Whilst tidying up some files on the Everything Dinosaur database, an old photograph of a set of thank you letters sent into the UK-based mail order company was discovered. When team members conducted school visits lots of pupils sent in thank you letters. The letters from each class were grouped together and photographed. Often a picture of the children’s letters would have been pinned to our office notice board.
Pupils sent in thank you letters to Everything Dinosaur. A school class sent in thank you letters to Everything Dinosaur after a dinosaur workshop at their school. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Dinosaur Workshops in School
A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur stated:
“In the past, the company visited schools to conduct dinosaur workshops. Over the years we must have worked with thousands of schoolchildren. We enjoyed our school visits, and the dinosaur workshops were an enormous success. The company has received hundreds of thank you letters from pupils. It was always a pleasure to read these notes.”
Asking the class to produce a thank you letter was a popular extension activity encouraged by Everything Dinosaur team members. These thank you letters helped the children practice their handwriting and helped build confidence with sentence construction, punctuation and grammar.
The spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur explained that the company did not visit schools at present. This service was stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic and other projects have prevented this popular service from resuming.
For educational, dinosaur and prehistoric themed toys, models and crafts: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.
As team members tidy up files and archive more photographs, happy memories will be triggered as old school photographs are seen once more. The archiving and cataloguing of these files are part of Everything Dinosaur’s commitment to GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the UK Data Protection legislation help to protect customer’s data.
Everything Dinosaur team members were sent a question by a young dinosaur fan who wanted to know how big was the brain of T. rex? We put our own brains trust to work on this intriguing question.
Having a large brain does not necessarily indicate intelligence, how that organ is configured, and its complexity can provide neuroscientists with an insight into the intelligence of organisms.
Ironically, a controversial study published earlier this year, postulated that Tyrannosaurus rex might have been as smart as a primate, it may have possessed a comparable number of brain cells to that of a monkey.
An endocast of the brain of T. rex derived from internal moulds of the brain case. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
How Big was the Brain of T. rex?
CAT scans of theropod skulls have enabled palaeontologists to trace nerve pathways and to build up a picture of what some brains of dinosaurs might have looked like. The Tyrannosaurus rex fossil material known as Stan (BHI3033), has provided researchers with a detailed understanding of T. rex brain function. For example, fifty percent of the brain volume was dedicated to analysing smells. Hence the assertion that the sense of smell was extremely important to this carnivore.
As for brain size, estimates vary, but a recent paper published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology estimated the T. rex brain to have weighed around 350 grammes, and endowed this predator with considerable intelligence, putting the “King of the Tyrant Lizards” on a par with extant monkeys.
To read an article from 2013 that looks at research that indicated that dinosaurs had complex brains and postulated that they were capable of sophisticated behaviours similar to modern birds and mammals: Scientists Create a Detailed Map of a Dinosaur’s Brain.
Capable of Tool Use?
Author of the recently published paper, Dr Suzana Herculano-Houzel from the Department of Psychology at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee), postulates that Tyrannosaurus rex had approximately 3 billion cerebral neurons, a greater number than found in baboons.
The image of the Beasts of the Mesozoic Tyrannosaurus rex model in 1:18 scale that features on the back of the product packaging. A recent research paper has suggested T. rex was as clever as a monkey. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
The picture (above) shows an image of an articulated Tyrannosaurus rex from the Beasts of the Mesozoic range. To view this range of prehistoric animal figures: Beasts of the Mesozoic Models and Figures.
Using data on living birds and reptiles, Dr Herculano-Houzel inferred the number of neurons extinct creatures had based on calculations of brain mass, including many theropods such as Allosaurus, Archaeopteryx and T. rex.
Writing in the “Journal of Comparative Neurology”, a publication edited by Dr Herculano-Houzel, the doctor extrapolated how many brain cells T. rex possessed in its cerebrum (telencephalon), the most highly advanced part of the brain associated with higher cognitive functions.
Dr Herculano-Houzel postulates that Tyrannosaurus rex would have matured rapidly, lived to about forty years of age and was smart enough to use tools and to pass on acquired knowledge to offspring.
