Mesozoic Mind

Shark Week is on, that sesanationalistic pile of crap. All the docs are utter crap and do ittle to educate the public on what sharks are really like. But given I do like movking it, if I had to make a special for Shark Week... Sharks Vs. Dinosaurs Looks at fossil specimens of dinosaurs with evidence sharks fed on them, like bite mark or even teeth, and the sharks the made them, like Squalicorax , Certoxyrhina , and Cretolammna among others. Czechia’s only dinosaur Burianosaurus  Claosaurus and Silviasaurus from interior US. Appalchian dinosaurs as described by Brownstein (2018). Sources Michael J. Everhart and Keith Ewell "Shark-bitten dinosaur (Hadrosauridae) caudal vertebrae from the Niobrara Chalk (Upper Coniacian) of western Kansas," Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 109(1), 27-35, (1 April 2006). https://doi.org/10.1660/0022-8443(2006)109[27:SDHCVF]2.0.CO;2  Madzia, Daniel; Boyd, Clint A.; Mazuch, Martin (2017). "A basal ornithopod dinosaur from the Ceno...

Gertie the Dinosaur reboot Yes, that Gertie the Dinosaur. Hooray for public domain! Premise for it? An adventurous young girl in the early 1910's ends up in another world and meets the friendly but attention-loving Gertie the Dinosaur, and they embark on an adventure through it to get back home, through three lands known as Turfs and coming into conflict (not nessicarily fights) with other giant denizens. This could be either a movie, a TV series, or a game. Characters I have so far are: Gertie the Dinosaur - A female sauropod dinosaur who wants to be the most well known in the Three Lands. Jumbo the Mammoth - A grumpy Mammoth and Gertie's archnemesis, from the EarthTurf. Coatlo the Tetradrake - A giant four-winged reptile that lives on a mountain in the SkyTurf. Leviatho the Sea Serpent - A sea serpent that lives in a great expanse of water in the WaterTurf. Mary McCay - The girl mentioned in the plot summary. Yes, she's named after Windsor McCay, as well as his daughter M...

 Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays folks! As a christmas day gift, I'll give you all a follow up to last week's post, where I show you sonething made new fashioned out of something old: concepts for new episodes of Dinosaur Planet that fix the balance issues I voiced last time! I'm setting them on landmasses that weren't in the original series' lineup These two episode concepts were actually concieved in 2020 before I even got the idea to start the blog. I've decided to update them with what I know now. They're a what if? excersise, and I will write the episodes as if I were in 2003, using sources and information from at least before that year and nothing after, though there won't be much concern for budget from both Meteor Studios and Evergreen Films, as it is my imagination. Before we get started, I'd like to offer a special thanks to Deviantart user ThalassoAtrox , for inspiring me to write these after seeing a rundown of Dinosaur Planet ...

It's the start of the Spooky Season! What better way for Mesozoic Mind to celebrate it then a concept for a palaeontology-centric horror film? My idea is inspired by all the horror pictures on Twitter (I will never call it X) I've been seeing around the time I wrote this. Like this one for example. Thieving Lizards Our protagonist is palaeontologist Billy DeSantis, a hotshot palaeotologist who begions the film making. However, he starts seeing these ghostly beings who resemble prehistoric life. Some are raptors, some are mammalian creatures, but either way they unnerve the heck out of Billy, who recognises them all as creatures he has studied directly in particular the taptor, which he has named Kleptiasaurus  (from Klepto, the greek). They even start to get more and more aggresive, charging at him, breaking into wherever he is, and snarling in his face. Initially it looks like Billy is an innocent victim who doesn't deserve the haunting, and you want him to escape them som...

