Main Page - Part 333

29 01, 2015

New Prehistoric Times Magazine Reviewed (Issue 112)

By Mike|2024-01-01T17:26:52+00:00January 29th, 2015|Categories: Magazine Reviews, Main Page, Prehistoric Times|0 Comments

Winter 2015 Prehistoric Times Magazine Reviewed

Having had the chance to read the latest edition of the dinosaur model collectors magazine “Prehistoric Times”, it is time to write a quick review of issue 112 (winter 2015). Once again the magazine is jam-packed with articles, information and features that is going to make dinosaur fans forget about waiting for new “Jurassic World” trailers, well, for a while at least anyway.

Ukrainian artist Sergey Krasovskiy is interviewed by Mike Fredericks and the article showcases some of Sergey’s amazing illustrations. We learn that at the moment Sergey is currently working on a number of “English language projects” and given the problems in his home country at the moment we wish him well with his endeavours.

Prehistoric Times Magazine

Prehistoric Times (Winter 2015)

A pair of battling Tyrannotitans are featured on the front cover.

Picture credit: Mike Fredericks

Squabbling Tyrannotitans

The front cover of the latest edition of “Prehistoric Times” features a pair of squabbling Tyrannotitans. This watercolour was painted by Sergey Krasovskiy who is featured in an interview inside. The face biting behaviour as depicted in the picture is supported by pathology found on the skulls and jaws of several theropod genera.

One of the featured prehistoric animals in this edition is Apatosaurus. Such was the influx of artwork submitted by readers that more images will be included in the 2015 summer issue. Phil Hore provides a commentary about how our perceptions of this iconic sauropod have changed over the years and the talented Tracey Lee Ford adds to the debate by presenting his thoughts on the Aptatosaurus versus Brontosaurus debate in his excellent “How to Draw Dinosaurs” feature.

Liopleurodon and Apatosaurus

Phil also guides us through in his own words a “quick history” of Liopleurodon. Once again, this well written piece contains lots of reader submitted artwork, including an illustration by Mr Krasovskiy which shows a Liopleurodon grubbing about on the seabed in search of stones to be swallowed as ballast/gastroliths for this nektonic predator.

Allen A. Debus takes us back down memory lane as he recalls the many life-size models made in the 1960s. Steve Brusatte, (University of Edinburgh), does well to shoe-horn a review of major palaeontology news stories of last year into three pages, yes we know the word “palaeontology” is spelt in the American fashion, but Steve is an American after all and “PT” as fans call it is an American magazine. Everything Dinosaur has covered the stories in a little more depth on this blog, but Steve’s contribution to this issue provides an excellent summary of major discoveries and research findings.

Dinosaur News Stories and Book Reviews

Amongst the news stories, product updates and book reviews, the editor Mike Fredericks has dedicated a double page spread to miscellaneous artwork sent in. This really does show the breadth and depth of talent out there with stunning images from the likes of Davide Bonadonna, John Sibbick and Nathan E. Rogers.

Long-time dinosaur model collector (and geologist), Mike Howgate delivers an interesting article that delves into the advent of promotional prehistoric animal models. Entitled “Mesozoic Musings”, we look forward to hearing more from this talented individual who spends his time between dinosaur model collecting and his other extensive interests which include giving guiding walking tours of the City of London.

To learn more about the magazine “Prehistoric Times” and to subscribe: Prehistoric Times.

From digital dinosaurs to dinosaur displays and drawings, the latest issue of “Prehistoric Times”, just like the Tyrannotitans on the front cover, has a great deal to get your teeth into!

For dinosaur models visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.

27 01, 2015

A New Predatory Archosaur from the Middle Triassic of Southern Tanzania

By Mike|2023-03-23T07:57:41+00:00January 27th, 2015|Categories: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Nundasuchus songeaensis: New Triassic Archosaur Discovered in Tanzania

In the aftermath of the End Permian extinction event those terrestrial vertebrates that had managed to cling on found themselves with a host of newly opened up ecological niches to exploit. Many vertebrates rapidly diversified and new lineages evolved to fill those gaps in the ecosystem vacated by genera and families that had died out.

The Archosauria

The archosaurs were typical and a myriad of new forms of these reptiles evolved as the Early Triassic gave way to the Middle Triassic. Scientists led by researchers at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Virginia, United States) have published a paper on a newly described genus of large, predatory archosaur that may have been one of the apex predators around some 245 million years ago. Say hello to Nundasuchus songeaensis, a fearsome, ancient ancestor of today’s crocodiles and birds.

