Groovy Swan Beaks

Blogged out

Here's a drive-by blogging, just to get things warmed up after a few quiet weeks. Truth is, the art retail company I work for got wind of my non-day-job blogging and the inevitable happened: yup, I'm now blogging for them, too. Not that that's a problem, you understand; it's all in work's hours and there's no overlap in subject matter, so I'm not repeating myself. Despite having had two or three Pteroformer articles pretty much ready to go for some time, I have felt somewhat 'blogged out'.

TetZoo Time! and Beware! the Zine

That's not to say I've done nothing else. I shot out a brief TetZoo Time! strip to keep things fresh there, whilst Alberta Claw and John Turmelle were between academic years and I also continued work on another blog, Beware! the Zine, which I run with longtime co-conspirator, Andy Brain. Keep an eye out for TetZoo Podcats references (hint: they're here and here). There are also a couple of books in the works, which I'll come back to nearer to the times of their respective completions - if only because I find estimating end dates for such projects rather difficult! On top of all that frantic activity and inactivity, I was happy to notice a couple of my diagrams used in an article at an infamous fringe paleo site (even if it was just to point out how silly they are) but not so pleased to see that attribution seemed too difficult a step.

Got close to swan; arms not broken

Despite the considerable risk to my personal safety, I recently baited a rock with bird seed and photographed Britain's most dangerous extant theropod feeding, up close. Forget cassowaries, even maximum ones. I don't know what kids are taught in the rest of the world, but in '70s and '80s Britain, children found themselves herded into school sports halls so that government-sponsored liaison officers could expound the dangers of getting too close to swans with families. "A fully-grown swan can break a man's arm with its wing!" was what we were all told, without a hint of irony. The girls were safe, seemingly. So too were the boys, at least until they had got puberty out of the way. Swans only target men's arms.

During the '80s and '90s, I attended a local branch of the Scouts, and we would visit the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in Welney, Cambridgeshire, where thousands of waterbirds would overwinter during the seasonal floods. WWT staff were mostly female in those days, owing to the disproportionate number of men injured in horrifying attacks by mute swans. We can only speculate that they never heard them coming. In fact, archaeological evidence has shown that over half of the adult male skeletons in Romano-British cemeteries for the Fens had healed or healing fractures of their humeri, radii and ulnae, some still with the imprints of swan feathers on their surfaces.

The business end of the swan

Leaving fantasy aside for a moment, one particular photo of a mute swan is worth a share. St. Anne's-on-the-Sea in Lancashire has a biggish ornamental pond situated in Ashton Gardens, its main park. Several species of a wetland bird call it home, including swans, mallards, moorhens and canadian geese. Excepting the moorhens none of them are particularly skittish, which is a shame since it's not too long since an unleashed terrier took the head off one of the swans. On the plus side, it makes getting close to them a bit easier, and they'll readily take food, with younger ducks happy enough to take it from your hands.

A swan. A swan and its pigeon prey. (Copyright © Gareth Monger.)

Now, I've not spent much time staring down the barrel of a swan, basically for the reasons mentioned above. A lot of people are familiar with the 'teeth' of ducks, geese and swans, and a good chunk of those people are aware that they're not true teeth.

Mute swan (Cygnus olor) displaying lamella and corresponding grooves (unless the corresponding grooves are also called lamellae - available diagrams didn't seem to agree). (Copyright © Gareth Monger.)

Mute swans (Cygnus olor), like the one in this photo, are generally herbivorous, and use an array of lamellae in their beaks to gather aquatic plants and separate inedible material from the mix. These rib-like projections in the upper and lowers beaks interlock neatly, though they're not always obvious from the outside. After all, unlike Hollywood's dinosaurs, extant dinosaurs don't spend every waking hour with the mouths hanging open, screaming at stuff.

Highly-detailed and extremely serious scientific diagram, showing a duck's head with lamellae exposed. Note fleshy projections forming a fringe on the lateral margins of the tongue. (Copyright © Gareth Monger.)

So there you are. Swans, geese, ducks, and a bunch of other birds, have weird rib-like features lining their beaks, improving their ability to grip food and separate out the nice bits from sediment and other, less interesting, items. Some birds take it further than others, such as flamingos, which have an arrangement which allows them to filter small invertebrates from the water. A bit of a long blog when all I wanted to do was wave a photo under your noses, but hey, it's been a while. See you soon.

