ornithological challenge... and my cousin of the week #24

a cute set of bird chicks i found at the calgary zoo.

your ornithological challenge, what do these little guys grow up into?

i was totally blown away when i found out! their not what i expected at all...

fossil of the weekend! #49

a cast of an ornithopod footprint from the calgary zoo.

calgary zoo- prehistoric park

so i guess, i'll go in locational order with my review of the calgary zoo. otherwise it could get confusing for everyone concerned (me in particular on account of my brain size).

plus this way it'll answer the question on everyone's mind right away, why is there so many dinosaur related things in the entrance to the zoo?

before anyone asks, sadly no they don't have an vivus-dinosaurs on display. i can't think of a single zoo on earth that has any of us surviving dinosaurs actually on display...



despite that, dinosaurs are all over the place here at the calgary zoo even if you're not looking for them... such as this cement mural of some here by the front gate gift shop.

your answer is to be found a few hundred metres from the gift shop. the first dinosaur you're likely to see at the calgary zoo is this triceratops (unless you come in the back gate... but its parking lot is small, and the entry is boring... that and i'm not sure why you would skip the tunnel :p ).

he is of course not a living vivus-dinosaur, but a sculpture. one of twenty they still have on display here... there used to be more when i was a kid, but as everything does, it has changed since my last visit.

your first stop is the calgary zoo's prehistoric park. marked by this sign which hasn't changed a bit since i can remember. just inside you can see our previous triceratops.

wander in a bit more, and you make here to this... uh you know, i'm not sure it has a formal name, but i like to call them prehistoric vistas.

the whole prehistoric park is an interesting combination of garden/artifical forest and cement geologic landforms. it gives the place a very unique feel. one that i have a fondness for, especially from when i was a hatchling. from a scientific accuracy point of view it is very silly, but i still like it!

the first dinosaur you see inside the proper park, is of course the coolest. a tyrannosaurus rex!

this used to be (and still might be) my favourite thing at the zoo. back when i was a young hatchling there weren't a lot of tyrannosaurs for me to hang out with or get to know what i am. in fact i had so much alone time on this angle i ended up imprinting on humans more, and so i probably am more human in some ways than t-rex.

`

yet i always heard i was a tyrannosaur, and constantly heard what i was supposed to be like. statues and skeletons were the closest i could come to meeting a t-rex in person most of the time. of all the there inanimate t-rexs i'd met the one from the calgary zoo was always my fav, and embarrassing as it is to admit, my hero.

while i was still just a little guy in the egg (i took a while to exit my egg... think of it as a security blanket) i'd look up to and admire this guy... wanting to grow up big, tall, and scary just like him. my hero worship was so much, one of the first things craig ever bought me was a poster of this him so i could look up to him even while at home!

of course when i was a bit older i discovered that living vivus-tyrannosaurs aren't very nice. don't believe me just read up about my cousin larry the biggest JERK! i know... i discovered i might not want to grow up to be one in the end.

`

which is good i guess, as i just found out in drumheller i'm not even a proper tyrannosaurus rex. i'm a tyrannosaurus traumadori, a tiny pathetic tiny joke of a t-rex.

still...

here at the zoo stands the one t-rex i wish i could be more like...

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and i don't mean i want to stand around completely still all day (i had that job once, no thank you!).

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i just mean my idyllic imagined version of what a tyrannosaur should be. there is one in the world, and this is him here! he was and always shall be the coolest dinosaur on earth! i just wish i could be too...

directly across from the rex is his dinner, this old skool triceratops (okay actually pretty much every dinosaur in the prehistoric park is old skool come to think of it... and by old skool i mean human imagined old skool... which is new skool isn't it? as humans didn't show up till 64 million years after we had died out. we'd been correct and not looking like this, but then humans showed up and imagined us all wrong and made into these statues, before we showed back up to show them this wasn't what we looked like. what skool is that exactly?!?)

getting swept up in my memories of my hero t-rex, i decided to take a chomp out of his triceratops...

