Being pretty and loving dinosaurs

Prepare yourself for girly crap.

     I'm not the best dresser in the world, and I've very aware of that. I like loud colors, designs and patterns that reflect things I love and tend to be...well...never boring. I especially love things that show off my loves and fandoms, like my Harley Quinn Converse and a rainbow of themed shirts.

     I have a couple dinosaur themed shirts, my favorite being a yellow one with cute dinosaurs cussing at flaming comets whizzing towards them. Sadly, I've recently lost my favorite necklace with a trex skeleton on it. As much as I love dinosaurs, I don't have a ton of prehistoric gear.

     But that doesn't mean I don't want more. Cause I really, really do.

     The trick is trying to find something that reflects your passions that isn't just more funny t-shirts. I wanted to find cute things, pretty things, hell even down right girly things that I could wear when I'm feeling fancy.

     So I've made it a goal to try and find the best dinosaur girly things. I even did my best to put together "outfits" like they do in those lady magazines, so I paired some of the dresses with necklaces, shoes and stuff.

     I'll also toss in some just...weird and funny stuff I found too, because some things just need to be shared with the whole world.

• Dinosaur outfits

1) Super cool black and white dinosaur skirt by Bad Bunny Shop $40

     They also have leggings if you don't want a skirt. I assume you'd pair this with a cool black top and an attitude. I'd pick out one of the tops from the same site, because they're pretty rad and fit the style.
     I don't know how I feel about the fact the skirt is so high up on the torso, but I guess that's the style of it?

     Either way, it's really cool, and I love that it's black and has skulls on it.


     I would probably wear this with it....

A cool trex skeleton necklace from Candyfloss Sera $20

This badass bracelet from Sugar Me Up Too $13

Scaly shoes from Irregular Choice (not etsy) $80

     These also come in black, but I like the silver ones. They're not really...dinosaur to be honest, but they have scales and that's pretty sweet.


2) Black and white Dino dress from Weird Wearhood $40

     I really like this dress because of it's color pallet and cut. Seems like it would be really comfortable.

     I would probably wear this with it...

This awesome necklace at The Lysine Contingency $12

Or if you want something a little cuter, this necklace from Marmarsuperstar $20

3)  My favorite orange skirt from Oxygen Impulse $35

     I've been in love with this skirt for a long time. I see it at the major anime conventions by my house every year, and I'm always too broke to get it. It's orange, it's got awesome dinosaur skulls on it...I just love it so much.

     I need to make it a priority next year. Or just snag it one of these paydays. Damn I love it.

     I assume it would go good with any shirt, really, since it's a cotton skirt that's meant to be worn with or without leggings. I'd honestly wear it with some black leggings and my Converse, because I'm me and that's just how I dress.      I have a pair of orange Doc Martins, so I might wear them with the skirt as well.

     Did I mention I like the color orange?

     I'd probably wear this with it...

This boss as hell raptor necklace from Sushi Studios $20

     Double sided, orange, amazing.

     There's also bronze versions of the necklaces from The Lysine Contingency that would pair well I think. I had one that looked just like it with a trex skull, and that's sadly the one that's MIA at the moment. :(

Maybe this awesome trex ring from Truant Accessories if it came in my size $85

     I have tiny baby hands.

• Now for the ridiculous

1)  I can't tell if I love this or not. Weird "dinosaur" dress from Coquetry Clothing $90

     Ok so...it's spandex. I don't know if that's a pro or a con. Both?
     I'm so torn about this stupid outfit. Because it is stupid, but it's also sparkly and has a hood. So I like it, but I kind of hate myself for liking it. When would I ever wear this? Halloween? Akon?

     I don't. Know.

     But I kinda want it.

     Also, there's an orange hood, but not a complete dress. Maybe just the hood?

     They also have two piece sets that have a longer "tail" to it, which is cute. I can't wear it because I would send the masses running for the hills, but maybe a thinner person could pull it off.

2) Amazingly gaudy trex heels from Kaylastojek $270

     Wow. Just. Wow.

