i get eee-mail...

there's been some tangents on the blogospheriod recently about the Eee-mails my fellow bloggers get. i got one today that makes for a great post. so here's a fun sample of the Eee-mail i sometimes get!

my good innerweb pal raptor lewis writes to my Eee-mail (traumador@gmail.com) the following:

_
Yo Traumador! How ya doing?

It's me Raptor. I'm doing some drawings of dinosaurs and I need a little help. I'm doing Jurassic herbivores. I need your help with coming up with a few. I can only come up with Stegosaurus, and sauropods like Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Mamenchisaurus, etc.

Can you help me think of more? And can you send pictures of them via email? That would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry to bug you.

Your online buddy,

Raptor

P.S.- If you're thinking I'm a dromeosaur, then you are wrong. I'm not even a dinosaur. I'm a paleo-lovin' American human.

now though i'd never claim to be a huge expert (both due my size... get it? pun INTENDED!.. and also my knowledge) on the jurassic period, as we tyrannosaurs are the last of the last of the cretaceous a good 70 million years after the jurassic ended, i will try to take a stab at it and help you out raptor.

so let's take a quick look at the jurassic period with a...

so the jurassic period.

well to start off with the jurassic is just one of many time periods that geologists and other sciency folks use to better keep track of the huge amount of time this planet has been around. think of it like a month on the calender, only this calender has about 21 months (just for the time life has been around!) and these each have several MILLION YEARS in them compared to the 30ish days each a real month has. scientists label these simply because frankly it makes it easier to get ones head around. i know i can use that help!

the jurassic is the 5th most recent time period (as in going back INTO the past from now, its the 5th you'd go past on your way to the beginning of time... if you started at the beginning and travelled forward to the present the jurassic would be the 18th). the time period before the jurassic was the triassic, and when the jurassic was over it became the cretaceous period.

the jurassic started around 208 million years ago and went on to finish 146 million years ago. meaning it was 62 million years long. nearly the same amount of time dinosaurs have been extinct, but remember this is only one of three time periods the dinosaurs were alive for!

here is what the world looked like towards the END of the jurassic (as in the end closet to our own time, about 150-146 million years ago). the reason this is important is that the way that the earth's land and water were arranged (you'll notice different than it is today, but yet still recognizable) had a HUGE effect on dinosaurs and everything else living back than.

the world's landmasses are always moving around on things called continental plates. through a process called plate tectonics the land (and also ground that makes the bottom of the ocean) are like surf boards cruising the hot liquid ocean of magma inside the earth. as the plates float around they often smash into each other, and than later on split up. this changes the size of not only the land on earth, but the size and shape of the oceans. oceans as it turns out are probably the most important thing effecting living things on earth. whether the living things are right by the water or not!

prior to the time of the dinosaurs in the permian, the time period before the age of dinosaurs (about 60-50 million years before the jurassic) all the continents of the world had smacked into each other and got stuck together for a while. this created the super continent pangaea (it was made "super" by being made up of ALL the worlds possible land masses... sort of the way that super heroes vehicles always become more super when they combine into a mega vehicle!). this was not the first time a super continent has formed on earth, but it was the most important for life on earth.

due to the effects of having less coastline (in other words water touching land) pangea had really mucked up weather systems. having ocean close to you means you get more rain, and rain is key for plants to survive. because pangea had a lot of land WAY away from the ocean, most of it turned to desert. by the end of the permian the worst extinction event in the world's history had occurred, about 95% of life on earth was gone!

the reason i mention this chilling and sad event is that the jurassic marked the final end of pangea and its life killing ways. as of the beginning of the jurassic 208 million years ago pangea started to break apart into what would become the modern continents. of course the continents won't finish properly splitting up till the cretaceous, but their break up started in the jurassic. this drastically changed all sorts of stuff like the climate and environments animals and plants had to deal with. so there was a lot of change in the types of dinosaurs as the time period went on.

despite what many books tell you, parts of the jurassic were actually very similar to the triassic. especially the beginning of the jurassic. the dinosaurs though a bit varied were still of the triassic families. these included prosauropods, coelophysoids, and heterodontosaurids. the only big difference was that many of the large reptiles that had been around in the triassic were no longer present (but not all of them were gone!). at the middle of the jurassic there is growing evidence of a small mass extinction and here we see dinosaur types change as the "triassic" era types disappeared and the first of the more "classic" jurassic families pop up in their places.

the plant scape was a lot different than we're used to today. during this time gymnosperms plants were the main type. gymnosperms is a fancy word for plants that produce their seeds through cones. their still around today, just now they have company in the form of angiosperms, plants that produce their seeds through flowers. the really successful gymnosperms of the jurassic included conifer and ginkgo trees. ferns were also a very common plant during this time (and again are around today, but not in the same numbers as back than).

in the skies the reptilian pterosaurs (which again were NOT dinosaurs!) continued to dominant the sky. they diversified a great deal compared to what they were in the triassic. however midway through the jurassic the pterosaurs would have to start sharing the sky with a newcomer. my relative the birds. though the birds wouldn't start edging the pterosaurs out of the clouds till the next time period...

in the oceans similarly the triassic break outs the ichythosaurs would have their golden age, and despite being forced to become smaller than their huge triassic selves, would diversify as well be one of the most successful of the marine reptiles till their demise in the mid cretaceous.


the most successful of the marine reptiles (other than the sea turtles) the pleiosaur also enjoyed success during the jurassic. like usual they sported their medium to long neck lengths, but towards the end of the jurassic with the evolution of a new short neck version they would spawn some of the earth's most awesome predators ever. the pliosaurs which would enjoy domination of the ocean until the appearance of the mosasaurs halfway through the cretaceous.
_


on the land, true mammals appeared for the first time. turtles, lizards, crocodilians, frogs, and salamanders broke out into major success for the first time during the jurassic as well.
_


now of course i could go on and on about the jurassic for ever (well not quite, but with 62 million years worth of substance i can't hope to cover it all here!) i'm going to end now and answer raptor's question.