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that sure brought me back to who i was and what i was doing... sore teeth and the taste of plastic are not cool or fun!!!

finishing off the first vista, in the far corner is the ankylosaurus.


from the first vista you have to wander to the second one. there are two paths to choose from. the high path or the low path. it doesn't really matter which one you take. in the end you'll get to the second vista (just in a different spot).

along the upper path you'll be treated to lots of the fake cement landscape.

they mimic mostly different types of sedimentary rock...

i think they were put here as their associated with dinosaurs, as our fossils are typically found in them.

however it is a little misleading and sort of confusing to put representations of living dinosaurs amongst these rocks. it gives the impression we actually lived among them when alive... most of us didn't of course, and those few that did live by the ancient badlands won't have fossilized! these rock environments erode, and thus are good for exposing fossils already there. not so good for making new ones (that would be the place all the eroded rock washes too!)

despite that fact, i can't quite bring myself to disliking them.

they are part of my fond memories of this place. more to the point they are sort of artistic. this is like a large surreal painting you can walk through. dinosaurs' past and present are mixed in fluidic harmony, and you can't pull the two apart...

taking the high path between the main vistas, you'll come across a corythosaur.

followed quickly by an edmontosaurus.

finishing off this nice pocket of alberta dinosaurs is a pretty miserable reconstruction of a styracosaurus. (the first vista could be argued to be all albertan too i guess... but the t-rex, triceratops, and ankylosaur are more associated with montana... corythos, edmontos, and styracos are definitely albertan. even if found elsewhere).

after the highpath you end up at the look out on the second vista. or as i like to call it the ocean vista...

that is if there were water in it!

i was so depressed arriving here on this visit to discover the zoo had drained all the water! i get it, they have to before winter so that ice doesn't damage the pond housing or the dinosaur models... but still it was my favourite (non-dinsaur) part of the park when it had water...

despite this photo being a lame version of this vista, you can see dr. bakker's favourite part of this zoo. prehistory offset with a modern city. on the skyline you'll notice downtown calgary in all its glory!

i saw dr. bakker do a talk at the zoo a few years back, and he always joked that alberta was single handily more than enough reason for the US to invade canada. not only did it have the dinosaurs of the alberta badlands, but it had the calgary zoo. the only place where you could look at remnants of dinosaurs and walk 2 minutes to look at modern animals to compare them too. it was funny joke... at least i hope he was joking!!!

just off to the side of the look out is the prehistoric park's newest (still here anyways) dinosaur. an apatosaurus.

as this is the sea themed vista you'd expect some marine reptiles, and you shan't be disappointed (unless they've drained the ocean... oh wait). right off the bat is a tanystropheus.

next is a nothosaur trying to fend off... a mosasaur?

okay so that doesn't make sense. clearly these two animals would never have remotely interacted, what with one being from the very beginning of the dinosaur's reign the other from towards the end...

it used to make sense. when i was a kid the mosasaur was fighting...

this elasmosaur which has now been moved a little ways away.

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completing the marine reptile collection is a placodus.

missing from the upper path's team alberta was this centrosaur, which i have to say has since my last visit received the STUPIDEST paint job i've seen on a dinosaur in a long time!!!

`

ruling over the sea corner is a tarbosaurus and its offspring (just barely visible behind the trees... which i have to point out were really over grown everywhere this time around. i too be honest was not overly impressed with the maintenance of the prehistoric park today. it used to be well kept. trimmed and oceaned...).

marking the beginning of the lower path was this pteranodon. though this poor guy had seen better days.

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some mean humans had climbed up his hoodoos and ripped off his lower body. sometimes humans REALLY bug me. especially when they destroy things meant to entertain and please everyone... why do they do that?!?

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hiding along the lower path is a struthimimus if you know where to look for him.

the lower path is thick with vegetation. if it wasn't full of all the greenery you'd probably have another vista worth of space. sadly there aren't many dinosaurs down here. though the garden is nice, it is devoid of dinosaur life for the most part... okay, dino statue non life.

there is however the mandatory stegosaurus down here.

directly across from him an igunadon.

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that's it... like i said the lower path is pretty sparce. back in the day there were a lot of small dinosaur models. sadly like the pteranodon a bunch of visitors went and trashed them. ruining it for the rest of us!!!

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after these guys you'll come full circle back to the first vista.

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so i hope you enjoyed the prehistoric park. at least then one of us will have. don't get me wrong it was nice to see the old place after so long. however in its poorly maintained state, and all the changes it wasn't as impressive as it used to be. the changes i guess i can accept, you have to innovate or go extinct.

`

the poor upkeep is another thing, and i nearly cried when i found out why the place had fallen into such sabby shape. they are closing the prehistoric park in feburary 2010... for good!

okay one second thought i'm not let down by this trip down memory lane. i'm bummed out as there'll be no more in the future...

