Prehistoric - Tumblr Posts

Had a thought about this, but what's the best way to show prehistoric life off to museum visitors? I feel like In my honest opinion that showing the animals in their ecosystems is already magical enough.

Any way to show that these animals are organisms who lived through the trials of time and to show how our understanding and relationship has also changed are the ways I feel like are the best for scientific education.

Alot of time, I've noticed folks can look at the old bones, but won't think about what they entail. How the bones of an animal can tell us their life's story, their struggles and their survival was the triumph of their lives. They may be gone now but their story still remains. But it is up to us to properly show and explain that story.

Because if we don't understand what happened in the past, then we will be blind towards our future. It is up to us here and now to be ready to prepare ourselves and each other for whatever the universe might hold in store for our spaceship called Earth.

My latest little guy: a thylacine!!!

Its made out of air dry clay and its part of my uni work i gotta fill the quota of "multi media experimentation"

“Let your heart guide you. It whispers…So listen closely”

Land before time poster thing when they’re all grown up bc why not

Facts!

The hallucigenia was a bizarre worm-like animal that had legs to walk and spines along it's back! It's fossils are well-known in Cambrian rocks from a fossil site called the Burgess shale , in Canada!

https://twitter.com/archeometrie/status/1170031822614474752?s=12

The Chauvet cave, France, the art of prehistory.

In 1994, three friends discovered in the south of France a cave with magnificent cave paintings, more than 30,000 years old.

Under the ground of the Ardèche region, an invaluable treasure is hidden for its antiquity, its conservation and the pictorial quality of the representations; one of the oldest and most splendid examples of Arieñaciense parietal art, dating approx. between 40,000 and 30,000 B.C.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWfRerMFMCO/?igshid=yqzbqgvny71t

DinoDay: Dilophosaurus

Dilophosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaurs that lived in what is now North America during the Early Jurassic, about 193 million years ago. Three skeletons were discovered in northern Arizona in 1940, and the two best preserved were collected in 1942. The most complete specimen became the holotype of a new species in the genus Megalosaurus, named M. wetherilli by Samuel P. Welles in 1954. Welles found a larger skeleton belonging to the same species in 1964. Realizing it bore crests on its skull, he assigned the species to the new genus Dilophosaurus in 1970, as Dilophosaurus wetherilli. The genus name means "two-crested lizard", and the species name honors John Wetherill, a Navajo councilor. Further specimens have since been found, including an infant. Footprints have also been attributed to the animal, including resting traces. Another species, Dilophosaurus sinensis from China, was named in 1993, but was later found to belong to the genus Sinosaurus.

DinoDay: Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus

spined lizard from Egypt") is an extinct genus of large spinosaurid theropod dinosaur that inhabited early to middle Cretaceous (Cenomanian); albeit there are significant discoveries that state the theropod could lived as long as Early Campanian of Late Creteceous[1], Northern Africa, states such as Morocco, Egypt, Tunusia, Libya; approximately 99 to 93.5 (although the theropod could survivied as much as around 80 million years)[1] million years ago.

DinoDay: Velociraptor Mongoliensis

Velociraptor (ve·loc·i·rap·tor) (Swift seizer or thief) was a small carnivorous dinosaur, well known thanks to Jurassic Park. It was one of the smaller dromaeosaurs, smaller than Utahraptor and Deinonychus, and was about 2 meters long. It lived in Mongolia and China during the Late Cretaceous, 75 to 71 million years ago. Fossils found in 2007 show that Velociraptor had long feathers on its forearms.

DinoDay: Protoceratops

"First Horned Face") is a genus of sheep-sized (1.8 m long) herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur, from the Upper Cretaceous Period (Campanian stage) of what is now Mongolia. It was a member of the Protoceratopsidae, a group of early horned dinosaurs. Unlike later ceratopsians, however, it was a much smaller creature that lacked well-developed horns and retained some primitive traits not seen in later genera.

DinoDay: Tyrannosaurus Rex

often called T. rex or colloquially T-Rex, is one of the best represented theropods. Tyrannosaurus lived throughout what is now western North America, on what was then an island continent known as Laramidia. 

DinoDay: Brontosaurus

"Thunder Lizard" in Greek) is an extinct genus of apatosaurian sauropod dinosaur which lived throughout North America during the late Jurassic period, approximately 155 to 145 million years ago. It was originally considered to be a junior synonym of Apatosaurus, but is know regarded as a separate taxon after extensive scientific exploration conducted in 2015 revealed their were substantial differences between the two genera (for example, Brontosaurus can be defined as having a slimer build and slightly smaller in size).

