Hellasaur Friday Teaser

Neil is in China for a little while, so the next Triassic Hellasaur post might be a little late, but I thought I'd give you good readers a teaser as to the subject of the next edition. Not quite as cool as Hupehsuchus, but these buggers were a lot more diverse in terms of toothiness.

Selena moves toward the Abstract

I really wish I could link to my old blog right now, but the long, ever-changing history of my female comic character is now gone thanks to that blog's inactivity. So one of these days, I'm gonna have to fill you all in. Anywho, for those who've been reading this blog since its inception, you might know that my female comic character, Selena Isley, is constantly undergoing revision, both in terms of design, personality, and universe. Last time we checked in on Selena, she was looking a bit like Frank Cho's Brandy, but right now she's leaning more toward Tim Fischer's Powergirl. Now, before you accuse me of plagerizing, you should know that this is a normal part of my artistic growth.

I generally stumble across an artist I really like and proceed to devour every scrap of art they've ever published online or anywhere else in an attempt to figure out what makes their style "work." Why do I like Frank Cho, Tim Fischer, Bruce Timm, Mike Mignola, Mike Krahulik, Jim Lee, and the people behind Kim Possible and Clerks: Animated, but I don't like Eric Larson, Jim Lawson, Ashley Wood, the whoever did the art for The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again? Figuring out how to imitate someone's work is not entirely difficult. If you study enough of a person's art, you can whip out a respectable likeness without much trouble. What really bugs me, though, is figuring out why some things work and others don't. Personal preference, I'm sure, goes a long way, but the art styles of Fischer and Cho are on seemingly opposite sides of Scott McCloud's Picture Plane.

I think I must be drawn to the "Meaning" side of the Picture Plane, with a few exceptions (Cho, Lee). Simplified art really strikes a chord for me--so few lines and such simplified features, but it's so powerful. Look back at Fischer's Powergirl picture, then check out Alex Ross' version. Both respectable, but I get more meaning out of the more simplified version.

So anyway, Selena Isley, who I will post the history of one of these days, is now drifting back toward the more abstract corner of the Picture Plane. Hopefully she'll stay there, but I find that I'm never satisified with her design.

Of Naish, Witton, and Giant Freaking Pterosaurs

Congratulations to fellow paleoblogger Darren Naish and fellow paleoartist Mark Witton! The two of them have cooked up a wonderful new paper in PLoS One about azhdarchid pterosaur behavior. Click this link, and be amazed! Darren has already summarized the paper at his blog, and as if that weren't enough, the two of them have set up a brand-new blog which serves as yet another summary of the paper, but with more illustrations. Beautiful, beautiful illustrations. Long-time readers of Tet. Zoo may recognize Darren's point, and indeed, he mused on the subject of azhdarchid feeding habits way back in Tet. Zoo Volume 1.

I cannot stress how excellent the paper is, because Darren actually tests and questions some dogma about pterosaurs! How novel! I won't ruin it for anybody--you'll have to read the paper yourself to get the gist of it, but you'll come away with a new appreciation of Mesozoic landscapes! Theropods weren't the only critters to look out for back then! Oh, I've said too much! Run over the Darren's blog(s) and congratulate him!

Back in the Saddle Again

Got back from the Emerald City last night, and I'm happy to report that I have some idea of where the convention center is, now, so I'm all set for PAX in August. We took a shuttle from the airport to our downtown hotel, and didn't bother to rent a car (thank goodness). Gina and I walked an awful lot, to four malls, Pike Street Market, the Seattle Aquarium, Pioneer Square, and a comic shop called Zanadu.

I found some cool stuff, including a Super Mario Bros. 3 T-shirt, a print of the original Godzilla: King of the Monsters movie poster from the 50's, a signed and numbered Frank Cho print, and an ocarina (of time). While at a Pioneer Square bookstore, I found a book about California's Mesozoic wildlife--a book previously recommended to me by Darren Naish. It was used, and I picked it up for a song. Great book--I didn't realize that California had so many marine reptiles. Not so many dinosaurs, but a ton of marine reptiles.

I got a bunch of art done while in Seattle, too, and I intend to post it all in the coming days. Well, okay, most of it. There's a particular hellasaur that will doubtlessly be the subject of a new Microecos post in the coming days.