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at least i got in this one last look!!!

calgary zoo- entrance...

man i'm having so much fun at the calgary zoo!

so much in fact, i don't feel like wasting a bunch of time from it for a BIG blog post. instead i think i'll take the odd break and give you a part of the zoo at a time. which will still lead to some big posts, as it is a huge zoo :P

the only fair place to start is of course the front entrance, as the calgary zoo's is a bit more interesting then the rest...

the calgary zoo is an official stop of the city's train, but as the train station is in the middle of a big freeway they've had to put a tunnel under the road so you could get to the station. also as the parking lot is on one side of the road and the zoo the other, this tunnel is handy for going to see the animals too (unless you want to play frogger across the road)!

this trip today is my first visit back to the zoo in years! craig used to bring me here all the time when i was a hatchling. just based on the tunnel the zoo has changed a lot...

[Photo credit here]

there used to be some cool statues of prehistoric creatures down here, including a life size mammoth. sadly they're all gone now, and have been replaced by the front gate... which i guess makes sense from an entrance point of view.

however i had some fond childhood memories of those fossil critters. which i guess sadly will have to remain just that... memories.

the walls of these tunnels were always cool, as they had pictures of zoo animals built into them. unlike when i was younger, these days they have some very neat coloured lighting to give the whole system a neat feel.

one the left side (when walking towards the zoo) there are all the living animals of the zoo. which are neat and cool, but my favourite side is the right...

as of course here they have pictures of all the extinct animals displayed (mostly through statues) at the zoo...

they are pretty old skool... being something like 25ish years old...

but i still like them! especially as they haven't changed a bit themselves since i was a kid. the new lighting now almost highlights the fact i'm looking at a small unchanged part of my past. the object is the same, but i'm not (and neither is the light)... i just think it is neat.

towards the end of the hall is my favourite of these wall pictures. the ominous, yet not all on the wall (as he doesn't fit), t-rex. to me going through this hall and seeing all these pictures meant a fun time was about to ensue...

which still holds up today. i love it when somethings from your childhood doesn't go away!

these two hesperornis were always the sign that a trip to the zoo was underway... as they are the last picture on the wall...

so off i go to check out the rest of the zoo.

stay tuned for the other sections as i visit them!

the long necks...

the sauropod gallery is up at ART Evolved! be sure to check it out...

fossil of the weekend! #48

a skeleton of a Micropycnodon from the collections of the royal tyrrell museum.

i'm going to the zoo, and you can come to!

though my trip to cowtown has taken a bit of an ominous twist, nothing says i can't enjoy myself till i figure out what exactly is going on!

so i'm hitting one of my childhood favourite spots in calgary, the zoo! home of this rather famous, and influential on my early self image tyrannosaur statue...

so stay tuned for my big zoo post this weekend!

cowtown... everyone's coming here...

well with my trip back to drumheller over it was time to start making my way back "home" to new zealand... meaning i had to pass through the closest big city, calgary, if only really just to get to a real airport (drumheller has a tiny one lane road for an airport).

though i have to say this whole human concept of home is weird to me. home is where you currently live, yet at the same time it is where you once lived... so in my case i'm leaving home to go home?

i guess its just my nomadic predatory instincts conflicting with this concept. back in the cretaceous a tyrannosaur probably didn't really stick around any one place unless there was food hanging around it. meaning our food was really our home... oh well

regardless, i was in for yet another surprise from this trip. not that they're that surprising anymore. i think if something goes according to the plan while i'm here in canada i'll be floored...


i headed to the calgary airport to catch my flight back to new zealand. i don't have clear pictures of the airport, as i've been told you can get in trouble for taking lots of pics around airports. i did sneak in a couple snap shots of these pterosaurs that were hanging around the ceiling of the port though. sadly you don't to fly on the pterosaurs, as i'd hoped.

rather they're just some cool statues to decorate the place. the idea is it shows the evolution of flight, as nestled among the huge quetzalcoatlus and pteranodons was a giant dragonfly ancestor protodonata, and of course my relative archaeopteryx... i didn't notice a bat in there, but for the display to be complete it should have been in there. this was more a work of art than museum display in fairness i guess...

anyways when i went to go get my ticket to new zealand, i was told that someone had rescheduled when i was flying out...

of course i didn't buy my plane tickets in the first place, someone else had (though i still don't know who?)... yet why would they buy me a trip back drumheller, only to trick me into spending some time in calgary?

i found out quick. the ticket clerk had a note to give me, sent by the "party" that had changed my flight.