so again remember raptor the jurassic is a very long period of time, and saw a very large share of dinosaurs evolve and go extinct. the problem with a lot of books out there is they only present the very end of the jurassic, and make it seem like that was all that was going on.

in reality those are only some of the highlights, and frankly (much like the cretaceous) a lot of the stuff that came before is skipped. which hardly seems fair to me.

so plant eating dinosaurs of the early jurassic included (none of which made your list):


though closely related to the true sauropods on your list, prosauropods were key early jurassic herbivores.

the very primitive ornithischian heterodontosaurs

the tiny primitive relative of armoured dinsoaurs, scutellosaurus

the primitive armoured (although NOT clearly an ankylosaur or stegosaur) scelidosaurus. these are my personal favourite early jurassic dinosaur... even if he'd possibly given rise to the dreaded ankylosaurs...

other common mid to late jurassic herbivores that missed your list include the ever present small hypsilophodonts. not to worry though raptor. almost everyone forgets about these guys!

though they won't amount to much in the jurassic, the iguanodonts appear during this time in forms such as camptosaurus.


though the last additions to your list are of the stegosaur family... stegosaurus did make your list of course... it is important to remember that most of the rest of this family differ greatly from stegosaurus. it is the freak rather than the norm as can be seen by these samples.

so i hope that helps answer your question raptor, and thank you for the eee-mail. it was fun to answer!

to everyone else out there on the web wide world with palaeo question feel free to send them. cause this was fun to answer, and i love getting eee-mails... well actually i like comments on my blog a little more to be honest (i don't check my eee-mail as often as my blog) eee-mails are cool too... traumador@gmail.com is the address.

hope to be answering some of your questions soon!

In the Shadows...

(From the personal files of Professor Alvar Paradigm. Highlighted sections note those which Mike the Librarian thought were most interesting in connection to the supposed top secret Palaeo Central Initiative.)

I had visited Australia 12 times before this year, and every time this continent/country has proved more than worth the visit. Of course not all these trips were under favourable circumstances, the 1996 Broome incident coming to mind in particular. Fortunately the majority had been for purely scientific and academic reasons, and the specimens and findings that have been coming to light are truly exciting for science.

However considering all that I have seen and had happen in these 12 previous trips, even if they were combined, they pale compared to this my 13th visit "down under". This was just supposed to be a minor and care free week long visit. There were no incidents or cases for me to get involved in when I arrived, and fortunately there still aren't any technically thank the sediment, yet the past 6 days have felt as though all hell has broken loose around me. I haven't had so much to deal with since the last time Spectre and my paths last crossed.

The most unpredictable thing of all, has been the sudden re-appearance of TMP-2003. 44. 7 [a Royal Tyrrell Museum catalogue number] here in Melbourne. "Traumador" as 2003. 44. 7 has come to be called, disappeared nearly 2 years ago from Canada, and I'd been unable to track him down. I'd assumed the worst, and that he had ended up in a private collection or similar such fate. Instead the truth has proven more bizarre than anything I've ever encountered before.

Traumador not only managed to smuggle himself into New Zealand in 2006, which now explains Larry Tyrannosaurus' presence in the country last year, but 2003. 44. 7 has managed to become highly involved in its museum infrastructure as well. Apart from my having tasked vivus-Dinosaurs to work for me, I have never heard of a Dinosaur being given so much responsibility as this one. Which is remarkable that he'd be so trusted from what I remember of this particular specimen.

Traumador's supervisor, who is attached loosely with the Otago Museum, approaching me about a work related incident that happened to the small Tyrannosaur this year. She wanted me to ensure that he wasn't harmed by his experience. The results from my examination have thus far been astonishing, and I expect the rest to be no less amazing.

Not only is this the first time a Dinosaur has been exposed to any real amount of Mystic Gradient Energy, but it is showing us a whole new aspect of this radiation's nature. Unlike exposed mammals , Traumador is showing that Dinosaurs (and possibly by extension Archosaurs, but this of course needs to be tested) actually absorb MGR and process it in their biologic system. This is all I'm willing to record at moment in such an insecure database until formal publication of these findings however.

The coincidences just extended for around me from here however. Another former Tyrrell Museum specimen TMP 85. 14. 1 is also here in Melbourne for no connected reason. "Lillian" has become a definite point of concern, due to her current affiliation and employment by the Annex Corporation. I will come to my current plan of action on this problem shortly.

Fortunately I was able to focus time and energy on the primary purpose for my visit in Melbourne.

That of course being my grad student BA 4204 [Melbourne Museum catalogue number], or "Dip" as many of the staff of the museum have come to call her.

After my discussions with her on both her status and progress, I have to say I'm more than pleased with Dip's progress. In fact this is an understatement. I'm very proud of her. Especially considering the limited attention and time I've been able to give her since she started studying with me as the master of her studies.

Indeed my constant state of travel around the globe has made me a poor excuse for a supervisor. That is being too lenient to myself really. My role is to be more than a mere academic authority to Dip. I should be a mentor and guide to her along this difficult road. Yet due to the constant nature of the battle we face I've had to make sacrifices. There is not a day I do not feel them either.

Despite my failures, Dip has been demonstrating incredible self reliance and resilience. With the exception of the extreme supportive nature of the staff here at the museum and from the rest of the Australian scientific community, for which I'm very grateful, poor Dip has been meeting a great deal of resistance and hostility to what she is trying to do. If she did not have me and the initiative to back her, I fear Dip's dream of being the first Dinosaur palaeontologist would remain just that. A dream. Yet she is making it a reality one day at a time.

Dip has managed to keep on schedule with her thesis, and I expect her to graduate her PHD as planned late next year. This is impressive considering the many limitations her Dinosaurian anatomy places on her. Writing and typing are very difficult given her lack of proper grasping digits. My schedule has continually delayed the acquisition of specially designed equipment to make this easier for her. Yet she has overcome this with the use of her head and in particular beak.