DinoDay: Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus (pronounced ˌstɛgəˈsɔrəs) is a genus of stegosaurid thyreophoran dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period (late Kimmeridgian to Early Tithonian) in what is now western North America. In 2006, a specimen of Stegosaurus was announced from Portugal, showing that they were present in Europe as well. Due to its distinctive tail spikes and plates, Stegosaurus is one of the most recognizable dinosaurs, along with Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Parasaurolophus, and Apatosaurus. The name Stegosaurus means "roof-lizard" and is derived from the Greek stegos/στέγος-, ("roof") and sauros/σαῦρος, ("lizard")

Its very interesting to me that archaeologists are finding tons of evidence that in prehistoric times disabled people were accomodated and cared for because when I was a child my dad told me the opposite.

The example he used, as I remember it, was this: "Imagine we lived in prehistoric times as hunter gatherers. Let's say you broke your leg. Taking care of you would be a liability for all of us, so we'd have to leave you behind to die :)"

At the time I was bewildered and hurt, but I accepted his answer. Now I just think my dad is a terrible person.

Beneath, and Up Again

The dry season is hot, painstakingly and energy-sappingly hot. Even as the bloated, enormous golden disk sinks below a ragged horizon; syrupy heat wavers from bleak, cracked ground.

Endless, bone dry footprints left by vanished ghosts highway this way and that and there. This ground is scaly like dragonscales. Black, brick red, husked brown. Stranded lonely rocks lie in unhappy shadow beneath termite mound spires, pockmarked craters hissing with endless insect armies. Ancient remnants lie like collapsed cathedrals in all bleached bone glory, shrouded in the mists of twilight and the crimson dunes of time.

I wander this primordial expanse, wander it away from my diminutive tent beneath an endless sky richly black splashed by starlight older than the first conceptual organisms that once dwelled in simmering pools. I’m drunk on campfire smoke, on whisky that seems to burn harder than my dying firelight. I chuckle at jokes only I hear, and feel fingers in my hair from a Love very, very far away.

Something howls in the dark cliffs far away. How long have I been wandering? I am in a maze of shadows and curving eroded labyrinthine eternities, somewhere far away water gurgles in wet whispers down, down, down..

The crimson rock walls are wet now, covered in mossy growth, in gently swaying clover. Is that a breeze? Earthy scent fills my nostrils. Birdsong? Where is that light from, soft and pulsing, gently violet-orange, like sunrise and sunset at once..

When I exit the caverns, I look on in silence.

Primordial Interlopers

The first reports by telephone were an interesting and fairly entertaining joke to both local law enforcement and newspaper offices in the late evening, early morning hours.

“Well.. we didn’t know what to make of it in the slightest”, reports an obviously tired, exasperated Sheriff Elizabeth Cadieux-Andrea.

The Sheriff, a dedicated woman born in the town of Larson and known dedicated community servant was woken in the night roughly around 2:30 a.m., receiving a call from the on station Officer Howard James.

“At first I thought it had to be a joke. Of course it was. I thought, anyway.. I mean, we’ve had crank calls. Calls about a lake monster on the peninsula, stories about ghosts prowling the cemetery. So of course I thought this was a joke—wouldn’t you?”

After a shaky and brief communication with Howard, the Sheriff woke her husband before quickly changing into uniform and stepping out to the surprisingly still muggy air. It must’ve been strange, let alone frustrating: shambling to a police car at ungodly hours of the morning for another ridiculous report beneath seemingly endlessly Milky Way starlight. Mrs. Cadieux-Andrea reports that she was just about to turn at the end of her street heading north before locking eyes with a sight that would forever change her life.

“I thought at first.. I thought a first I was seeing things. You know what I mean—rub your eyes, shake your head. Laugh it off even because it can’t possibly be there. It just can’t. But there it was. Tall as a man with talons and jaws, big as a goddamn lion. Bigger.”

Sheriff Cadieux-Andrea was seeing a dinosaur. My paleontologist contact in the local museum tells me a Ceratosaurus Nasicornis based on a more detailed description the Sheriff would give under oath the following day which described the distinctive nasal horn, small four-fingered hands, and dorsal ridges characteristic of this Jurassic predator. A creature extinct for nearly a hundred million years was striding across a suburban road.

“He just watched me with those eyes. They reflected the most ghastly pale white I’ve ever seen in my life, like wolves in the dark..”

And as quickly as the creature had been sighted, it disappeared quickly into a nearby strand of trees alongside the homes to her right. By the time Cadieux-Andrea had arrived at the police station: nearly two hundred phone calls had been received documenting similar encounters across the entirety of the town.

A local man smoking a cigarette on his front porch watched as a small group of bone-headed herbivorous dinosaurs, Pachycephalosaurus, quickly marched down the road. He noted the animals were seemingly agitated which must’ve been an accurate representation as within moments of being sighted the dinosaurs began to ram into the parked vehicles nearby. The stunned observer told this reporter that the time-stranded creatures did an incredibly bizarre dance between impacting their metallic foes, like jungle birds, and that he could catch glimpses of vivid colors when the dinosaurs briefly stepped under the streetlights.

