Coming Soon: a "WTF" review of Greg Paul's new book

I bought this book on sight at Barnes & Nobel the other day. It is honestly hard to read, and I have problems with a lot of the illustrations, too. Once I tap everything I take issue with, I'll provide a point-by-point breakdown of why this new book might not be worth your money.

Gain +15 to Knowledge

My dear friend Ann Pache donated her stack of old JVP's to me today because she's cleaning house and doesn't really use them anymore. This will allow me to throw out a TON of printed PDF's that I've accumulated over the years, thus freeing up space in my filing cabinet, but I also like having these kinds of things in book form. So...exciting!

Long Overdue Book Review: Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives & Evolutionary History

Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives & Evolutionary History is an aptly-titled book from Columbia University Press about the evolution of Man's Best Friend by Xiaoming Wang & Richard Tedford, with illustrations by the incomparable Mauricio Anton. First, I'll say this: if you're a paleo-artist, you need this book just for the illustrations. You will be continually inspired by Anton's photorealistic work. Along with Carl Buell, Mauricio is the most talented prehistoric mammal artist working today. His lavish pencil drawings dot almost every page, and the plates in the center of the book feature his full-color paintings which are a sight to behold.

Aside from the art, Dogs doubles as a handy and very educational reference guide for many aspects of canine evolutionary biology. The authors examine every aspects of dogs, including dog-like carnivorans that are not dogs, like creodonts and borhyaenas. They discuss what makes a dog a dog, and what makes a dog a carnivoran. These are things I never knew. I was especially fascinated to learn that one of the key distinctions between the dog (Canidae), bear (Arctoidea) and cat (Aeluroidea) branches of the Carnivora is the structure of the auditory bulla--the dome-shaped bones at the base of the skull that cover and protect the inner ear. Another interesting factoid is that the common ancestor of cats and dogs probably had retractable claws!

The authors dive into the evolutionary history of dogs and include discussions on just about every genus and species that popped up since the Eocene. The first dogs were fox-sized animals that were actually pretty dog-like, but with long tails and relatively short limbs. However, they quickly diversified and many dogs developed bone-crunching jaws and robust bodies while others stayed lean. It's clear that canids experienced a fast and impressive radiation early in their evolutionary history. The most impressive fossil dogs are perhaps the borophagines--big, short-skulled, tough-jawed bone-crunchers. With domed foreheads and short jaws, these big canids bear some resemblance to small dog breeds today. A less-derived borophagine, Aelurodon, had proportions more suited to a cat or bear than a dog.

The only "mistake" I see is that Wang & Tedford constantly discuss a direct line of decent between any one species or genus and another, as if dog evolution has been essentially anagenetic throughout its history, but that can't be true. This is a common complaint I have with books discussing the evolutionary history of mammals generally, but it's very noticable here.

The authors then discuss, in impressive detail, how dogs work in comparison to other modern carnivores like bears, cats, and hyaenas. Differences in the teeth, the skulls, the senses, and the musculature of the head and neck are are gloriously discussed and illustrated, which gives great insight into how all of these different carnivores can operate in their own spheres without competition. Unfortunately, the authors don't really look at postcranial anatomy (that could probably be its own book).

Happily, the book does look generally at dog behavior and society. Sexual dimorphism, scavenging, and pack hunting are all discussed and compared to cats and hyaenas. It's a relatively brief look, but it's appreciated nonetheless. Better, perhaps, is the discussion on how canids filled their environmental niches throughout their evolution as the world changed. Canids didn't reach their peak of diversity until the late Oligocene, for example, an event which may have contributed to or benefitted from the decline of more archaic predators like hyaenodonts. Basal hesperocyonine dogs began to dwindle in number by the middle of the Miocene but were readily replaced by borophagines, which exploded in diversity and dominated until the late Miocene/early Pliocene, at which point the world was changing, and modern canines took their turn.

Interestingly, modern canids (including wolves) did not really diversify until the Pleistocene Ice Age. The largest (but exinct) modern canine, Canis dirus, was the top predator among Ice Age megafauna. Modern dogs may have rose to dominance because of their flexible diet. While most dogs are "strictly" carnivorous, none will turn down tasty vegetable matter (just ask my corgi) or, in one case (Cerdocyon), crabs. Wang & Tedford wrap things up with a lively discussion of the history and debate of dog domestication, noting that dogs were the first animals to be domesticated by humans. But were dogs domesticated by humans, or did they domesticate themselves? This final chapter doesn't necessarily answer that question, but it does offer intruiging insight.

Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives & Evolutionary History was originally published in hardback in 2008, but came out in paperback earlier this year. It's a fantastic read, and as I said, worth the price of admission purely for the incredible art. But hey, you might learn something too, and this book of course provides an excellent companion piece to The Big Cats. They're sitting next to each other on my shelf, though I wish I had a hardcover copy of that feline book...

Apologies to Meredith Howard for not doing this sooner!

Semi-Aquatic Psittacosaurs

As I've been reading on Facebook, many of you readers have not received your copy of the excellent, though largely mythical, New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs, a book that has been promised since those mighty creatures went extinct, but has been delayed an abnormal--and some might say hilarious--number of times. It was just published last month, and I recently got my copy. As I paged through its crisp, volumous contents, I stopped when I hit a particular paper that intrigued me.

Ford, T. L. & Martin, L. D. (2010). A Semi-Aquatic Life Habit for Psittacosaurus.