Also the ceratopsian lack of stereoscopic vision has provided her with interesting challenges with reading as well. I am in the process of having special glasses fashioned for her that may remedy this problem (although it remains to be seen if her visual cortex can actually process a unified field of view. I look forward to the possible realms of research this 'experiment' will provide).

So despite my inability, even while in Australia it seems, to provide her the full magnitude of my attention Dip has still been prevailing.

If only the other new issues of this week were so easy to see to completion.

In particular the Annex Corporation situation has me on edge. I always worry about where vivus-fossils end up in today's increasingly materialistic world. It is bad enough to consider the fate of many standard fossils, but to have the last living remains of the world's past end up in private collections and be kept from the greater scientific community, it puts me greatly at unease.

It is far worse when the company is involved! I've spent the better part of the last two decades fighting off their ever increasing incursions into the realm of palaeontology. All to no avail it seems, or at least feels like sometimes, especially when the crown jewel of Alberta's leading palaeontological institution ends up as a simple prop piece in one of Annex corp.'s travelling shows. This was not a problem back when I began the initiative in the 70's.

Of course there is a whole new range of issues that have arisen since those "simpler days".

My lead saurian Lieutenant ROM 975 [Royal Ontario Museum Catalogue Number], being one of them. Now this is not for a moment to insinuate that "Lance" is not a most capable assistant. In the three years he has been acting as advisor and bodyguard I have had few concerns with his abilities or capability. However his excessive paranoia of theropods is one of those few concerns I do have.

In the course of my briefing Lance about my current plans at dealing with the Annex Corp. situation Lance interrupted me. He proceeded to rant about how he was certain Traumador was a planted spy of the Pack of the Primordial Feather whose purpose was to monitor the greater Dinosaur community.

Now I don't entirely blame Lance for his fears of theropods given what they've done to him over the years. Combine that with the training I've been giving him since he was a hatchling, and you would expect some degree of adversarial distrust. Sadly though Lance has recently given into something of a theropod bogeyman syndrome. Not a single one of them is to be trusted in his mind, and they are all out to destroy him and his fellow herbivorous Dinosaurs.

Again I do not blame him for these fears either. They are, only to an extent mind you, based on a real threat. Yet another new trend of this new millennium are "the Packs". Suddenly there is a drive within the vivus-theropod community to unify into large blocks for purposes that are so far their own. I am not sure whether the purpose of these select groupings is merely for a sense of security in numbers or whether it is for a more organized cause. In either actuality these Packs amount to something very similar to human gangs. They are destructive, corruptive, and in general a large nuisiance. I have enough to worry about that alone what the fossils I'm trying to protect are up to.

At the same time, Traumador is certainly not one of the theropods he should be wasting time or energy worrying about. If anything I am much more concerned with the prospect of having to now extend Traumador a curtain of protection, especially considering how much he has currently put himself out in certain aspects of the museum world.

Sadly I was only able to get Lance to moderate his distrust for the small Tyrannosaur. We did both agree however he is most certainly becoming a definite player in our sphere of influence. Whether this is a long term situation or just a short lived anomaly remains to be seen. I also worry about Traumador's current lack of 'friendly' guidance and supervision. This 'Ms. Rhonwyn' is new to me, and I do not have the time to current waste checking into her back ground. I need to get someone I know and trust already to monitor Traumador. I do have a possible solution in mind for this I shall have to look into activating when I return to Canada next.

Lance also informed me of yet another strange development on this trip that occurred yesterday. Traumador has resumed his attempt to court Lillian. Odd considering his famed failure in the fall of 2006. Even I received word about that while in China of all places! A most curious development indeed. We shall have to wait to see what comes of it. Especially considering the drastic nature of my intended intervention on Lillian's current employment situation.

Which brought Lance to a side project of his own. I brought him along on this trip solely due to his role as my bodyguard. My purpose was supposed to merely be checking in on Dip. Now of course with the huge number of tangent distractions I have allowed myself to be distracted by, Lance has taken this to mean he can himself fall into such a trap too.

Lance voiced interest in approaching Lillian about the taskforce. An interesting suggestion on his part, especially given his aforementioned aversion to theropods. Yet I was forced to disagree with him.

Despite her very public, and I note, current lack of affiliation with the Pack of the Primordial Feather, this did not necessarily denote she was a prime candidate. Not that I don't appreciate his thinking. A theropod would bring a bit more desperately needed diversity to the project, and a Tyrannosaurid would definitely have its uses on the team.

Yet I question Lillian herself. She has not yet figured out who she is as an individual. The past two years of her life have been nothing but a constant attempt at regaining her former star attraction glory. Who is to say that when push came to shove, which it will sadly be coming to very soon, she will not just cave in and finally join the Pack. I personally still see this as a distinct possibility.

Lance did not agree with me, and in his typical stubborn told me that his instinct told him she was good natured at heart. Very high praise considering the source, but Lance has been wrong before where I have not. My decision stands. We will execute my plan for dealing with the Annex Corp. complication and than watch, from a far at first, how Lillian deals with the realities that exist for a vivus-dinosaur such as herself. A cold stance I know, but sadly the only viable one. I can not have the Pack of the Primordial Feather continue to corrode my efforts to the extent that they have been recently.

As for Traumador, the time for watching him from a far came and went undetected as he himself has gone undetected. He has most certainly become a player, even if it is as far as the Pack is concerned. If I can monitor him closely than perhaps through him I can learn more of the Pack of the Primordial Feather. For if there is one thing that is certain about this unpredictable little theropod it is that the Pack of the Primordial Feather will be making a move for or against him. Soon.

albertosaurus and tyrrell

well here i am in the post-date era, people of the innerweb. i still can't believe i actually had a real date with the theropod of my dreams... lillian the albertosaur.

i've gotten some nice encouragement from my human readers so far about this, but also a few questions. one of these ponderings made me think i should start doing some more Palaeo FACTS.

the source of the email doesn't help mind you, and i'll ignore most of what he had to say. however the germ-man (my first real enemy) did have one very legitimate question inside this otherwise nasty email... he sends me about 2 mean emails a week... at least these days. i guess he misses me. what with my not having been in dunedin for most of the year.