i would never have guessed in an epoch who or why though...

it was my mysterious informant from the pack of the primordial feather, a coelurosaur who called them self ruffled feather. i hadn't heard from ruffled feather since they had tried to warn me about dr. spectre's attack.
`

ruffled feather was a disgruntled member in the pack who sought to hurt the group. somehow i was useful in this effort, though i wasn't clear on how? i guess my being one of only a handful of coelurosaurs who'd turned down membership in the primordial feather and had survived to tell the tale was handy... somehow?

beyond this i knew nothing about this ruffled feather, not even enough to know if i should call them a he or a she (i'm going with he for now). his note wasn't exactly much help on answering any of my questions either...

Dear Traumador,
`

I'm sorry for the disruption my actions have no doubt caused. I assure you I wouldn't have made them if it were not important.
`

You can not leave Calgary yet. Despite evading you in Drumheller, through that Spectre diversion, the pack it would seem did not lose you.
`

They have retreated to somewhere in Calgary, and they have brought the 14th crate with them! Where exactly I do not know, and I wish I could be of more help.
`



It is crucial that you make sure the contents of that container do not make it back to the pack! Thankfully anyone who can survive a run in with Dr. Spectre, such as yourself, should have no problem against the Crimson Talons. No matter the backup they will be receiving, and I have heard they are getting some!
`



Ruffled Feather
`



ps- How did you beat Spectre in the end exactly?

there was a missing connection somewhere between me and ruffled feather...


he seemed to think i knew what he was talking about, and more to the point what the pack was up to. the problem is i really didn't!
`


causing the miscommunication, i'd had thought it was the pack who was responsible for all the fossil poaching around drumheller. it in fact turned out to be two hardened palaeo-criminals (megan and jo)... i hadn't really thought about why the pack was there any further, as a few things had distracted me... however due to our conversations being interrupted, ruffled feather was never able to realize i was under the wrong impression about what was going on...
`


whatever it was the pack was up to, they had thought it awful important. they'd tried to kill me thinking i was trying to stop them.
`

the pack must have cleared out of the tyrrell during the "Spectre diversion". i know that professor paradigm had done a sweep of the museum looking for them, once he'd rescued me from spectre, but didn't find a trace.
`

so what were they doing in drumheller? ruffled feather had mentioned a "14th crate". i began wondering what it might be or mean...

as i left the airport and headed back into calgary, or cowtown as many call it in alberta, i realized the scope of what ruffled feather had just asked me. i had to find the pack and whatever they were up to somewhere in here!
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sure, no biggie. i only had a place 50 times bigger then drumheller to search!!!
`

as i looked out over cowtown, i had one reassuring thought. despite the unfun task i'd for some reason agreed to take up, i did have a lot of friends based here in town. with a bit more time here i could catch up with the lot of them, and who knows maybe get one or two of them to help me out...

Elsewhere in Calgary...

(From the reflections of Desdemona Deinonychus, Crimson Talon and Pack Matriarch of the Pack of the Primordial Feather)

I miss the front lines!

At least on the field of battle you can tell where you are. In the midst of the hunt you know what you are to do.

I no longer know any of this with my current mission, helping with this stupid intrigue and espionage debacle Layla, matriarch of the Oviraptorids, has pulled me into.

The mission was simple enough at the beginning. Lead a troop of my Crimson Talons in guarding this "crate 14" from hostiles. At the onset of the mission the enemies were few and easy to counter. Just the runt [Traumador] and a few human members of palaeo-central. With this limited intelligence provided, may I note by our head of intelligence, there was no way I could have predicted a direct confrontation with Lance one of the most dangerous saurians on the planet!

Despite my troop being too small to proper engage Lance, we none the less confronted him to the best of our abilities. Despite taking heavy causalities, we were able to inflict considerable damage to Lance, and through these wounds we Crimson Talons turned this losing situation into a strategic draw. Through this action we kept the crate from harm. Yet when Layla ordered a full retreat, it somehow became my fault we were falling back.

I grow tired of her "command" of the operation.

If not for Layla's political connections throughout the rest of the Pack, I would have ordered my hunters to teach her a lesson in what our pride does to treacherous scavengers such as herself!

