Mascot candidate 2; giant flightless birds

Phorusrhacids or terror birds were giant flightless aves that ate meat, living after the dinosaurs (62-2 million years ago). They were the top predators in South America. When it collided with North America some migrated up into this new continent.

The majority of terror birds became extinct due to the introduction of northern predators like the sabre toothed cats and wolves, however they were still efficient predators.

They were built for speed and agility, growing to 3 meters in height, with big hooked beaks and sharp talons these animals could outrun and easily kill a human. These beastly birds had an average speed of 60 miles/hour and were a force to be reckoned with. Their main weapon was their talons, which could deliver a nasty kick. These animals probably hunted in open grasslands where prey was fast and agile. Their incredible height enabled them to scan far and wide in search of food.

Terror birds aren't exactly albatross, but since they are big and scary birds they should be considered as a mascot for my blog. Big, scary and feathery.

There has been a lot of debate as to whether or not terror birds had claws on their arms or not. This theory is based on the fact that the carpometacarpus had a flexible joint with the alula, suggesting a prehensile thumb with a claw, however no claw has ever been found and other birds without claws also possess this feature. Until we can be certain of the hand anatomy I am not jumping to any conclusions.

Another giant flightless bird was Diatryma (also called Gastornis), a gigantic 2 meter tall behemoth. It lived 56-41 million years ago and was distantly related to modern ducks. There is much controversy surrounding this beast. It is popularly argued as a carnivore (the idea of a giant killer duck is appealing), but when looking at the skull the beak was blunt and not hooked like birds of prey today.

Others argue that if it was herbivorous it would not have needed such a large head, and therefore must have been predatory. I disagree. A gigantic head is a useful when cracking nuts and seeds. Competition with other large herbivores at the time may also have encouraged gigantism in this bird.

There is a lack of other large carnivores in the areas Diatryma occupied. Therefore I still keep an open mind on the subject of its diet. It may yet prove to be carnivorous.

Diaryma as a mascot, I think not, too soft for me, but still an awesome animal. A parrot on steroids.

When mammals fought back

The classic picture; 2 dinosaurs clash in battle wilst the small and primitive mammal scurries off. With the following discovery the vivid image above is all but a myth.

Discovered in China, the 3 foot long Repenomamus lived 130 million years ago. Found inside the stomach of a well preserved individual was the skeleton of a juvenile Psittacosaurus dinosaur. This animal had clearly been torn apart before being eaten and was probably attacked by the mammal when alive.

This find proves that mammals ate dinosaurs for lunch on occasion. Repenomamus would still have fallen victim to larger predatory dinosaurs if it became too unwary.

The annoying devil strikes!!!!!!!

Here are a few prank clips from the channel 4 show Balls Of Steel;
clip1
clip2

Dunkleosteus, the ultimate sea monster from hell!

At 30 feet long Dunkleosteus is one of the largest predatory fish ever. It lived 400 million years ago in the Devonian period.

What makes this fish so special is its advanced jaw mechanism. This allows it to open its jaws in a fifteenth of a second, sucking in its prey. It also had the bite force of 4 T'rex's. That's 5000 kg of bite force!

Dunkleosteus was a Placoderm or armoured fish. This group of animals lived only in the Devonian period. To protect it, Dunkleosteus needed a 2inch thick coat of armour around its head, and for good reason.

Fossils of Dunkleosteus heads have been found with bite marks, but what animal would dare challenge this mighty beast? Another Dunkleosteus, scientists think that it was a cannibal.

Another line of evidence suggests that Dunkleosteus was able to regurgitate the remains of its victims that were indigestible. This is suggested by mysterious fossilised clumps of fish bones and armour found in Devonian sediments. The only known animal large enough to produce such an amount of waste was a Dunkleosteus.

Nothing is known about the body of Dunkleosteus. Its bones consisted of cartilage like sharks do today, this rarely fossilises leaving scientists to ponder over what this creature actually looked like. From smaller specimens of its close relatives we are pretty sure that Dunkleosteus had a rather shark like body and tail, however it is often reconstructed more robustly.

For more information on Dunkleosteus click these links:

1: Sea monsters, Dunkleosteus pt1, pt2

2: Dunkleosteus facts video (sorry about the preceding advert)

For more information about the Devonian in general click these links:

1:Tikaalic (preceding advert)

2:Acanthodian (preceding advert)

3:Ichthyostega (preceding advert)

4:Eusthenopteron (preceding advert)

5:Bothriolepis (preceding advert)

6:Materpicis (preceding advert)

7:Devonian documentary

The search for the Jurassic albatross mascot; candidate 1, The Giant Claw!

Jurassic Albatross is now striving to find an appropriate mascot to replace the rubbishy picture at the top of the page.