his question, again ignoring most of nasty wording surrounding it, is:

so why is it small brained lizard you keep referring to your friend-girl as something different than you? you r both stupid, ugly, hideous... etc. his list of nasty descriptives goes on for a while... lizards. other than her not being as unshort as you what is the difference?


well despite the germ-man being a really mean person, i have to admit he raises a good question for my human readers out there...

despite our similar appearances myself and lillian are indeed a bit different. i myself am a tyrannosaurus rex proper (a poor representative to be fair), where she is an albertosaurus (a perfect specimen... hmmm SO HOT!). which i guess is just restating what i've already said, i guess.

to better illustrate the difference here is a...

so albertosaurs where to start?

albertosaurs are part of the tyrannosaurid family which of course, as the name implies, includes tyrannosaurus rex along with many other tyrannsaur like theropods. the tyrannosaurids are among the biggest (in size) of the coelurosaurs. remember coelurosaurs were the dinosaurs that gave rise to birds, and thus albertosaurs are themselves close relatives to birds (though not as close as a dinosaur can get mind you).

here is an Albertosaurus fact graphic with all the basics on it.

so to start off with albertosaurus is a genus name, that in latin means alberta lizard. genus is a way of pointing out that albertosaurs are a specific type of tyrannosaurid within the greater tyrannosaurid group. to be considered an albertosaur compared to another tyrannosaurid genus (such as tyrannosaurus, daspletosaur, gorgorsaurus, tarbosaurus etc.) you must have more in common with other albertosaurs than any other tyrannosaurid.

at moment there is only one type of albertosaur species inside the genus. that is Albertosaurus sarcophagus. not to say there may not be more. when one of these new species is found to be different from sarcophagus they might have any or all of the following: lived in different times, places, or had slight variations in size or body arrangement to sarcophagus.

there is also a lot of debate on whether truly there is just this singular species of albertosaur. many argue that gorgosaurus is just an older (as in further back in time from the present) form of albertosaur. i'll talk about this later.

as you can see from the size dimensions albertosaurs are smaller than us tyrannosaurus rexs, but not by that much. albertosaurus being 10m long and 3.5m tall and t-rex at 13m long and 4m tall, albertosaurs aren't that mcuh smaller unlike what many popular books say sometimes!

the huge difference is in weight. despite being size wise nearly the same as us t-rexs, albertosaurs were WAY lighter built, and thus weigh less than half as much! t-rexs weigh over 6 metric tons where albertosaurus weighed less than 2!!!

looking at their time period albertosaurs were younger (that is to say came before) tyrannosaurs by a good 2 million years. this is a huge difference. if i'd been alive in proper prehistory i'd never have been able to go out with lillian, as neither of us would have existed at the same time!

so far no true albertosaur (again coming back to the gorgosaur debate later) has been found in a location outside of alberta canada.

(Production Note: Drawing by Gregory Paul)

over 30 notable remains of albertosaurus have been found. among these have been complete skeletons, and individuals of different ages. so we know quite a bit about this particular tyrannosaurid (just like every other member of the tyrannosaurid family from alberta).

albertosaurus also has a pivotal role in the beginning and development of palaeontology in canada, and especially alberta. though many books will claim it was the first dinosaur found in alberta it was not! (the first albertan dinosaur remains were found in 1874 by george mercer dawson around comrey alberta). it was however the first to be found in the red deer river valley, and in particular around the drumheller area.

_

this picture is of the actual first discovered and described albertosaur. it was found in 1884 by joseph burr tyrrell the man whom the royal tyrrell museum would be named after.

to do justice to this man, and his amazing story of discovery i'm introducing a new feature on my blog... a

JOSEPH BURR TYRRELL

(though i'll point out tyrrell wasn't really a palaeontologist AT ALL... so he may not be ideal as the first subject for one of these profiles... but since tyrrell did make one major contribution to the science of palaeontology i'd like to extend him honorary palaeontologistdom so i can continue!)

(Production Note: Photo from Royal Tyrrell Museum Finders: A Century of Fossil Hunting in Alberta)

joseph burr tyrrell was born in 1858 in toronto canada. a bout of scarlet fever when he was young caused damage to both joe's sight and especially his hearing. he was partially deaf until the invention of proper hearing aids after WW2.

tyrrell's only formal skooling at the university level was in law, though he did enjoy the geology and metrology classes he took. entering the real world with his degree, joe quickly grew tired of law articling and sought another job. through the political influence of his father (which was key back in late 1800's canada) tyrrell landed a temporary position at the geological survey of canada.

his first job at the survey was unpacking, sorting, and cataloguing the various samples and specimens the survey's field parties collected from the still somewhat unexplored northwest territory (which at that time also included alberta and saskatchewan). among these samples were fossils. this experience of helping manage the survey's collections was tyrrell's only formal geology training.

due to his performance, and his father's intervention, joseph found his temporary position become a permanent one. for the spring and summer of 1883 tyrrell was the field assistant to george dawson (who again 9 years previous found alberta's first dinosaurs). despite problems on the trip, not getting along with dawson and being given the most tedious and boring of assignments out of the party, tyrrell gained both the skills and a passion for geologic mapping.

with the canadian effort to expand into the west, and the building of a new railway to do so, greater priority and effort was put into mapping the poorly examined west. reports of rich coal seams along the red deer river valley had made it to the geologic survey, but no formal geologic exploration or mapping had been done in the region. tyrrell was selected to head the expedition to fix this problem.

joseph had 3 years to explore a 117 000 square kilometre patch of alberta... which might sound pretty insane, but fortunately for him most of that was flat prairie without any visible rock outcrops needing mapping.

his mission was to find coal, a mission he'd succeed at quickly, but he also made another huge find. that of dinosaurs! it should just be noted this was not the purpose of his expedition, and there really isn't any evidence that tyrrell was remotely interested in dinosaurs or palaeontology.