Hello again. Here's something to tide you over until the next review, now in-progress. Ashfall From Dean Lomax's book Locked in Time ; illustrations by Bob Nicholls An animated film, inspired by the palaeontological site in Nebraska. It would tell the story of a crash of the ancient rhino Teleoceras as they weather out the ash clouds due to their leader being too stubborn to try and escape in any way even as the other animals start to die out as thr volcanic ash suffocates all that inhates it. Don't worry, it would have a bittersweet ending with most of the lead herd members getting their own moments of closure and solace in their last ones. This movie would all be without dialogue save brief narration. Beasts from Bones A documentary about mythical creatures that may have been inspired or influenced by ancient people discovering remains of extinct lifeforms. Examples would include (but not be limited to): Indigenous tribes of the interior plains creating myths of water mo...

Hello, to start off July at Mesozoic Mind, here's an idea I had in my head for a bit but never got around to writing - until now. Troodont Imagine this game... but with a different kind of parave. The game would be set in the Late Cretaceous and you play as a troodont* living in Campanian North America**. You use the maniraptor's famously big brain and wits to live - but also cause trouble for the heck of it. Just a few of what you can do in the game include: Cause stampedes of hadrosaurs or ceratopsids. Trap predators after you ( Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus , raptors, azhdarchids, and crocodilians) in humiliating spots and escape. Catching prey. And of course, just loudly pestering other dinosaurs and smaller creatures for fun. The tone would be inspired by Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote and other "Chase" cartoons, as well as  Dinosaur Planet and Dinosaur Revolution and their comical quasi-anthropomorphic presentation. The artstyle would be cartoony and cel-shade...

Chromosaurs I did promise such a thing in the Chromosaurus quicky.... so here you go! A throwback to 1980's science fiction works and cartoons in particular, a story about tribes of robot dinosaurs and their struggle to live, and that includes fighting amost one another, but also . Our main one we follow are naturally the T. rexes, but others include: Sauropods Ceratopsids Hadrosaurs Raptors Wings An animated film set in the Jurassic about the first  Archeopteryx  and his attempts to learn how to fly despite his flock ridiculing him so much. However, in a fiery climax as a volcano erupts, his flight saves him and fluies away to found the lineage. It's gonna be one of those where dinosaurs that lived in seperate areas and times (mostly each stage of the Late Jurassic what is now Europe and Asia) are in the same ecosystem and have a cartoonish art style, and yes I known Archeopteryx wasn't much of a flyer itself, though there will be plenty of getting accuracy right, such as ...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. June is here, and I'm kicking it off with two ideas related to how June is been labelled both Jurassic June and Pride Month, both of which are quite to my interests, hence why all June posts this months will have at least more then one Jurassic taxa and be dubbed Junerassic . Jurassic Giants Art by Nils Hoff (2011) Yet another documentary idea of mine, this one about one of the underrepresented Late Jurassic locales known: the Tendaguru Formation of Tanzania. It's not as well known as other contemporary formations (China's, Europe's, or North America's), but what sets it apart is that it preserves both terrestrial and marine fossils due to representing a coastal plain of lagoons and deltas. This documentary would thus be about the giants of both the land and the sea, and how the ecosystems of both influence one another. For example, washed out dung from dinosaurs on land brings nitrogen to the sea. And yes, there would be sc...

Hello, everybody. I'm just here to add the latest RPWIOTD, and something I will be doing this weekend you'll findf very interesting. The River Styx This would be a horror/survival story about a palaeontology student visiting his rural family in Montana and goes fishing together, only to get into a time warp back in time, to (where else?) the Hell Creek Formation 66 million years ago - during a weat season and when the forests are flooded. Stuck on an island, they must find a way off and more importantly a way back to their time - but the local wildlife is going to make that very difficult, as they're mere appearence disturbs them and drives them nuts - though some of the humans aren't helping either. The major creatures in the story, and the subjects of each setpiece would be: The crocodilians  Borealosuchus ,  Brachychampsa , and  Thoracosaurus . They would be the main threat the characters face, as many of them choose to bask on the island and get into conflict with e...