The fact that Larry Martin's name was attached to the paper instantly sent multiple red flags up in my mind. His moniker is the kind of warning label one usually associates with "Dougal Dixon" and "Alan Fedducia" (who, I'm told, can't even get ornithology right). Still, I tried to repress my angst and read on, determined to see this theory through. Larry can't get bird origins right to save his life, but maybe he's on the ball when it comes to ceratopsians. Maybe they'll make a slam-dunk case.

Readers, they do not.

The authors draw on six features of Psittacosaurus to make the case for a semi-aquatic lifestyle. First thing's first, though: I should point out that a modern analogue doesn't really exist, and the authors don't point to one. They never say something like, "Psittacosaurs were Mesozoic hippos!" or "Psittacosaurus lived like a crocodile!" No, instead, their vision of everyone's favorite parrot lizard is a polytomy of various semi (or fully) aquatic modern animals as the authors struggle to come up with "semi-aquatic" reasons for Psittacosaurus' anatomy. Let's dive right in, shall we?

The first point the authors make is that Psittacosaurus is often found lying on its belly, hindlimbs akimbo in a "sprawling" position, and sometimes hyperflexed. This is apparently evidence of a semi-aquatic lifestyle. That seems like a non-starter to me, though. I can name plenty of modern animals with sprawling limbs that are NOT semi-aquatic, and even some fossil animals with sprawling limbs that have never been considered semi-aquatic. It's also worth noting that many modern semi-aquatic animals have parasagittal postures. The authors also do a poor job of explaining how an offset femur head (which Psittacosaurus apparently has) equals semi-aquatic lifestyle. They suggest it has something to do with a "swimmer's kick," because from what I gather, no animal can swim without splaying its hindlimbs and using a scissor, or breast-stroke, kick. Frogs do, after all. Crocodiles don't (they swim with their tail). Birds don't. Mammals don't. But one branch of Lissamphibia does.

So, according to Ford & Martin, the animal most closely resembling the alleged swimming mode of Psittacosaurus is a non-amniote. Real good. It's not the only amphibian analogue the authors will make.

The femur thing is also inconsistent because in Figure 23.3 of their paper (on page 332), they show a rousing series of genasaur femora. The first two are psittacosaurs. Figure A (P. xinjiangensis) does seem to have an offset femur head. Figure B (P. sibiricus) really doesn't. Figure F (P. xinjiangensis) is a picture of P. xinjiangensis' femur abducted to a comical degree, without any consideration for muscle and cartilage. It's worth noting that plenty of non-aquatic animals with parasagittal hindlimbs have somewhat offset femur heads. I have a sheep femur with an offset head. Tyrannosaurus rex has a somewhat offset head. Animals with truly sprawling postures have very offset femur heads. No living animal can move between a completely sprawling and completely parasagittal posture. But I guess Psittacosaurus could.

Let's move on the foot. The authors suggest that the foot was broad, and that large attachment scars existed on the shafts of metatarsals 1-4, suggesting that the foot was used for "more than just walking." Perhaps running, or jumping, or simply being active. Where, exactly, can I find a rubrik telling me how much muscle is required for walking, and how much is excessive? Strong feet do not necessarily equal a "swimming kick." Also, again I say, very few habitually semi-aquatic animals use a scissor kick. Frogs use that same motion for jumping. Maybe Psittacosaurus was also an excellent leaper, and all that padding and muscle was used for shock absorbtion. Also, you don't need a lot of muscle in the foot itself for swimming. You need a lot of muscle in the part of the leg that provides propulsion--the thigh. Look at moose. Moose are perfectly capable swimmers (go figure). They have hooves. But they do have enormous thigh muscles.

How about the forelimb? According to the authors, Psittacosaurus couldn't pronate or supinate, so the palms faced medially, sort of like theropods. It had a tiny little hand with three main digits and a vestigal Digit IV. The proportions of the fingers bring to mind basal theropods Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus, but shorter and stockier and probably stiffer. Ford & Martin suggest that the fingers were webbed, and that flexion of the first digit (which is very small) may have folded the web during the return stroke. So now we're talking about a doggy-paddle. A very bad doggy-paddle, because the palms face medially. Not even frogs doggy-paddle. So you've got a frog kick combined with a horrible forelimb doggy-paddle.

And then, the best part: "...the manus of psittacosaurs may have been held together by thickened skin (e.g., sea turtles)."

They even handily show a picture of a sea turtle's FLIPPER on page 334, compared to a psittacosaur paw. They look NOTHING ALIKE. Their other examples look even less like Psittacosaurus: a whale, a sea lion, and a penguin. Did you guys even look at your other figures? Furthermore, the authors muse that the limited range of motion of the forelimb could not be used for digging or food gathering, so they must have been used for swimming. Interestingly, they cite a study by Phil Senter who played around with psittacosaur limbs to figure this out. He's come to similar conclusions about dromaeosaur arms, so maybe dromaeosaurs used their feathered arms for swimming, too and that, below all those feathers was a meat-encased flipper.
So now we've got an animal who uses a frog kick and a doggy-paddle with sea turtle FLIPPERS.

Now, they do raise interesting point: many psittacosaur specimens are found with gastroliths. Why use gastroliths for breaking down food when you're already doing that with your teeth self-sharpening, leaf-slicing teeth? Perhaps the gastroliths were used for ballast, as they are in crocodiles. It is unusual that Psittacosaurus used gastroliths--the only other dinosaurs with gastroliths (to my knowledge) are sauropods and ornithomimids, neither of whom chewed their food, so gastroliths would help with digestion in this case. It's also possible that Psittacosaurus ate a wide variety of foodstuffs, some of which were not sufficiently broken down by chewing alone, and so needed further gastrolith processing. They could have also been used to achieve negative bouyancy while submerged.