on june. 9 1884 tyrrell made the first formal discovery of dinosaur bones in the red deer river valley (i say formal as many people had seen them before him. both european and LOTS of natives). these fossils being very fragmented and in bad shape were simple recorded, and not collected.

however on august. 11 1884 while in the vicinity of the rosebud and knee hill creeks (areas i know well from my time in drumheller) tyrrell, in the words of john accorn, "stumbled upon" the above picture skull of albertosaurus. in tyrrell's own recollection

"as i stuck my head around a point, there was this skull leering at me, sticking right out of the rock. it gave me a fright."

though this was not his intended objective, tyrrell realized his superiors back at the survey, in particular dawson, would be most pleased that such a specimen be collected. so despite not having the proper tools with which to do the job... his team had use axes and rock hammers to get the skull out of situ. they also had no means of properly packing the specimen so makeshift containers had to be fashioned from wagon boxes... he and his team did manage to pack the skull, wagon it over a week to calgary, and finally ship it back to ottawa.

this was tyrrell's only real palaeontologic exploit. he was indeed able to complete his mapping assignment by 1887. from here he had many real world adventures. tyrrell eventually settled into the gold mining profession and managed a profitable mine for many decades.

among the honours given to him were a medal of historians named after him (for his efforts in publishing the memoirs and tales of canada's early fur trading explorers). a portion of yathkyed lake in northren canada is named after him. most famously his name also was that chosen for canada's first museum of palaeontology, which opened in 1985 as the tyrrell museum, but 5 years later in recognition of its importance was given the royal appellation. forever cementing the name tyrrell with dinosaurs. even if it was just a tiny chapter of this amazing man's amazing life.

there's a great bust statue of him in the lobby of the tyrrell museum you can check out next time you're there!

this first albertosaur skull would be named many things. in 1892 edward drinker cope would claim it was an example of laelaps. later lawerence lambe would reclassify it as dryptosaurus. finally in 1905 henry fairfield osborn gave the specimen its final name of albertosaurus, the alberta lizard in honour of alberta becoming an official province of canada that same year.

so now that you know the story of both its discoverer and this first find, back to albertosaurus. since 1884 a lot more albertosaurs have been found.

including nice skulls like this one up here. as you can see it is a really heavy built skull much like those of all tyrannosaurids. however as far as tyrannosaurids go, albertosaurus is a lighter build. it is also much shorter height-wise giving albertosaurs a longer appearing snout proporationally.

one of the key characteristics on albertosaurus (and gorgosaurus) which you can see on this skull is a pronounced horn over the eye. the horn definitely wasn't heavy enough to serve as a weapon of any kind, so its function was likely for display. whether it was to scare off rivals or to attract boy/girl friends isn't for sure.

albertosaurs also had the trademark tyrannosaurid bone shattering teeth. these teeth WERE NOT steak knives... man i hate it when books say that!!!... that's what allosaurs and other carnosaurs had, blade like teeth... tyrannosaurid teeth are more like chisel or nail. they puncture the prey rather than slice it. at the same time we do have serrations on the edges to cut the flesh as we go, but this was a secondary fuction of the teeth. the main point of our teeth was to hit the bone and shatter it!

albertosaurs had less developed teeth than a tyrannosaurus rex (like most other tyrannosaurids). tyrannosaurus rex being among the last of the tyrannosaurids had evolved teeth that were reinforced against breaking on contact with prey's bones. albertosaurus lacked this adaptation which meant their teeth were fatter front to back. in tyrannosaurus rex the teeth are nearly equal in side to side thickness as with front to back which made them more durable for these puncturing attacks.

another interesting quality of albertosaurus compared to other tyrannosaurids was it had a wider muzzle (front of mouth). you can see in this picture how the front end of the upper jaw looks bigger than the back end, and that is because it was. this may have impacted on albertosaurs vision and meant they did not have proper stereoscopic vision (unlike that seemingly present in other tyrannosaurid dinosaurs).

albertosaurus' legs were among the longest compared to its overall body size. meaning not only are they pretty too look at... i'm having drooling issues looking at this pic people of the innerweb!.. but combined with their smaller body build and weight they were probably among the most capable and fast tyrannosaurid runners (apart from the way earlier primitive tyrannosaurid relatives like eotyrannus and dilong).

albertosaurus was the apex (or in other words top) predator of horseshoe canyon era alberta. evidence of it eating hadrosaurs, ceratopsian, and ankylosaurs have been found in the form of teeth marks on bones and shed teeth in fossil sites. as to whether these were hunted or scavenged plant eaters is another question. the most likely answer is that like the majority of carnivores albertosaurus would have both hunted when food was scarce and scavenged when the opportunity arose.

this is one of the few tyrannosaurids for which a fossil juvenile is actually known. a less than quarter grown albertosaur was found in 1986 at sandy point on the south saskatchewan river in southern alberta.

there is also strong proof of pack hunting in albertosaurus through a bonebed site at dry island alberta. the bones of at least 22 individuals were found at this site. dr. phil currie offers this is evidence of unified functional packs in this dinosaur.

the exact nature of these pack units is not clear, and some scepticism has arisen just how accurate an indicator this bonebed is. with new sites like one in montana containing multiple daspletosaurs, as well as other tyrannosaurs possibly at sue the tyrannosaur's site support the notion that albertosaurus was to some extent a packing operating animal.

which brings us to one of the last major points about albertosaurus. the possibilty of another species. in 1913 charles hazelius sternberg discovered a complete tyrannosaurid skeleton near modern day dinosaur provincial park which would be named gorgosaurus libratus. the name stood for years until 1970 when dr. dale russell took another look at the theropods of alberta. he came to the conclusion that gorgosaurus was virtually the same as albertosaurus, but due to its being from older time era (further in the past from our own time) it was a new species.

so between 1970 and 2003 there were two species of albertosaur. albertosaurus sarcophagus and albertosaurus libratus. however when dr. phil currie took another look at the two he came to conclusion there were enough tiny differences between the two (and he had a lot of individuals from BOTH to compare) that gorgosaurus should once again be considered its own genus, but one that was very closely related to albertosaurus.