Away for the Weekend

I'll be in Seattle as of Friday morning, folks. The wife and I leave just after midnight, and we won't be back until Monday. While in Seattle, Gina is going to an English conference, and I'm going to look for a hotel for PAX in August. We probably won't get to the zoo (*sigh*) but we will visit the aquarium and Pike Street, and probably the Space Needle. I'll also be perfecting my hellasaurs for more Microecos hellasaur goodness.

I probably won't have computer access down there, but I'll finally be able to get some art done for the Archosauria show and this blog, which has not seen too much art lately.

P.S. Thanks, Will! Now I just need to find a color printer...

This is Better than Getting Wii Fit!

Awww, no more Expelled!. Instead of No Intelligence Allowed, maybe the movie's secondary title should be No Illegal Copyright Violations Allowed. The fact that DVD sales are indefinately on hold should perk the Blue Collar Scientist right up, as he was worried that DVD's would be given to schools free of charge. Hat-tip to PZ Myers for pointing this story out in the first place.

My Childhood Comes Rushing Back

As some of you may or may not know, I homeschooled through high school because of the CF. Before starting those brain-cramp-inducing Saxon math books (curse you, Saxoooon!), the game shown above provided a good deal of my early math training. It's Number Munchers! You played as the little green Muncher, and ate specific numbers which matched the condition at the top of the screen. Eat the wrong number and you lose a life. Also, there were Troggles--evil little beasties that would wander onto the screen and wander around, trying to eat you. Several breeds of Troggle existed, but they were all annoying. In the awesome sequel to Number Munchers, adequately titled Super Number Munchers, eating enough right answers would turn you into a golden, caped Muncher capable of destroying Troggles.

I mean, look at that graphical leap!

Other old computer games I recall fondly: Think Quick! (Apple II), Operation Neptune (Windows), The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain (Windows), Shivers (Windows), and of course, Myst (Windows). There was also a game I had for the Apple II involving a slow-moving purple robot moving through an environment, looking for robot parts and traveling on a raft. Any guesses as to the title of that particular game?

Wonders of the Triassic @ HMNH

Click on over to the Hairy Museum of Natural History and congratulate Matt on the opening of a wonderful Triassic fossil exhibit at his museum! It look mind-bogglingly cool, and must get down there one of these days. The phytosaur skulls alone are worth the trip!

Hupehsuchus @ Microecos

Check out Neil's most recent Hellasaur post at Microecos. He speaks of a neglected Triassic marine reptile, and I contributed some original art for this cause! Look for more of my crap in the coming weeks--Neil's got a little series going on.

A Few of My Favorite Games: Addendum

Grim Fandango (PC)
How could I forget about the one computer game I enjoy playing? Grim Fandango is a wonderful film noir about travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera, as he tracks down his love (and lost client) Mercedes Colomar through the Land of the Dead. Durings his journey, Manny discovers a sinister plot by a ganster, Hecter LeMans, to steal the golden tickets to the Number 9 train to paradise, which shortens a nine-year journey through the underworld to merely nine minutes. The game is artistically brilliant, combining Aztek imagery, character designs inspired by Mexico's "Day of the Dead," and plenty of classic noir plot elements, as well as plenty of humor. The vistas which Manny finds himself traveling through are all gorgeous and eye-popping (despite being pre-rendered), and the character designs are at once silly and wonderful. The screenshot above is the only time Manny travels into the Land of the Living (he's there to collect a soul), so you can get some idea of the wierd art style the game employs. As an adventure game (one of the last of its breed), Manny has no weapons and no real actions. He employs specific items to solve puzzles, and spends a good amount of time chatting with NPC's. You can learn a lot about the game's development on its Wikipedia page. The game is rare today, but if you ever find a copy, you should definately pick it up.

Beyond Good & Evil (GC, PS2, Xbox, PC)
How could I forget about BG&E? It's a brilliant, involving action adventure game from Rayman creator Michel Ancel. The man has gone on to create the much-praised video game adapation of Peter Jackson's King Kong, and the Raving Rabbids games for the Wii and PS2, but I wish he'd go back to the world of BG&E. The game takes place on another planet, Hillys, which is constantly under attack by wierd crustacian critters called the DomZ. Jade is a photojournalist who is drafted to uncover a government conspiracy involving the Hillys military and the DomZ. The gameplay is straight Zelda-style adventuring, with some twists in the form of picture-taking, stealth, and having an AI-controlled partner. What really makes BG&E stand out is that you really develop a connection with the main characters--moreso than in any other game I've played (besides Snake Eater). The graphics aren't the highest quality, although it looks darn good on the Xbox and PC, but the world Jade and her friends inhabit is funky and nuanced.