Next, we move to the tail. The authors consider the tail to be ""long"" (their word is actually in quotes, as if admitting that, no, it's not really all that long). They also argue that the tail is quite deep. It is not. Hadrosaur tails are deep. Stegosaur tails are deep. Psittacosaur tails are not. The authors similarly note: "The neural spines are proportionately tall in all species and are particularly tall in P. sinensis. In P. mongoliensis and P. sinensis distal neural spines are flattened side-to-side, and fan-shaped.... Thus the tail may have been laterally compressed, which would help in swimming as in some modern lizards.... (or crocodiles)" Help me out here, folks: what's the ossified tendon situation in psittacosaurs? I'm not sure myself. But here's what I do know: it's just as likely that Psittacosaurus used its tail for swimming as any other dinosaur with a tail unhindered by ossified tendons.

This is after spending the previous paragraph comparing the tail to that of a crocodile. So, just so we're all keeping track, we've got a frog-kicking, flipper-handed doggy-paddler with the deep tail of a crocodile but the compressed tail of a lizard. Clearly, Psittacosaurus was the ultimate semi-aquatic vertebrate.

What about the nose and orbit? They are "dorsally high" and favorably compared to those of crocodilians, hippos, and capybaras. What about the skin? It's thick...and strong! So it probably strengthened the limbs and tail for swimming. You need thick skin to swim! Just ask any amphibian! Or lizard! Or semi-aquatic mammal like the capybara! You know what kinds of animals DO have thick skin? Fully aquatic animals. Ichthyosaurs and whales.

Finally, we get to the mean 'n' potatos: the one anatomical structure of Psittacosaurus I hoped they'd comment on: the tail bristles. Famously known from one Chinese specimen (SMF R 4970), the bristles have been compared to the Stage 1 protofeathers of coelurosaur theropods and porcupine quills. They seemingly adorn only the front half of the tail. There are about 100 long, gently curving quills that are deeply attached in the skin. The usual suggestion is that they were used for defense or display. Ford & Martin take it to the next level:

"We suggest that these bristles may have supported a caudal fin that was somewhat analogous to the caudal fin in modern amphibians, such as the Hellbender...the Mexican axolotl, salamanders, and tadpoles... In contrast to the flexible collagenous tails of amphibians, however, the realtively large size of psittacosaurs may have selected for a stiffer structure in order to support the large tail and enable its use in swimming."


So, instead of just doing what every OTHER amniote with a sail does (elongate the neural spines...even Platyhystrix figured that one out), Psittacosaurus had to do its own thing, evolving a complicated quill-like integument that was prone to bending, then covering those quills (which were packed together, not in a nice neat line down the spine) with a thick dermal fin. What, no ventral tail-sail? The amphibian analogy only goes so far, huh? But Psittacosaurus was only willing to go halfway--only halfway down the tail, and didn't bother to evolve solid quills--just hollow tubes. No wonder it went extinct! Lazy fuckin' dinosaur.

Finally, the authors suggest that psittacosaurs "may have fed in lakes or rivers, perhaps crawling in the mud in search of aquatic plants...However, a variety of forelimb to hindlimb relative lengths suggest that some psittacosaurs were likely more terrestrial than others...." Nice save, guys. Their final comparison is with a beaver, who I guess lives in the same kind of environment that psittacosaurs are found.


So here we have a frog-kicking, flipper-handed doggy-paddler with the tail of both a crocodile and a lizard, the skin of an ichthyosaur, the tail of a salamander, and the environmental preference of a beaver. No other animal has evolved so many different, sometimes contradictory, strategies for semi-aquatic life. Psittacosaurus really wanted to get it right. Clearly, had its reign not been cut short at the end of the Mesozoic, we might well see this creature swimming the post-Cretaceous seas:

Look, all kidding aside, the problem(s) with Ford & Martin's idea is that almost every argument they make is an example of false conclusion. This is the same kind of argument you see Horner making in regards to Tyrannosaurus rex being a scavenger. "It's got tiny little arm" does NOT mean it had to, therefore, be a scavenger. Plenty of hunting animals don't use their arms to hunt. "It couldn't run fast" does NOT mean it had to scavenge because it's prey was running slower than it was. By the same token, having dorsally high eyes does NOT mean you spend a lot of time underwater. Crocodiles and hippos actually have somewhat telescopic eyes (that is, the eyes are above the skull table). This is not the case in Psittacosaurus, and in fact the eyes of many dinosaurs are proportionately as high or higher on the skull than Psittacosaurus. Broad feet does not necessarily imply a semi-aquatic lifestyle, either. Plenty of animals without broad feet swim (dogs, hippos, moose) and plenty of dinosaurs had strong, broad feet and are not thought of as semi-aquatic (tyrannosaurs, duckbills, ankylosaurs).

The cynic in me thinks that the impetus for this paper went something like this:

Martin: "God, oh god, they can't be protofeathers! Maybe they...uh...supported some kind of skin-like structure. Like a fin! Yes, a fin! That would mean Psittacosaurus has to be semi-aquatic or something. That'll never fly. Or will it...?"

Ford: "Hey, it's got broad feet. Maybe they were webbed?"

Martin: "Look! Ancient studies on the creature support that speculation! Let's go with it!"