so the two were separated... for now. had they remained together than albertosaurs would be from a lot more places than alberta! gorgosaurs have been reported from as north as alaska, and as far south as new mexico, and now possibly even mexico itself and everywhere in western north america in-between!

now i couldn't explain to you the anatomy differences dr. currie found between the two. however i do get the time difference, and just based on this i think they should be separate.

however it'll be easier to explain removed from our focus just albertosaurus so...

so there is a lot of debate these days as to exactly how many different types of tyrannosaurids there were, and which of them could be lumped together and which should be kept separate. i myself tend to like things to have drastically different names as its easier to keep track of them. for example gorgosaurus and albertosaurus makes it easier to remember than albertosaurus sarcophagus and albertosaurus libratus.

though i may not have a scientist sized brain the one thing i have to back up my stance of there needing to be more genus is the geologic time between dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. which leads us to another...

when you look at the albertosaurus basic fact pic up above you'll notice that it lived in the time era called the horseshoe formation. this was a time interval 73 - 70 million years ago. gorgosaurus on the other hand comes from the dinosaur park era between 77 - 74 million years ago. which when you look at my handy picture below explains why i think their fine to be seperate genus...

notice how all but one of these alberta tyrannosaurids have nice clear cut existences of roughly 3 - 4 million years. when they disappear their replaced by a closely related genera immediately after (ie. gorgosaur gives way to albertosaur).

sure my criteria isn't purely sciencey based, but it makes a lot of sense. in the end what scientists base fossil species and genus on is open to a lot interpretation. why not make it a little more clear cut. when you find an animal of a certain 'rough' type in one time interval why not give it a DIFFERENT name to denote this difference in existence.

lots of mistakes have occurred in non-PHD writings about dinosaurs because the difference in species is not clear and/or easy for the average person to keep track of.

a clear example you can see in my picture is daspletosaurus. especially given at moment there is only one formally described species. yet it lived across most of western north america over 7 million years... i think thats a bit silly. espeically with what the example of albertosaurus and gorgosaurus in mind.

at the same time there is talk of new species being assigned which should fix the problem a bit. i personal would advocate for a few new genus to be made so that its easy for EVERYONE not just scientists to keep track of when, where, and what these animals were.

than again i'm only one tiny, small brained, exiled tyrannosaur. what do i know...

THE BIG DATE!!!

i can't believe it people of the innerweb... really i can't.

today was the big day of the my actual date with lillian the albertosaur!...

the only thing is it really didn't go quite according to how i imagined it...

at least it wasn't a disaster like my first attempt at courting her back in drumheller!

the problem is despite all the planning and imagining i'd done on how to make this first date with lillian perfect, there was one problem (well and many smaller ones too... who knew translating dream into reality would be so hard!)... whatever professor paradigm did to me during that "check up" yesterday (i'm thinking the magic test!) it made me tired as...

i crashed the instant i got back into my hotel, and slept in till just before i was supposed to meet up with lillian!!!

i barely had time to comb my teeth and brush my scales! worst of all i had no time to prep or gather up any of the stuff for my perfect date...

while i scurried around trying to get ready, and simply NOT be late... across town, melbourne australia was getting quite a shock. a full grown albertosaurus wandering down the street. though not as impressive as say my cousin larry walking down the road, lillian still isn't something to blink at. being 9 meters long and weighing over a ton lillian was not something the average car wanted to run into!

that and the average aussie (much like the kiwis) had never dreamed of seeing a live breathing tyrannosaurid wandering down the street! there were a lot of traffic reports on the radio about anywhere lillian passed through this afternoon...

at least unlike larry, lillian was fully aware of traffic rules (like stop signs and red lights) so technically none of the accidents that happened around her were actually her fault...

not that that did much to make the melbourn(ians?) any happier with us tyrannosaurids...

in the end i was able to make it to our meeting spot in front of the museum with in the end 6 minutes and 13 seconds to spare... but whose counting? (okay i can't LIE to you people of the innerweb! i was counting!!!)... before lillian showed up.

the single moment of my life i'd dreamt of the most was finally here... and man it was over quick! seriously people of the web wide world... you picture and imagine it so much that you think the moment will last equally long as your wait for it, and instead. ZIP its gone in a flash...

like that i was in the presence of the girl of my dreams, and rather than the smart cool line i'd imagined saying (i couldn't tell you what the exact quote is... stupid fake cool factor of the imagination leading me to think those lines are easy to come up with on the fly!) i instead said. "hello."

fortunately lillian didn't seem to mind or notice, and returned the greeting in her very elegant, but yet usual cold manner. that's the thing with big star dinosaurs, they're usually ridiculously guarded as they don't want anyone else (as in dinosaur) to find a way to scoop away their position in the human world. so their usually pretty gruff and unapproachable. thus making lillian a tricky one to read.

lillian asked if i had anything in mind for the day... i told her the truth about how i was going to come up with the perfect day, but the professor's magic test had put me to sleep all night.

"magic, i see," she regarded me oddly. "and this was going to be the source of a 'perfect day'," lillian stated back slightly sarcastically.

oh man. females are tough... which i mean in a real sense people of the innerweb. in tyrannosaurids it is the women who are the tough macho types.

also have to remember that maybe when it comes to screwing up a date, don't tell the truth about how you mucked up your plans. rather lie, and pretend you know what you're doing presenting it as a surprise. than you'll look pro. or at least so i figure now after the fact.

i suggested we wander the city in place of my non-plan. neither of us had had much of an explore of melbourne and today seemed like as good a day as any.

the melbourne museum is surrounded by the carlton gardens. which is a pretty nice place. especially when you're strolling down it with the most pretty archosaur in the world...

during this walk we had a quick catch up about our lives since last we saw each other at the tyrrell... mercifully lillian avoided the subject of my awkward courtship attempt.

my story you already know people of the innerweb through this blog of course...

lillian's went something like this.

