People "Don't Get" Pachyrhinosaurus

Not long ago, I was visiting the Alaska Museum of Natural History for reasons that are forgotten to me now. I try not to go over there, in fact. It's an active aversion--every time I get the urge to see "how they're doing," I just remember that my name, Scott's name, and Raven's name are still not anywhere near the big Tyrannosaurus rex skull cast that we restored over a year's time and put our backs into and got NO support and there's NO acknowledgement of our contribution to that particular project. In fact, I doubt our names are anywhere IN the museum, even though all three of us (but mostly Scott and I) have been heavily invested in exhibit prep, tours, etc. in the past.

Makes me mad.

Anyway, the museum's "director," Katch Batchelor, told me that they were getting a Diabloceratops skull cast (this was before that genus was published). She was very excited. I asked why she's wasting the museum's money on a taxon from Utah that lived millions and millions of years before Alaska's Pachyrhinosaurus. In fact, why isn't she getting a Pachyrhinosaurus skull cast? The terrible Fairbanks museum has one. If they can get one, it can't be all that difficult to get ahold of.

Her answer was "People don't 'get' Pachyrhinosaurus." I took this to mean that SHE did not "get" Pachyrhinosaurus. Here's my question: What's to GET?"


There's very little to misunderstand here. Pachyrhinosaurus is a derived member of the Centrosaurinae, which itself is one of the two branches of the Ceratopsidae. The other branch is called the Chasmosaurinae, and it features such well-known taxa as Triceratops, Chasmosaurus (go figure), and Kosmoceratops. The Centrosaurinae is just as diverse, and from there you get good old Centrosaurus, Rubeosaurus, and Diabloceratops. At the upper end of the Centrosaurinae is a monophyletic group of ceratopsids with big nasofrontal bosses instead of horns. They're called pachyrhinosaurines. The group includes two genera comprising three species (Achelousaurus horneri, Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis, and Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai), and several specimens that may represent more distinct species. The group extends from Montana up the west coast of the United States going all the way up to...you guessed it...Alaska's North Slope.

The holotype pachyrhinosaur skull from the Prince Creek Formation on the Colville River is not in great shape, but clearly represents a pachyrhinosaurine.

Right now, the Alaska Museum of Natural History looks more like an odds-and-ends collection of stuff, completely lacking any sort of context or reason for being. When you have a monitor lizard skeleton with an Ornithocheirus skull and a Basilosaurus skull just sitting on the same shelf, but without any sort of text...and in fact, you have a beluga whale skeleton just around the corner, WHAT DOES IT MEAN? And why aren't there any Alaskan dinosaurs? I could go on and on about my misgivings with the AKMNH, but it's useless. They don't even want to use the world "evolution" in fear of scaring people away.

Jesus.

Troodon formosus in Alaska

Alaska's theropod dinosaurs have, until now, been known only from dental remains. Shed teeth, that is. No bones attached to said teeth, unfortunately. Our theropods (Dromaeosaurus, Troodon, Gorgosaurus, and Saurornitholestes) are all known from other places (Alberta, Montana), too. There's not a whole lot that sets Alaska's dinosaur fauna apart, aside from their unique living conditions. Interestingly, Troodon teeth are generally larger in Alaska than other spots, suggesting that our big-brained deinonychosaur was bigger. But is it a new species?

A paper published in this month's Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology describes two partial Troodon braincases from the Prince Creek Formation on the North Slope of Alaska. These two cranial bits represent the first non-dental remains of a theropod dinosaur in my state. Braincase fragments aren't a whole lot to get excited about in and of themselves, but they are diagnostic enough to solidify the idea--previously based on dental evidence only--that Alaska's troodontid is Troodon formosus. But more interestingly, the paper points out that Troodon teeth in Alaska are larger than Troodon teeth in Alberta and Montana, and the authors suggest that the increase in body size is a response to the "extreme light regime" of Alaska's North Slope. What's more, the fact that braincase fragments were found at all from Troodon, along with the large number of isolated teeth, implies that Troodon was the most common theropod dinosaur in Alaska at the time. Perhaps its large eyes helped it to survive the dark periods of the winter.

This, coupled with its feather coat, endothermic metabolism and smarter-than-the-average-theropod brain, probably meant that Troodon wintered in Alaska. Whether any of our dinosaurs migrated is up for debate--I imagine the larger herbivorous dinosaurs took advantage of warmer climates in the winter. and the bigger theropods (like Gorgosaurus) may have followed them down. But it looks like Troodon was a permenant resident, which is kind of cool. Now let's cross our fingers for more Alaska material getting published!

Woke Up This Mornin'...

Got five inches of snow on the ground!

No joke. Winter has begun two weeks early. I hadn't even gotten around to raking yet, and it's a goddamn white wonderland outside. Luckily, it's soft snow, so the roads are clear. Even so, I've taken my car to the shop to get my tires changed over--two of my summer tires are totally bare, so I'll slip and slide on the smallest patch of black ice.

Damn you, Old Man Winter! You already ruined our summer!

Oh Em Gee!!!

I forgot about these pictures. They were taken early last month, I think, or late February. Anyway, the resident mother and calf Alces alces took it upon themselves one afternoon to eat our lilac bush. The calf is in the foreground, and the mother is wondering what all the fuss is about. To get some idea of how close these critters were...

I was able to stand outside on our porch and take their pictures! And they don't seem all that bothered by me, although later a dog was barking at the cow and she didn't take too kindly to it.

Another Trip to Sand Lake

Remember last week when I said I was walking on Little Campbell Lake? I was being scatterbrained. It's actually Sand Lake. And here's a better picture of that lake, with the sun doing down behind me.

Some Alaskans just can't stop fishing. This ice-fishing hole had been abandoned recently. See the dark blue dot at the top of the ice? It's begun freezing over again, but was probably drilled just a day before, if not less.

There was another Alces on the shore. A young'un was following it around. This mother-baby pair has been living in the neighborhood for weeks, and I will often see them wandering around people's yards in search of food.

I was unable to get a good picture, but a float plane like this one landed while Sable and I were out walking on the lake. Now I know what makes the big tracks in the snow--I thought somebody had plowed a path down the middle of the lake!

And here's one more look at the mountain range about a half-hour later, and from the opposite side of the lake. The pointy mountain is O'Malley, and the flat-topped mountain to its right is...well, Flattop Mountain. Both are popular hiking mountains, especially the latter, which is a great place to see H. sapians touristas in the warm summer months.

Little Campbell Lake

I got home too late for the really good pictures--where the sun is just dipping below the mountains, but I don't think these are too bad.

Our house in the winter. The snow, in places, has risen above our meager front porch. There's a significant "hump" at the front of the driveway where the snow is more frozen. In the last week, the temperatures have dipped well below zero (it's -12 sometimes in the morning) and climb as high as...um...10 above. Walking the dog is a chore!

This is the main road past our house. There are streetlights, but they have an annoying habit of turning OFF as you approach them, so walking the dog after 6 o'clock requires a flashlight and lots of treats for when cars approach! The snowbirm I'm standing on is probably four feet high at this point. Somebody's been skiing on it.

This is Little Campbell Lake. Houses surround it, and most of the owners also have floatplanes, which sit at docks in the water. When the sun is right above the mountains, it's a beautiful sight! When I took these pictures it was probably 7 degrees. Sable doesn't seem to mind the temperatures at all--walks are her favorite thing in the whole wide world! Somebody was kind enough to plow a bit ski trail all around the lake, which I intend to make use of one of these days.

Big Boss, my frog-eyed gecko, would rather stay inside on his log. It's 80 degrees in HIS house. Must be nice!