     I'm pretty sure I'd break my ankle taking one awkward step, but they are pretty neat. I've posted about these before on the blog, but they're worth mentioning again since we're talking about clothing and such.

3) Life Finds A Way by Drunk Girl Designs $21

     No fucking comment needed.

Importantly cute!

Cute and Precious

     I'm a sucker for cute things. A real over the top, squealing idiot when it comes to adorable animals, especially baby ones, and even MORE especially baby dinosaurs.
     I'm the type of sappy mess that "OOOs" and "SQUEEEs" at the cute things that strike me as particularly adorable, and will often slap my husband's arm repeatedly in excitement when I see a puppy.

     When I get the very rare and beautiful opportunity to see amazing baby dinosaur art, or the even more rare specimens, I'm a puddle of girly baby talk and scientific inquiries.

     Naturally, when Rebor started their baby dinosaur figurine collection, I was immediately demanding to own them all to anyone who would listen. These sweet little babies are detailed, small and have cute names like "hazelnut".

     THE BABY TRICERATOPS IS NAMED HAZELNUT, GUYS.

     LOOK AT HER FACE. LOOK AT IT.

     I don't expect you to believe me, but there's actually another reason why I think these cutey faces are so amazing to me, and that's their detail to scientific accuracy. Well, as close as you can be with the rarity of baby dinosaur specimens and keeping them cute and interesting enough to purchase.

     Understanding the growth pattern of dinosaurs is really fascinating. Did Triceratops hatch with horns? How big are baby t-rex? Did baby raptors have those killer claws? How fast did these guys grow? What features did they have to grow into?

     Baby dinosaur fossils are extremely rare, but they are treasures of understanding the growth development of dinosaurs. It is an unfortunate truth that the paleontology record of dinosaur species is riddled with controversies over whether or not certain species are their own actual stand along species, or just younger versions of others.

     Misclassifications do happen. It's the sad truth of any science.

     Jack Horner did a TED Talk on baby dinosaurs which is worth checking out. He talks about these crazy misclassifcations and the new discoveries of understanding and identifying baby and teenage dinosaurs. By cutting open fossilized bones, Dr. Horner's team is able to identify more juvenile bones by how "spongy" they are, meaning that the bone is still growing and is malleable.

     This is a great step for making strides in paleontology, but it does mean that some of our favorite species might not actually exist. 

     Sorry, Dracorex, you awesome nerdy dinosaur. 

     Dr. Horner is hilarious, and if you haven't had the pleasure of reading any of his books or hearing a lecture, I'd recommend it highly.

     I think I might start my collection with Hazelnut, because she's just too damn cute not to. I've recently vowed not to get anymore dinosaurs until I have a better place to put them, so I may have to hold off a little while before I add this cute little thing to my collection. 

     You can get these dinosaurs at everythingdinosaur.com, and are featured on Jurassic Collectibles on YouTube. I think all of the babies are like $10 plus shipping, which is really not bad at all. Rebor makes some good stuff.

     Also, please look at how cute Breeze is, sitting on his wittle butt. :3

• Hazelnut

• Melon

• Stan

• Breeze 

Kickass Paleontologists: Baron Nopcsa

Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás "The Dinosaur Baron of Transylvania"

      I honestly wish I came up with that title for him, but that's one of the headlines from an article in Scientific American from 2011.

      I just recently learned about Baron Nopcsa (apparently pronounced "nop-cha"), while listening to the I Know Dino podcast, I think episode 84, where they brought him up briefly. I had never heard of his man before, but after hearing the words "spy", "Baron", "would be king" and listing off his still relevant paleontology theories, I had to find out more about him.

      I can't seem to find any books about him, only Wiki entries and two Scientific American articles (links below). The one with the cool name you have to buy for $8, so I might pick it up. I am starting to grow more obsessed with this guy as I do my research.

      The Baron of Szcsal Transylvania was a strange guy. Not just in the fact he was a freaking Baron of vampireville, but also because of his hobbies, connections and eccentric personality. He was known to be a bit of an egomaniac, knowing how brilliant he was in most aspects of his life, and seemed to have suffered from either manic depression or bipolar disorder.
      His scientific work in the paleontology field still holds water today, but he's relatively unknown, having for whatever reason, slipped into obscurity.