Just to be clear, I'm suggesting (half-jokingly) that this paper exists because Larry Martin is so hellbent to disprove the dino-bird connection. If Psittacosaurus' quills are actually structural supports for an amphibian tail, then there's no WAY they could be homologous with protofeathers, so maybe actual protofeathers are...collagen fibers after all? I don't know where to go with this. In the end, this paper just doesn't pass muster. It's a real shame that it's side-by-side with Nick Longrich's much better-researched paper about potential nocturnality and burrowing habits for Protoceratops. The man makes a good case through actual comparisons. In fact, the pedal anatomy of Psittacosaurus is a lot closer to Protoceratops than Castor, so I wouldn't be surprised if Psittacosaurus were a burrower, too. That lifestyle would ALSO explain the taxon's bad habit of being constantly buried.

Anyway, my opinion is that it's a poorly-researched bit of speculation on the part of the authors, and is nowhere NEAR a slam-dunk. Just my opinion, of course. Maybe you readers out there in Readerland have something different to say about it. I'll be moving on to the Horner & Scannella Toroceratops paper next...they actually make a pretty convincing case.

Book Review: Triassic Life on Land

Triassic Life on Land
Hans-Dieter Sues & Nicholas C. Fraser
Columbia University Press (2010)
280 pages, 115 illustrations
$65.00 at the Columbia University Press website

Good news, everyone! Triassic Life on Land may be the most comprehensive “go-to” resource for all your Triassic queries! Want to know where one might find Typothorax or Proganochelys? This book’s got the answer. Want to know the floral composition of Buntsandstein? Sues & Fraser have you covered. Ever wonder what kinds of bugs were around during the Early Triassic of Gondawana? You’ll find it in this book.

This is an impressively researched, well-written, detailed study of the first third of the Mesozoic, and I suspect it will become the standard resource for studies involving said time period and the plants and animals that lived during that time. I especially liked the authors’ discussions about the various arguments that have cropped up around such colorful topics as subdivisions of the Triassic and how long they lasted, environmental conditions across Pangea, and extinction rates at the end of the era. The book is definitely at its best when it’s summarizing ongoing research: history lessons are always welcome. Unfortunately, the majority of the text is dominated by what’s essentially a faunal and floral list of the organisms one finds in the different Triassic-bearing rocks around the world. Now, this is doubtlessly valuable information, and I’m unbelievably happy to have it within reach, but this isn’t the kind of book you read before bed or while sittin' ‘round the fire.

I did appreciate the fact that the authors briefly introduce most of the organisms featured in the Triassic with more than just an off-hand mention. You’ll learn things about the organisms themselves, although I suspect that if you’re the kind of person who’s excited about this book, you probably already have a pretty good idea what Drepanosaurus is, or why Erpetosuchus’ dentition is so strange. Happily, the book is filled to the brim with wonderful illustrations. These are largely skeletal restorations or illustrations of plants. Many of the archosaur illustrations are by Gregory S. Paul (a selling point!), and most of the other illustrations are pulled from their respective original publications. There are no life restorations of animals or environments, which is a shame, and I expected at least a series of plates in the middle of the book—commonplace for this sort of tome—but none are present.

The best illustration in the book, and the only one of its kind, is a B&W reproduction of a Douglas Henderson painting concerning a phytosaur (Smilosuchus) and several smaller, scampering crurotarsians. The picture sits at the front of the book and gives you some indication of things to come, but betrays your expectations a bit. I would have liked to have seen more paintings or drawings of the Triassic environment. This is partially my own neuroses: I have a hard time visualizing things from a description alone, especially extinct organisms. Triassic Life on Land goes to great length to describe the Coelophysis Quarry at Ghost Ranch and the animals and plants that lived there, for example, but an illustration would have really brought it home. When it comes to long-dead animals and plants, a picture is worth far more than one thousand words.

My only other complaint is that the book just sort of ends. One second, the authors are talking about insect diversity going into the Jurassic, and the next second, we’re on the glossery. It’s sudden, and kind of jarring. There’s no “wrap-up” chapter, conclusion, or epilogue. The book just comes to a close without announcing that it’s doing so. In fact, the last three chapters of the book suggest that more could be written. The third-to-last chapter is a look at two particular Triassic environments and the organisms within (Solite Quarry and Madygen Formation). I’m not certain why these two formations were not covered in the other 90% of the book. They’re not especially noteworthy aside from documenting strange, controversial taxa (Longisquama, Scleromochlus). I don’t think they’re any more complete or illuminating than other places. At least, if they are, the authors don’t address how or why. Then there's a chapter about floral and faunal turnover during the entirety of the Triassic, which, if you'd been paying attention up until this point, you'd pretty much know.

The last chapter is about the Triassic-Jurassic extinction and the various theories that attempt to explain it. It’s the most interesting chapter in the book, and what I found interesting is that the evidence isn’t particularly convincing for any one scenario. The press release made a big deal about how the Triassic is where modern ecosystems are set up, but information to that regard is surprisingly scarce in the book. One could probably write an entire volume about this concept and its implications, or at least a chapter, but there is very little of it overall--just touches here and there throughout the text.