Controversial Ideas
Summarising her research, the doctor concludes:
“That theropods such as Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus were endotherms with baboon and monkey-like numbers of telencephalic neurons, respectively, which would make these animals not only giant but also long-lived and endowed with flexible cognition, and thus even more magnificent predators than previously thought.”
T. rex brain endocast. Was T. rex really smart? Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
As Clever as a Primate!
The paper has attracted scepticism from palaeontologists and other researchers. Gaining an understanding of the neuronal composition of the brains of dinosaurs would provide fundamental insights into their behavioural and cognitive capabilities.
However, brain tissue is rarely fossilised and to achieve her calculations Dr Herculano-Houzel assumed that the entire volume of the braincase was filled by brain tissue. This may not have been so. Perhaps, less than fifty percent of the braincase of T. rex was filled with brain tissue. Dinosaur brains could have been considerably smaller than the size postulated in the scientific paper.
In addition, how the brain is configured, its composition, if you like how it is “wired”, will have a significant impact on an organism’s intelligence.
Claiming that theropods such as Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus were “the primates of their times”, is exceptionally difficult to substantiate in the absence of a living animal to study.
To read an article from October 2016 about the remarkable discovery of a preserved partial iguanodontid brain: Dinosaur Brain from Southern England.
Bird Brains
Assessing intelligence is challenging, even in living creatures. Pigeons for example, would perhaps not be regarded by many people as being particularly smart, but these avian dinosaurs are capable of remarkable feats of navigation. Many birds demonstrate advanced cognitive abilities such as corvids (crows and their relatives) using tools. Crows have much smaller brains than most monkeys, they have far fewer cerebral neurons but they can outperform some primates when it comes to cognitive assessment tasks.
Dr Herculano-Houzel argues that estimating neuron counts from brain mass is a method that has been applied to hundreds of mammal, bird, and non-avian dinosaur species, the methodology is robust.
However, claiming that T. rex was a smart as a monkey is quite a leap.
The Dinosaur Renaissance
A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:
“The research paper is free to access, so readers can make up their own minds. Whilst it is extremely challenging to try to work out how intelligent an extinct animal was, the days of regarding dinosaurs as creatures so stupid that they were an evolutionary dead end are long gone.”
The spokesperson added:
“Since the 1960s and the work of palaeontologist John Ostrom, the view of the Dinosauria has fundamentally changed. These animals were perfectly adapted to their environments and they were capable of complex behaviours just like mammals and their close relatives the birds. Just how smart T. rex was is difficult to quantify and validate with scientific evidence. Along with other theropods such as the dromaeosaurids and the oviraptorids these predators might have demonstrated very complex behaviours derived from their cognitive abilities.”
Unfortunately, as we are unlikely to ever observe a living non-avian dinosaur, assessments regarding dinosaur intelligence remain speculative.
How Big was the Brain of T. rex? Something to Ponder
However, the idea of a smart, 7 tonne carnivore measuring in excess of 12 metres long, it makes you think…
The scientific paper: “Theropod dinosaurs had primate-like numbers of telencephalic neurons” by Suzana Herculano-Houzel published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology.
A colourful dinosaur wall display was spotted in a classroom when Everything Dinosaur team members conducted a dinosaur workshop at the school. The Year Two pupils had been learning all about prehistoric animals and fossils. The wall display had been produced during the term topic exploring “Would a Dinosaur Make a Good Pet”?
Everything Dinosaur team members are always impressed by school displays that feature dinosaurs and fossils. For example, Oakdene Primary pupils produced a colourful dinosaur wall display during their term topic studying prehistoric animals. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
A Colourful Dinosaur Wall Display
Children at Oakdene Primary produced fact sheets featuring their favourite prehistoric animal. There were fact sheets on Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops. The eager, young palaeontologists had illustrated their dinosaur data sheets. The pictures and fact sheets were then posted up onto the “Wow Wall” in the classroom. The dinosaur facts and other learning materials made an attractive and most informative display.