The Recovered Fossil Material Superimposed on a Reconstruction of the Reptile

Scale bar = 0.5 metres.

Picture credit: Sterling Nesbitt

Discovered in 2007

The fossil material was discovered in 2007, during a field expedition to explore the fossiliferous Manda Beds exposed in southern and south-western Tanzania. Sterling Nesbitt, was at the time a graduate student, he is now an Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences at Virginia Tech. The highly fragmentary fossils had been eroding out of a small hillock and although most parts of the skeleton are represented (excluding cranial material), it has taken more than a 1,000 painstaking hours to restore and study the fossilised remains.

A Photograph of Some of the Fossils Collected by the Team

About 10% of the entire skeleton is represented by the fossil material.

Picture credit: Robert Smith

New Triassic Archosaur

The animal was clearly a predator and it would have been about the size of fully grown female American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), although unlike today’s modern crocodiles, the limb bones were held underneath the body and they did not spread out in a sprawling posture as seen in extent crocodilians. Nundasuchus (pronounced Noon-dah-suk-kus), would have been capable of more efficient locomotion, it probably hunted the ancestors of those other very well-known archosaurs – the Dinosauria.

The researchers are unsure as to where this new genus sits in the Archosauriform family tree. The skeleton shows anatomical traits found in the branch of the archosaurs that led to the dinosaurs and birds, but it had bony armour (osteoderms) on its back like a crocodile.

For models and replicas of extinct archosaurs including dinosaurs: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Figures.

Bridging a Gap

Commenting on the significance of this discovery, Assistant Professor Nesbitt stated:

“There’s such a huge gap in our understanding around the time when the the common ancestor of birds and crocodilians was alive, there isn’t a lot out there in the fossil record from that part of the reptile family tree. This helps us fill in some gaps in the reptile family tree, but we’re still studying it and figuring out the implications.”

The name is derived from local Swahili “Nunda” for predator and the Greek for crocodile “Suchus”, the genus name therefore translates as “predator crocodile”. The trivial name comes from the town of Songea, as this settlement is close to where the fossils were found.

Despite the fragmentary nature of the fossil material, Nundasuchus songeaensis represents one of the more complete early Middle Triassic (Anisian faunal stage), archosaurs from southern Pangea and is part of a previously unrecognised early and diverse Archosauriform assemblage.

Sterling Nesbitt, who formerly held a post at Texas University, has been involved in a number of studies into the evolutionary development of African Triassic fauna. Back in 2010, Everything Dinosaur reported on another research project in Tanzania involving Assistant Professor Nesbitt. Fossils found indicated that the Dinosauria may have evolved earlier than previously thought.

To read this article: Pushing Back the Evolution of the First Dinosaurs by Ten Million Years.

24 01, 2015

Casting Doubts on Global Firestorms

By Mike|2023-03-23T07:41:16+00:00January 24th, 2015|Categories: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Geology, Main Page, Palaeontological articles|0 Comments

Extraterrestrial Impact May Not Have Caused Global Firestorms

The debate over the consequences of the extraterrestrial impact that took place around sixty-six million years ago continues with the publication of pioneering new research that investigates whether or not the Yucatan impact caused extensive firestorms on a global scale. It is now widely believed that at least one huge object from outer space crashed into Earth which very probably contributed to the mass extinction event that marks the end of the Cretaceous. This is perhaps the most famous of all the mass extinction events recorded in the Phanerozoic fossil record, as no significant quantities of dinosaur fossils are found in younger strata.

Mass Extinction Event

The end Cretaceous mass extinction event saw the demise of the Dinosauria, the pterosaurs, most of the marine reptiles and a number of other significant casualties. It had been thought that a consequence of the impact was a series of huge fires that ravaged the Earth, destroying much of the plant-life on the planet. Plenty of evidence for this catastrophic event has been cited, for example, large amounts of carbon preserved in strata at the K-T boundary, believed to be the preserved remains of such conflagrations.

In 2013, for example Everything Dinosaur published an article on this blog citing research which suggested that intense heat in the atmosphere did indeed cause huge fires: Cretaceous Mass Extinction Study Provides Evidence of Global Firestorm.

