fossil of the weekend! #31

a cast skeleton of pteranodon from the auckland war memorial museum.

in honour of the brand new pterosaur art gallery at ART Evolved. go check it out!

SURPRISING fossil hall (melbourne part 3)

it was time for ms. rhonwyn's surprise... which meant two awesome things.

first i finally got to check out the melbourne museum's fossil hall which based on some of the previews and build up was sure to be a treat after an otherwise great museum.

second i was finally going to find out what the BIG surprise my boss had gotten for me. though she hadn't said it, i expect it to be a little reward for my pulling off the museum quest. again this was just my thinking (which due to lack of grey matter has been known to be faulty) and not based on anything, but what else could it be?

wandering into the entrance to the fossil hall i was greeted by a very impressive display. three aussie pliocene residents. the GIANT monitor lizard megalania, the flightless ratite genyornis, and (just out of the photo) the big mammal diprotodon.

i really like the huge monitor lizard megalania, but to be fair i just kind of have a soft spot for them varanids...

than came the main event (at least as far as i was concerned!) the dinosaur hall.

their first dinosaur was (somehow... though i'm not sure why i feel this way) appropriately from alberta. it was a partial hadrosaur, but as it was the complete rear end of one there was no way of knowing what type. which is no doubt why they were able to secure it for their museum, as we have more than enough miscellaneous duckbills cluttering up our collections and storage areas in alberta!

from here you end up entering the main hall which is where the mounts are...

of course sitting at the base of the dinosaur skeleton area was none other than my boss ms. rhonwyn. she had a wicked mischievous smile on, and looked like she'd been waiting eagerly for my arrival.

"typical. you come right when," ms. rhonwyn said mock disappointed. she paused on the when clearly thinking of wording that wouldn't give anything away. "your surprise wanders off."

well that already was a surprise. my surprise could wander... what was it? i was expecting a present of some kind. this sure didn't sound like the average present to me...

"oh well. this way you can enjoy the dinosaurs while i go track, your surprise, down," ms. rhonwyn picked herself up off the bench. "hopefully will only be a couple of minutes." just like that ms. rhonwyn was off again.

the suspense caused me to stand and wait for several minutes. had i a bigger brain maybe i would have wasted the chance to check out what was bound to be my favourite part of the museum. fortunately with my goldfish length attention span i got bored waiting, and started to explore the hall around me. man was it worth it!

immediately my attention came to the magnificent skeleton of my very closely related asian cousin tarbosaurus. it had been a long time since i'd seen a tyrannosaurid skeleton in person. unlike the living ones which i don't get along very well with... on account of their being everything from mean to just pure JERKS!... i find the skeletons tend to agree with me more, and not say mean things to or about me.

the only problem with not having seen a skeleton in a long time was it instantly reminded me of the one t-rex skeleton i used to spend a lot of time with... my mommy... i missed her heaps. it was getting close to two years since i'd been fired from the tyrrell and last seen her...

to help take my mind off my mother i focused on the other dinosaurs in the hall.

there was a major asia, and in particular china/mongolia, theme going on. tsintaosaurus and mamenchisaurus are of course two other really famous eastern dinosaurs.

mamenchisaurus i'd already seen a skeleton of in vancouver.

tsintaosaur was a first for me, but sadly a diminished let down first... the museum had made a key mistake of not updating their mount.

(Production Note: Skeleton by Gregory Paul)

when tsintaosaur was originally found it had a weird bizarre unicorn style horn/crest on its head, but this was odd and unique for a hadrosaur crest. many scientists couldn't believe that such a thin spike could occur naturally on a duck bill.

as there was only a single tsintaosaur skull known for a long time, there was only a single reference for this dinosaur. based on this lack of material a few palaeontologists looking at this weird crest came to the conclusion that it must have been a broken piece of skull bone that bent up in a weird way after the animal's death.

obviously this theory was put forward at around the same time that melbourne was having the mount made. the result being the melbourne tsintaosaur doesn't have its horn like crest, and the sign states as a fact that it was simply a broken bone looking like head ornamentation.

embarrassingly for them (now anyway with me looking at it) a second skull was found somewhat recently that also funny enough had the horn like crest. meaning that in reality this hadrosaur had a funny long pipe of bone sticking out of its forehead!

now i'm not saying it is bad for scientists to come up with new ideas, and re look at oddities in the fossil record and not take them at face value. just if you're going to do that make sure that if you're a museum don't state in your signage that this theory is fact, and/or than leave it in after its been disproved.

because the sign i'm looking at states the broken skull bone thing as non questionable, and though it explains their tsintaosaur's skull lack of crest, it is kinda silly in face of two tsintaosaur heads with the horn now.