Hello. I came up with this idea just a couple days ago, though I swear my mind created it even earlier. Hopefullt it'll tide you over until the next short review coming soon. Streched Necks and Horns: How the Giraffe got its Neck A would be documentary about the evolution of the giraffe and it's long neck, and the factors that played into it, like sexual selection, fighting, and feeding opprotunities, as well as how evolution in general works and theorires on it, like Lamarck's own theorum oft-represented with giraffes' necks. Species that would appear in potential CG reconstruction sequences are: Prolibytherium Sivatherium Discokeryx , naturally headbutting Palaeotragus Bohlinia I'm surprised there has never been a full documentary on giraffe evolution, even though its one of the most famous scenarios used when explaining how evolution and passing on genetic traits works.

We've hit 2000 views this month, a record at Mesozoic Mind! Today (and perhaps to commemorate it - albiet in a rather small and short way unfitting for it), we got some book ideas! You're Dumber then a Dinosaur! This book lists various dinosaur andotherprehistoriclife-themed insults readers could use in arguments and the context behind them. It would also double as rebuttals to misconceptions people have about dinosaurs or facts regarding them. A few examples to get you an idea of what would be inside are: "You mama's so fat, sauropods don't think she can can walk on land!" - Would explain sauropods had had hollow bones and airsacs to lighten them in spite of their massive size, but Yo Momma has no such thing to her. The corresonding illustration would be a morbidly obese woman next to an unimpressed Argentinosaurus herd. " Stegosaurus had more brains then you!" - Stegosaurus didn't have two brains with one in its hip/ass region, but it wasn'...

Happy holidays! Here's what I got for y'all this Christmas day, two very similar but different stories of prehistoric survival. Swampland Remember the book Hatchet ? No not the slasher film, the book about a teen who gets stranded in the Canadian wilderness and must survive the elements until rescued. Swampland would be a story (ideally a YA novel) like it, or perhaps Yellowjackets , where a group of teens at a gathering wake up to find themselves back 76 million years ago, and naturally must survive both the local fauna of the time. Other teen stuff ensues, like romance, love triangles, bonding, and feuding. So basically Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous . Accuracy would be a given, though it might be because I cannot write let alone picture believable teens for $#!+, and I'd rather focus on that. Yes, there would be an antagonistic tyrannosaur against the group, a male Albertosaurus . His main  reason for constantly going after the humans would be a mix of wanting to elimin...

We made it to 75 posts and 10,000 views and beyond everyone! To celebrate that and the launch of the new Mesozoic Mind Discord server (oh yeah, that's now a thing), here is a two-in-one: a new instalment of Palaeo-Redo, and a new Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day. First up is Palaeo-Redo , this time if my selected work were made by me or updated. This time, what better to commemorate the start of my blog writings then my first big breakthroughs, Dino Lab  and  Cameron and his Dinosaurs . My idea for Dino Lab  (both I and II) is to make it a full series about six episodes long set on a whole campus, with both indoor and outdoor facilities to conduct the experiments with the dinosaurs, not just indoor ones that just raise all sorts of welfare concerns I have with the present version. Each episode and the experiments within them would focus on a different topic. Senses Locomotion Feeding and Hunting Sociality Communication Internal Organs The expanded runtime woul...

Hello, this is Mesozoic Mind. It's the first week of the spooky season, and what better way to celebrate then a horror work? Ambush A game can be summed up as  Alien: Isolation WITH RAPTORS. You play as ascintist who has arrived in a Lost World-type setting, but something happens that leads a pack of a Dakotaraptor  or Deinonychus -esque species to ambush you: perhaps you were in the wrong place at the wrong time as they were hunting, or disturbed them by entering their territory. You do manage to escape, and the pack goes away - except for one, who sees your escape as an insult to its pride, and goes rogue to hunt you down. What follows is a chase through the shadowy jungles to reach a rendevous point where you can escape as the raptor could appear anywhere and ambush you before eating you alive, and that's not without considering what other animals might attack you first as you run into their path. To survive the raptor, you must either put enough distance between it, or hi...