      Nopcsa was also openly gay, which at the time was pretty taboo, which added to his already "strange" personality back in the late 1800s. I'm guessing this probably had something to do with the fact he wasn't really talked about much in books and published works, even though he himself and his work was fascinating.

Nopcsa's work 1903

      Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás was born in 1877 in Transylvania into an aristocratic family. It was actually Nopcsa's sister who found a dinosaur bone when Nopcsa was a young man, thus sparking a passionate love for paleontology.



      Now, back in the early 1900s, paleontology was hardly what it is today. It was a wild west frontier of science; theories flying in all directions that rarely had any backing in real study. This was during the "bone wars", so more people were obsessed with finding as many species and fossils as possible, not really doing any true science.

I think this is a real game??

      Nopcsa was different. And this is why he's so great.
      That and he was a spy during World War I, which is neat.

      The dinosaur bone his sister found was taken to the University of Vinna, to the head of the geological institute at the time, Eduard Suess. In what I imagine to be a movie like moment, the old professor identified the bone in question and when pressed for further detail about the creature by Nopcsa, the winkled old man bitterly said "Go study them!"

      So he did.

• The Baron's work in Paleontology

      Like everything he did, Nopcsa dove head first into his studies of paleontology the University at Vienna and quickly rose the ranks. According to his Wiki page, he did his first academic lecture at twenty-two. Dinosaurs were an extreme passion of the Baron's, something he would dedicate a good chunk of his rich life to pursuing.
      After WWI, Nopcsa would eventually become the head of the Hungarian Geological Institute, were he would make ground breaking theories about dinosaurs that had never been brought to light until then.

      Among his contributions to paleontology are some of the very first notions of complex behaviors in dinosaurs, ideas on how they reared their young, and how they may have looked.
      This was all during a time were the only thing most paleontologists were after was the biggest, best collection of bones. It was because of this paleontologist pissing contest that we had so many misclassifications and garbage studies done on dinosaurs.

      But hey, have to start somewhere, right?

Trex through scientific history

      The link between birds and dinosaurs is fairly well known today, but wasn't for a very long time. Nopcsa wrote about this during his time at the University, and discussed in detail about how dinosaurs may have had feathers in order to move faster and brood over their nests.
      Nopcsa's theories on dinosaur's behavior and evolutionary link to birds wasn't widely accepted until the 1960s, long after Nopcsa was already dead, but his work was fantastic and ground breaking for his time.

      He also believed that at least some of the dinosaurs were warm blooded, unlike the more commonly accepted theory that dinosaurs were slow moving "lizards". This of course is known widely held today.

      Another study that I thought was interesting was his work in sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs, and a theory he coined as "insular dwarfism" now known as "island rule".
      Sexual dimorphism is basically the difference between the sexes in animals, like size, color, etc. In dinosaurs, it's typically the bigger skeleton, where as in animals like deer, it would be the animal with horns.
      The "island rule" is the theory that animals restricted to small islands, over generations, will adapt to be much smaller. Since some of the dinosaurs he found were considered "pygmy" at the time, this theory made sense to his research.
      Shockingly, like everything else he's researched, this is also still widely accepted.

      He also discovered a new small sauropod dinosaur, Magyarosaurus, which he named after the
providence he lived in.

Magyarosaurus

• Spy, weapons smuggler, and would be King of Albania

      It wasn't just Nopcsa's brilliant work in paleontology that made the man so unique, but also his colorful life as an Albanian nationalist. During that time in history, Albania was struggling to gain it's independence from the Turkish-Balkan Ottoman Empire.
      Being the fearless seeker of adventure, and driven by his love for Albania, Nopsca was one of the first to explore the mountain area of Albania, learning the local customs of that area.

      This exploration and study of the culture produced more than fifty different books and works on the folklore, linguistics, customs and so on from that region. He his known to be one of the biggest contributor to Albanian studies.