a simple re-do on the text of the sign telling this story of science would make the problem go away, and turn it into an awesome lesson in how science is always trying to best examine the world around us!

finishing off the asian skeletons was a gallimimus. though is it just me people of the web wide world or is this ostrich mimic's neck look too short to you?

ruining the asia theme (not sure why there's plenty of dromaeosaurs from asia!) was a deinonychus. though it may have thrown off the theme, i still appreciated it as embarrassing as it sounds people of the innerweb... i'd never seen a deinonychus skeleton before!!! it as impressive as all the books and movies are saying.

those were just the centre piece skeletons. some of the real treasures of the melbourne museum were in the cases and cabinets surrounding the mounts.

australia has a nice selection of ammonites for example. i knew they had some. no idea this many (and these were just the museum quality ones in their collections!!!).

also lots of other water critters like fishys, crabs, , and other water invertebrates. in fact looking at this case i realized that the melbourne museum was home base to Dr. John Long one of my all time favourite palaeontologists! he writes awesome books most of which i owe or am in the processing of ordering. it was from his book that i got so much info on new zealand's dinosaurs. too bad i couldn't have arranged to meet him...

they also had a nice icythosaur cast (i think from europe, but i misplaced the pic of the sign i took)

***and a scary synapsid skull. i think dimetrodon (again i misplaced... or embarrassingly never took... the pic of the sign)***

CORRECTION thanks to Dr. Adam Yates of Dracoventor i've been corrected. this is an eotitanosuchus from russia

the coolest section was this small kinda hidden away wall display. probably 50% of the museum's visitors never appreciated the significance of this little corner. in here was a huge selection of southern australia's mesozoic fossils!!!

now i'm intending on doing a big palaeo FACT! post about these critters, so don't be too upset if i breeze through them now. i'm just not with my Dr. Long books right now, and i kinda want to tell you about ms. rhonwyn's surprise right now, and palaeo FACTs would slow this post down.

here's a preview of what i'll be sharing with you later on though people of the innerweb.

this is one of the coolest right here. the jaw of koolasuchus the giant crocodile sized amphibian of australia's cretaceous. i've been a huge fan of these since the spirits of the ice forest episode of walking with dinosaurs.

right here were the ACTUAL fossil bones of leaellynasaura the antarctic hypsilophodont.

to help you out visualize what these bones look like articulated (that's fancy science talk for bones together as they went in the living animal) there was a nice cast skeleton to the side for reference.

i've seen hypsilophodonts before, but never one this famous or cool. again i'm planning a whole palaeo FACT on these guys later, but they were amazing. they were a dinosaur that actually survived in sub zero temperatures!

anyways rounding out the whole hall hovering by the ceiling of the far end was a model pteranodon. after having seen my first skeleton of these guys just a few weeks ago in auckland it was nice to see a model one of these guys (even if i'd seen a ton of them before).

so as you can see it was a really cool fossil hall. i'd do more palaeo FACTs in this post, but i was a little rushed in checking out the place, and had to take pictures of the signs to read later. cause remember how this exploring started with ms. rhonwyn running off to "find" my surprise.

well she did, and let me tell you i was SURPRISED!!!

from behind me as i started to look at (hence no pictures of them... which is fine their boring anyways) the prehistoric mammals came ms. rhonwyn's voice. "traumador there's someone i'd like to 'introduce' you too," the way she said introduce so mockingly had me very curious as i turned around.

there stood ms. rhonwyn trying to keep a straight face. "traumador the tyrannosaur i'd like you to meet..." she pointed her hand to the giant figure standing behind her...

"lillian the albertosaur!!!" she said as a big grin broke through her attempt at seriousness. "or have you met already?" ms. rhonwyn winked at me...

i could feel my jaw drop to the floor (or at least my chest cause my jaw actually hit something!). i seriously could not imagine this as my surprise... that alone ever happening...

well okay that was a lie because i of course just a little while ago did imagine running into lillian again.

its just i've learned the hard way through life these last two years since my down fall at the tyrrell that there are NO second chances...

yet here was one standing right in front of me... people of the web wide world what does one do in these sorts of situations?!?

to be continued!

a proper fossil hall (the last museum part 4)

Location: Auckland War Memoiral Museum

Gallery: Natural History

having finished off new zealand's modern natural history on the second floor of auckland's ginormous museum, i came across the most wonderful surprise as a conclusion to the natural history section...

