fossil of the weekend! #55

a giant elasmosaurus at the american museum of natural history. (photo kindly provided by my talent agent peter bond and lillian the albertosaur).

fossil of the weekend! #51

oops! just caught that i owe you one fossil of the weekend from last week... sorry about that.

here is a rather nice head on shot of styracosaurus (dug up by barnum brown during the great canadian dinosaur rush, from alberta) from the american museum of natural history. (photo kindly provided by my talent agent peter bond and lillian the albertosaur).

fossil of the weekend! #50... a centrosaur whammy!

in celebration of my meeting up with my old childhood friend norman a. centrosaur, i'm hitting you with a centrosaurtastic fossil of the weekend.

this also times rather well with my 50th installment of this feature on the blog (though i know i should really be making a bigger deal out of the 52nd, and it represents the one year mark...), but it also because i have used some of the pics before elsewhere on the blog. so it feels like cheating to claim they are the fossil of the weekend...

of course the real joke about centrosaur fossils in alberta, is that despite their insane abundance in dinosaur provincial park, they are very hard to find on display!

the tyrrell has this one and...

this one here. of course both are representing dead animals in this display. not exactly lending to the festive feeling i'm aiming for... especially since i really like norman!

sadly due to the renovations, the tyrrell removed a couple free standing centrosaur skulls they had on display. though i know of another spot in alberta you can see them...

as for this particular i state for the record i think it is a cast of the last centrosaur in this post, but i haven't been able to confirm it. take a close look and let me know what you think...

there are (or at least were... come to think of it) a couple free standing centrosaur skulls at the university of alberta in edmonton when i was younger (and of course didn't own a camera). however i suspect the skull of a centrosaur on display at the melbourne museum in australia is a cast of one of these skulls.

the only photo of a complete (undead, uh no wait, undead undead centrosaur) centrosaur i have is this one from the american museum of natural history (photo kindly provided by my talent agent peter bond and lillian the albertosaur).

fossil of the weekend! #45

an Allosaurus fragilis skeleton, mounted at the american museum of natural history in new york. (photo courtesy of my talent agent peter bond and lillian the albertosaur)

fossil of the weekend! #37

the amazing cast skeleton of the giant sauropod barosaurus at the american museum of natural history in new york. (photo courtesy of my talent agent peter bond and lillian the albertosaur)

one of the greatest dinosaur halls ever! (new york part 3)

well today was a huge day... though not for me.

for who you might ask? and why would i bother telling you about someone else's big day?

well partially because i am funding their whole effort, and their two very important beings to me (one dinosaur and the other human) i thought it'd be worth mentioning.

after talking to peter bond and eee-mailing lillian the albertosaur, i was getting kind of anxious about them getting to their goal of the american museum of natural history in new york city.

well as of this morning, i can stop worrying. peter gave me a call telling me they'd arrived safe and sound...

more to the point, they were in the perfect spot for lillian to trying and work her way back up to stardom.

not that the american museum of natural history (AMNH from here on in... man that is a lot of typing in the long version!) is an easy place for a dinosaur to stand out in! the place has many many of them, and their some of the most spectacular specimens and exhibits in the world!

right away when you first step in the door you are greeted by the colossal mount of a barosaurus rearing into the air defending its young from a marauding allosaurus.

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lillian joked that she is glad that our kind (the tyrannosauids) didn't really have to hunt prey of this magnitude.

of course the prime attraction for dinosaur fans are the TWO dinosaur halls... which as impressive as they are, only make up a tiny part of the HUGE whole of the AMNH. as peter and lillian only gave me pics of the dino hall that's all your going to see here today. if you go to visit the AMNH expect to see a LOT more than just this though!

you'll not the lovely apatosaurus (or brontosaurus... i personally like brontosaurus more, but that's the bakker fanatic in my talking) skeleton mount behind lillian and peter. sadly this is the only good photo of it they sent me. apparently it is so big it's hard to photograph.

peter's plan was for lillian to have a similar role here in the AMNH's dinosaur halls to the one she used to have at the royal tyrrell. she'd be the vivus-dinosaur making the rounds so that people could see a living dinosaur. not a common thing at most museums.