      His speeches and support of Albania's liberation from the Turks helped to finally gain Albania's freedom, but he also smuggled weapons and supplies over to help aid the process. The Baron was content to become the "King of Albania", as seen from his diary entry quoted from his Wiki page:

"Once a reigning European monarch, I would have no difficulty coming up with the further funds needed by marrying a wealthy American heiress aspiring to royalty, a step which under other circumstances I would have been loath to take."

      Dude doens't do anything small, right?

      During WWI Nopcsa added "spy" to his already brilliant repertoire of colorful titles. If being a Baron, an aristrocat, and a brilliant paleontologist wasn't enough, then why not add something dangerous and mysterious to list!

      Unfortunately, Nopcsa wasn't on the winning side of the war, and Transylvania was taken back over by Romania. This, sadly, had devastating effects on Nopcsa's finances and life.

• Tragic end to the Dinosaur Baron

      By the end of WWI, Nopcsa had lost his family fortune. The once rich and prominent figure of the head of Hungarian Geological Institute was now penniless, and forced to sell his impressive fossil collection to England.

      The financial blow, the loss of his fossils and work, and his emotional issues he already had caused Nopcsa to end his life, and that of his lover Bajazid Elmaz Doda in 1933.



Sources:

Franz's wiki page

"Baron Nopcasa: More than just Transylvanian Dinosaurs" Scientific American September 2011 (link)
"Dinosaur Baron of Transylvania" Scientific American October 2011 (link)

I must have it -- "Banjo"

Banjoooooo!

      Since part of my fandom for dinosaurs and ancient life is steeped in collecting toys, figures, coins, hats, stickers, what have you, I figured it was very necessary to make rambling about collections a staple in my blog.

      I have a embarrassing amount of dinosaur stuff on multiple wish lists that span most forms of online shopping known to man, ranging from the cute and ridiculous to the monstrous and amazing. I'll pick out my favorites and share them with you, because why the hell not?

      To kick this off with the bang, we'll go with a cool collectible toy exclusively from Australia's own Age of the Dinosaurs Museum in Winston Australia, the awesome Australovenator "Banjo".

What I assume the toy was modeled after.

      If you don't already know about this awesome dinosaur, it's one of the therapods of the Aussie outback, recently discovered and probably Australia's favorite dinosaur. This awesome predator has vicious hand claws and stands about 6 feet tall, 20 feet long.

      Despite how he looks, Banjo is actually a tyrannosaurid, not a raptor, and lives during the early Cretaceous about 95 MYO. Because of it's light frame, it's known as the "cheetah of it's time" according to it's Wiki page.

      I'll have to do a more detailed post about it later, because he's really neat.

BANJOOO!

      Because I'm a dork with a dinosaur toy obsession, I follow a dinosaur toy reviewer on YouTube called Jurassic Collectibles. He's a cool dude who gets to unbox new and not-yet-released dinosaur toys on his channel, which is something I would sell my soul for.

      I don't know if it's the combination of the fact that I love how it looks, painted, or if it's just the exclusiveness of Banjo that makes me want the toy so bad.

Also the name. It's probably the name.

   
 I do have a stegosaurus named Banjo, and my raptor in World of Warcraft was named Banjo, and Space Ghost's giant sea horse monster was named Banjo.

      It's a great name!!

      This figure goes for about $30 on the museum's website, and the shipping is a staggering $45. There is a CollectA figure of this dinosaur for about $10, but it doesn't nearly come close to how cool this model looks.

CollectaA version. Sad, right?

      I do have a friend with some Australian connections, but I don't know if there's a way to make that shipping less gag inducing.  The figure is awesome, but not $80 awesome.

      This is the first figure I've run into that has limitations on obtaining it. This is the age of the Internet, nothing is impossible to find! I'm sure I'll figure out some way of getting this beautiful creature at some point in my life.

      And no, I'm not going to Australia. That place has nightmare bugs.

      I think I'm going to make these posts normal set days of the week. Just different dinosaur/ancient life themed stuff I either have or want really, really bad.

