Dinosaurs: Their Rise & Fall

[Melody Stacker]

Cultural impacts

The dinosaur renaissance has been cited as the cause of renewed public interest in dinosaurs. Bakker's non-technical articles and books, particularly The Dinosaur Heresies, have contributed significantly to the popularization of dinosaur science.

[Melody Stacker]

The 1993 film version of Jurassic Park was perhaps the most significant event in raising public awareness of dinosaur renaissance theories. For the first time in a major film, dinosaurs were portrayed as intelligent, agile, warm-blooded animals, rather than lumbering monsters more common to older films. Jack Horner was a consultant, and the artwork of Gregory Paul, Mark Hallett, Doug Henderson, and John Gurche were used in pre-production. While the dinosaurs eventually shown in the films had various anatomical inaccuracies, all four of these artists are in the on-screen credits as "Dinosaur Specialists". Bakker himself was not consulted or credited, but his research is referenced by one of the characters in the film, and a Bakker look-alike appears in the sequel The Lost World.

[Melody Stacker]

Further reading

    * Bakker, R.T. 1986. The Dinosaur Heresies. William Morrow, New York.
    * Paul, G.S. 1988. Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York: Simon & Schuster. 464pp.
    * Czerkas, S. J. and Olson, E. C. (Ed.s) 1986. Dinosaurs Past and Present, Volumes I and II . Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles.

[Melody Stacker]

Notes and references

   1. ^ The term has entered into common usage after an article of the same name by paleontologist Robert T. Bakker in Scientific American, in April 1975. Examples can be found here and here.
   2. ^ a b Ostrom, J. 1974. Archaeopteryx and the Origin of Flight. The Quarterly Review of Biology Vol. 49, No. 1
   3. ^ a b Bakker, R.T. 1986. The Dinosaur Heresies. William Morrow, New York.
   4. ^ Huxley, T. H., 1868: On the Animals Which Are Most Nearly Intermediate between Birds and Reptiles Annals and Magazine of Natural History
   5. ^ Huxley, T. H., 1870: Further Evidence of the Affinity between the Dinosaurian Reptiles and Birds Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, Scientific Memoirs III [1]
   6. ^ Heilmann, G. 1926: The Origin of Birds. Witherby, London. ISBN 0-486-22784-7 (1972 Dover reprint)
   7. ^ An assumption which is now known to have been incorrect.
   8. ^ Ostrom, J. H. (1969) "Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an unusual theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana." Peabody Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 30: 1-165.
   9. ^ Osborn, H.F. 1924a. Three new Theropoda, Protoceratops zone, central Mongolia. American Museum Novitates 144: 1-12.
  10. ^ Seeley H.G. 1887. On the classification of the fossil animals commonly named Dinosauria. Proc R Soc London, 43: 165-171.
  11. ^ Seeley H.G. 1888. The classification of the Dinosauria. Rep Br Assoc Adv Sci, 1887: 698-699.
  12. ^ Romer A.S. 1956. Osteology of the Reptiles. Chicago: University Chicago. 772 p.
  13. ^ Bakker, R. T., Galton, P., 1974. Dinosaur monophyly and a new class of vertebrates. Nature 248:168-172.
  14. ^ Charig A. 1976. Dinosaur monophyly and a new class of vertebrates: a critical review. In: BELLAIRS AA & COX B (Ed.), Morphology and Biology of Reptiles. Linnean Society Symposium 3: 65-104.
  15. ^ Novas, F.E. 1996. Dinosaur monophyly. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 16: 723-741.
  16. ^ Bakker, R.T., 1968, The superiority of dinosaurs, Discovery, v. 3(2), p. 11-22
  17. ^ Bakker, R. T., 1986. The Return of the Dancing Dinosaurs, in Dinosaurs Past and Present, vol. I Edited by S. J. Czerkas and E. C. Olson, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles
  18. ^ Bakker, R. T. (1972). Anatomical and ecological evidence of endothermy in dinosaurs. Nature 238:81-85.
  19. ^ R.D.K. Thomas and E.C. Olson (Ed.s), 1980. A Cold Look at the Warm-Blooded Dinosaurs
  20. ^ Benton, M.J. (2005). Vertebrate Palaeontology. Oxford, 221-223.
  21. ^ Paladino, F.V., O'Connor, M.P., and Spotila, J.R., 1990. Metabolism of leatherback turtles, gigantothermy, and thermoregulation of dinosaurs. Nature 344, 858-860 doi:10.1038/344858a0
  22. ^ Barrick, R.E., Showers. W.J., Fischer, A.G. 1996. Comparison of Thermoregulation of Four Ornithischian Dinosaurs and a Varanid Lizard from the Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation: Evidence from Oxygen Isotopes Palaios, 11:4 295-305 doi:10.2307/3515240
  23. ^ Bakker R.T. 1968. The superiority of dinosaurs. Discovery 3: 11-2
  24. ^ Ostrom, J.H. 1972. Were some dinosaurs gregarious? Palaeogeography 11: 287-301
  25. ^ Bird, R.T. 1985 Bones for Barnum Brown. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press
  26. ^ Horner J.R., Makela R., 1979. Nest of Juveniles Provides Evidence of Family-Structure Among Dinosaurs, Nature 282 (5736): 296-298
  27. ^ It is now known that the drawing is inaccurate in many respects, including the pubis being far too short, and the fact that feathers are lacking.
  28. ^ Paul, G. S., 1986. The science and Art of Restoring the Life Appearance of Dinosaurs and Their Relatives; a Rigorous How-to Guide, in Dinosaurs Past and Present, vol. II Edited by S. J. Czerkas and E. C. Olson, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles
  29. ^ Paul, G.S. 1988. Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York: Simon & Schuster. 464pp.