For the Triassic enthusiast out there, Triassic Life on Land is a very valuable, comprehensive, up-to-date reference book, providing quick access to a ton of Triassic information. However, I wouldn’t recommend the book to anyone else except maybe paleo-artists, who will swoon over the wealth of skeletal reconstructions offered in the book. There are some damn good dicynodont skeletons in particular, and even a few rhynchosaurs and aetosaurs. I would caution other readers, though: if you’re a casual paleontology fan or somebody who doesn’t care all that much about the Triassic, then the book is probably not for you. Like I said before, it’s very dry, and clearly a reference book. This is not bad—it’s great for a certain audience—but it’s by no means easy reading, and its subject matter is very specific. For its intended readership, though, this is a must-buy.

Recommended for Fans (of the Triassic)

Ceratopsian Overload!

Last week, after many painful delays, Indiana University Press finally published New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs, which features a crapton of new horned dinosaurs, including the much-anticipated Diabloceratops (above--image stolen from Dave Hone's blog). There's also Medusaceratops, who is known from parietals and seems like it should be included in the genus Albertaceratops; Coahuilaceratops, a monsterous chasmosaurine with four-foot brow horns; and Rubeosaurus, a centrosaurine that looks like a leveled-up Styracosaurus. But that's not all: published in journals last week, we have an island-hopping bagaceratopsid, Ajkaceratops, and a Chinese centrosaurine, Sinoceratops, who has unique forward-curved parietal spikes.

So now that I know the book is out, I just have to wait patiently (PATIENTLY) for it to arrive on my doorstep. See, I ordered it like three months ago when it was 60% off. Remember that? Good times.

Ceratopsian Volume Out Today!!!

EXCITING NEWS, EVERYBODY! As it turns out, we were all wrong about the constant delays! Yeah, we thought it was coming out on April 5th, then I told you recently that the publisher told me that it's actually been delayed until June 2nd, but GUESS WHAT? It's out NOW! And even BETTER, the first twenty people who order the book online will get it for FREE as an apology for the perpetual delays!




I had considered doing a post about some fake new fossil that proves BAND right after all, and that birds actually evolved from casids or something, but that would've been MORE plausible. April Fool's, everybody!

Ceratopsian Volume: Continuing Trends

I'm not even gonna bother posting that same picture. New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs, a book we've all been waiting for since 2008, has been pushed back again from April 5th to June 2nd. Yeah, we'll see if THAT'S the magic date. You know, Indiana University Press has a big sauropod book coming out in August. Perhaps we should say August 2012? Just sayin'!

My Bookshelf

Having recently reorganized all my books, I thought it might be entertaining to show you my sizeable (read: small) library. My books tend to be expensive, so I don't often buy them. The first thing you should notice is that, today anyway, I can't take a clear picture to save my life. Low blood sugar, maybe? Minor earthquake, perhaps? Shitty camera skills? I'm going with Door Number Three, Pat. Good job! I won a new car! This is not the entire bookshelf, mind you. There's a very narrow, but empty, shelf below the "comics, generally" shelf. I keep dragons of the family Eudracocidae down there. Note also that many dragons sit atop the shelf. I really need to get back to that dragon thing, don't I? There are quite a few species I haven't discussed yet.


The topmost shelf displays most of my technical books. Try to guess them all! I go into these books quite often for reference material, so they occupy a high seat in my library.


The second shelf is a little tougher to categorize. I'd call it my "general and popular science" books, although that particular taxonomy falls apart to the right of "Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures," doesn't it? One of the books on this shelf is from Argentina. My one hint: it's huge.


The bottom two shelves are kind of free-for-alls. These books are organized with an eye toward size consistency more than anything else. Thus, my Playboy centerfold collection is sitting over on the right by Lovecraft instead of the Big Book of Breasts. The Cho collections are sitting next to "The Wildlife of Star Wars" instead of by the other comic books. Most bizarrely, Dante and Milton are kind of wedged in the middle, totally out of place. On the bottom shelf...what can I say? It's kind of a mess. This is my formal comic shelf, though you may notice a certain beloved children's book near the middle. The book with the spiral binding is Milbacher's excellent review of the Brontotheridae. It didn't look good anywhere else.

This was fun. I'll have to share my DVD shelf and gaming center at some point, too.

Explain Something to Me

I'm interested in four kinds of books: Graphic novels, books about video games, art references, and science books. These are the three kinds of books that are often shrinkwrapped in Barnes & Nobel and Border's Books. Why? You rarely see Jane Austin or self-help books shrinkwrapped. Why can't I crack open a graphic novel to see if I like the art or not?

EDIT: Glendon has an interesting idea, but I have to knock it down. Two books (which I own) that were NOT shrinkwrapped: Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds and The Big Book of Breasts. I flipped through those suckers in the store. But Batman: Mad Love and Evolution are taboo?

Pet Peeve of Mine

I would like to read one book about modern birds...just one...where conservation is not a looming, overzealous theme. I own three books about modern birds, mostly for the sake of having reference photos, and all three of them beat the reader over the head with musings on how endangered, threatened, or otherwise in trouble these birds are. And what if the book discusses birds that are not threatened? Then it talks about potential threats to its habitat. You know, things to watch out for. It reads something like this:

"The Bohemian Waxwing is stupidly common and successful. However, in the future, human development might someday destroy its habitat. SAVE THE BIRDS."

Goddamnit, I know that countless animal species are threatened, endangered, etc., but when I'm reading a book for information, I don't need that fact hammered into my brain. It's not that I don't support bird conservation, because I do. But if I'm reading what's supposed to be an informative book about a particular animal, it's because I'm reading the book for information about that particular animal. I don't need to read two paragraphs about how threatened it is.

That is all.

MORE Exciting News

This book comes out November 1st. Mark your calendars! I've rarely been more excited about an upcoming book.