An young couple (who wished to remain anonymous because of the nature of their rebellious activities) were giddily driving home close to the shores of Lake Rose when, like a primordial fever dream, a massive horn-faced dinosaur (identified as the recently discovered Ultraceratops from a magnificent Deseret fossil bed) crosses the desolate wooded road. The first young woman of the couple said that it was immense: seemingly larger than the elephant from the local zoo, and that in the headlights it’s striking frill was akin to haunting patterns found on moth species. This quote especially sticks with this reporter: “It was like it had a pair of giant, crimson eyes, ringed by black and blue! Like it was starring back at us...!” After what had likely been only a moment or two, the herbivorous titan disappeared back into the forest.

Local celebrity and irritating miscreant of this newspaper (who shall remain nameless to irritate them immensely) spoke to an associate of the Larson Times, quote: “A big bird ate my dog, my poor Princess! It was like—like an eagle big as a jungle cat, with curving claws and black feathers, and it snatched up my poor baby when I let her out! Goddamn monsters! Must be the Soviets, come here to eat and torment the godly, patriotic pets of Americans!” (As of the publishing of this article no connection between the prehistoric arrivals and the United Soviet Socialist Republics has been documented.)

The stories are many, many indeed. And it seems, all in a single night: the mysterious primordial arrivals simply vanished. Searches since Wednesday night have turned up nothing, involving animal specialists and big game hunters and wacky cryptozoologists. Physicists from Moscow, London, and Chicago have arrived, all speculating endlessly on this fantastical scientific curiosity. We hope to publish more citizen accounts in the coming days as the interview process continues. In the meantime: watch out for dinosaurs.

- published in the Larson Times, 1///, prior to the Incident at Harper Town.

Eater of Kings, Phantom Tyrant

Lightning flashes harshly in the sky, throwing angry illumination over bare rock and steep canyon walls, bristling in bruised thunderhead bellies.

Far below the river is oily, turbulent, pumping angrily down its vein like rotten earthly blood to distant stagnant arteries.

Furious howls erupt on the cliffs above: two titans are at war.

Tyrannosaurs. Living walls of cataclysmic predation, both nearly sixty feet long. Their screams are far beneath the audible range for humans—no, these creatures throw sonic earthquakes at each other in challenge—sound so groundshakingly loud as to make bones quake, rattle.

Their immense bodies dance in gravity-defying quickness: eagle grace made draconian in scope. A ritualistic gladiatorial cacophony with stomping feet, smashing tails, crunching jaws.

One is dark as midnight. Smooth but armored hulk an almost grotesque obsidian, slashed by mulchy blood red stripes down heaving flanks. Gnarled, thorny quills proceed down his ancient spine. Endless scars, each more horrific than the last, etched on that grizzled keratin muzzle. He is old. Old as the righteous thunderstorms, old as the badlands dust storms and swampy marshes. He is the Eater of Kings, an ancient rogue known to devour his foes, his wasteland den marked by countless Tyrant corpses..

The other is pale white, a living predatory phantom. She is marked by her own parade of near-killing blows and would-be-deaths from snout to tail tip. A singular, muscular forelimb hangs beneath her barrel-chested form. Her remaining eye burns angrily in its sunken socket, disturbingly watchful—and aware. She is the Phantom Tyrant. Killer of the warlords of the swamp, eradicator of the jungle fiefdoms. She is a living testament to prehistoric regicide.

Thunder smashes in roiling sky, eager for blood and brutality.

Jaws lock, teeth splintered into broken shaprnel clattering onto bleached ground, formidable meathook claws slashing at fortified flesh. Bodies slam against one another like living battering rams, caving bone into muscle, and rupturing organs; blood flowing from mouths as if they were some horrendous gothic fountains..

There is a City in the jungle.

Thick mist swells between giant, wet trunks dozens of meters in width, and kilometers in height. Their wizened, damp bark is encrusted by moss and clover, fungus and chitin; a vibrant psychedelic parade in color, texture, size, shape. Water runs down cascading and thundering rivers, pumping like behemoth veins in an unimaginably massive body.

On the horizon, across the falling white rapids, is something beautiful. Glassy monoliths graciously rise up from twisted ribbons of marble and obsidian. Milky-blue gemstones throw soft reflections across Amazonian terraces and Mesozoic parklands, molten gold creeks passing between huge iron paving blocks. Vines and creepers, flashing luxuriantly pink or gold blossoms, prod between leviathan seams. Eternal summer grows here, beneath forever canopy.

Cataclysm is beautiful, and painful. Great things rose from the molten stone, the crashing seas, the wailing skies; even the howling void sculpted things and breathed life into its newborns. Thrum, thrum, thrum went the heartbeat of the world, beating, thundering. Hungry. Alive. Savage.