A “Fern Spike”

Scientists have also recorded evidence of a “fern spike” that occurred immediately after the extinction event. Large numbers of fossilised fern spores have been recorded (microfossils), in contrast to a very low level of other plant remains such as pollen from flowering plants being recorded. Ferns are quick to re-colonise an area after a devastating volcanic eruption. The “fern spike” data was taken as supporting evidence for the massive destruction of much of the planet’s green matter.

To read more about the “fern spike” research: Humble Ferns – Evidence to Support the Impact Theory.

Did the Extraterrestrial Impact Cause Global Firestorms?

Cataclysmic impact event, but was there a global firestorm?

Picture credit: Don Davis commissioned by NASA

Global Firestorms

However, a team of UK based researchers (University of Exeter, Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh), have challenged the idea of world-wide fires. The scientists recreated the massive energy released from the impact event and they found that the blistering heat near the impact site was too short-lived to ignite living plants. The scientists conducted a series of experiments using pulses of heat and writing in the Journal of the Geological Society, the team conclude that close to the actual impact, the heat wave would have lasted less than a minute, too short a time to set fire to living plants.

However, using computer models they discovered that the effects of the blast would have been felt as far away as New Zealand, some 12,000 kilometres from the site of the explosion. The further away from the blast centre, the less intent the heat wave, but it would have been longer lasting. In New Zealand, the heat blast would have lasted for around seven minutes, long enough to ignite living plant material.

Living Plants Not Ignited

Experiments conducted suggest that dry and dead plant matter could be set alight, but live plants such as conifer needles were not ignited.

Having a Blast with Heat Wave Experiments

Global firestorm study.

Picture credit: University of Exeter

The picture above shows the fire propagation apparatus recreating the impact induced thermal pulse at the Cretaceous/Palaeogene (K-T boundary). Halogen lamps are delivering the intense, thermal radiation.

Commenting on the study, Dr Claire Belcher (Earth System Science group in Geography at the University of Exeter) stated:

“By combining computer simulations of the impact with methods from engineering we have been able to recreate the enormous heat of the impact in the laboratory. This has shown us that the heat was more likely to severely affect ecosystems a long distance away, such that forests in New Zealand would have had more chance of suffering major wildfires than forests in North America that were close to the impact. This flips our understanding of the effects of the impact on its head and means that palaeontologists may need to look for new clues from fossils found a long way from the impact to better understand the mass extinction event.”

The Impact on Flora and Fauna

Fauna and flora populations are generally resistant to localised fire events, animals can hide or hibernate/enter aestivation and the seeds of plants can survive the intense heat of forest fires. Some plants even rely on seasonal fires to help them spread. Based on these assumptions, it can be suggested that wildfires on their own are unlikely to be directly responsible for extinctions. However, large dinosaurs which were unable to run very far, or shelter may have suffered terribly from such fires.

Dr Rory Hadden from the University of Edinburgh added:

“This is a truly exciting piece of inter-disciplinary research. By working together engineers and geoscientists have tackled a complex, long-standing problem in a novel way. This has allowed a step forward in the debate surrounding the end Cretaceous impact and will help geoscientists interpret the fossil record and evaluate potential future impacts. In addition, the methods we developed in the laboratory for this research have driven new developments in our current understanding of how materials behave in fires particularly at the wildland-urban-interface, meaning that we have been able to answer questions relating to both ancient mass extinctions at the same time as developing understanding of the impact of wildfires in urban areas today.”

Everything Dinosaur would like to thank Exeter University for the use of a press release that enabled this article to be compiled.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Visit Everything Dinosaur.

18 01, 2015

“Moles” at College Town Infant and Nursery School Write About Fascinating Dinosaurs

By Mike|2024-05-04T19:20:20+01:00January 18th, 2015|Categories: Educational Activities, Main Page, Teaching|0 Comments

Dinosaurs Helping Children Develop Their Writing Skills

Encouraging Year 1 children with their writing was one of the learning objectives that the dinosaur expert from Everything Dinosaur set out to achieve during a visit to College Town Infant and Nursery School last week. The children were certainly very enthusiastic and keen to learn lots of facts about prehistoric animals.

There were some excellent describing words used when it came to handling the various fossils and a number of “pinkie palaeontologist challenges” were set for the classes. The school has a three form entry for Year 1 children, the classes are called “Rabbit”, “Hedgehog” and “Mole”, Miss Tuck (teacher), asked her “Mole” class to write a thank you letter as part of the extension ideas that had been discussed.

One of the Thank You Letters from the “Moles” in Mole Class

Super thank you letter.