Layla is truly an arrogant fool. As she considers herself smart, Layla is under the impression she is somehow dangerous. She seriously believes that in the Packs' daily struggles, it is her schemes that will win the day. I only wish I could put her on the field of battle once, as the coward has never once joined our brave hunters on the front line! Then she would see just how "dangerous" ideas and plans like hers really are in war. The Gondwanaians will not be defeated by thinking. No, they only succumb to the tooth and claw! Which is where we foot soldiers and hunters come in. We are the true power of the Primordial Feather!

Yet Layla has the nerve to walk among us trying to show dominance. If she only knew the danger her presumption was placing her in. All of my troop, especially me, were fighting our instinctive urge to subdue her. To have earned our utter contempt as she has is a dangerous thing. For we normally reserve this for our enemies.

My lieutenant Valor [the Velociraptor] in particular was not handling Layla's demeanor well. The greatest warrior in the pack strode beside the Oviraptor in a ready to pounce stance. Had Layla uttered a single condescending word to Valor, the Oviraptor would have only had a few seconds to regret it. The rest of my hunters were containing their disdain better solely because they followed my lead better. Despite her incredible battle prowess, Valor lacked a soldier's discipline.

Fortunately an altercation was avoided, as Layla said nothing. Either she had picked up on hostile air about her as a hunter would have, or as I personally think she had simply been lucky. Either way she would live. For today at least!

Today we received reinforcements from the Pack. I couldn't have be more pleased with who was sent. A fellow matriarch of the Pack, Razi [the Saurornithoides] of the Troodontid pride.

Razi's assignment indicated just how important this crate had become to the Pack's strategy. It now had three of the Pack's main general's in the field to martial it. This was quite a tactical risk. I can only think a handful of battles with this many Matriarchs involved. The scorn for failure would be great. I couldn't help but think it would be Layla's responsibility to accept it if something were to go wrong...

Not that failure was an option. Razi's arrival heralded a shift in the command dynamic. When Layla had requested my help I saw it as my duty to protect the Pack's interests from interference. Especially since the challenge was coming from the whelp if a Royal the Runt! However, Layla misinterpreted my participation as me bowing to her authority. I most certainly would not be tolerating this any longer!

Despite being renowned for cunning like Layla's, Razi was a most able predator. One who had personally lead troops of hunters into countless battles. I'd personally had the honour of hunting along side her, and as a result could respect orders from her. Unlike the coward Layla, who had never once tasted the blood of the enemy!

Razi did not arrive alone, however. Being a strategic and tactical prodigy among the Pack, Razi was far too valuable an asset to leave unescorted. She arrived accompanied by one of the Royal prides's most feared warriors, Vicsurus Daspletosaur. Vicsurus is one of the renowned Daspletosaurus"triplets", who serve as the Royal's personal elite guard and assassins. Her being Razi's bodyguard indicated this crate affair was of great importance to even the Grand Matriarch.

Razi and Layla formally greeted each other with signs of complete respect and admiration. As befitted their Matriarchal status. I disciplined myself, as I grew resentful of being excluded. I was equal in rank to either of them, and unlike Layla had actual spilled my own blood in this mission. Yet as it was Layla who had "saved" Razi's crate, it was she who was acknowledged.

I on the other hand was relegated to greeting the new hunter to join the mission. We warriors are not ones for pointless show and formality. Though I resented not being acknowledged by my fellow Matriarchs, I in truth much preferred the simple exchange with Vicsurus.

Though I despise the Royals as a Pride, I have a grudging respect for Vicsurus and her two sisters. Not only had her sister Rancor personally saved my life in battle from a Gondwanaian Carcharodontosaurid, but the ferocity of the three Daspletosaurus matched that of any raptor in my Pride. Something few other Royals could not boast.

For her part Vicsurus was far more accepting of us Dromaeosaurids than most in the Royal Pride. She'd been in too many battles where it was us who had turned the tide in the Primordials' favour, rather than the Royals.

Leading Razi to her prized crate, it was here we Crimson Talon's were finally recognized for our heroism. Razi personally thanked me for my part in protecting her prize. With it she could now get back on task refining its contents into, what she assured us would be, the Pack's greatest weapon.

Perhaps I was too hasty before in wishing to return to the frontline. At least until this weapon is completed!

To be Continued...

my cousin of the week #23

a pair of new zealand royal spoonbills, which also sometimes go as black-billed spoonbills, or Platalea regia to scientists.

fossil of the weekend! #47

a cast skeleton of the ever classic tyrannosaur dinner, triceratops at the royal tyrrell museum. so yummy in fact, you'll notice my mommy lurking behind him waiting for super time...