Actually, Ancel and his team are in preproduction on BG&E2, but Ubisoft (the first game's publisher) has not yet given it the green light due to low sales of the original. This is my plea to Ubisoft--keep Jade's story alive!

Living with Cystic Fibrosis

Fellow blogger and artist Glendon Mellow recently encouraged me to write about Cystic Fibrosis, and a few months ago, Amanda was also wondering about it. I've never really felt motivated to write about the disease, but it seems like a good way to educate people about it. If you want to know the technical jargon and exactly how CF works, Wikipedia's got you covered. For my part, though, I thought I'd write about living with CF, because that's generally what people are curious about.

Well, it's not painful. The biggest hassle is that I take a ton of medications in the morning. Most are pills, but two are nebulized aerosolized meds which take 15 minutes (Pulmizyme) and one takes 30 minutes (Tobramicine). Then you have to boil the nebulizers and shake' em dry and maybe get new filter pads for the latter, and...I know I probably shouldn't be complaining, but it really does take forever. Then I use a chest therapy device called a Flutter. There's a steel ball in there, and the idea is to blow into the mouthpiece forcefully and evenly, thus causing the ball to rattle and moving sputum in my lungs further up until I can cough crap out.

The whole point of my routine is to kill or weaken the bacterium that live in my lungs, loosen the gunk that's built up in there, and cough it out. Right now, my gunk probably doesn't look a whole lot different than yours, except maybe it's thicker. When I'm actually sick, my gunk is green. Sometimes I'll get old green "pellets" out. These are pieces of sputum shaped like a BB and have been lodged in an airway for probably months. Feels good to get those out, although it's rare. There are certainly a lot of CF patients a lot worse off than me. I don't need oxygen (yet), and I haven't had an IV in five years or so. My weight is up (180 lbs) which indicates good health in CF.

I need to eat a lot. One of the problems I face is a pancrease that has essentially atrophied. I have to take artificial pancreatic enzymes with every meal, or else I absorb nothing, get horrible stomach cramps, and diarrhea. However, the same things happens if I take too many enzymes. I have to make a guess as to how caloric or fatty something is before I know how many caps to take. Oddly, the number of caps required to eat, say, a pizza, has gone down as I've gotten older. I used to take eight, but now I take six. Because my body doesn't process calories and fat very well, I generally eat about three times as much as a normal person. That means I'm wolfing down nuts, popcorn, cheese, milk, etc. with wild abandon and I barely gain any weight. Most people see this as a blessing, but it can be a curse, too! If I'm actively trying to gain weight, I have to eat past the point of comfort to make any progress. And if I'm ever sick, my appetite virtually disappears, but I have to force myself to eat to keep my weight up.

Doctors appointments are never enjoyable. My doc is a worrywart, and he orders plenty of hospital tests every time I get a check-up. Chest X-ray, sputum culture, bloodwork, etc. That stuff takes hours. Not necessarily because the procedures themselves are complex, but because I hate hospitals, especially the one I go to. Dropping off a time-sensitive sputum sample? Well, just sit and wait for God knows how long so you can get preregistered. What? You were here just last month? Too bad! We forgot who you are!

It's retarded.

When I DO have to get an IV, it's not so bad because it's always a take-home, but the darn tubes catch on everything on the planet. They're living organisms, and will purposefully reach out and get tangled on crap I'm not even near. The tube has a tendancy to get clotted up with medication or regrowing vein tissue (yuck), and the little computer sensor that I carry around starts beeping, and sometimes this happens at like 3 o'clock in the morning and...yeah. Even getting the IV put in isn't that bad, but dealing with it is a chore.