Picture credit: College Town Infant and Nursery School/Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaurs Helping Children

Good use of capitals, very well spaced and formed letters, what a lovely thank you letter. Well done Pavan.

Vinzen’s Fantastic Letter

Vinzen’s fantastic dinosaur themed letter.

Picture credit: College Town Infant and Nursery School/Everything Dinosaur

Miss Tuck was obviously very impressed by the thank you letters that the children composed. Our team members have certainly enjoyed reading them.

Esther’s Thank You Letter

A great thank you letter from Esther.

Picture credit: College Town Infant and Nursery School/Everything Dinosaur

Beautiful Thank You Letters

Well done, Esther and her classmates, lots of carefully written letters with good use of punctuation. Good examples of use of adjectives to describe the activities that the children took part in.

Our dinosaur expert set a number of writing challenges for the children. Fact sheets and scale drawings were emailed over to help inspire the children. It looks like the visit has really helped and “Dinosaur Mike”, one of our team members commented:

“It was wonderful to see the letters written by the children, I have shown them to my colleagues and pinned up some of them onto our display wall in the warehouse. These are wonderful examples and all the children in Moles class can be proud of what they have done”.

To view the range of educational items available from Everything Dinosaur including replicas of iconic fossil animals: Dinosaur Toys, Models and Gifts.

13 01, 2015

Scotland’s Very Own Special Ichthyosaur

By Mike|2024-05-04T19:22:43+01:00January 13th, 2015|Categories: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Geology, Main Page|0 Comments

Dearcmhara shawcrossi – An Ichthyosaur from the Isle of Skye

No it’s not a dinosaur, contrary to some media reports. It certainly is not “Nessie”, but it does mark the culmination of a tremendous effort by Scottish palaeontologists to collate and study marine reptile fossils that have been found in Scotland. A new species of ichthyosaur (marine reptile), has been described from fossils found on the Isle of Skye.

The “wee beastie” has been named Dearcmhara shawcrossi, the name comes from the Scottish Gaelic for marine lizard and the trivial name honours amateur fossil hunter Brian Shawcross who found the creature’s fossils at Bearreraig Bay in 1959. Bearreraig Bay is part of a highly fossiliferous coastline which can be found on the eastern side of the island. As far as we at Everything Dinosaur know, this is the first marine reptile to be given a Gaelic name, Dearcmhara is pronounced “jark vara”.

A Model of an Ichthyosaur (Fish Lizard)

An Ichthyosaurus model.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Scotland’s Very Own Ichthyosaur (D. shawcrossi)

Around 170 million years ago, much of the Isle of Skye was underwater. A shallow sea separated the landmasses of Europe and North America, this sea formed when rifts in the Earth’s crust led to the break-up of the super- continent Laurentia. Marine reptiles like Dearcmhara shawcrossi were part of a diverse ecosystem, Dearcmhara grew to around 4.5 metres in length, motor boat size as described by Dr Steve Brusatte (University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences), who led the study.

Fossil Vertebra of the Newly Described Species

Most likely a dorsal vertebra from

Picture credit: BBC News

Dr Steve Brusatte (holding the fossil in the photograph) went onto comment:

“During the time of the dinosaurs, the waters of Scotland were prowled by big reptiles the size of motor boats. Their fossils are very rare, and only now, for the first time we’ve found a new species that was uniquely Scottish.”

The Isle of Skye

The Isle of Skye is a very important part of the world to palaeontologists. Exposures along the shoreline and inland are strata that was laid down during the Middle Jurassic. There are very few places in the world where such rocks are exposed and this makes any fossil discovery from the island very significant indeed.

Recently, Everything Dinosaur wrote about a new initiative to try and protect the island’s geological heritage in the wake of fears that unscrupulous fossil dealers might want to remove rare and valuable fossil bones of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs.

To read the article: Action Taken to Safeguard Scotland’s Fossils.

The discovery of a new species of Scottish ichthyosaur is just part of a collaborative effort being undertaken by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, the Hunterian Museum, the National Museums of Scotland, Staffin Museum (Isle of Skye) and Scottish National Heritage to try and catalogue significant vertebrate fossil finds.

A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:

“Without the donation made by local fossil enthusiast Brian Shawcross, this new species of ichthyosaur would not have been recognised. This goes to show how important amateur fossil collectors can be when it comes to learning about life in the past.”

To read an article that explains the importance of the Isle of Skye from a palaeontological perspective: Scotland’s Mid Jurassic Heritage.