it started with a nice moa display. again nice, but if you want the best in the country you'll have to come see ours at the otago museum. having now seen every major museum in new zealand's moa display you'd have to combine any of 3 of them to get as many moas as we have (with the exception of auckland and te papa, if you combined just these two you'd match us).

though in a seperate case was a mounted skeleton of Dinornis giganteus the largest species of moa that we know of. that was cooler than any of our singular moas at the otago... though we still beat them overall on numbers and variety, but we don't have a Dinornis.

they also in this display had a bust of sir richard owen, the guy who not only described moas but us dinosaurs.


so this made it into my top 10 individual displays of new zealand.

adding to the amazing factor of auckland was a fully restored model of Dinornis just around the corner! look at how tall it is compared to that child in the background.

than came the fossils, and i have to say (as you'll see people of the innerweb) this was new zealand's best display on the prehistoric past.

we started off with a bunch of palaeozioc era critters. my favourite among these were the placoderm or armoured fish. a few of them were from new zealand...

there was also a cast of new zealand's biggest ammonite. i'd seen this is already at the museum of caves in waitomo, but it was cool to see it in a big fossil gallery like auckland's.

speaking of auckland's big fossil gallery, it definately was the best in new zealand. part of the reason though is that they took a different approach to filling it than the other museums in new zealand (apart from christchurch's canterbury museum) which was to get specimens and casts of prehistoric critters from elsewhere in the world.

i can't say i blame them, the reason te papa doesn't really make an impact for its fossils, where it is an AMAZING museum for everything else, is that due to its only displaying new zealand material it doesn't have much to display in the line of fossils (due to NZs very volcanic history).

the coolest was the cast skeleton of a pteranodon. i'd never actually seen the skeleton of one before.

in fact come to think of it... this was the first mounted pterosaur skeleton i'd ever seen! most places like the tyrrell and te papa have fleshed out restorations and i've seen tons of those... but most places i just realized don't do skeletons for some reason... must be because they don't perserve that often and their so fragile...

than came probably my favourite display of the whole trip, and it couldn't have been better timed than here at the (hopeful) end of my quest. a case with a cast of every single dinosaur bone of new zealand (well okay minus the cathlam island theropod, and the brand new titanosaur).

don't get me wrong. i still love te papa's similar display in their geology hall. at the same time it doesn't quite do the same trick. though their's displays only real bones (and thus only the dinosaurs in the te papa collection) this is only about half of new zealand's dinosaurs. further more te papa also added pterosaurs and marine reptiles to the display case thus adding confusion to these reptiles NOT being dinosaurs!

auckland's case of nothing but dinosaur bones was cool because with a simple glance you knew what you were getting, and that it was complete (except of course the titanosaur as its brand new to science this month! or the cathlam island theropod due to its being across the "ditch" in australia). at the same time it was sad just due to new zealand having so few dinosaurs that they'd all fit in a case the size of a dresser draw.

due to the time crunch of trying to finish the museum quest people of the innerweb i won't be palaeo FACTing about the rest of new zealand's dinosaurs today... however stay tuned as i'll putting together this follow up post SOON!

there was a small selection of complete dinosaur skeletons borrowed from elsewhere in the world. i noticed how all of them were at least similar to some of new zealand's known dinosaurs.

a dryosaur from america was a great reference to get an idea of what the kiwi hypsilophodontid would look like.

a malawisaur titanonsaur is a good generic cretaceous saurpod which either of new zealand's two known saurpods could have resembled (Palaeo FACTs for one of them here and the other here).

i suspect the cryolophosaurus of the early jurassic was picked more because it was from the close to new zealand continent of antarctica, rather than it's being a likely model for the few known kiwi theropods (Palaeo FACT here). as new zealand's dinosaurs are all cretaceous, other than a single small theropod (getting FACTed soon!), there is very little chance they were much like the primitive cryolophosaurus especially with its very unique head dress.

all these dinosaurs were ubber awesome to see as i'd never gotten the chance to see them in canada. typically in my neck of the woods back there we only get north american and chinese cretaceous dinos. the cryolophosaur in particular was really cool to see as dr. phil currie of the tyrrell helped complete excavate it in my birth year of 2003 (him telling everyone at the museum this story of adventures is one of my foundest memories from my childhood!).

they also had a nice cast of te papa's prognathodon overtoni mosasaur.

though continuing the trend of the dinosaurs for every new zealand partially complete specimen they had here at auckland, they had a nice complete cast skeleton of a similar creature from elsewhere in the world.

hanging from the roof for comparison a nice mosasaur skeleton (though i was a little annouyed they didn't say what exact type other than it was from kansas... like that's a big help narrowing down mosasaurs! half of known types are found in kansas for crying out loud!!!).