about 6 months after i was fired, she was too. though the tyrrell museum claimed it was because they were going in a different direction with their displays, in reality it was due to the pack of the primordial feather's interference. the only proof you need is that lillian was simply replaced with a bunch of different albertosaurs... not even a different type of tyrannosaurid! these albertosaurs were pack affiliated ones though... which was the point.

lillian was thus exiled much like i had been, but unlike me she had much further to fall. i'd been the lowest dinosaur on the museum's totem pole (come to think of it why wasn't i squished?). lillian had been the jewel of the crown. for her being ejected from the museum was much harder. especially given the competitive nature of the other dinosaurs in town. they all hated her due to her former success, and the pack went out of its way to make things more difficult for her.

lillian bounced from dead end museum gig to desperate theme park appearance all across north america, only to be told shortly after starting her services were "no longer needed". they claimed it was due to her lack of popularity, but seriously an albertosaurus' nearly identical appearance to a t-rex is the most sellable dinosaur you can get. it was the pack following up on their vendetta with her, and following her place to place ruining it for lillian everytime.

just about a year ago lillian was approached by a museum related company called annex co. that was putting together a travelling dinosaur show. it was too good to pass up. not only was she to be the star, but lillian was given a more than competitive contract, and more importantly guaranteed protection from the pack. lillian thought it was a little funny how these people knew about the pack. they also knew her full background, and as she'd never sent them a resume or approached them at all this was strange. still she was desperate at that point. no one would go near her out of fear of the pack exhorting its influence, she had to take the job.

it was at this point as we grew close to the end of the garden that lillian turned to me earnestly. "you traumador," she seemed to address me as mere former co-worker... not potential mate... bummer. "there is much talk amongst the dinosaurs of the world of your confrontation with the pack. tell me more about this."

i'd already told her the story. what more did she want to know?

"you actually told your cousin larry no to the pack's invitation. is that seriously true?" lillian asked.

"well, yeah," i answered unsure of what the right answer was. why would i tell her that if it weren't true.

"amazing," she sounded really really impressed. a good thing on the date so far?... i seriously don't know people of the innerweb. this whole dating thing is new to me. anyone want to let me know if i did the right thing today...

"why's that?" i asked confused. "didn't you tell them you didn't want to join too?"

lillian eyed me deeply from high above me... like a saurian angel. well okay from my vantage... from her point of view apparently she was absorbing my naivety. "no-one tells the pack no," lillian informed me sincerely. "at least until you."

"what? that makes no senses. you're not a member too aren't you?" i wondered out loud.

"it is true what they used to say about you at the tyrrell. you never were the most associated in the bonebed," that's a dinosaur way of saying i wasn't very smart. lillian was sounding more and more like a tyrannosaurid. insulting and mean... i grew sad for a moment.

"no traumador," she addressed my question. "technically i am a member of the pack."

"what?... you are?... that doesn't make any?..." i spurted out loud. how could lillian, the very essence of hotness in my meagre little existence, be part of larry's little coelurosaur only club?!?

"i joined when they first approached me on my 4th birthday. i thought it would get them to stop bothering me. at first it seemed being a member of the pack was a fancy title only," lillian reflected. "than suddenly they came to me wanting me to do things for them."

"like what?" i wanted to know. the pack's motives and purpose were a complete mystery to me...

"nothing to serious. just for me to use my position and clout with the tyrrell to pressure it into hiring more coelurosaurs. when i refused to help them a few times they stopped asking me. i get the impression they would have asked me to do more, but i wasn't 'enough with the cause'. whatever that meant. so they instead worked on cultivating their own influence in drumheller with which to pressure me into cooperating with the pack," lillian answered.

"larry told me that i was fired due to his efforts to get at you," i said aloud trying to connect what lillian was saying with what i already knew.

"that makes sense," lillian pondered for a moment. "the pack doesn't have any actual power within the museum. they just negotiated with the tyrrell's executive."

"members of the pack aren't allowed to find their own postings and jobs. the pack handles all of that, and thus museum's have to approach teresa and her matriarchs to try and work out coelurosaurs for their displays," lillian informed me. "the tyrrell, being in alberta [former home to many tyrannosaurids in the cretaceous], wanted to try and get more tyrannosaurids to attract more visitors. however the pack wouldn't negotiate with them so long as 'the non member tyrannosaur' was allowed to work at the museum."

even with my brain the size of a peanut i saw what had happened. due to the pack's poor wording. "the museum's executive obviously thought that was you, and let you go. teresa was furious to say the least, but there was nothing that could be done. you disappeared almost immediately, and there was no way to contact you. the museum would have given you back your job."

WHAT?!? i could have gotten my job back at the tyrrell!!! why did i have to learn this... sure i probably would have lost it shortly after i refused the packs offer had i still been there (if i'd refused come to think of it... i've seen enough sci-fi movies to know that changing something like that in the past would change everything else!), but i could have avoided that whole period of pain after my being fired.

than it occurred to me. i'd disappeared trying to find the 65th million block in BC (british columbia for the record). while in vancouver i'd run into larry. why didn't he redirect me back to the tyrrell if it was in the pack's interest?

lillian told me as though i was a hatchling. "this is larry we're talking about, traumador. it's not exactly a secret he doesn't like you. he probably was hoping you'd stay gone..."

"than why did he visit me a year later," i asked as though lillian would know. she was right. larry didn't like me. his visiting me was way out of character, what with his trying to be nice and not be a JERK!

"traumador, larry is a male like you. neither of you could be in charge of the pack even if you wanted. his mate teresa is both his true master and the pack's," she rebuked slightly annoyed at my question. "she wished you in the pack, and thus she sent emissary she could trust. who more trust worthy than the father of her offspring. the bonus being he has a close connection to you."