      If you're thinking, "Oh, great. Thanks for showing me this. Now I want it and it's $80."
Then I love you and we should be friends.

      Also, you're welcome.

Book Review: Top 10 Dinosaurs of 2015

Top 10 Dinosaurs of 2015

Cute, fun, refreshing

I heard about this book because the author co-hosts my favorite podcast I Know Dino. So, naturally, I wanted to support them as much as I can, since I'm a cheap jerk who doesn't fund them through their Patreon.

I have purchased their other book Keep Your Dinosaurs Here, which was more like a journal than a book, and thought it was pretty cute. Definitely aimed for kids, the journal is very lighthearted and promotes creative writing with dinosaurs, so I of course loved it.

I really wanted to spread the word about their latest release because there was only 2 reviews on Amazon, and some jerk gave them one star, knocking their average down quite a bit. The review wasn't fair and was very snarky, so I jumped in head first to put in my two cents.

I went into it really wanting to like it and did, and I'm willing to admit I may have some bias goggles on, so I encourage others to read it and judge for yourself. 

The book isn't like most informational dinosaur books, because it's not written by a paleontologist or a doctor of geology or anything like that. It's written by a dinosaur fan who wanted to put something fun and informative into the world. I don't think the negative review put that into consideration.

Since I'm a slothlike creature of minimum effort, I'm going to copy/paste my Amazon review for the book here, because I think it properly illustrates how I felt about the book.

Amazon/Goodreads review:

As a dinosaur fan girl and overall paleontology nerd, this book was recommended to me through social media and Amazon and I freaking adore it. 

Top 10 Dinosaurs of 2015 covers the top dinosaur discoveries of that year in a fun and unique way. I spend a lot of time reading scientific articles and papers about dinosaur news, so I really appreciate the creativity that went into this book. Each dinosaur is described in a small story about their life, detailing their physical appearance, habitat and scientifically minded, fictional account of what their attitudes and day-to-day activities would be. 

My favorite so far has been the story about Kunbarrasaurus and how she follows a creature from tree to tree. It's so painfully cute.

I would highly recommend this book for dinosaur fans who enjoy a lighthearted spin on dinosaur facts, and I think kids would really like this too. The only thing I would add would be more illustrations of the dinosaurs being described, but I imagine getting permission and paying licenses for using paleo artists work is probably hefty.
Great job! I look forward to 2016's book!

When I got the book, it was free for Kindle, but otherwise I think it's like $4. Worth picking up for sure. 

You can snag the Kindle version here.

Like I had said in the review, I think there should have been more illustrations in the book to get a better idea of what these guys looked like, so I put together a collection of the dinosaurs in this book for you to enjoy.

Now when you read the book, you'll have some faces to go with the characters, because sadly some of them don't have pictures.

Enjoy!

Dinosaur cast (in order of appearance):

• Chilesaurus "Chile Lizard"

• Dakotaraptor "Plunderer of Dakota"

• Kunbarrasaurus "Shield Lizard"

• Morelladon "Morella Tooth"

• Probrachylophosaurus "Superduck"

• Regaliceratops "Royal Horn Face" or Hellboy

• Sefapanosaurus "Cross Lizard"

• Tototlmimus "Bird Mimic of the Packard Shale"

• Yi qi "Strange Wing"

• Zhenyuanlong "Zheyuan's Dragon" or "The Poodle from Hell"

We need more love for Carnotaurus

Carnotaurs: Meat Eating Bull

Cuteysaurus, am I right?

With a name like "Meat Eating Bull", I doubt many other dinosaurs can stack up to how fearsome and overall badass Carnotaurs is. To be honest, this dinosaur kind of flew under my radar for a long time, especially since I started a weird obsession with Ceratopsian dinos as of late.
I think I was listening to a podcast or perhaps just fell down an Internet rabbit hole, but I stumbled across more information about this giant demon beast and wanted to write about it.

[Edit 07/13/16: I Know Dino did an episode on Carnotaurus that went up today!]