Really, that's what CF is, to me: more of an inconvenience than anything else. I have to drag my nebulizers and air compressor around anytime I fly anywhere, and those electricity-demanding machines prevent me from going on extended camping trips or digs at the Colville. But, you know, small price to pay, I guess. The only times I really feel sick are when a big piece of sputum has successfully moved into the main branches of my lungs. That is, of course, a good thing, but it takes a lot of huffing and coughing and Fluttering to get that sucker out from there, and it's exhausting. It's not like I can just let the stupid gunk sit there, either, because once it hits the major airways, I can't take as deep a breath anymore.

I have to thank my lovely wife, of course, for basically keeping me alive. When I met her (back in college), I was in pretty bad shape, but she kept (and keeps) me regimented, which has made all the difference in the world. She helps me make good food choices and tells me to go lay down when I obviously need to (but stubbornly won't). She's an angel, and I can't thank her enough.

Honestly, my back gives me more trouble than the CF does. I should re-write about that sometime, because that particular post was deleted when my old blog came down. My back, in fact, has been killing me for the last three days! Hell, where's my vicoden?

These Are a Few of My Favorite Games

I've been drawing way too much lately. Thalattosaurs, drepanosaurs, Effigia, Allosaurus...I'm going nuts! So I thought today I'd post about some of my favorite video games. This list will not comprise all my favorite video games, just the ones that immediately spring to mind. If you've never played one or more of these titles, but have the console they require, I highly recommend trying them out. I have good taste, kiddies! :-D





The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube)
Few games have spent more time in my 'Cube (and now Wii) than Wind Waker. It is an epic seafaring tale, and is the most nonlinear of all the Zelda games. Link sails across a gigantic ocean meeting crazy characters, battling storms and sea swells, exchanging cannon fire with pirates, following treature maps, and battling Ganondorf's evil minions at every turn. Secrets are a dime a dozen in this game, as every uncharted island begs to be explored. Traditional dungeon crawling and fetch-questing, staples of the Zelda series, are here as well, but thankfully lack the inane complexity of previous games. What's so amazing about Wind Waker is that it feels like one big persistent world. The sun rises and sets, distant cyclones tear across the sea, the stars sparkle above, and seagulls flock around your sail. The art style is unquestionably simplistic, but it works because this game embraces the form. Video game consoles nowadays strive for photorealism in the vein of Gears of War or Halo 3, but I prefer styles that remind us that gaming is an artificial medium, and it's so fun to go in the direction of the abstract. Wind Waker is a beautiful game, and very engaging.



Patapon (PSP)
And then you take things even farther towards the abstract and you get eyeball armies fighting giant shadow-puppet dinosaurs! Patapon is, at its core, a rhythm game. You tap the PSP face buttons to an omnipresent beat to make your ever-growing eyeball army fighting, defending, and retreating. Before going out on missions, though, you can spawn new troops, equip better weaponry, and play funky minigames to improve your resources. There is surprising depth to Patapon, but it's just beautiful to see and hear. Your army chants a song along with the beat, and their excitement grows as the battle goes on! Some of the missions are ridiculously difficult, requiring you to maintain a constant, never-faultering beat, and others are virtually impossible without proper equipment. Once you get the beat down, though, it's difficult to put Patapon down! It's so beautiful, and there's a real sense of pride when you guide your eyeball army to victory against a gigantic sand worm or the general of a rival army.


Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
While I single out Arsenal, the entire Ratchet & Clank series is excellent (except Deadlocked). The games just get better as the series continues, culminating in the recent Tools of Destruction for the PS3. There's even an awesome PSP game, Size Matters, which has just been ported over to the PS2. What makes the series so great is the variety within, and the hilarious writing. It's a platformer, a run 'n' gunner, and an RPG all in one. The worlds that Insomniac (of Spyro the Dragon fame) has created are breathtakingly beautiful. I am especially struck by the awesomeness of the cloud city in Going Commando. What sets Up Your Arsenal apart is its attention to detail, the kickass 2D Captain Quark segments, the knee-slappingly funny villain, and the awesome online mode--which might not be too popular anymore, as the game is a few years old. If you like one R&C game, you'll like them all, and aside from the original, they're not that hard to find.