Everything Dinosaur acknowledges the assistance of a media release from the University of Edinburgh in the compilation of this article.

12 01, 2015

Wonderful Thank You Cards from Customers

By Mike|2024-05-04T21:39:35+01:00January 12th, 2015|Categories: Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

Everything Dinosaur Receives Thank You Cards from Customers

Everything Dinosaur receives thank you cards.

At Everything Dinosaur we try to help everyone who contacts us. We get all sorts of correspondence, emails from teachers asking for advice and support with lesson plans, young dinosaur fans asking questions, museum enquiries and exhibitions wanting our help over the telephone and so on. Part of our extensive customer base is made up of those parents and grandparents who may not be as internet savvy as the rest of the population. We get letters sent into us asking for help in finding a specific dinosaur toy and phone calls from those customers who are reluctant to buy on line and prefer to talk to a person over the phone.

We are happy to help where we can and as a result of our customer service, we then get thank you cards and letters sent into the Everything Dinosaur offices by grateful customers.

Thank You Card Sent into Everything Dinosaur

Customers send in thank you cards to Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

We all work long hours and it is nice to know that our help is appreciated. A typical response to some questions that we have answered for a budding, young palaeontologist is:

“I am so grateful, that you took the time and trouble to answer Ben’s questions. The information you provided was certainly comprehensive and he was so excited when I showed him the email. Thank you to for the lovely drawing materials that you sent.”

It’s all in a day’s work for us, although with the volume of correspondence we have these days, please be patient, we do try our best to respond to all those customers who have contacted us that require a reply.

Saying Thanks with Angiosperms – Customer Thank You Card

Thank you card received by Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view the huge range of dinosaur models, toys and games available from Everything Dinosaur: Visit Everything Dinosaur.

11 01, 2015

Everything Dinosaur’s Social Media Targets 2015

By Mike|2023-03-21T16:06:33+00:00January 11th, 2015|Categories: Adobe CS5, Dinosaur Fans, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

Setting Targets for our Social Media in 2015

Having reviewed our progress on the various social media platforms that we support, Facebook, Twitter, Everything Dinosaur’s YouTube channel and so forth, it is time to look ahead to what we think we can achieve over the next twelve months. She who must be obeyed “Tyrannosaurus Sue” has set targets for “likes” on Facebook, followers on Twitter, pins on Pinterest and so forth.

Everything Dinosaur’s Social Media

We are going to list them here and periodically, throughout the year review our progress. 2015 should be an exciting time for Everything Dinosaur, we are going to have lots of new and exciting dinosaur toys and prehistoric animal models, but first and foremost let’s take a look at those targets.

Everything Dinosaur’s School Website (Dinosaurs for Schools)

Since this website went live in August of last year, we have been able to help many hundreds of teachers and thousands of school children. The free downloads, teaching resources, lesson plans and activity ideas have been very well received indeed. In 2014, we posted up sixty-seven articles on the teaching blog, all about dinosaur discoveries and about how to teach about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals in school. We featured pictures, drawings, dinosaur museums that had been set up in classrooms, all sorts of creative and imaginative teaching ideas.

With the focus in England very much on working scientifically we shall continue to do all we can to assist teaching professionals, museums and home educators.

To visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Visit Everything Dinosaur.

So in 2015 our targets for the Dinosaurs for Schools website are:

A further 125 articles posted up on the teaching blog site (total by the end of the year to be 192 articles)
At the moment we have twenty downloads available to support schools, we intend to add another ten to this list, (total number of downloads available = 30)

Everything Dinosaur on Facebook

We really enjoy posting up pictures, articles and information on our Facebook page, we have lots of friends and last year we accumulated 1,580 “likes” we are truly honoured. We have about 175 friends on Facebook too. At Everything Dinosaur we believe that Facebook “likes” have to be earned and not purchased we shall continue to work hard to earn every appreciative “like” that we receive.

Targets:

Increase “likes” to “2,000” by the end of 2015
Increase the number of friends we have on Facebook to 400 by the end of the year
Run at least three competitions and free giveaways to show our gratitude to our Facebook fans (just like we did last year)

Target for 2015 is 2,000 earned “likes”.

Feel free to “like” our page by clicking on the Facebook logo – that would be brilliant!!

Twitter

With over 2,000 “tweets”, Everything Dinosaur team members are beginning to find their feet on Twitter, we love the immediacy of this platform and sharing pictures of fossils and illustrations of prehistoric animals. Our Twitter feed is linked to our dinosaurs for schools website so we can “tweet” about good teaching practice and post up pictures of children’s artwork and such like.