National Geographic's Antidote To Terminal Monster Saturation

The palaeontology community's members are all in therapy, thanks to Jurassic World's insistence on filling a(n ENORMOUS) fictional theme park with some of the worst reconstructions of Mesozoic reptiles known to man. The TetZoo guys didn't even make it to the end of their own review*, with Darren Naish weeping uncontrollably after only fifteen minutes, and transmission being cut seconds after what can only be described as a muffled thud. Listeners were left to make up their own minds as to what had transpired, with many speculating that they'd just heard Naish's mercy killing at the hands of John Conway. The Love In The Time Of Chasmosaurs blog clearly comprises a masochistic crew, who offered up not one but two reviews on JW. (And they just added a third about an hour ago.)

The point is, you don't have to look too far to find a palaeo community review for this year's main Summer blockbuster. Jurassic World has attracted much attention since people began speculating as to how they might depict some of the film's key creatures. It's nearly two decades since John Hammond demonstrated how you should NEVER EVER run a zoo and, in that time, dinosaur reconstruction has evolved at an unimaginable rate. Would Jurassic World reflect this? Would we get feathered 'raptors'? Would they possess the correct wrists described by Dr Alan Grant RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST MOVIE? And, most importantly, would their T. rex still move around the park, one earthquake-causing footstep at a time, taken every thirty seconds? ("T. rex doesn't want to be fed, it wants to hunt!" Not gonna happen. Not when everything within a couple of miles knows you're coming.)

Chris Pratt's character taunts Jurassic World's Velociraptors by demonstrating the range of motion they should be able to achieve with their arms. (Copyright © 2015 Universal Pictures.)

By now you already know the answers. You've either seen the film or read the reviews, so in the interest of avoiding repetition, I'll spare you a long and damning run-through of how bad they got it. Jurassic World was, for me, an enjoyable monster romp - a worthy sequel to Jurassic Park. I got giddy sat at home, waiting to leave for the cinema. I got chills hearing the music. And I nearly wet myself during the tag-team end battle. But it's not a film about dinosaurs. It is, however, a love letter to the first film, as demonstrated by numerous references and nods to Jurassic Park. It also flicks the Vs at the less-well-loved Jurassic Park III, if only by having the first film's T. rex smash through a mounted Spinosaurus skeleton during the final reel. And remember how the JP3 promo art made use of a triple claw-gash to form the III? The only reason I could see for Improbable Indominus rex having four manual digits was so that Universal could use the same trick for this fourth instalment. Pfft.  Yes, it's daft, overblown, and it makes scientists cry. But it's fun and noisy and holds children's attention for the duration.

These are the take-home points of the Jurassic Park series:

• Revived Mesozoic animals will, upon their release, always, ALWAYS go bat-shit crazy and attack every human in sight, irrespective of their general temperament when confined, or whether they're piscivorous, carnivorous or veggie-saurus, Lex, veggie-saurus!
• Large theropods will announce their approach with impact-tremor footsteps. They will then stand and roar, I guess because they're sporting types, and think it fair to offer their intended prey a chance of escape.
• A hunting dinosaur has no concern for its own wellbeing. It will happily smash through buildings, walls, perimeter fences and steel doors in order to catch prey. It will go to any and all lengths to catch a person, inconvenience be damned. It has no concept of 'too much effort'. (Extinction hypothesis?)
• Indominus rex was originally engineered as a means to retrieve broken-down gyrospheres, hence its enormous gape. Probably.
• Jurassic Park films would all end after only ten minutes if ANYBODY had conducted a decent risk assessment analysis. Ergo, in the JP universe, people are really, really stupid.

So will the Summer of 2015 go down in history as the moment when film & television decided that palaeontology ≠ sexy? Not quite.

Before they took a blood shower: Dr. Luke Gamble at front and, left to right, Matthew T. Mossbrucker, Dr. Steve Brusatte and Dr. Tori Herridge. (Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Channel.)

Thank the flips for National Geographic's 'T. rex Autopsy'. If you've not seen it, the premise is a straight-forward one: make a fully-furnished Tyrannosaurus rex corpse, hire a team of palaeontologists and vets, and set them to work dissecting it. Obviously turning that into a reality was anything but simple, as palaeontologist and adviser-to-the-show Dave Hone explains (here). And they do a brilliant job. The dissection team does not behave as if its members are crawling over a special effect. They do their level best to convince the viewers - and themselves - that the animal is real. For the most part they pull it off, too. Excepting the odd, faked, reflexive cough at smells we know aren't there, their reactions at having been presented with a 'real' non-avian dinosaur are a joy to watch. My seventeen-year-old daughter arrived home partway through the programme; gawping confusedly at the television screen, she enquired as to where on earth the makers got hold of a fully-fleshed dinosaur. That's how good it is. Of course, if you're looking for the tells which betray the animal's synthetic construction, they're there, well hidden. But who cares? Disbelief is easily - and wilfully - suspended.  Hats are tipped at those who conceived, designed, and executed this remarkable piece of television. It more than makes up for those well-documented missed opportunities of Jurassic World.