Book Ideas

A few of my Alaskan readers may have read this book at some point in their lives. It was published in 1988, and it's a kid's book about Alaska's prehistoric wildlife. Unfortunately, in 1988, there wasn't a whole lot of Mesozoic material known, so the author and illustrator were almost making it up as they went along. Such memorable creatures as "Hadrosaur" and Ceratops are contained within its pages, as Troodon, the only animal get a formal genus. So I want to update this book, write a spiritual sequel of sorts (and illustrate it) including all the dinosaurs (and other Mesozoic critters) currently known in Alaska. For the uninformed, this list includes:

Dromaeosaurus (teeth), Troodon (teeth), Albertosaurus (teeth), ?Tyrannosaurus (teeth), Edmontosaurus (lots of skeletal material), Pachyrhinosaurus (partial skulls), Edmontonia (partial skull), Alaskacephale (partial skull cap), ?Anchiceratops (bits 'n' pieces of the skull), ?Thescelosaurus (bits 'n' pieces), ?Ornithomimidae (bits 'n' pieces), "Lizzie" the hadrosaur (partial skeleton), Megalneusaurus (humerus), Ichthyosauria (ribcage).

Nobody is publishing any of this material. That list was scraped together by asking Anne Pasch and scrounging through old papers referencing Alaskan material. I've actually seen the Edmontonia skull--it's basically the ventral side, and only the tooth row is visible, and a single preserved tooth identified the genus. Anyway, that would be a cool book. Thunderfeet does a great job of making itself accessable to both little kids (with rhyme) and older kids (with factoids), so that's the model I'm going to follow.

The second book has a clearer focus: it's all about ceratopsians! This book would follow a very strict format: On the left page would be the vital stats and a description of the genus illustrated on the facing (right) page. Because my goal is to compare the horned dinosaurs throughout their evolution, it would a portrait similar to the quickly-sketched one above (Triceratops horridus). I've got a pretty good potential species list, too. Let me know if I should add anybody:

Yinlong downsi, Psittacosaurus mongolensis, P. sibiricus, Liaoceratops yanzigouensis, Protoceratops andrewski, Leptoceratops gracilis, Montanoceratops cerorhynchos, Zuniceratops christopheri, Albertoceratops nesmoi, "Octoceratops" (assuming it's ever published), Centrosaurus apertus, C. brinkmani, Styracosaurus albertensis, Einiosaurus procurvicornis, Achelousaurus horneri, Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai, Anchiceratops ornatus, Arrhinoceratops brachyops, Ajungaceratops mariscalensis, Chasmosaurus belli, Pentaceratops sternbergi, Torosaurus utahensis, Nedoceratops hatcheri, Triceratops horridus.

Am I leaving anybody out? I also want to include growth series for those taxa with known growth series.

So those are my ideas. Comments? Questions?

Happy Darwin Day!

Well kids, 200 years ago, Charles Darwin was born. He revolutionizes not just biological sciences, but science in general with his Theory of Natural Selection, which is not "just a theory" as "just as much a theory as the Theory of Gravity or Germ Theory." In other words, it's accepted as fact. Now, Darwin didn't have access to the wealth of knowledge we do today. He didn't have genetics to back him up, for example, but he certainly laid the foundation for the modern synthesis. I'm actually more excited for my buddy Matt Celeskey, whose art appears on a new book, The Paleontology of New Mexico. Run over to the Hairy Museum of Natural History and congratulate the man! Can't say I'm not a little jealous! :-D

Book Recommendation

I just read Donald Prothero's excellent Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's for anybody interested in science, the scientific method, or how science works and progresses. While the book has two distinct themes, Prothero's main point is to provide an understanding (for those without one) of how the discipline works, and why it works as well as it does.

During the first half of the book, Prothero takes Creationist arguments about evolution or, more often, science in general, and tears them limb from limb. The man gives the best all-bases-covered rebuttal of "flood geology" that I've ever read. The man isn't trying to be mean, but rather is showing why science comes up with different conclusions than men of the cloth, and why the latter's arguments never hold water.

The book's second half discusses animals not known to exist in Creationist circles: transitional forms (eek!). Everything from lampreys to arthropods, Euparkeria to birds, fish to amphibians, Dimetrodon to mammals--the fossil record is wonderfully complete, and this book really lays it out there for you. Prothero is careful to recognize that there is no such thing as an ancestor-descendant relationship. Aside from a few recent extent examples, you can't point to, say, Archaeopteryx and say that it's on the direct line to birds. That's impossible to test. However, based on the number of characteristics it shares with birds (and dinosaurs), you CAN say that Archaeopteryx is probably kissing cousins with that hypothetical ancestor.

It's also worth noting (as Prothero does) that the fossil record will never be 100% complete. The fact that we have any fossils at all is miraculous, so we're lucky to have recovered such transitional forms as Tiktaalik and Yanoconodon. It's also damn cool that some transitional forms are still alive today, like coelocanths and velvet worms. So really, while you can't show a steady progression of fossil forms (or living forms) (for theoretical and practical reasons), you can do this:

Esthenopteron: Shallow-water lobe-finned fish, semi-mobile head, folded enamal teeth, pectoral and pelvic fins show "humerus-ulna/radius-lots of little bones" structure.

Tiktaalik: Shallow-water lobe-finned fish, semi-mobile head, folded enamal teeth, pectoral fins capable of bending at "elbow," allowing the animal to do a push-up, otherwise structure similar to Esthenopteron.