Targets:

3,200 “tweets” by December 31st 2015
To increase the number of people we follow over 5oo (up from 345).
To increase the number of people following us from 370 to 650 by the end of the year

YouTube

At the moment our YouTube channel: Everything Dinosaur on YouTube has ninety-six videos, this is a few less than we anticipated after we did not get all the videos made that we wanted to last year. However, we are still really impressed with the number of channel views which now stands at over 890,000 (thanks to everyone). Subscriber numbers have topped 1,200 which is also very impressive as far as we are concerned. We make model and replica reviews, post up collecting tips and hints and generally like to feature our favourite prehistoric animal models. Our targets for the Everything Dinosaur YouTube channel are listed below our YouTube banner.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s YouTube Channel

Click on the banner to visit Everything Dinosaur’s YouTube channel.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Number of videos up from 96 to 125 by the end of December 2015
To achieve 1,000,000 video reviews by June 12th 2015 (the day of the world premier of “Jurassic World”) and then to achieve 1,235,000 views in total by the end of the year
To up our channel subscribers from 1,200 to 1,750

With 5,300 pins on a total of 31 boards and 735 followers (496 following), Everything Dinosaur team members have worked hard to post up pictures and helpful information related to pterosaurs, marine reptiles and of course dinosaurs. We will create a dedicated board to marine reptiles and attempt to get over 250 pins up on this new board by the end of the year. In addition, we shall set the following goals for Everything Dinosaur’s Pinterest presence.

8,500 pins
1,050 followers
600 following

To visit our Pinterest pages, simply click on the Pin It logo below:

Click to visit Everything Dinosaur’s Pinterest pages.

That’s about all for social media targets, but we will continue to remain as dedicated to our customers as we always have been and we look forward to hearing from you in the future. Let’s see how close or how far over the targets the team members at Everything Dinosaur achieve by the end of the year.

Ah But! What about this Blog?

Last but not least we come to the Everything Dinosaur web log. Since we started blogging back in May 2007, we have tried to post up an article at least once a day, aiming for a total of 365 articles and news stories per year. To date we have published an incredible 2,867 features, stories and articles. We estimate that by May 20th we will have posted up our 3,000 blog post, to us, that’s simply amazing. We will have to mark that landmark, with for a start, a special blog post. By the end of the year our target is to have added another 365 articles to this site, making a total by December 31st of 3,221 or thereabouts. We shall see…

9 01, 2015

A Review of Everything Dinosaur’s Social Media Targets (2014)

By Mike|2023-03-21T07:41:18+00:00January 9th, 2015|Categories: Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

How Did Everything Dinosaur Get On in 2014?

Everything Dinosaur team members made predictions about what our social media performance might be over 2014. This formed part of a larger project that involved staff trying to forecast the news stories and articles that we would feature on this blog site over the year. With so much emphasis being placed on customer interactions, two-way communication and such like, social media platforms are more important than ever before.

We at Everything Dinosaur, remain committed to being open and honest with all our customers, we try to help and assist where we can. Our team members do their best to respond to every customer query, enquiries and questions sent into us about prehistoric animals.

“Tyrannosaurus Sue” set some targets regarding our social media work and exposure, these were reviewed periodically over the last twelve months (June and September). We shall provide a sort of “end of year report”, an update on what we did and what we achieved.

To read the last update on Everything Dinosaur’s social media work (September 2014): Everything Dinosaur on Social Media.

Everything Dinosaur on Facebook

This time last year, we set a target of 1,200 “likes”, this kept being revised upwards as we continued to post up pictures, snippets from news stories, updates, previews of new models and such like. In September, we set a new target of 1,380 likes before the end of December 2014. We thought this was quite ambitious but by the end of the year we had achieved over 1,500. A very big thank you to everyone who supported our Facebook page.

You can help us, by visiting Everything Dinosaur on Facebook (click the Facebook logo below) and “like” the Everything Dinosaur page.

Everything Dinosaur on Facebook

Click the logo to visit our Facebook page and to give our page a “like”.

Twitter

By September we had “tweeted” 1,670 times, but could we reach our target of 2,000 tweets before the year came to a close? The answer was yes, just, with our 2,000th tweet being posted up in late December. Currently, we have 371 followers on our Twitter feed and we are following a total of 346. We shall see what targets are set for 2015 shortly.