they also had a lovely cast of... you guessed it... te papa's tuarangisaurus keysi elasmosaur.

though they didn't have a fully mounted pleisosaur skeleton to compare to, they made up for it with not one cast of an in situ (that's fancy sciency talk for a fossil in the ground as we found it) plesiosaur...

but two of them!

they also had a cast of a mega huge paddle of a pliosaur (a type of short necked plesiosaur)... sadly it too was not labelled properly in the display, but i'm guessing probably an australian kronosaurus or maybe liopleurodon.

you'll also note the tiny little cute ichthyosaur above the paddle...

they had a REALLY nice partial skull and jaw of a kiwi ichthyosaur.

plus another cast in situ skeleton (the second being that one above the paddle mentioned a second ago...)

concluding the fossil hall was a really cool display on the process of fossilization, and kinda uniquely strata. these days science gets 80% of the key information about a prehistoric creature from the rocks that it is found in. this display in auckland did a great job of illustrating how these layers help us tell the story of life on earth... i've never seen a display quite like it, but i recommend it for all museums!

wrapping up the second floor meant i only had the first floor to do before my clean sweep of auckland was done. the baskets still hadn't reacted to anything, but that was okay. the first floor housed the most likely to jive with the kete. it was the maori hall...

next the last gallery of the quest...

Te Papa: geology hall

Location: Te Papa Museum

Gallery: Geology

well after wandering te papa for nearly 5 hours, going through its maze like layout multiple times, i FINALLY found the hall i was most interested in seeing... the geology hall.

as though to mock me for not finding it... exhausted from my DAY long wandering the botanic garden, the beehive, city and sea museum, and than finally checking out all of te papa... i enter the geo hall a little on the tired side to be confronted by this giant maori statue.

don't get me wrong he's cool, and drives home the maori people's respect and recognition of the geologic forces of new zealand. at the same time when you consider the things i've seen and run into during this museum quest you can understand why i wasn't happy to run into this guy RIGHT inside the entrance!

i of course thought it was real and nearly passed out... fortunately he didn't move or turn out to be alive... still not a fun intro to the place. especially after i spent so long looking for it!!!
the highlight of this hall was of course the mesozoic new zealand display case. i've already posted about the dinosaurs within, and explained this pterosaur model. i just included a few new pics because it is such a nice pterosaur sculpt and i figured i put the dinosaur display in context for you people of the innerweb if you visit te papa. that way when you visit you don't spend all day looking for the display too!!!

again i just liked this statue of new zealand's probable anhanguerid i snapped a few photos of it!

a lovely nearly completely complete prognathodon overtoni skull.

cool as, but thinking about him alive makes me scared to go swimming!

another awesome specimen is a complete skull of tuarangisaurus keysi, an elasmosaur unique to new zealand (again they may not have a lot of dinosaurs down here but they've got TONS of marine reptiles!).

both the prognathodon and this tuarangisaurus are from the late cretaceous though we're not sure if from the campanian or maastrichtian.

i'm not PALAEO facting about these two at moment because i've got a HUGE one coming about all of new zealand's marine reptiles coming in relation to events that happened after the museum quest...

new zealand as i've been seeing throughout the museum quest has tons of ammonite fossils. te papa had a great sampling of these, plus a modern nautilus to compare them too.

they also had a cast of new zealand's largest ammonite. i'd see the real fossil soon...

of course the display of ancient new zealand won't be complete without a moa skeleton. this was one of the smaller known moa species.


they also have in this hall yet another amazing moa statue (the others being in the blood earth fire gallery) in here. with all the moa-ness in the te papa i was beginning to wonder if they beat us at the otago for the most moa-tastic museum of new zealand.

you'll also note the haast eagle attacking this poor moa. that new zealand was the world's largest known bird of prey. it was flying the kiwi skies until just a few hundred years ago... kinda makes me realize moving here to new zealand (the land of birds) due to its lack of dinosaurs may not have been such good reasoning. granted i'm thinking outside the cube here people of the innerweb...

than came a display case which brought home the fact i'd been lallygagging around the te papa all afternoon... turning around there was a tuatara. now don't get me wrong people of the innerweb. i think these fellow survivors of the mesozoic are cool...

however as in maori mythology and legend these reptiles are the messangers of whiro in the mortal world i could have been in trouble. i think part of the reason whiro was able to track me down on the south island was due to the tuataras in invercargill... here i was right in front of this one. flax baskets in pocket...

i needed to hit the road, and quick. whiro would no doubt figure out a way to get to the north island sooner or later... i was sadly willing to put money on later.