A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:
“We visited Oakdene Primary some years ago to deliver a dinosaur themed workshop. Everything Dinosaur had been invited into the school to support the children’s learning. At the time we praised the colourful wall display, and we were given permission to take a photograph.”
Learning About Dinosaurs
The spokesperson explained that Everything Dinosaur team members always tried to encourage children and to help them with their studies. Team members were quick to praise the teaching team for their hard work and dedication.
Many schools in England and Wales introduce a dinosaur and fossil themed term topic. Foundation Stage pupils as they transition from Nursery to Reception can find a dinosaur topic helpful. Year 3 pupils often learn about fossils and dinosaurs when studying rocks and soils.
A dinosaur term topic is also enjoyed by the teaching team. It certainly brings out plenty of creativity in the pupils that Everything Dinosaur team members have met.
Whilst tidying up some papers, team members at Everything Dinosaur came across a visual of the CollectA nautilus model which was used in a YouTube video when this invertebrate figure was introduced back in 2020. The nautilus figure was one of seventeen new replicas introduced by CollectA in 2020.
The CollectA Nautilus model, a splendid replica of a living cephalopod. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
CollectA Nautilus Model
The largest extant species is Nautilus pompilius, which is sometimes also referred to as the Emperor nautilus. All living species are confined to tropical waters and these molluscs usually live at depths of more than a hundred metres.
In 2017, all the species of nautilus were afforded protection under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The shells are highly prized and attempts have been made to regulate the trade in shells. However, much of the trade in Asia remains uncontrolled and although not directly threatened with extinction conservationists have expressed concern about their long-term survival unless trade in the shells is better regulated.
A scale drawing of an extant nautilus (Nautilus pompilius). Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
The Silurian is a relatively short geological time period when compared to the other periods outlined in the geological time scale. The Silurian lasted around twenty-five million years (444 million years ago to approximately 419 million years ago). Although it was brief, in relative terms, during the Silurian the first land plants evolved and many invertebrate forms began to make the transition to a terrestrial habit. Life in the seas still dominated the Earth’s biota. One of the apex, marine predators was the straight-shelled nautiloid. Some of these orthocones evolved into giants.
Everything Dinosaur and the straight-shelled nautiloid Orthoceras which was introduced into the CollectA range in 2020. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Straight-shelled Nautiloid
During the Silurian most of the nautiloid cephalopods had straight or slightly curved shells. The planispiral forms had yet to become common. The last straight-shelled forms (Orthocerida), probably died out during the Mesozoic. Most straight-shelled nautiloids became extinct at the end of the Triassic, but one fossil specimen collected in the Caucasus (Zhuravlevia insperata), indicates that one species persisted into the Early Cretaceous.
An early scale drawing design for the Orthoceras/Orthocone fact sheet. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Zhuravlevia insperata
Described in 1994 by Larisa Doguzhaeva of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, based on a fragmentary orthocerid fossil, Zhuravlevia insperata is the geologically youngest straight-shelled orthocone known to science. The tiny fossil, just 1.3 cm long, with four chambers preserved, was found when Aptian-aged concretions from the Hokodz River Basin in the north-western Caucasus (Russia), were being split.
The orthocone fragment would be around 120 million years old.
CollectA introduced an Orthocone replica in 2020. The figure was added to the Age of Dinosaurs Popular range.
It is that time of year, time to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas on behalf of all of us at Everything Dinosaur. Season’s greetings to you all. We will still be working over much of the holiday season and of course we will be answering emails and helping our customers as much as we can.
We wish all our customers, blog readers and social media followers a Merry Christmas and a peaceful, prosperous New Year.
Everything Dinosaur
It will be business as usual once the Bank Holidays are over. We will be back at work sending out all the Beasts of the Mesozoic Kickstarter items to customers in the UK and Europe. A special thank you to all those customers who sent us prehistoric animal themed Christmas cards, gifts and drawings, they certainly have brightened up the offices and the warehouse.
