east Asia (China and Vietnam), this animal lived during the Pliocene Epoch but survived into the Pleistocene, before finally becoming extinct approximately 200,000 years ago. Like Orangutans and Gorillas extant species today, the males were much larger than females. A mature male could weigh over 500 kilogrammes and stand 3.1 metres tall.

A Scale Drawing of Gigantopithecus

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Although known from a few fragments of jawbone the rest of the animal has been deduced following studies of extant species of primate. Fortunately, for our ancestors and other hominids such as Homo erectus, Gigantopithecus was a herbivore, feeding mainly on bamboo.

7 08, 2009

New Research into Bird Brains – Feathered Friends Capable of Complex Problem Solving

By Mike|2024-04-17T11:16:37+01:00August 7th, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Educational Activities, Main Page|0 Comments

Bird Brains – Corvidae proves Aesop Fable could be True

The term “Bird Brain” is often meant as an insult, but in reality some members of the Order Aves (the birds) are known to be remarkably intelligent and able to demonstrate the ability to solve complex problems. For example, members of the crow family (Corvidae) are regarded by scientists as being remarkable adaptable and have been used in a number of studies providing an insight into how the cerebrum (the problem solving part of the brain) functions.

Bird Brains

Clever crows and rooks are not new to science but a new study by a team of British researchers has demonstrated the problem solving abilities of these birds and perhaps, proved that one of Aesop’s ancient fables may be based on truth.

In one of Aesop’s fables (morality tales from ancient Greece attributed to writer Aesop who lived some 600 years before the birth of Christ), a thirsty crow finds a pitcher of water. Unfortunately, for the crow, the neck of the pitcher is quite narrow and the water cannot be reached, as the pitcher is not filled up to the top. The crow solves this problem by dropping stones into the water, thus raising the water level via displacement. As more stones are dropped in, so the water rises, until the crow is rewarded with a drink.

The moral of this particular story might be necessity is the mother of invention, but now a team of scientists from Cambridge University have demonstrated that there may be some truth behind this story.

Several rooks, at the University’s aviary have quickly mastered the technique of stone dropping to enable them to raise the level of water within a plastic tube so that they can catch a worm floating on the surface. This “brains trust” amongst “bird brains” consists of four rooks, named Cook, Fry, Monroe and Connelly. The scientists have observed the birds carefully examining the problem before dropping in the right number of stones needed to allow them to bring the tasty worm within reach. Although, is is very difficult to attempt to assess the level of cognitive reasoning involved the birds did seem to wait until the water level was high enough to be reached before attempting to grab the worm with their beaks.

In addition, the birds did not add any more stones after eating the worms, suggesting the pebble dropping was a means to the end and not just a form of play.

Our Feathered Friends

The ingenuity of the feathered friends was shown when they were presented with a pile of stones of varying sizes. The rooks quickly learnt that picking the bigger ones would speed up the task, allowing them to snack more quickly and showing an efficiency of effort. When given a choice of a worm floating in a tube part-filled with water and one half-packed with sawdust, they grasped that adding stones to the part filled tube with sawdust would not bring the treat within reach.

The study was led by the appropriately named Christopher Bird, a PhD student studying zoology, it has been published in the latest edition of the scientific journal “Current Biology”.

Commenting on his study, Christopher stated:

“Corvids are remarkably intelligent, and in many ways rival the great apes in their physical intelligence and ability to solve problems. “This is remarkable considering their brain is so different to the great apes”.

Such behaviour has not been observed in the wild, but the crow family with their relatively small brains (encephalisation quotient not withstanding), have gained a reputation in many societies for being clever. For example, in Finland we were told stories by fisherman that when they went ice fishing and left their lines in the water overnight, ravens soon learnt to examine the holes early in the morning before the men returned and to pull up the lines that had a fish hooked on them. The encephalisation quotient is a simplistic measurement of an animal’s intelligence and allows comparisons across genera. It examines the ratio between body weight and brain size.

A Fossil Cast of the Early Bird Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx fossil cast an early bird. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

This study could help palaeontologists to assess the relative intelligence of theropod dinosaurs, the closest relatives to birds in the animal kingdom fossil record.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a huge range of theropod dinosaur models and figures, some primitive members of the Aves too. For example, take a look at the scale model range here: CollectA Deluxe Prehistoric Life Models.

3 08, 2009

The Mystery of Dunkle’s Bones

By Mike|2023-03-03T14:39:09+00:00August 3rd, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

A Puzzle about Dunkleosteus – A Bony Problem

The apex marine predator during the Late Devonian was the huge placoderm Dunkleosteus. Placoderms (the term means plated or armoured skins), were a hugely successful group of primitive jawed fish. They evolved in the Silurian and rapidly diversified to become the main predators along with the first sharks during the Devonian.