the best part being that the AMNH doesn't currently have a resident dinosaur for lillian to have to compete with!

while lillian was breaking into this new role, a very pleased peter (than again when isn't he pleased come to think of it?) wandered the hall and took some pictures of the residents to show me.

man oh man, it is like my dinosaurs of alberta post on display! sooooo cool.

a big part of why alberta's dinosaurs are so iconic and famous is their being on display in this musuem for almost a hundred years (some have been here 98 years!!! since they were first found in the great canadian dinosaur rush...).

so first off the dinosaur beside peter in the picture above is barnum brown's rather lovely styracosaurus found in 1915. darren tanke relocated this guy's quarry in 2006 and has found that brown left behind much of this skeletons skull (a lot of this particular skeleton's skull is reconstructed with plaster). so it may get a move over soonish with this new material.

a very cool specimen to see is this panel mounted centrosaurus. if you recall this was part of the case study of darren's i took you through to see how he finds lost and mystery quarrys. very cool to see it is still on display. found in 1914 by brown, if you don't recall that particular detail.

rounding off the albertan ceratopsians here is barnum's anchiceratops from 1912.

one of the most spectacular nodosaurid remains yet found, this edmontonia was found in 1915 by brown, but did not receive its current name till much later.

also on display are barunum's first ankylosaurus from montana, and his much nicer alberta one.

one of the most important historic skeletons on display is that of saurolophus. this is THE first complete dinosaur skeleton ever found in canada by brown in 1911.

they also have a some lovely lambeosaurus skulls.

they also have the first complete corythosaurus found, that also had a large portion of it covered in skin impressions (just out of view of the camera in this picture sadly!). it was found by brown in 1912.

also on display was this enigmatic duckbill here. initially it was thought to be a small species of hadrosaur that they called procheneosaurus, we now know this was a juvenile lambeosaurus (though a couple scientists are pushing corythosaur... but most think lambeo).

wrapping up the first dinosaur hall tour (the ornithischia hall) peter included photos of two of the more impressive NON albertan dinosaurs on display. though funny enough both have been found in alberta, these ones are from the states.

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this includes the classic triceratops. peter should be smiling. that is the exact skelatal mount that appeared in all my favourite dinosaur books as a hatchling!

they also have this pair of nice anatotitans, though there is a chance these are just a pair of slightly bigger skulled edmontosaurus.

in the theropod hall is barnum brown's 1914 response to his boss henry osborn requesting brown to try and find more small theropods for the AMNH. man did brown deliver. only a fossil hunter of his legendary calibur could go out and meet a specific request like this. most of us just stumble into things. not say i'm going to find an X today, and go find it!

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brown was the man!

here is a medium sized gorgosaurus found by levi and charles sr. sternberg in 1917. they tried to sell it to the british, but when they didn't want this specimen, the AMNH purchased it. originally thinking it was a new species it was named after the sternbergs, which i thought was rather sporting of brown. as the sternbergs were his main competitors during the dinosaur rush.

we now today recognize this as simple a juvenile gorgosaurus.

there is also this rather impressive mount of an adult gorgosaurus.

finishing off peter's photo tour of the AMNH's saurischian gallery was him posing with barnum brown's famous tyrannosaurus rex. the first ever found, in montana if your wondering where.

i was thankful to peter for taking me on this tour. keeping it mind this is only the alberta highlights (with a few extra american dinos peter thought were cool). the AMNH has tons more dinosaurs in this hall, and of course again a TON more all in one building. if your in the area it is a must goto.

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sadly i won't be around there anytime soon. so i'm just going to have to enjoy peter's photos, and hope that lillian invites me to visit her someday.

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speaking of lillian, peter sent this as a concluding photo. lillian interacting with a visitor to the museum. bond assures me that lillian has been a hit in her first day, and that he is going to try to negotiate with the AMNH to keep her on full time.

i can only hope he is successful. so i wait with some anticipation to hear good news from new york.

hopefully this plan of mine will see lillian made real happy, and i will finally make an impression in her heart...