The first candidate is the giant bird from the sci-fi movie The Giant Claw, premiered in 1957. It is considered amongst the worst films ever made, the giant bird being a string puppet, badly superimposed into a background of stock footage.

Jeff Morrow, one of the movies main actors claims that every time the monster appeared on the screen the audience was drowned in laughter at its ultimate unconvincing and ridiculous nature.

As I have seen the movie trailer, the bird can be described as a giant rubber chicken with teeth, able to fly without moving its wings.

The reason I have selected such a bad movie monster as a possible candidate is the fact that it is supposed to be from 17 million years ago. Not exactly Jurassic, but still prehistoric, it fits the niche very well. Click on the link for the trailer and give me your opinion, however you must be warned, it is probably the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen.

Therapy buddies. "A national phenomenon!"

"Everything is going to be alright". These are the wise words said by the therapy buddies (click on the link and hear the voice of the future, wear earphones), calming creations of inventor Richard Kopelle.


The truth is, everything is not going to be alright. Kopelle and his therapy buddies have already infiltrated Toys R Us. Whatever next, first the pentagon, then the White house and then the world.

Above is a photo of the buddies first attempt at government infiltration, fortunately it was unsucsessful.

The soothing voice of these cuddly killers has a secret subliminal message hidden in the words. This message says to the subconscious; everything is going to be alright, if you kill everyone, eeevryone!

His plans of immediate world domination have failed on American Inventor. Now his plans must be more subtle.

Kopelle states that "98% of people on the planet could find comfort in a buddy". This chilling message states their advantage over us puny humans. 98% of us are suceptable to their hypnotic chants.

So where did therapy buddies come from? I have concluded that they are telepathic descendants of ET who have come to earth to feed from human love. They have used Kopelle as a puppet, infiltrating his inner mind, using him to produce more therapy buddies, to take over the world.





Above, one of the buddies many victims.

Beaware children, you are the buddies first targets, be strong and resist their powers.

If you have had any friends or family or you yourself that may feel under the influence of the buddies then call my therapy buddy hotline on 12344 2234 443.

(all of the above is inordinate babble, do not take it seriousley)

Top cheesy monster movies

Here are some ridiculousley cheesy monster films that will probably make you very glad that you were born before the 1970's. For those who were, I hope you appreciate the badness of these films just as well.

Star treck fight scene!!!!!!!
Giant crab monsters!!!!!!!
Planet of dinosaurs!!!!!!!!
The beast of hollow mountain!!!!!!!!
At the earths core!!!!!!!!
Attack of the giant leeches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
King dinosaur!!!!!!!!!!!
Robot monster!!!!!!!!
The black scorpion!!!!!
The deadly mantis!!!!!!!!!
The monster that challenged the world!!!!!!!
The giant gila monster!!!!!!!!!!!!
The land unknown!!!!!!!!!
The mighty Gorga!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alligator!!!!!!!
Valley of the Gwangi!!!!!!!
Unknown island!!!!
The monster from green hell!!!!!!!!
Yog Monster from space!!!!!

Octoman!!!!!

Real swamp monster, boar crock attack

Recently discovered in Africa (A news report on the crocs found in the sahara, good info on Boar croc by the way) and not yet named is the Boar croc. A 6 meter long monster as large as a modern saltie. It lived 90 million years ago (A video showing the hunting sequence of Sarcosuchus, a contemporarie of the Boar croc, sorry about its cheesieness) in a swamp that occupied what is now the modern day Sahara desert.

The Boar croc is just one of the new discoveries, but since this animal was the most formidable I will focus on it.

It was unusual due to the 3 pairs of fangs on the upper and lower jaw. These would have given the Boar croc a much more effective grip when tackling large prey. I am unsure as to the measurements of the fangs, but I recon they were a good 10-15 cm long. Looking at modern crocodiles I would say that for a reasonably large individual the teeth may be about 5 cm in length.

The hunting tactics (vid from you tube, with no sound, but shows wonderfully accurately the hunting style of the Boar croc) of this animal are up to conjecture. I believe that it used its armoured snout to ram prey on the waters edge. Then it would bite into its bewildered victim and drag it into the water to drown it.

The advantage of having such large teeth becomes clear when you look at its contemporaries; giant dinosaurs. It would be unable to lock its jaws onto a wet, slippery and struggling 10 ton dinosaur with tiny teeth which would barely pierce the animals hide, let alone grip the animal.

Another feature of interest is the closeness of the eyes and the narrowness of the back of the head. This is perplexing and I may come back with a solution. The two horns at the back of the head are another unique feature of the Boar croc, perhaps acting as attachments for muscles pulling the front heavy jaws open.

The Boar croc posessed much longer limbs than modern crocs, a suggestion that this animal could run down its prey on land.

Real Barry the Bus Driver found!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click on this link to see Barry in action on CCTV. Sorry about the advert before the clip.