Ranging in size from a few centimetres to giants like Dunkleosteus at over 8 metres long, the placoderms were extremely successful. However, the placoderms became extinct at the end of the Devonian and as far as the fossil record shows, no placoderms survived into the Carboniferous. A number of marine families became extinct at the end of the Devonian (approximately 354 million years ago), many fish species become extinct and also organisms such as corals, brachiopods, bivalve molluscs and sponges. Tropical reef-dwelling animals seem to have been the most badly affected. The exact causes of the Devonian mass extinction are unknown.

A Model of Dunkleosteus

Swimming into view the Schleich Dunkleosteus model.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture above, shows the Dunkleosteus model from Schleich: Schleich Prehistoric Animal Models.

One of the mysteries surrounding the huge, carnivorous Dunkleosteus (the name means Dunkle’s Bones, as this animal was named after the American palaeontologist D. H. Dunkle), is exactly what this animal looked like. Scientists believe that is lived in the open ocean, and was pelagic (lived above the sea floor). It is likely that it was also nektonic (an active swimmer), however, only the head and thorax of this fish were covered in bony plates.

A number of these bony plates have been preserved as fossils and scientists have a good idea of what the front end of Dunkleosteus looked like. As for the rest of the animal, the lack of fossil remains (rest of the skeleton probably made of cartilage, like sharks) means that scientists have to make an educated guess as to what the animal actually looked like.

Did Dunkleosteus have a shark-like habit? Was it an active hunter, swimming constantly as it lacked a swim bladder like sharks? Or was the bus-sized fish more like an eel with a long slender body, fringed with ribbon-like fins swimming sinuously?

Scientists have used the complete remains of smaller placoderms as the basis for their reconstructions of Dunkleosteus.

A Model of Dunkleosteus (Wild Safari Dino Dunkleosteus)

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

In this illustration, Dunkleosteus is modelled on the anatomy of a sleek, predator with a powerful tail providing bursts of acceleration to help it catch prey. The body is broader than in other depictions of this particular placoderm and the tail flukes wider at the bottom to give thrust.

This is the model of Dunkleosteus created by Safari Ltd of the USA and is part of the model series entitled Wild Safari Dinos.

To view the prehistoric animal models in the Wild Safari Prehistoric World range: Safari Ltd. Wild Safari Prehistoric World.

30 07, 2009

Dunkleosteus An Amazing Fish Built like a Bulldozer and a Guillotine for Jaws

By Mike|2024-04-18T06:56:22+01:00July 30th, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Dunkleosteus – The Terror of the Devonian

The Devonian period which lasted approximately sixty-three million years (417 million years to 354 million years ago), is known as the Age of Fishes, as fish were the most advanced vertebrates on the planet for much of the Devonian. Although the Devonian period marks the formation of a supercontinent with the closing of the Lapetus Ocean, life in the oceans still dominated and it was only towards the end of the Devonian that primitive tetrapods began to venture out onto land. Lakes and rivers were becoming populated by fish and the land was forested as plants evolved greater adaptations to a terrestrial habit. Indeed by the Middle Devonian, land plants were becoming more complex and taller and by the end of this geological period the first trees had become established.

Dunkleosteus

Insects diversified and began to increase in number, exploiting the many new opportunities life on land was providing. However, it was in the sea where the truly spectacular animals lurked. The top predators in the marine environment were the newly evolved primitive sharks and the armour plated placoderms such as Dunkleosteus.

A Scale Illustration of Dunkleosteus

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The model in the picture is a Wild Safari Dinos Dunkleosteus model.

Dunkleosteus was a huge prehistoric fish with an armoured head and thorax made up of several interlocking plates. In large specimens (the biggest may have been as long as bus), the armour was up to 5 cm thick. The word placoderm means armoured or plated skin, it is pronounced plak-oh-dermz and this particular group of jawed fish had their origins in the Silurian, rapidly diversified in the Devonian before becoming extinct at the end of this period, leaving a sort of evolutionary dead end. The ancestors of placoderms lacked teeth, instead this group developed a pair of bony plates that hung down from the top jaw, whilst the edges of the lower jaw were also bony and very sharp. When the mouth was closed the jaws sheared against each other making a self-sharpening cutting surface. Dunkleosteus was a top predator and the fossilised remains of regurgitated fish, the remnants of a meal from a Dunkleosteus have been found.