Back to School and to Museums
At this time of year our thoughts turn to all the amazing people that we have met as we continue our adventures. We have been busy helping science communicators and teaching teams sending out lots of free information and providing advice. For teachers and teaching assistants it has been a very busy autumn term. We hope that everyone has a very happy Christmas gets time to relax and unwind and we look forward to an exciting spring term with us continuing to support teaching work in schools.
We plan to visit a few more museums in 2023 and we are looking forward to the opening of the newly refurbished Manchester Museum that is due to re-open in February of next year.
For those of you tucking into turkey, goose or chicken on the 25th, click the link below to see the article we wrote a few years ago that shows how your Christmas dinner has a close affinity with dinosaurs: Christmas Dinner Links Dinosaurs to Birds.
On behalf of Everything Dinosaur, we wish everyone a happy Christmas.
Are you looking for an entertaining and colourful story book to help inspire the next generation of young palaeontologists? With the festive season fast approaching, we recommend “The Plesiosaur’s Neck” written by Dr Adam S. Smith and Jonathan Emmett, with lots of superb illustrations by Adam Larkum, a graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art.
“The Plesiosaur’s Neck” by Dr Adam S. Smith and Jonathan Emmett with illustrations by Adam Larkum that explores the question why did plesiosaurs like Poppy the Albertonectes have a long neck?
Prehistoric Prose, Puns and Palaeontology
Poppy is an Albertonectes plesiosaur. Her neck is seven metres long! This fun book, aimed at young readers sets out to explore some of the theories put forward by scientists as they attempt to explain why some plesiosaurs had super-sized necks.
The rhyming text bounces along and has been devised to help young readers maintain concentration and attention. Alfie the ammonite and Bella the belemnite accompany Poppy on her quest to solve this palaeontological puzzle and they chime in with cheeky comments as Poppy considers whether her neck can zap predators with electricity, helps her pluck off pesky parasites or allows to sneak up on her dinner.
Why did Poppy the Plesiosaur have a long neck?
Highly Praised
In the competitive field of children’s books, “The Plesiosaur’s Neck” has been singled out for praise. For example, shortly after it was launched it was “Children’s Book of the Week” in both Books for Keeps magazine and The Independent newspaper.
“The Plesiosaur’s Neck” was included in Teach Primary magazine’s “Fifty Modern Reads Every School Library Needs” and the book was also a finalist in the Sparks! School Book Awards.
“The Plesiosaur’s Neck”
When this delightful book was first published, team members at Everything Dinosaur had the opportunity to review a copy.
We stated:
“This book combines colourful characters with a cornucopia of fun facts. It is an entertaining exploration of a genuine palaeontological puzzle.”
“The Plesiosaur’s Neck” is suitable for ages 5 years plus, this rhyming picture book has thirty-two pages and is published by UCLan Publishing.
Dr Adam S. Smith (left) and Jonathan Emmett (right) the authors of the rhyming picture book.
More Books in the Pipeline
Dr Adam S. Smith told Everything Dinosaur that a second publication was in the pipeline, this time the story would evolve around a dinosaur, a tyrannosaur!
Dr Smith exclaimed:
“We’re excited to be working on a follow up book, ‘The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers’, to be published in 2024.”
In the meantime, if you are looking for a children’s book as a gift idea for the festive season, “The Plesiosaur’s Neck” is highly recommended.
Academics have defined different types of play activity that children indulge in and concluded that dinosaur toys encourage play. Creative, imaginative play is very important for a child’s development and there are lots of dinosaur and prehistoric animal models available from Everything Dinosaur to keep even the most discerning young dinosaur fan happy.
Children playing with dinosaur and prehistoric animal models. Picture credit: Schleich.
Picture credit: Schleich
Defining Different Types of Play
Scientists such as psychologists and paediatricians have defined six types of basic play activity namely:
Independent Play – playing on their own, using imagination.
Co-operative Play – playing with others, learning to share and to play together.
Motor skills – hand and eye co-ordination.
Visual Development – learning to focus, to develop observational skills such as being able to track moving objects.
Linguistic skills – learning language skills and developing a vocabulary.