Acanthostega: Shallow-water tetrapod, mostly-mobile head, folded enamal teeth, loss of all but pectoral and pelvic "fins." Structure of fins similar to Tiktaalik except the "finger bones" have been arranged in a half-moon fashion around the distal end of the radius/ulna, giving the creature eight distinct fingers. Still restricted to water, retains fishy tail.

Ichthyostega: Potentially amphibious tetrapod, mobile head, folded enamal teeth, large pectoral girdle suggests possibility of limited terrestrial movement, limbs larger than Acanthostega, but still had more than five fingers per limb, retains fishy tail.

I mean, how can you not see the progression there? That example and many more are found in Prothero's excellent tome, which I highly recommend.

Pachyrhinosaurus teaser

Yesterday, I got the Pachyrhinosaurus monograph in the mail! Well, I actually had to go to the post office to pick it up--the Canadians package books in a strange way. Anyway, you would think that book is enormous. After all, it's the first ceratopsian monograph in over a century. However, this is not the case. I flipped through the book last night, and while I hadn't actually read it yet (Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia also came out yesterday...priorities, y'know), I can tell you a few things about it:

1) It's a scant 140-some pages long;
2) It is divided into three sections: Cranial osteology, taphonomy of the bonebed, and a detailed CT scan and description of the brain and inner ear;
3) The book does not cover post-cranial osteology, despite the fact that the introduction boasts that virtually every bone of the skeleton is known;
4) Juveniles look a whole lot like Brachyceratops and Monoclonius before transforming into what looks like a completely different animal upon reaching adulthood;
5) Whether the nasal and orbital bosses held keratinous horns (like rhinos) or rugose structures (like musk ox) is still a matter of debate.
6) Mike Skrepnick did a wonderful cover painting, but also a gorgeous life restoration within--he drew two possible head shapes: one with a traditional bony boss, and one with a gigantic keratinous horn on the nose and two smaller horns over the eyes. And I gotta say, although it looks a little odd, that giant horn is awfully cool.

I'll have a more adequate summary after I've gorged myself fully on Pachyrhinosaurus. I'm a little disappointed that there's no post-cranial osteology, but maybe that'll be in a second book...?

Must Purchase...and Yet...!

I'm ridiculously excited about this Pachyrhinosaurus monograph. October 1st is when it's available for purchase! It's October 1st today! But it's still marked as "Coming Soon!" ARGH! Why do you mock me, NRCC? I have money that I'm willing to give you right now and yet you make me wait! Make yon tome available, I beg of you!

UPDATE: It's been made available today! Yahoo! Bought it the first chance I got, although I chose the standard shipping method (insert Sideshow Bob-esque mutter here) because the air mail would have brought the total cost to about $75, which seems high.

You can see pictures of the new critter, Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai, at the HMNH and Dinochick Blogs. Oddly enough, the life restoration has the old-school "giant horn" affixed to the snout.

October 1st: Mark Your Calendars!

This book can't come out fast enough! It's the long-awaited monograph about Pachyrhinosaurus, although oddly enough, it's not P. canadensis. It's a new species, smaller, with differing skull ornamentation. The new animal is from older rocks than P. canadensis and may be ancestral to it. Interestingly, the juveniles have Centrosaurus-like nasal horns which are later reworked into bosses as the animal matures. The book can be published on October 1st from the website linked above, and will cost $50 in the USA.

Slowly Learning to Read

I must like this "reading" thing, because I just bought another book online. The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives looks to be a sister tome to the dog book I bought a few weeks ago (which is awesome, by the way). Cat evolution is something I've always wondered about, moreso than dogs. I mean, dogs are great, but cats can drag carcasses up trees! And there were never any saber-toothed dogs. Also, after reading this book, I'm sure I'll be able to give Catsby a hard time for being a very, very lazy cat, and thus, an embarrassment to her wild ancestors.

The Trouble with Scavenging

Here's the thing about Jack Horner's much-talked-about T.rex scavenging hypothesis: It's not so much an actual theory as a Creationist-like argument about why T.rex could not have been a predator. The king has puny arms, tiny eyes, a big nose, couldn't run very fast, and was "ugly," which apparently means that Tyrannosaurus rex was just plain incapable of killing its own dinner, and was thusly forced to walk the Earth a lowly scavenger, picking across any food it stumbled over. Horner's theory is more personal preference than anything else. Just because he can't see it any other way must mean that he's right. Well, I was so happy to see a paper in my new T.rex book by Thomas Holtz, Jr. that sets the record straight. And by "sets the record straight" I mean "mowed down the obligate scavenger hypothesis."

The claims bombarded by Dr. Holtz's silly "evidence" are as follows: T.rex has small eyes relative to skull size; the tibia and femur are about the same length; the forelimbs are really short; the teeth are wide and not bladelike. These passive-aggressive questions really mean the following: T.rex couldn't see very well; T.rex couldn't run very fast; T.rex had puny little worthless arms; T.rex's teeth were not very strong and would have shattered if they hit bone. I've called bullshit on those claims for years. It's good to see somebody actually throw some hard evidence at the problem, and maybe this will finally shut Horner up.