A Replica of the Anterior Portions of the Giant Member of the Placodermi Class – Dunkleosteus

A Dunkleosteus cast on display.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

With jaws like a guillotine and a front end built like a bulldozer, Dunkleosteus was a very formidable predator indeed.

To view a model of Dunkleosteus and other amazing replicas of prehistoric animals, take a look at the PNSO section of the Everything Dinosaur website: PNSO Age of Dinosaurs.

5 07, 2009

Little Frogs Starting to Leave the Pond

By Mike|2022-12-25T17:40:16+00:00July 5th, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Educational Activities, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

Little Frogs Starting to Leave the Office Pond

Over the last couple of days we have been keeping a look out for signs of the first of the little frogs from this year’s frogspawn leaving the pond. We had spotted one tiny froglet, still with a tail earlier this week (Friday), but up until now we had not found any evidence of frogs leaving the pond as fully formed, but tiny frogs ready to begin their amphibious lifestyles.

Little Frogs

To read the article about the froglet spotted last Friday: First Signs of Frogs about to Leave the Pond.

We had started to become a little concerned, as although we knew a number of the tadpoles had nearly completed their metamorphosis into tiny frogs, we had spotted several just a few days ago at an earlier stage of development. Their jaws had not started to form and as a result the head was still quite rounded. For the last couple of days or so we had seen no sign of any tadpoles. However, this evening one of the Everything Dinosaur team members spotted three tiny frogs, obviously this years hatchlings, whilst examining a container planted up with some French beans.

Little Frogs Spotted

It seems that some of the tadpoles have made it so far. Hopefully, they will disperse in the back yard area behind the office and feed well enough over the remaining Summer months to be able to survive the winter. With a bit of luck some of these tiny frogs will survive long enough to be able to return to our pond in a few years to breed.

3 07, 2009

Signs of Little Frogs in the Office Pond

By Mike|2022-12-25T17:27:01+00:00July 3rd, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

Signs of Little Frogs in the Office Pond

Over the last few weeks, one of the interests of team members at Everything Dinosaur has been observing the frogspawn and tadpoles in the office pond. Frogs spawned in the pond back on March 14th, ever since we have kept a watchful eye on the progress made by these little amphibians.

To read the article on this momentous occasion: Frogspawn in the Office Pond Again.

This is the second year running that frogs have spawned in our pond, we were delighted as the 5 native species of frog to the British Isles (if you include the Edible Frog), are all endangered. We were a little concerned about how suitable the pond would be as last Autumn we gave it a really good clean out and removed a lot of the pond weed. This does not seem to have phased the frogs, in fact the pond vegetation has recovered well and we have been able to follow the progress of the tadpoles much more closely this year. For some weeks, last year the tadpoles simply disappeared and we thought that none had survived, but it was simply a case of them being too well hidden amongst the pond debris and plants for us to spot them.

Little Frogs

Yesterday, we saw our first froglet of the year. The animal was spotted late in the evening, just as we were closing up for the night (around 8.30pm). The tail was still present but it had begun to shrink and the square frog-like jaw was well developed.

The First Froglet of 2009

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Not the best picture we have ever taken, but the blurred image is that of a tiny frog clambering over one of the rims of a plant pot on the edge of the pond. The animal seems determined to exercise its newly developed limbs and we expect in about a week or so the tail will be fully absorbed and the little creature will be living the pond.

Hoping the Little Frogs Make It

Let’s hope that lots of little frogs make it this year and that with luck some of them will survive long enough to hopefully come back in a few years to spawn themselves.

15 06, 2009

Tadpoles – So far so Good

By Mike|2023-02-28T09:55:26+00:00June 15th, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

Tadpoles in the Office Pond – So Far so Good

Pond watching during our breaks from working at Everything Dinosaur, is very much a favourite pastime of the staff. It is pleasing to note that even though the pond was cleared out last Autumn, the removal of much of the pond weed and the disturbing of the bank side vegetation does not seem to have affected the wildlife at all.

The pond snails seem to be thriving, although we have counted more Ramshorn snails than Pond snails this year for the first time. The invertebrate life seems to have flourished as well with the first of the Damsel flies emerging as winged adults over the last ten days or so. They really are a joy to watch as they whirl and fly around the pond.

The tadpoles are much more visible than last year. Despite having fewer places to hide they seem to be doing well also. We have noted two distinct sizes of tadpole, although we know that they are from the same batch of frogspawn laid earlier this Spring. The larger tadpoles are bigger overall and have proportionately larger heads. We have speculated that some tadpoles may adopt a more predatory role in the pond compared to others and they are genetically predisposed to develop larger jaws as they attack and eat other pond animals.