Metroid Prime (GameCube)
This game set the bar so damn high that Retro Studios was unable to recreate the magic in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes or Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Not that either of those are bad games--they're incredibly good--but Metroid Prime was just so fresh and enthusiastic, filled with awesome concepts and original creature designs, it keeps dragging me back. At the time, Metroid Prime made gamers nervous with its unique first-person platformer perspective (akin to the original Turok), as the series had always been 2D up to that point. The control scheme may seem a little forced to console FPS vets, but it quickly becomes second nature. Metroid Prime is beautiful, throwing jaw-dropping vistas your way every few minutes. The creature design is wonderful, and the game's signature Scan Visor gives you the chance to be a naturalist, collecting information on every inhabitant of the planet. The bosses (like Thardus, above) are enormous and difficult, but the feeling you get upon defeating them is second to none. If you haven't played Metroid Prime, you are really missing out.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)
Darn it if this game doesn't make me cry like a baby. MGS: Twin Snakes (GC), MGS: Sons of Liberty (PS2), MGS: Snake Eater (PS2), and MGS: Portable Ops (PSP) make up the Metal Gear Solid canon, and they are soon to be joined by MGS: Guns of the Patriots. Playing these games is like watching a movie--they are some of the most cinematic video games ever made. You have choices, but not really, as they essentially boil down to "how do I get through this area without being spotted?" Your actions generally do not affect the storyline in any meaningful way. The storyline is why you play these games--it's not for the gameplay, which is awkward and (at times) frustrating. Still, the story is very emotional and character-centric, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Twin Snakes really sets the tone, Sons of Liberty throws you a bunch of curveballs, Snake Eater delves into the history of the main character, and Portable Ops continues the Snake Eater story. Guns of the Patriots is supposed to be the final episode in what's been a long and thought-provoking series, and I can't wait to play it (June 14th, baby!).

God of War (PS2)
That screenshot? That's the intro level. You know, the level where you learn how to play. You have to fight a gigantic three-headed hydra. If you like Greek mythology, this will be the best game you'll ever play. Sony Computer Entertainment America made it, and it's their masterpiece. You play as Kratos, vicious Spartan in the service of the gods, and he's on a mission to free himself from his master, Aries. Along the way, you'll battle your way through a lost desert, the Temple of Pandora, and Hades itself. The combat engine is precise and brutal, effectively giving you a fighting game's options in a platformer. Every enemy encounter, from minor undead knights to mean old minotaurs and gigantic cyclopses, requires strategy and cunning. This is a beautiful, story-driven game that will have your jaw dropping with every new scene or challenge. SCEA's God of War 2, while just as polished and fun as the first game, lacks the "I've never done this before" excitement of the original. But if you enjoy God of War, you'll also love God of War 2.



Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Virtual Console)
Gotta love this game. Back in 1996, when it was originally released, Super Mario 64 was the best game ever made! It was the first real-time 3D platformer, and it formed the basis for virtually every other 3D platformer for the future. Look at the novalties introduced in Super Mario 64: Hub world linking several other levels, analog control, a user-controlled camera, a mission structure which occassionally changed the layout of the level, and upgrades or items obtained in the hub world which transfer over to the individual levels. Each level, or "course," has six Power Stars to collect, and your route through the course changes depending on which star you're going after. In the process, you must navigate complex 3D spaces (Tick-Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride in particular were difficult), avoid enemies, and collect coins to earn extra lives. And it's one of the few N64/PlayStation-era games that still looks good today. The musical score alone is worth a listen. The DS launch title (Super Mario 64 DS) introduced other playable characters and more Power Stars, but lacks the analog control that the original was, you know, built around.


Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES, SNES, GBA, Virtual Console)
Without a doubt my favorite game of all time, Super Mario Bros. 3 is packed to the brim with unique ideas and action-packed level design. The overhead map, inventory, minigames and bonus stages, branching paths, sheer variety of items and suits (Hammer Bros. suit FTW!), and good old fashioned charm were and continue to be extremely compelling. The game appeared in graphically updated form on the SNES in Super Mario All-Stars, on the Game Boy Advance as Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, and most recently on the Wii's Virtual Console in its original form. I can't really describe, in words, why Super Mario Bros. 3 is so damn fun. It's a game everybody needs to play, though.