The Everything Dinosaur Blog (this site)

It was an ambitious target, to continue to post up articles, averaging one a day over the whole year. If we achieved this level of posting, then, we would have over 2,800 articles and features on line. By June, some 151 new articles had been added and by December 31st the blog site contained a grand total of 2,854 published news stories and features. If we continue to work at this rate, sometime over the next one hundred and forty days or thereabouts we will hit the landmark of a 3,000th article on line.

Our initial target to have 3,000 pins was soon overtaken, in fact the target of 3,000 pins posted was achieved in May. In June, we set an additional target, to get to 4,000, this too was passed and in September we set a new mark of 5,200 by the end of the year. To our surprise, our enthusiastic pinning led to a total of 5,300 pins by the end of 2014. We are following 495 other “pinners” and we have 731 “pinners” following us. Another target, not simply met but smashed. We now have a total of 31 boards.

YouTube

We would not regard ourselves as the next Cecil B. DeMille, our videos and video reviews are not of Jurassic World quality but they have proved popular once again this year. Back in January 2014, we stated that we wanted to make more videos and to achieve over 800,000 views. Our video output may not have been prolific, but by June we had added another fourteen and our viewing figures were already approaching the target amount. We set a new target of 900,000 video views and sure enough in early December we surpassed this mark. We will go over the 1,000,000 views mark in the next few weeks, we are so honoured and we thank everyone for watching our videos.

So all in all, not a bad effort, we have surprised ourselves with what we have achieved. We will have to see how we get on this year (2015).

To visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

8 01, 2015

One Nine Tonne Block Potentially Six Plus Utahraptors

By Mike|2023-03-21T07:38:11+00:00January 8th, 2015|Categories: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Utahraptor Predator Trap Promises Fresh Insight into Dromaeosaurs

Lots of media coverage in the last few days concerning the efforts of a research team from Utah and their remarkable work to remove a nine tone block of mixed mudstone and sandstone that may contain the fossilised remains of a pack of Utahraptors from an isolated Mesa located in the Arches National Park (eastern Utah). The block is believed to represent what is known as a “predator trap” and it may contain the fossilised remains of six Utahraptors, a fleet-footed, feathery hunter, related to the Velociraptor of Mongolia, but much, much bigger.

Utahraptor Predator Trap

If the sandstone/mudstone block can be prepared, then palaeontologists will be able to gain further information about the growth habits (ontogeny) of these theropod dinosaurs. It may be difficult to ascertain whether the fossils represent a pack of dinosaurs that perished together, or whether the concretion represents the demise of a number of dinosaurs over a prolonged period, i.e. individual dinosaurs becoming fatally trapped rather than the whole group succumbing together.

The Fearsome Utahraptor ostrommaysi

Utahraptor is the largest genus of dromaeosaur described to date. Although regarded by many scientists as being the “Arnold Schwarzenegger” of this particular type of meat-eating dinosaur, it was very typical of the group. It was a fast running, bipedal predator and most likely feathered. Adults reached lengths of around five and a half metres with a skull length in excess of fifty-five centimetres.

The sickle-shaped second toe claw was up to thirty-eight centimetres long and like other “raptors”, palaeontologists have postulated that Utahraptor could lift up its sickle claw whilst running, with toes three and four bearing the weight of the animal. Utahraptor was named and described in 1993, one of the scientists involved in the formal scientific description was James Kirkland.

James Kirkland, now one of the best known American palaeontologists, was leading a field trip involving University of Utah students back in 2001, when the first dinosaur bone, a leg bone was found indicating that a site on a 240 metre high Mesa in the Arches National Park, might yield an exciting dinosaur discovery.

The Location of the Utahraptor Fossils

The inset shows a close up of the nine tonne boulder in situ.

Picture credit: James Kirkland/St. George News

The inset and the red arrow indicates the location of the fossil find on the Mesa which is managed by the U.S National Parks Service. Removing fossils from such locations is prohibited without special permits issued by the Government.

An Illustration of a Fearsome Utahraptor

Speedy, dinosaur hunters.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

For models and replicas of dromaeosaurid dinosaurs: CollectA Prehistoric Life Models and Figures.

Further expeditions to the site, indicated that this was something special. Back in 2004, it was confirmed that there was a mass of disarticulated and associated fossil bones preserved and over the last decade or so, the on-going investigation led scientists to believe that the best option was to remove the majority of the fossils in one massive block. The excavation culminated in the removal of an 18,200 lb mass of boulders, carefully protected by burlap and plaster. It was a tricky job negotiating the steep slopes of the Mesa but after heavy plant was brought in the huge rock was loaded onto a low loader for transportation to the Utah Department of Natural Resources (Salt Lake City).