[Melody Stacker]

Cultural depictions

By human standards, dinosaurs were creatures of fantastic appearance and often enormous size. As such, they have captured the popular imagination and become an enduring part of human culture. Entry of the word "dinosaur" into the common vernacular reflects the animals' cultural importance: in English, "dinosaur" is commonly used to describe anything that is impractically large, slow-moving, obsolete, or bound for extinction.[138]

[Melody Stacker]

Public enthusiasm for dinosaurs first developed in Victorian England, where in 1854, three decades after the first scientific descriptions of dinosaur remains, the famous dinosaur sculptures were unveiled in London's Crystal Palace Park. The Crystal Palace dinosaurs proved so popular that a strong market in smaller replicas soon developed. In subsequent decades, dinosaur exhibits opened at parks and museums around the world, ensuring that successive generations would be introduced to the animals in an immersive and exciting way.[139] Dinosaurs' enduring popularity, in its turn, has resulted in significant public funding for dinosaur science, and has frequently spurred new discoveries. In the United States, for example, the competition between museums for public attention led directly to the Bone Wars of the 1880s and 1890s, during which a pair of feuding paleontologists made enormous scientific contributions.[140]

[Melody Stacker]

The popular preoccupation with dinosaurs has ensured their appearance in literature, film and other media. Beginning in 1852 with a passing mention in Charles Dickens' Bleak House,[141] dinosaurs have been featured in large numbers of fictional works. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 book The Lost World, the iconic 1933 film King Kong, 1954's Godzilla and its many sequels, the best-selling 1990 novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and its 1993 film adaptation are just a few notable examples of dinosaur appearances in fiction. Authors of general-interest non-fictional works about dinosaurs, including some prominent paleontologists, have often sought to use the animals as a way to educate readers about science in general. Dinosaurs are ubiquitous in advertising; numerous companies have referenced dinosaurs in printed or televised advertisements, either in order to sell their own products or in order to characterize their rivals as slow-moving, dim-witted or obsolete.[142]

[Melody Stacker]

A Megalosaurus stalks Crystal Palace Park in London.

[Melody Stacker]

Since the word "dinosaur" was coined in 1842, there have been various different cultural depictions of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs featured in movies, books, television shows, artwork and other media have been used for both education and entertainment. The depictions range from the realistic, as in the television documentaries of the 1990s and 2000s, or the fantastic, as in the monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s.