Highlight of the Day

Today when I got back to work from lunch, a little red fox (Vulpes vulpes alascensis) was exploring the parking lot. I like red foxes--they're ridiculously cute, and they have a very distinctive trot. The fox today was trotting from one end of the parking lot to the other end, but couldn't help sniffing around a few places to satisfy its curiosity. I had seen a red fox in my neighborhood a few months ago, and it seemed just as curious about me (from a distance) as I was of it. I was walking along the road, and it was on the opposite side of the road in the trees. I stopped and was looking at it, and it was looking right at me, sniffing at me. We both just stood staring at each other for about fifteen seconds before the fox lost interest and wandered off into the woods.

I like foxes.

Art Project Overload!

I've been slacking on posts lately? Pah-shaw! I agree wholeheartedly, but I thought I'd let you all know why. I have a few art assignments due, most notably the Goddamn Archosauria Art Show From Hell. Now granted, I do have three of the...five or six critters that I'm responsible for done. I'm also working with Neil from Microecos on some kick-ass Triassic hellasaurs. In fact, one of them should be up today or tomorrow...Finally, the most difficult assignment is to throw together some concept art for an essay I'm working on for NWR about the future of the Metroid franchise. What I really want to do is create a fake screenshot for a speculative DS game about Samus' early life among the Chozo, but I think that would probably drive me insane.* **

*I could just take the easy way out and copy the sprite of Yoko Belnades from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and take the environment of Chodozia from Zero Mission, but give it different colors and maybe some vegetation from Rayman on the GBA...but I'd need sprite sheets for all that. And even then, I'd go completely insane.

**Postscript: I just found a sprite sheet for Yoko. It's the beginning of the end.

We Live in the Dark Ages

Wow. My faith in humanity has been taken down yet another notch or two.

Draconian Systematics

Draconia was diagnosed in 1978 by Irwin & Jones as "medium to large diapsid reptiles with three functional pairs of limbs, one of which has been modified into bat-like wings." Mooney (1962) noted that dragons have a strong tendancy toward secondary flightlessness. Extent Draconia is divided into several families: Eudracocidae, Palusodraconidae, Argosidae, Taurodracocidae, Harenadracocidae, Rugodracocidae, Chasmodracocidae, Dracolympidae, Cryodracocidae, and Felimimidae. As Irwin (1996) pointed out, virtually every genus of extent dragon is placed in its own family aside from members of the well-supported Eudracocidae. "The various extent species of dragons," he wrote, "come in a wide variety of disparate forms and are difficult to resolve in relation to one another."

The difficulties in resolving living dragon relationships are further impeded by the terrible fossil record for dragons. The oldest dragon fossils date back to the Early Cretaceous in the form of a partial skull from India. Protodracos rex (Hutchings, 1984) was a small dragon, estimated to be less than eight feet long, and was carnivorous. The skull is well preserved but fragmentary--only the portion in front of the orbits is known. However, it shows characteristic dragon features like a large recessed naris for fleshy outer nostrils, a short, squared-off snout, and evidence of external ornamentation. Strangely, Protodracos has heterodont dentition, with large fang-like teeth at the front of the jaw, and smaller alligator-like teeth behind the premaxilla. One of the best-known fossil forms is Ambulodracos franco (Crank, 2000), an enormous Paleocene form from France. Known from a partial, but skull-less, skeleton, Ambulodracos was thirty feet long and heavyset. It has small wings, and demonstrates that dragons grew very large and flightless early in their evolution. Dragons do not turn up again until the Miocene, where a potential ancestor of Harenadracos (Wilder, 2004) is known, as well as a Central African ancestor of Megalodracos (Bosley, 1923). There are other bits and pieces known from the Oligocene and Pliocene, but they are not worth mentioning here.

Irwin (1996) suggested that, among extent Draconia, the Taurodracocidae was the basalmost member, but that "it is far removed from its ancestral stock." Irwin surmised that among all flightless or semi-flightless forms, Tauropesa had the most atrophied flight aparatus. He also noted its long, sinuous tail, which he considered a primitive feature. The Cryodracocidae was regaled to a basal, but unresolved, position given its enormosity, extreme wing atrophy, and long tail. Similarly, Argos argos was placed in its own family and placed closer to other dragons than to Tauropesa or Cryodracos. Wing retention, a shorter caudal series, dorsal spines, and extreme cranial ornamentation were all reasons for this more inclusive grouping.