T.rex had "beady little eyes."
I wish I'd made that up, but it comes right out of Horner's mouth. T.rex's eyes are unlike those of, say, Velociraptor, which has large eyes. The first question here is "so what?" But also, how do T.rex's eyes compare to other theropods? It turns out that as theropod dinosaurs get larger, their eyes get smaller. And the eyes don't actually shrink--the skull just grows faster than the eyes as skull size increases. In fact, there are other theropods with smaller-than-average eyes including Giganotosaurus and Dilophosaurus. They must have been scavengers! T.rex was just about average given its size. Besides, in terms of absolute size, T.rex had really big eyes! The largest measured specimen's orbit diameter is 120 mm. That's pretty big. And keep in mind that unlike allosauroids, T.rex had pretty respectable binocular vision. If you're scavenging all day, why do you need binocular vision?

T.rex couldn't run very fast.
That's true, but it ultimately doesn't matter as long as T.rex could run faster than its prey, Einstein. When you plot the measurements, it turns out that T.rex's hind limbs were quite fast, and one step taken by a T.rex was longer than that of an allosauroid or ceratosaur of the same femur length. This means that--gasp--the tibia and metatarsals were elongated relative to the femur. Thus, tyrannosaurs were faster than other similarly-sized theropods. And you're never going to believe this, but bear with me here: tyrannosaurs were faster than contemporary herbivorous dinosaurs! SHOCK AND AWE! Better yet, tyrannosaurs developed arcometatarsus, or a "pinched" metatarsus which suggests that T.rex could turn faster on its narrow feet than non-arcometatarsus theropods. And wouldn't you know it? Duckbills, ceratopsids, and ankylosaurs lack the arcometatarsal condition. So T.rex could run faster and turn quicker than his prey. Go figure.

T.rex had useless little forelimbs that were totally useless. Useless.
Several papers in this book deal with T.rex's pectoral girdle and arms specifically. Muscular reconstructions, pathologies of the arms and furcula (Rothschild & Molnar), and range of motion of the arms have shown that--guess what--T.rex actively used its arms. The king probably got its forelimb workout by clinging to struggling prey (Lipkin & Carpenter) and/or helping right itself while getting up from a sitting position (Stevens, Wills, Larson & Anderson). Even besides that, there are plenty of modern (and extinct) carnivores that hunt prey without the help of their arms, including orcas, modern raptors, terror birds, Diatryma, and crocodilians.

T.rex had stout, deeply-rooted teeth that would have shattered on impact with bone. Wait...seriously?
For me, this is the dumbest argument. It's been demonstrated multiple times that Tyrannosaurus rex and its immediate relatives had ridiculous, astronomical bite forces and that their teeth and jaws were specialized for crushing bone. I imagine that their teeth were modified to allow such an activity. There are at least three instances in the fossil record of a tyrannosaur tearing through bone in the pusuit of food: an Edmontosaurus tail with several neural spines lobbed off, a Triceratops pelvis with several deep scraping tooth marks in it, and a Triceratops skull with a bitten-off horn core (Happ, this book). While the Triceratops pelvis may have been so marred by scavenging activity, the Edmontosaurus lived another day, and the bones healed. Thus, it escaped its pursuer. And one can only imagine that T.rex did not pick its teeth with the orbital horn cores of dead ceratopsians, so that particular exchange probably took place during either an attack by the tyrannosaur or an attack by the Triceratops, perhaps defending its brood from the marauding predator.

So, while it's difficult to prove that Tyrannosaurus rex was a predatory animal, it turns out that all of Horner's claims which would force the king into a purely scavenging role are wrong. It's silly to say that Tyrannosaurus never scavenged--like any other wild carnivore alive today, it probably would've happily feasted on a fresh corpse if it found one. However, it's clear that Tyrannosaurus rex was perfectly capable of finding and taking down its own meals. And circumstantial evidence (the Edmontosaurus tail in particular) suggests that it did. It's also worth mentioning that not a single modern animal that scavenges exclusively. Hyenas actually kill a lot of their meat, and turkey vultures are not above eating hares, lizards, and other small vertebrates.

There is another classic Horner claim that I would like to address, though it is not addressed by Dr. Holtz. The fact that Tyrannosaurus rex had a great sense of smell is apparently indicative of a scavenging lifestyle. Like the tiny arms, I don't see the connection. Dinosaurs in general had above-average olfactory senses (except the more avian ones). Ankylosaurs had large, complex sinus passages. Does that mean they scavenged carcasses? No! Modern animals with great senses of smell, like dogs, do not use their noses exclusively to find dead meat. Often, they use their noses to find live meat, or marks left by other dogs, or other dogs. Perhaps dinosaurs had a complex marking system. Maybe they just had a good sense of smell! If Tyrannosaurus rex lived in a family unit, a good sense of smell would be advantageous to finding your chicks, your mate, and rival families. Great sense of smell does not equal obligate scavenger.

In fact, in every Horner claim made above, the man makes a very basic logical error: the fallacy of equivocation. Although his claims are patently false, even if they were true, that doesn't mean that Tyrannosaurus rex was an obligate scavenger. He fails to make any real connection between, say, short arms and scavenging. Allosaurus didn't have arms as long as Velociraptor either. Does that mean it was a scavenger? In fact, Allosaurus had fairly short arms, very little binocular vision, a shorter femur/tibia ratio than Velociraptor (or T.rex), and blade-like teeth that certainly couldn't damage bone. According to Dr. Horner, it must have scavenged, too! In fact, virtually all large carnivorous dinosaurs must have been scavengers! Those big sauropods in Gondwanaland had nothing to worry about.

I'm so thankful that Dr. Holtz shot the obligate scavenger hypothesis down. I have never liked it, and I'm glad somebody finally threw some facts at it. Also, if you have any interest in the Tyrant Lizard King, this book is really awesome.