[Melody Stacker]

Cultural depictions of dinosaurs have been an important means of translating scientific discoveries to the public. The growth in interest in dinosaurs since the Dinosaur Renaissance has been accompanied by depictions made by artists working with ideas at the leading edge of dinosaur science, presenting lively dinosaurs and feathered dinosaurs as these concepts were first being considered. Cultural depictions have also created or reinforced misconceptions about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, such as inaccurately portraying a sort of "prehistoric world" where many kinds of extinct animals (from the Permian animal Dimetrodon to mammoths and cavemen) lived together, and dinosaurs living lives of constant combat. Other misconceptions reinforced by cultural depictions came from a scientific consensus that has now been overturned, such as the alternate usage of "dinosaur" to describe something that is maladapted or obsolete, or dinosaurs as slow and unintelligent.

[Melody Stacker]

Plateosaurus reproduction on display with many people enjoying the park, Grün 80, near Basel, Switzerland

[Melody Stacker]

Early human history to 1900: Early depictions

The first attempts to understand dinosaurs may have started thousands of years before they were officially named. Humans have long found fossils and incorporated them into their myths. For example, the griffin of mythology may be based on dinosaur skeletons found in the Gobi Desert. As noted by Adrienne Mayor, a classical folklorist, griffins were said to inhabit the Scythian steppes that reached from the modern Ukraine to central Asia. Mayor draws a connection to Protoceratops, a frilled dinosaur that is commonly found in the Gobi.[1] This dinosaur has many features associated with griffins; they share sharp beaks, four legs, claws, similar size, and large eyes (or eye sockets in the case of the fossils), and the neck frill of Protoceratops, with large open holes, is consistent with descriptions of large ears or wings. Additionally, its bones, which appear white, are easy to see in reddish Gobi rocks.[2]

[Melody Stacker]

Serious study of dinosaurs began in the 1820s of England. In 1842, Richard Owen coined the term dinosaur, which under his vision were elephantine reptiles. An ambitious scientist who used dinosaurs and other fossils to promote his beliefs, Owen was the driving force for the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, the first large-scale dinosaur reconstructions that were accessible to the public (1854). These sculptures, which can still be seen today, immortalized a very early stage in the perception of dinosaurs.[3] The Crystal Palace sculptures were successful enough that Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Owen's collaborator, sold models of his sculptures[4] and planned a second exhibition, Paleozoic Museum, for Central Park in Manhattan in the late 1860s; it was never completed due to the interference of local politics and "Boss" William Marcy Tweed.[5] In the same period, dinosaurs first appeared in popular literature, with a passing mention of an Owen-style Megalosaurus in Charles Dickens's Bleak House (1852-1853).[6] However, depictions of dinosaurs were rare in the 19th century, possibly due to incomplete knowledge. Despite the well-publicized "Bone Wars" of the late 1800s between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, dinosaurs were not yet ingrained in culture. Marsh, although a pioneer of skeletal reconstructions, did not support putting mounted skeletons on display, and derided the Crystal Palace sculptures.[7]

[Melody Stacker]

Protoceratops skeleton at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center... or a Scythian griffin skeleton?

[Melody Stacker]

1900 to the 1930s: New media

As study caught up to the wealth of new material from western North America, and venues for depictions proliferated, dinosaurs gained in popularity. The paintings of Charles R. Knight were the first influential representations of these finds. Knight worked extensively with the American Museum of Natural History and its director, Henry Fairfield Osborn, who wanted to use dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals to promote his museum[8] and his ideas on evolution.[9] Knight’s work, found in museums around the country, helped popularize dinosaurs and influenced generations of paleoartists. Interestingly, his early work showing fighting "Laelaps" (=Dryptosaurus) depicted dinosaurs as much more lively than they would be presented for much of the 20th century.[8] At the same time, improvements in casting allowed dinosaur skeletons to be reproduced and shipped across the world for display in far-flung museums, bringing them to the attention of a wider audience; Diplodocus was the first such dinosaur reproduced in this way.[10]