He also united Eudracos, Megalodracos, Feradracos, and Sinospondylus in a clade called Neodraconia, of which Sinuospondylus was the basalmost member. The other three are united in a monophyletic Eudracocidae consisting of (Eudracos + (Megalodracos + Feradracos). A fossil form from Spain named Protopaluso (Arnold, 1988) links the Palusdraconidae to the Neodraconia. Irwin & Jones (1978) believed that Chasmodracos fell close to, but not within, the Eudracocidae. Irwin (1996) felt that Chasmodracos was probably closer to the Neodraconia than Palusodracos, but was unsure of which taxon should be considered the outgroup. Irwin named a new group, Europadracoidea, to include an unsresolved triochotomy of Palusodracos, Chasmodracos, and the Neodraconia.

Irwin also considered the possibility that Harenadracos and Rugodracos shared a common ancestry, based prominantly on the presence in both of a rostral bone and triangular skulls in dorsal view. He named this unranked clade Rostrodraconia. Irwin had trouble finding places for Felimimidae and Spinodracos. He wrote that Felimimidae was "not well understood" (from an anatomical perspective) to warrant placing it among other dragons yet. Irwin also did not include the creature in his phylogeny but remarked that it shows some superficial similarities to Argos, including a noticable underbite and pattern of spines. Upon the discovery of Dracospartus in 2003, Krause created the Dracolypmidae to include it and Spinodracos. Fletch (2004) suggested that Spinodracos was, in fact, the most derived member of the Eudracocidae. This hypothesis may still be correct, although further serious investigations into dragon systematics have not been undertaken.

A larger problem than how extent dragons relate to one another may be how Draconia as a whole relates to the rest of the Diapsida. Although unquestionably diapsids reptiles, the Draconia is notoriously difficult to pin down from there. Dragons are clearly not archosaurs, as they lack antorbital and mandibular fenestrae, but they may be archosauriformes. The presence of a third set of limbs complicates the issue, in that the pectoral girdle has been modified far beyond its ancestral condition in order to facilitate the wings. Still, Jennings (1989) noted similiarities between the pectoral girdle of Drepanosaurus and Megalodracos. Irwin & Jones supported this view, cautiously suggested a sister-group relationship between the Drepanosauridae and Draconia. This view is bolstered by the idea that dragons originated in an arboreal environment, and must have had adaptations early on to move them through such a home. Irwin (1996), however, suggested a more general relationship among the prolacertiformes, noting a tendancy among that group toward arboreality, yet not showing the specialities of drepanosaurs.

References:

Irwin, B. E. & Jones, D. (1978). Monophyly of the Draconia. Draconium 19(1): 25-59.

Irwin, B. (1996). A revised phylogeny of the extent Draconia. In A Brief History of Draconology (Suet & Svenson, eds.). Prince Rupert Press: 56-73.

Mooney, B. D. (1962). Does wing structure simplification lead to flightlessness? European Journal of Draconology 52(3): 368-381.

Hutchings, W. (1984). A Cretaceous origin for Draconia. Draconium 51(4): 487-495.

Crank, E. R. (2000). A large new fossil dragon from the Paleocene of France. European Journal of Draconology 101(4): 512-518.

Wilder, J. (2004). A potential dragon wing finger from the Gobi Desert. Natura Historia 411: 349-453.

Bosley, G. (1923). Megalodracos in Central Africa. European Journal of Draconology 13(2): 244-249.

Arnold, S. W. (1988). A Spanish relative of Palusodracos. Brevia (August): 45-51.

Krause, P. (2003). A heavily-armored Greek dragon. European Journal of Draconology 104(2): 308-329.

Fletch, F. R. (2004). A re-evaluation of the Eudracocidae. Draconium 45(4): 455-461.

Speaking of Sex Education...

During a recent Congress committee meeting to discuss whether abstinence education works or not, Rep. John Duncan (Tennessee-R) came forth with this little nugget:

"It seems rather elitist to me, for people who maybe have degrees in this field to feel that they - because they’ve studied it - somehow know better than the parents."

(emphasis mine)

How dare you scientists, with your fancy degrees and research, start giving advice based on studies and numbers! You elitist bastards! Maw and Paw Kettle know infinately more about human sexuality than you lab-coat-wearing doctors and psychologists!

Rep. John Duncan fails.