We have read about this but we are not sure whether it is true, that in the Common frog (Rana temporaria), and perhaps in other genera, there is a tendency for some of the tadpoles to develop carnivorous habits and it is these animals that have the best chance of surviving and making it to the froglet stage. Today, one of our colleagues reported they had seen one of these larger tadpoles with back legs, the first time that this has been observed.

Perhaps these larger, predatory tadpoles grow slightly faster on their protein rich diet and therefore complete the metamorphosis into frogs that much quicker.

27 05, 2009

Introducing Sarcosuchus – A Giant Crocodile from the Mesozoic

By Mike|2023-03-02T14:46:11+00:00May 27th, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

Sarcosuchus – A Giant Crocodile from the Age of Reptiles

Scientists continue to debate which of the crocodilians known from the fossil record was the largest. This is not an easy puzzle to solve, the lack of articulated specimens and skull material in particular makes drawing conclusions difficult. There are a number of contenders, the broad snouted Eosuchian Deinosuchus (Terrible Crocodile) of Late Cretaceous America, the fierce Purussaurus (Purus River Lizard) from Brazil dated to the Miocene or Sarcosuchus (Flesh Crocodile) from the Cretaceous of Africa to name but a few.

Sarcosuchus

Sarcosuchus was an enormous, heavily armoured crocodile and is regarded by many scientists as the largest species of crocodile known from the fossil record, or at least certainly a contender. Estimates of body size and mass vary but scientists generally state that fully grown animals would have been in excess of 12 metres in length and weighed as much as 8,000 kilogrammes. The largest species of crocodile around today is the Estuarine or Saltwater crocodile. Adults can grow up to 6 metres long and weigh more than a tonne.

To view a model of Sarcosuchus and other prehistoric animals: Safari Ltd. Wild Safari Prehistoric World Models and Figures.

A Scale drawing of Sarcosuchus

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The first fossils of this huge animal were found by a French scientific expedition to Niger and the south, central part of the Sahara desert. Some isolated plates of dermal armour (scutes) and teeth were excavated and removed for study in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1964, a team of geologists discovered an almost complete skull and this was shipped to Paris and studied by the famous French palaeontologists Philippe Taquet and France de Broin.

In 1966, the French team formally named and described the species, before returning the fossil material to Niger. Professor Paul Sereno, led further expeditions to the Niger in 1997 and 2000 and uncovered a number of new specimens including one with almost half the skeleton intact including most of the backbone.

A Model of the Fearsome Sarcosuchus

2020 Wild Safari Prehistoric World Sarcosuchus.

The popular Wild Safari Prehistoric World Sarcosuchus model.

An exhibition was opened in Australia, to celebrate the birth of the famous naturalist and scientist Charles Darwin. It features a number of crocodile exhibits including Sarcosuchus. Don’t be fooled by the enormous size of the skull in comparison to the gentleman standing in the pictures distributed by media outlets. This layout is typical of the shots seen in many magazines and newspapers to promote a museum exhibition.

The man is standing behind the Sarcosuchus skull, and although the skull is large it is not quite as big as the picture would have us believe – a sort of crocodilian optical illusion.

To read more about this exhibition: Crocodile Exhibit Opens in Australia.

14 05, 2009

A Guide to Exploring Nature on your Doorstep

By Mike|2024-04-17T10:17:28+01:00May 14th, 2009|Categories: Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

Nature on your Doorstep – Chrysalis by our Front Door

For some months now, I have been keeping a watchful eye over a chrysalis that we noticed had attached itself to the paintwork of the frame of our front door. The chrysalis was spotted in January and ever since we have been careful not to disturb it as we went to and fro. A chrysalis is the pupa of a butterfly or moth, not being very knowledgeable as to what this creature might actually be we kept up our vigil to see what would emerge.

Nature on your Doorstep

This morning, we got our answer, a butterfly had emerged one of the Cabbage White variety, probably the common Small White (pieris rapae), although we cannot be certain.

The Butterfly on our Doorstep

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture shows a rather fuzzy close up of our butterfly, the pupa case can be seen in the background. Unfortunately, our little friend has timed his/her emergence badly. Bad weather, (cold and wet) has been forecast for 72 hours. Hopefully, our butterfly will be able to hang on for a few days before it can take flight, find a mate, end up being responsible for caterpillars in our vegetable patch etc.

Who needs to go into the countryside to view nature, when nature comes to your own front door.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.