• Hi, my name is Carnotaurus

Name: Carnotaurus "Meat Eating Bull"
Timeline: Late Cretaceous (69-72 million years ago)
Length: 26-30 feet long
Weight: 1.35 metric tons
Running Speed: 30-35 MPH
Favorite Color: red (probably)

Carnotaurus is part of the family or clade Abelisaurids, which are large Cretaceous therapods. These do not include the t-rex, when though he was around during the same time. He's not included in the Abelisaurids club, because he's a Tyrannosaur; he's got his own family and clade to hang out with.

These guys are pretty big, stocky, and have a smaller more stout muzzle than that of other therapods. Almost kind of have a pug look to them, in my opinion. They're very interesting looking.

Of course there are all kinds of amazing art for this animal, which I'll pepper in throughout this post. He must be a blast to draw, all devilish and what not.

Side note, look at those dupy lil arms. Oh god.

• What's up with the horns?

The look on that Ankylosaur's face is priceless.
"oh crap oh crap oh crap"

Let's talk about the horns. What the hell were the horns for, besides just making him look really, really devious? I assume it was probably something to do with battling other Carnotaurus, or maybe for sexual display, but I wasn't too sure. Time to hit the scientific journal for the expert opinion.

According to the article published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the horns and bite force kind of go hand-in-hand.
While analyzing the bite force of Carnotaurus's bite force, which is weaker but faster than that of an Allosaurus, they had a better idea of the type of strength of Carnotaurus's skull. It's unlikely that the horns were meant for extreme, ram like jolts to the skull, but more of a slow pushing match.
So, imagine these big dudes pushing their heads together more like dears locking horns and shoving, not smacking into each other head on at break neck speed.

It's almost cute, isn't it?

I dug around a bit to find out if there has been any research done into whether or not the horns are exclusively male, but there's only been one almost complete skeleton found, so there's no way to really know for sure. They did find some skin impressions on this fossil, which show the skin to be pebbly and rough, but it's unknown if it had feathers or anything like that.

• Dude was fast.

The horns aren't the only thing that made Carnotaurus unique.
According to an article on PLOS One, these guys may have been one of the fastest therapods in the Cretaceous.
The spinal "arms" on Carnotaurus's vertebrate show a very strong muscle attachment to the "hind limb retractor muscle" that is connected to the tail. What that means is the very powerful tail the creature likely had, helped the powerful hind legs of the Carnotaurus to retract in powerful, fast motions. There's a good possibility that our horned friend could run up to 35MPH, which is pretty damn fast for a giant monster like that.
Most likely the animal was a "burst" or "sprint" runner, kind of like a cheetah, where they could go really fast for small stints of time.

This was discussed in the latest episode of I Know Dino, where the hosts interviewed Dr. Scott Persons of the Currie Museum. Dr. Persons studies dinosaur locomotion, so it was amazing to hear him talk about the science of understanding how these animals move.

• Cool models and toys

With every dinosaur I research, part of the fun is learning about them in a scientific manner, and that of a total dork who likes toys.
Luckily, Carnosaurs has captured the imagination of artists of all kinds and sells well as a toy. Kids love this guy, so collectors have some options on some cool junk to add to your already ridiculous pile.

1) BlueDino Carnotaurus Head $99

2) Papo Carnotaurus Figure $20

I love Papo toys, so this guy may have to make my shelf soon.

3) Terra collection Carnotaurus $12

I love my Terra Pachyrinosaur from this collection. They're cute, cheap alternatives to the higher priced items.

4)  DinoStoreus Carnotaurus skull model $60

#DeskGoals

5) Full skeleton Carnotaurus from DinoStoreus $180

6) Smaller, but fleshed out and painted Carnotaurus from DinoStoreus $55

Sources:

For basic information: Wikipedia entry for Carnotaurs

Horn information: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology "Cranial Mechanics and Funcation of the Horned Carnivorous Dinosaur Carnotaurus sastrei"

Locomotion information: Plos One "Dinosaur Speed Demon: The Caudal Muculature of Carnotaurus sastrei and Implications of the Evolution of South American Abelisaurids"