Barry the bus driver video.

Meet Barry the bus driver

Barry the bus driver is the main character in all of my comics and is based on a real person. In my previous secondary school in Hertfordshire (St Georges) I had to get the bus home. It was driven by the grumpiest bus driver I have ever seen. He used to shout at you for sitting on the bag racks and he sent girls off the bus in tears. We all called him Barry the larry.

Anyway during a science lesson with Mr Allen I had run out of ideas for comics. Then I remembered Barry the larry from my old school bus. I decided to call him Barry the bus driver and I immediately began to work on a new comic (aunt Flo part 3 coming soon by the way).

His key feature would be his ear hair, which was very prominent in real life. The amount of which changed as his caricature evolved.

The picture above is the first ever of Barry. It resembled Mr Allen, probably because I was in the same room as him, my memory of Barry's true features being a bit rusty, my mind probably subconsciously used Mr Allen as a base line for my drawing.

The next stage I was being experimental as above, Barry with very long ear hair. This was inspired by my friend Fred's caricature of Barry in his animation he was making of my comic.

My latest caricature of Barry is in my first ever post on this blog, look there if you want to see it.

Anyway you will be hearing a lot more on Barry later. Ciao for now.

Back in my day part 2, Lealaps and the American answer to Crystal Palace

Back in my day part 2, Laelaps and the American answer to Crystal Palace

In 1868 the commissioners of Central Park in New York were jealous of the Crystal Palace creations of the earlier decades in England. They wrote to Benjamin Hawkins, asking for a similar display of iron framed models of giant dinosaurs and their contemporaries. The plans were made and Benjamin began to design the exhibition in the form of wonderful and lively paintings and drawings. The display would only include prehistoric animals from North America, adding to the pride and patriotism upheld by this nation.

These later reconstructions were much more accurate, however for some reason, although most meat eating dinosaurs were reconstructed by this time as bipedal animals, Megalosaurus was still portrayed as a quadruped. From Hawkins drawings we also know that his art became more ambitious, portraying much more active and sprightly animals as he had done in the English Crystal Palace Park models.

Above is a drawing by Hawkins showing his invisionment of the Central Park dinosaur exhibition.

Surely the star of the show was the skinny, bipedal Laelaps (now called Dryptosaurus). This animal was probably the largest carnivorous dinosaur known at this time. From the remains it was reconstructed accurately as a bipedal animal, although it still was unrecognisable as a dinosaur. A popular myth amongst some palaeontologists of the time is that Laelaps and other bipedal therapod dinosaurs hopped like kangaroos. Of course kangaroos are the only modern analogy to an animal like Laelaps; long hind limbs, short arms and a long tail for balance. Scientists, probably noticing these similarities made the link between the two animals and several out dated illustrations show meat eating dinosaurs bouncing around like joeys after thir prey. Nowadays we know that animals like Laelaps and of course T'rex were not built for such locomotion. They are now invisioned with a more accurate analogy, that of giant lumbering ostriches.

Another outdated painting showing Laelaps, in the left hand corner bounding across the desert plain like a kangaroo on steroids.

Of course you are probably wondering why you have never seen victorian concrete models of dinosaurs in Central Park. This is because they were never made. It is a long and political story which I will not go into much detail on, but in 1871, with the new and corupt local government seeing no financial gain in Hawkins exhibition, hired men broke into his studio, destroying the six models already completed with sledge hammers, and bueried them.

Above, my inpression of Laelaps in the style and appearance of Hawkins reconstructions.

Back in my day.............

During the 1850's Benjamin Hawkins, a sculptor of the time built a series of models in Crystal Palace Park. These were the first attempts at doing life sized models of Dinosaurs in the world. Although innacurate, they are a wonderful insight of what people at the time thought dinosaurs looked like. The remains of these animals at this time only consisted of a few teeth and bone fragments. From what they had at the time Hawkins was able to produce an innacurate, but wonderful picture of what the world was like many years ago.

Above is my picture of Megalosaurus, based on the early paintings and models of Benjamin Hawkins. Today we know that Megalosaurus was rather like T'rex in appearance. We now know that Megalosaurus was more bird than lizard like, probably having a coat of feathers for insulation like some of its relatives.

Above is another pic by me. This time it shows our modern image of Megalosaurus (left), wilst to the right is a perplexed pair of 1850's style Megalosaurus. this shows the development of our understanding of dinosaur anatomy over the last 150 years.

Here is Aunty Flo part 2.

Greetings all. Here are the first few pages of one of my new comic “Aunt Flo”. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Barry is a maniac bus driver character I have invented for my comics which will be on this blog shortly. The picture above is by me, James. The one below by my good friend Sam. Barry is the one with ear hair killing the crabs (above) and in the plane (below).