Mathematical skills – learning with numbers, developing confidence with mathematics.
Children engaging in play whether on their own or with others helps them to develop important life skills.
Dinosaur Toys Encourage Play
A spokesperson from the UK-based Everything Dinosaur commented that they were aware that many Reception classes start their autumn term with a topic focused on dinosaurs. This term topic helps to encourage the children to take part in more cognitive based learning activities as they move away from free play.
A creative play area with a dinosaur theme in the Reception class. Children playing with dinosaurs helps them develop important life skills. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
We wish all the teaching teams every success with this autumn’s term topics.
Everything Dinosaur stocks a massive range of dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed toys and games, all of which have been tested and approved by team members.
Whilst sorting through the company’s extensive teaching database a picture of a dinosaur poem spotted during a school visit was found. During a routine tidy up of the images associated with Everything Dinosaur’s work in school, a poem about a Triceratops written by a young schoolgirl called Grace was discovered.
“Three horned Face” has a poem written about it. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Helping to Gain Confidence with Writing
Dinosaurs and prehistoric animals provide a rewarding and satisfying term topic for many teachers of Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils. The children approach the topic with enthusiasm and demonstrate lots of knowledge. The term topic lends itself to extensive activities related to English, maths and artwork as well as science. A dinosaur term topic can help children develop confidence with numeracy and literacy.
Team members at Everything Dinosaur have become quite creative in their support for teachers and teaching assistants. For example, fossil shark teeth have been used to make unusual “greater than” and “less than” symbols to help young children gain more confidence when using numbers.
Fossils used to make mathematical symbols for use in schools. Greater than and less than thanks to Otodus megalodon. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
A Dinosaur Poem
Team members have come across many instances of dinosaurs inspiring young poets to write prose. Many of the children’s poems have been posted up on the walls of the classroom and they make bright and colourful displays.
Prehistoric Animal Poems. Helping children to gain confidence with writing and literacy. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
A spokesperson for the UK-based, dinosaur company commented that over the years of delivering dinosaur themed workshops and supporting teachers, team members had come across some amazing examples of prehistoric animal themed poems.
Whether limericks, free verse or even Japanese inspired poetry forms such as haiku, Everything Dinosaur team members have always tried to encourage and inspire children.
To view the extensive range of prehistoric animal models and toys, all approved by the company’s teaching team, visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Visit Everything Dinosaur’s Website.
Everything Dinosaur team members have visited many schools. Unfortunately, during our travels we have come across many instances of inaccurate teaching materials. Educational budgets are stretched as never before and it always disappoints team members when they discover inaccurate information about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals being used in schools.
Take for example, this teaching aid downloaded and used by a school, which we came across a few years ago during a dinosaur workshop at the school.
Unfortunately, some of the dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed teaching resources available in the UK are wildly inaccurate. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
The picture makes a statement about dinosaurs. The fossil record does provide evidence to support the idea that like other reptiles, dinosaurs were scaly. However, the prehistoric animal depicted on the “fact card” is a pterosaur and pterosaurs are not members of the Dinosauria.
Inaccurate Teaching Materials
A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented that team members regularly came across inaccurate and misleading information about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals in schools.
The spokesperson added:
“Organisations compile teaching materials and sell these to schools and nurseries. Unfortunately, some of the learning materials contain obvious errors and inaccuracies. When we come across these materials, we do our best to point them out to the teaching team and to offer them, free of charge, replacement teaching materials that more accurately reflect the fossil record.”
Providing Support for Teachers and Teaching Assistants
As well as providing support for teachers and teaching assistants, Everything Dinosaur team members have assisted parents who are home educating their children. We have provided helpful teaching resources and provided links to other sources of accurate facts about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals. Everything Dinosaur has also provided information about museums, events and exhibitions to visit many of which are free.
The company also provides a range of dinosaur themed toys and games including replicas of iconic animals preserved in the fossil record: Dinosaur Toys, Replicas Fossils and Gifts.
The spokesperson added that team members remained committed to helping where they could and they answered swiftly and promptly all the emails and enquiries that they received.