"as for me," lillian carried on, though to be honest i hadn't asked her to talk about herself yet. i wonder why she did that? "the pack came back after your termination and offered the museum a troupe of lesser known albertosaurs to replace me. the museum's executive jumped on it when the pack offered the four for only a slight increase in my pay. with the various movie exploits of the tyrannosaurs and raptors of their ranks, the pack has no shortage of resources."

this long kinda heavy discussion led us both to be a little thirsty. so we took a quick stop at a nearby pond to rehydrate. hydration is key after all!

while lillian continued to drink after me, i after all being 1/10th her size didn't need anywhere near as much water, i gazed upon her beauty. i mean just look at the picture people of the web wide world. SO hot!!!

however i had worries. despite how well this interaction with lillian was going compared to those i'd had with her at the tyrrell, it wasn't what i'd hoped for.

than again i'd never been on a date before, nor had i liked any theropod but lillian. how was i supposed to know what to expect.

i just couldn't help but feel lillian still thought she was better than me. in more ways than one.

she constantly was pointing out how much smarter than me she was, and would correct or scold me when i made one of my trademark errors in logic. also lillian wouldn't stop with pot shots at my size, and the things she could do with her larger height, weight, and strength that i couldn't.

it was a real downer... i'd hoped out of all the other dinosaurs out there lillian would understand me... not because i have a killer crush on her... but because me and her have so much in common. we're both exiled and hated by our own kind. we both lost the only home we'd ever known, and the same former home to boot! we both have had to fend for ourselves in the tough human world, living in the shadows of proper tyrannosaurus rexs...

yet it didn't feel like we connected on any level the entire day. that is till just before we departed.

we'd made it to the harbour front, and had a glorious view of the cityscape. despite what i'd imagine to be a very romantic setting, lillian was clearly getting bored and would wander away to look at things by herself. i was losing hope...

just as she was going to go off on her own again, i sighed a loud. "i guess i should think about something to eat."

suddenly lillian perked up a bit, and turned towards me. "what do you have in mind?"

wait what? she wanted me to suggest something for dinner... together?!?

i'd meant food for just me, since i figured she wanted to call it a da(te...)y. instead she thought i meant food for both of us.

i'd given up hope however, and didn't think i could salvage anything from today. lillian the albertosaur, the apple of my eye for some many years, only thought of me as someone she used to vaguely know from a time long gone...

"oh i don't know i guess we could get a cow or sheep," i half heartedly suggested. i was fighting off crying in front of her.

"really?" lillian responded in disgust. causing me to snap out of my self pity. "you seriously eat live animals like the other savages in the pack?" she asked.

"no," i responded honestly. "i just meant stopping by a butcher shop or grocery store. how could a little thing like me take on a goat, that alone a cow? i'd have no idea how to hunt something if my life depended on it."

"me neither!" lillian exclaimed excitedly. "i received no end of grief from both other theropods about my not killing my food. even some in the tourism department at the tyrrell wished i'd take up hunting so they could have public showings of me eating..."

"ew," i responded. "don't get me wrong a carnosaurs got to eat and all, but to kill something like that yourself. it just perpetuates the tyrannosaur stereotype."

lillian was intrigued as to what i meant by the tyrannosaur stereotype. i explained to her my theory on how we tyrannosaurs, though perfectly evolved to be killing machines, have to adapt to our new reality 65 million years later in the modern world and move beyond our killing past. otherwise the humans will constantly fear us, and as of such never accept us as equals and worse keep us contained within confined realms like museums and theme parks.

lillian was really impressed. "you honestly thought of this yourself?" she voiced her last bits of doubt.

"yeah," i said modestly. i was expecting some harsh come back, and a jeer about how i was wrong and how much smarter she was than me.

"i'd never thought of our problems that way before," she digested what i'd said. "do you think about such things often?"

"well, come to think of it. hey, pun intended!" i joked off my own wording. lillian giggled at my bad pun (well okay growled... we dinosaurs don't really laugh naturally). "i do think about human dinosaur relations a lot. i just really wish we could all get alone better, and that we dinosaurs could be given a chance to prove ourselves in this new world!"

"i'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the subject," lillian insisted.

what you know people of the web wide world. a date that looked like it was about to crash and burn any moment ended up going several more hours. in the end we ordered a lot of chicken wings... a LOT of chicken wings... to be delivered to us there at the harbour front. lillian hunkered right in, and we talked till both of us had to go...

it turns out lillian isn't such a typical tyrannosaurid afterall. her constant exposure and interaction with humans in the tyrrell had given her new insights on the tiny mammals that none of our other carnivorous relatives had had. a large part of her resistance to the pack was the sense she got that the coelurosaurs regarded humanity with hatred and loathing.

not that lillian didn't have her qualms with them (i know that honestly i do too), but she didn't see her being stuck in a museum as them oppressing us. rather it was the circumstances that caused this arrangement. our time on this world was supposed to have ended millions of years ago, but some unknown mechanism allowed a few of us to make it into the present as "vivus-fossils" to intrude into the human world. what were they to do? we couldn't be given the world back for any number of reasons. some right and many wrong, but still it couldn't be done. where else to put us but with the rest of the past...

lillian confessed to me that she'd always struggled with her affinity to humans. all the other tyrannosaurids of the world had mocked her for her weakness when it came to people. even the herbivorous dinosaurs taunted her prowess due to her lack of visible aggression (something the plant eaters expected a scary theropod to show). every now and than she had pondered abandoning her yearning to coexist with humans and give into the tyrannosaur stereotype. she'd wondered if perhaps she were insane or defective due to no other dinosaur sharing her viewpoint... that was till today.

"you give me hope traumador," she eagerly informed me in the middle of our heart to heart. "i am not alone in feeling this way. i feel i have someone else i can confide in."

she found my take on dinosaur to dinosaur interaction refreshingly similar to her own. not that i was as ground breaking here. she'd come to the conclusion long before i hatched that we surviving dinosaurs were a competitive lot.

it was midway through this conversation that we realized is was going into the evening and that we both should depart. however lillian insisted we met again tomorrow evening for another "get together", and continue our conversation than.

as a conclusion she noozled the top of head. the tyrannosaurid equivalent of a kiss on the cheek!!!

can believe that people of the innerweb?!?

not only did i have a date with lillian the albertosaur, but i have a second date with lillian the albertosaur!!! i think i'm going to pass out thinking about it!