Back from a blogging hiatus owed to a sinus operation (I’ll live), here’s more on the Urzeit Park. It makes some kind of sense to go through the park era by era, after all that’s how it is structured. But I won’t show you the eras in chronological order, that’s too boring and predictable. Today, let me bring you the Jurassic models.
First off, here’s another shot of the lovely Mamenchisaurus in the setting sun:
On the left, you can barely make out another model in the sauropod’s shadow that had to live up to enhanced scrutiny by me: Kentrosaurus. Here are two better shots:
Anorexic, and with a lot of fantasy osteoderms. And the spike is on the shoulder, not the hip – gargh! Other than that, it is fun to see a bipedal stegosaur. The shoulder girdle is nice and narrow, and the huge bones are hidden by the huge muscles. Decidedly not shrink-wrapped. Overall, not too bad 🙂
There are five more Jurassic dinosaurs, and together they all own the volcano. I didn’t get a picture of the Archaeopteryx – something about that little bugger and models always makes me want to puke. Compsognathus somehow fell by the roadside. Thus, all I have are Allosaurus, Dilophosaurus and – yeah, Brachiosaurus. Talk about the Jurassic Park gang. Oh, and then there was a Diplodocus, with a juvenile by its side. At least one addition other than Archaeopteryx (which is a must in Germany)! Here they all are:
Hm, is that a Brachiosaurus or a Giraffatitan? It looks a few years old (the shape, not the model), thus I bet it is a typical Giraffatitan-based “Brachiosaurus” (see SVPOW posts here, here).
I won’t go into the details here – for example, the sauropods have nails (uh-oh!), which is in this case not as bad as many seem to think. That will have to wait a while. Overall, the models are pretty good, and they look good in the landscape. Oh, landscape….. what’s missing now is a view of the volcano. I’ll use one with Allosaurus in front. Yes, that’s people up there, it is a lot bigger than it looks!
’nuff said for today. The next era will be up soon.
dinosaurpalaeo 
Recognise some of these too! Dierenpark Amersfoort has exactly the same Kentrosaurus, but I think their Giraffatitan is a bit better if anything, and their Allosaurus is inferior.
Sauropod nails not that bad, eh? Any hints?
hint: look at human unguals. Compare to other mammalian unguals with nails. Would you assume nails present in humans?
…Are there any extant reptiles with nails like that?
…Not that their necessarily need to be, but…damnit, if I’ve been mislead all this time, I’ll be right annoyed so I will!
well, how many extant reptiles have body shapes and hands in any way similar to sauropods?
anyways, I have seen tons of five-clawed sauropod hands. OUCH! I wouldn’t say there were NO flat nails. And I wouldn’t say that flat nail-like things weren’t there. Maybe the entire area was covered by thin ceratin? I don’t know – I just wouldn’t be adamant about a LACK of nail.
Well yes, that’s what I thought immediately after posting that remark (hence the follow-up). Sometimes hitting the button is too tempting. So to speak.
In any case, the elephant-hands found on lots of toys are out-and-out wrong (sauropod hands were concanve), regardless of nail count. Yeah, saving my arse…
*Concave…oh dear, long day…
I even used ‘their’ instead of ‘there’ back there. Ouch. Time to call it a day…
Wait, five-clawed sauropod hands? Does that mean the “three claw rule” for archosaurs is a myth?
only as long as you believe in it 😉
So wait – should Kentrosaurus have its spikes on its hips as traditionally portrayed or on its shoulders? I’m guessing from your comment that they should be above the hips?
on the hip – that’ where they fit!
I am not saying that there were no should spikes in Kentrosaurus. But if there were, they very likely had a different shape. Those found in Tendaguru are very likely hip spikes, and do not resemble the should spikes known in Gigantspinosaurus very much.
Interesting… I don’t recall reading about that in any of your Kentrosaurus papers thus far though – have I overlooked it, or is it going to be presented in a forthcoming publication? Out of interest, at what angle relative to body orientation do they appear to have been oriented in their best fit? Posteriorly, I presume, but how laterally angled were they?
I guess you overlooked it:
“The following specimens were explicitly included in
the type series by HENNIG (1915, 1916a, 1025) [(–) marks
specimens that are not present in the MFN collections]:
MB.R.4551 osteoderm spike with wide subcircular base
(parasacral spike; St 345),”
p. 202 in http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/schweiz/njbgeol/2011/00000259/00000002/art00004
need a PDF?
As for the angle, check Figure 1 in that paper.
P.S.: the computer is crunching your photos. Will take a while though 😦
Thanks, I have the PDF – I didn’t actually notice it on the figure ’til you pointed it out! Must be more observant in future…
I tried putting the photos into the free 3Dscanner website, and the right and front sides of the skull actually came up quite well! The left side, not so well; I imagine that this was because my photographs of that side of the skull weren’t as good. No worries about the time though – I’m not in any hurry at present.
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