Mesozoic Mind

Today for Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day, we're gonna do something different, and mostly do museum exhibits. Ichthyosaurs: Age of Sea Dragons As mentioned in my previous post on how I'd redo the Royal Ontario Museum's fossil dinosaur galleries, I suggested that the marine Jurassic fossils be replaced and put into storage, but also they go to their own exhibit. Well here it is. Layout The main layout of the exhibit would be as a Walk Through Time representing different periods of the mesozoic, with each section of it focusing on a different aspect of these marine reptiles. #1 Introduction - The first fossil discoveries of ichtghyosaurs in England, naturally bringing up Mary Anning. # 2 Origins in the Triassic (China and BC) - The evolution of early ichthyosaurs. # 3 Giants from the Deep (either Shastasaurus  or  Shonisaurus as centrepiece) - Covers the giant ichtyosaurs of the Triassic, and to a lesser extent how they as a whole swam via the fins. # 4 Cutting-Edge Hun...

Hoo boy, this is gonna be a toughie to sit through. Today, we are reviewing a very forgotten dinosaur documentary, a work not to be confused with a certain trading card series, generically named Dinosaur Attack . This is a very obscure doc, as while it itself has been uploaded online, albeit under a very dumb clickbait title*, there's next to nothing about it online. It's so obscure for the longest time I couldn't find even the date it was released, though eventually I did and apparently its 1999 (but even then I have my doubts). I gladly appreciate if anyone has more info. The basic premise of the documentary is about the Paluxy River trackway in Texas, which for those not in the know, dates back to the Early Cretaceous and preserves both sauropod and theropod tracks, each possibly made by the respective sauropod and theropod genera Sauroposeidon and Acrocanthosaurus . The neat thing is that based off the way each are arranged, it seems it preserves a hunt in progre...

For my birthday (well weekend afterwards) in 2021, me and my mother went to the Royal Ontario Museum, and several times afterwards. I loved all of it, but me being me, I looked most forward to the museum's dinosaur gallery, the James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs. They were good, but I did feel they could be better, and with some of if not a lot of the info and exhibit design outdated to the 2000's, it's due for a renovation. Now today we're doing something new: Palaeo-Redo , where I reimagine works of palaeo-media, both as I would have done or could be improved. And without further ado, I present... The Ahmed Family Gallery of Dinosaurs ! The new gallery will be themed around the jaws and teeth of dinosaurs and their diets and evolution. In one direction, if you arrive from the Dawn of Life Gallery, the axis would be the latter and how environmental change impacted them. In the other direction, is the anatomical differences between clades of dino...

  Just like the ROM visit, I got several books for my birthday. One of them is today's subject, The Dinosaur Hunters *, a book about the history of palaeontology and the study dinosaurs, from the origins of the subject to the impact dinosaurs have on pop culture. It is written by Lowell Dingus with help from Mark Norell, both from and book helped by the venerable American Museum of Natural History. * Not to be confused with another non-fiction book of the same name and subject by Deborah Cadbury. The contents of it are fairly broad in scope. It goes chronologically, and a basic list summary is: Origins of Palaeontology, from the Greek Xenophanes observing fossil shells in mountains to Nicolas Steno's work in geology against Church's dogma. England's discoveries, such as William Buckland and Megalosaurus, the Mantells discovering and describing Iguanodon , and Crystal Palace Park. During and beyond the 1870's, Belgium sees the discovery of more Iguanodon that change...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind for the new year! Today's subject of Mesozoic Mind, the oldest work featured so far, may trigger nostalgic flashbacks, whether your a British person growing up in the 80's or worldwide in the 2000's via Youtube. It's Dinosaurs: Fun, Fact and Fantasy , a 1982 Direct to Video documentary oriented at children, courtesy of Pickwick Video. It aired at a time when palaeontology was in the middle of re-evaluating dinosaurs not as sluggish, slow, evolutionary failures but a successful clade, yet the public hadn't yet quite caught on. Also, please excuse the low quality screengrabs. The video ain't even HD. After a montage of dinosaur related B-rolls (and featuring the OG King Kong from 1933), we begin with a stop motion short on life in Mesozoic England, most notably a stooped-over Megalosaurus  on the prowl and eventually felling an Iguanodon , because really, what else is it gonna eat? Cetiosaurus or anything it actually lived...

Well, to all those who've stuck around to read it since March, the year is closing with the "Happy" Holidays behind us and the New Year of MMXXII soon to come, and I've completed the first one of Mesozoic Mind . It's been a great time here and have had a good time writing them, if sporadically and unfocused (I'll work on that). I'll be honest, I admit that last point has definitely been a problem when writing, causing works to be delayed a bit more then I wanted, unable to write full paragraphs at a time. But still, when I can do it, I can write a lot, and I love doing so. It also has helped me get more, read more, and bond with my mother. Doesn't help on the subject of unfocused that the December schedule was skreonked up by my mother's chemo (now you know about that), hence why the Dawn of Life review was delayed by weeks, and reviews I had planned are now in January, and I'm still annoyed at it. But enough grumbling. If I had to rank my fav...

Well now that we've hit 2000+ views here just in time for Christmas, here's one last Random Palaeo-Media Work idea of the Day for the year. Saurian Summoners A YA book series about a group of five young teens who because of circumstances discover a magic spellbok that allow them summon spirits of the dead - animals that is, and most if not all of them are mesozoic reptiles from North Africa, most notably dinosaurs like Suchomimus , Carcharodontosaurus , and Paralititan , but also crocodilians and pterosaurs like Sarcosuchus and Alanqa , and even cenozoic animals like Basilosaurus and Gigantophis . You see, the backstory myth for this book (told by our main lead's grandparent) would be that the origin of the Sahara desert can be traced back to an an invasion of evil monsters back when it was a green savannah, and the gods of North Africa's civilisations summoned the ghosts, like the Ancient Egyptian desert god Sutekh bringing the bones. Sure enough, these same monsters c...

Happy holidays to all of ya! Here are some ideas for all the support and views you gave me! Savage Lizards A film about a family which washes up on a Lost World inhabited by mesozoic life, including a race of highly intelligent raptors who take them in and give them sanctuary. However, one member doesn't appreciate it, an asshat teenager who buys into the awesomebro rhetoric of all dinosaurs being violent savage monsters who can't do anything but but fight and kill, and threats them accordingly, refusing to see otherwise, even though A) he acts very violent and bellicose himself, and strains his relationships with his family, and B) the raptors are fairly pacifistic outside of hunting and aren't all that violent, and as a whole the other dinosaurs would act as animals do and avoid conflict. Things get so heated between the three that a fight erupts between them, leading the family to leave the island for home, save the son, whose arrogant beliefs get him disowned and abando...

If you haven't noticed, a certain dinosaur skeleton from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada has become the blog's background mascot. Its name has been designated as ROM 768. ROM 768 has long been (literally) overshadowed by Gordo the Barosaurus just metres away from it, yet it has an equally fascinating history and arguably greater impact on the world. It it the holotype specimen of Parasaurolophus  and more specifically the type species P. walkeri , arguably the famous and recognisable of the hadrosaur dinosaurs. It’s the most complete specimen of it ever found so far, and indeed very few other specimens have been found. Casts of it have been featured in other museums and attractions worldwide. With its discovery and description, we were led to breakthroughs in the study of communication habits of dinosaurs. Meanwhile, for the last 100 years, most reconstructions of it have borrowed much from it, most notably as a notch over its haunches once thought to be a...