One of the Utahraptor Jawbones Found at the Site

Slab and counter slab.

Picture credit: James Kirkland/St. George News

Commenting on the fossils, which may represent at least six different aged Utahraptors, James Kirkland (Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Utah) stated:

“We realised all the raptors were intertwined. As we tried to separate the bones from the ground, we kept running into more skeletons. We ended up with a giant mass.”

Amongst the fossil material listed so far is a nearly two foot long adult skull, along with elements from a baby Utahraptor’s ten centimetre long skull. These fossils will help scientists to work out how these animals changed as they grew and developed. This discovery, part of an extremely rich fossil heritage from the American State has been described as a “Rosetta stone of dinosaur fossil hunting for Utah.”

A Predator Trap?

In conjunction with the Utahraptor remains, scientists have uncovered fragmentary fossils of a herbivorous iguanodontid. It has been proposed that the stench of the rotting carcase of the herbivore attracted the predators who were hoping to scavenge on the rotting corpse. However, these creatures too, become stuck in what was effectively quicksand and what killed them helped preserve their bodily remains. Predator traps occur when large number of meat-eaters congregate around the corpse of a prey animal that has become stuck in mud or quicksand.

A number of predator traps are known from the fossil record, the Early Cretaceous tyrannosauroid Guanlong has been associated with a predator trap, the tar pits at La Brea (Los Angeles), are effectively one huge predator trap, they still catch out unwary birds and small mammals today.

To read an article about how scientists think large dinosaur footprints could have proved deadly for smaller animals: Did Dinosaur Footprints Trap Small Animals?

Commenting on the Utahraptor fossil discovery, a spokesperson for Everything Dinosaur stated:

“These fossils represent a remarkable opportunity for palaeontologists to learn about one of the most formidable predators of the Cretaceous. Around 120 million years ago, this part of what is now the desert of Utah, was covered in a series of large and often seasonal lakes. As the water evaporated over the long, dry season, so herbivorous dinosaurs would run the risk of getting stuck in the mud and soft sand on the shore. With water seeping away from such sites, quicksand was quickly formed and these would ensnare unwary dinosaurs.”

The spokesperson went onto add:

“It will be difficult for the scientists to state with any degree of certainty whether or not this fossil site provides evidence of pack behaviour in Dromaeosaurs, but we suspect that the debate over this type of dinosaur behaviour, already inferred by other fossil finds, will come to fore once more.”

6 01, 2015

Tyrannosaurus rex and a Chocolate Mountain

By Mike|2023-03-21T07:29:51+00:00January 6th, 2015|Categories: Dinosaur Fans, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

Has T. rex Bitten Off More than it Can Chew?

Yes, we know that tyrannosaurids did not chew their food. The table manners of a Tyrannosaurus rex would have been non existent, these fearsome creatures were “gulpers”, tearing off huge chunks of flesh and gulping it down as quickly as they could – not to put too fine a point on it. The team members at Everything dinosaur could not resist the strapline. However, “she who must be obeyed”, our boss affectionately known, when she is out of ear shot as “Tyrannosaurus Sue” is slowly but surely making her way through the mountain of chocolates, sweets and goodies she seems to have accumulated over the holiday period.

We were sent various images of dinosaur models in festive poses over the holiday period. Not too many images of members of the Tyrannosauridae consuming chocolate treats.

A seasonal decoration with a dinosaur theme - a festive T. rex.

A seasonal decoration with a dinosaur theme. Everything Dinosaur received lots of festive images featuring dinosaur models and figures.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The Rebor King T. rex Figure

Many of the images we received feature the recently introduced Rebor King Tyrannosaurus rex figure. This, the second replica in the Rebor series, it is a 1:35 scale model and it has proved to be very popular with dinosaur fans and collectors.

Nicknamed King T. rex! Everything Dinosaur has received lots of images highlighting this Rebor dinosaur figure.

Tyrannosaurus rex Models

To view the range of Rebor prehistoric animal replicas available from Everything Dinosaur: Rebor Models and Figures.

Taking a perspective from a background in geology, “Tyrannosaurus Sue” assures us that her chocolate mountain, like all mountains is gradually being “eroded”. Roll on Easter!