For this week's RP-WIDOTD, I'd like to credit museum employee and writer for the blog Extinct Monsters Ben H. Miller, whose series of Framing Fossil Exhibits  and the nature of early fossil exhibits and the popular stereotypes being parades of big skeleton mounts was the inspiration for this idea, conceived at 2 AM in the morning. Towering Titans This would be a museum exhibit homaging the idea of mount after mount of giant prehistoric creatures, only here having a more nuanced take on such, focusing on just how these big creatures could evolve in the first place, wheher its interal factors, like dense bones or airsacs to lighten the body, or external factors, like suitable climates and vegetation. The vast majority of the exhibit would be a central platform, with additional ones around the perimitre of the exhibit hall. The first creatures museum-goers would see even before entering from whatever main hall of the museum is are a pair of Edmontosaurus , among the biggest of t...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind . So while on vacation, my family visited on the highway the Big Apple. No, not Ney York, but a roadside attraction featuring a giant fibreglass apple, tacky and saccarhine rustic decor, kiddie attractions, and a petting zoo of stinking pens. It's as cheesy as you'd imagine, and the only thing I like about it were the animals in the petting zoo, like turkeys and hissing geese. I'm honestly surprised they haven't added some animatronic dinosaurs while at it too. Really, dinosaurs are a pretty common choice for roadside attractions. Most famously are those from around the Cold War era, like Dinosaur Park in South Dakota, but in recent years they have been suplanted by relatively cheap animatronics made in the 90's and early 2000's, and in my opinion age horribly from a scintific standpoint and sn artistic one, remaining unfeathered and pronated-handed and barely functioning, while the fibreglass and concrete models do have ...

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind . Man, its been forever snce I did a Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day instalment. Figured I'd be at least in the double digits long ago. Anyways, better late then never. Prehistoric Paradise Inspired by a vacation to Grand Cayman I took in late June, this documentary would document the geological and evolutionary course of the Carribbean, particularly Cuba to its wide variety of fossils preserved and strata there. It would make heavy use of timelapse shots from space showing the landmasses forming and moving overtime, but there would still be plenty of reconstruction . Episode One Art by tuomaskoivurinne Episode one establishes the origins of the Carribbean in the Mesozoic due to the breakup of Pangaea and. A large portion of it is spent in a Mid to Late Jurassic formation known as the Jagua , which has a wide variety of marine reptiles on par with Britain's. Featured taxa would be: The pliosaur  Gallardosaurus The ples...

 Happy 4000 views at Mezosoic Mind, everyone! To celebrate, here's the last Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day, and we're going into a place never been to but should hsve been to long ago. Shadow of the Giants This rather pretentiously-named game would be an open-world photography game in the vein of 2009's Afrika or Endless Ocean . The game is about an expedition back in time to any time in the Mesozoic, and your goal is to capture photos of all kinds of species, not only dinosaurs, but pterosaurs, crocodilians, and mammals, in various behaviours (raising young, feeding or hunting, fighting) or simply their specific features of them, all while trying to avoid getting spotted or attacked. For instance, one instalment I have in mind would take place in the Morrison Formation, while for another would be in the Dinosaur Park Formation. Just a few of the many genera that would be featured in them would be. Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus Camarasaurus Diplodocus Allosaurus fragil...

I'd like to thank everyone who clicked on the links here and stayed throughout the last year for supporting me, so here's another round of Random Palaeo-Work ideas of the Day ™ ! Jurassic Jaws Art by Robert T. Bakker for The Dinosaur Heresies . Narrative two-part documentary about the life of a Megalosaurus in Middle Jurassic England 166 million years ago given the name of Billy Buck, from a hatchling to an adult and its trials in life. Megalosaurus bucklandii  - The lead dinosaur species for the documentary. Cetiosaurus oxonensis  - A sauropod dinosaur. It maybe nowhere as big as others in Jurassic England, but they can still pack a punch. Proceratosaurus bradleyi  - A small tyrannosauroid dinosaur. They're quite the menace when Billy is young, but once he grows up they're only a nuisance at worst. Think the Ornitholestes from Walking with Dinosaurs . Dacentrurus armatus /” Omosaurus ” - A big stegosaur. Callovosaurus leedsi  - A small flocking ornithopod that'...