A few weeks ago LITC announced the Jurassic World challenge. In order to try to increase awareness of real palaentology, and perhaps direct some funds back towards it, LITC suggested that if you go to see the film you could spend at least the equivalent amount on something which will benefit palaeontologists, research institutions, palaeoartists and museums. You could buy a book, or a piece of palaeoart, or donate to a museum or crowd-fund someone. There's loads to choose from if you look around.

Since I have bills like everyone else, it would help me enormously if people bought a t-shirt from my Redbubble page. You can show off your pop-culture-savviness with a hyper-daft Guardians-Jurassic-World-How-To-Train-Your-Dragon mash-up, or keep reminding everyone that T. rex Autopsy was the best thing on telly since sliced tyrannosaur.

Juraasic World and T. rex Autopsy fan art t-shirts, available at my Redbubble page, here.

It's good to get that JW stuff off my chest. Normal service will resume soon. There's a stack of stuff sat there in draft, including more wandering sauropod ecosystems, more Yi qi, and more pterosaur quad-launching. Laters!

*Of course TetZoo did the whole interview. Listen to it - its very entertaining.

The Fossil Record Throws A Curveball: Yi qi

Those crazy, crazy theropods. If there's one thing palaeontology has showed us about dinosaurs, it's that you shouldn't get used to their popular reconstructions because, sooner or later, something will turn up that'll really screw with your mind. And it's not like these events are necessarily rare; Deinocheirus and Spinosaurus got make-overs in the last couple of years, and they're both pretty high-profile.

Less high-profile are the Scansoriopterygidae, small, feathered, theropodan dinosaurs with the long arms you'd expect of an arboreal, aerial-capable dinosaur, but with an immensely-long third digit. A popular notion is that this digit was an adaptation to an arboreal lifestyle, enabling the creature to wrap its arm around tree trunks and branches, like naturalist David Bellamy, just, y' know, sharing the love.

B-b-but - what's this? A new paper by Xu, Zheng, et al, announces the discovery of a new scansoriopterygid, Yi qi, preserving not only the long fingers and feathers, but also a new, hitherto unseen structure. A long bony, or cartilaginous, rod projects backwards from each wrist, and patches of membrane suggest a set-up not totally unlike that of bats or pterosaurs. Or dragons, but I didn't say that. There's still some debate as to how the proximal margins of the wing chord may articulate, i.e., does it merge with the thoraic region or something else. And what is the true arrangement of the manual elements, in particular, the rear-pointing 'prong', referred to in the paper as the styliform element? They offer up a couple of possible arrangements, such as something superficially bat-like, and a set-up where the styliform elements are directed inwards, towards the body, helping to maintain a narrower chord. If this animal did indeed undertake powered flight, it's not too difficult to imagine it 'scooping' the air with its membranous hands, as bats do. Bats' hands' 'palms' form a sort of concave shape as they fly, which looks like a sort of arial butterfly stroke. Their fingers are fully jointed, enabling them to alter the shapes of their manus as required, resulting in a rather effective wing. The paper offers up three potential arrangements for Yi qi's 'wings', the two more plausible (to me) of which are shown here:

Two of three different arrangements proposed in Xu, Zhen, et al (2015), showing a proximally-pointing styliform element running parallel to the forearm (left), and the same feature, free of the forearm, pointing posteriorly and supporting a much-deeper membrane. (Illustrated by Gareth Monger; modified from Xu, Zhen, et al 2015.)

With regards the styliform element, I wonder if, rather than being curved in a horizontal plane (as restored, left) it instead curved ventrally (right), helping to maintain the aerofoil section - and a bat-like scoop. Some time after death, and prior to fossilisation, it has tipped over, rotating approximately 90 degrees, and settling in an unnatural position (left). Compression of the bones and associated remains during preservation could be masking the true shape of this apparently-unique element, but some lateral compression in life would make structural sense in terms of giving it strength during a downstroke. But that's all speculation.

In the paper, the wing reconstructions (shown in dorsal view) show the hind limbs of the animal trailing behind it. Although the main point of the graphic is to demonstrate the possible extent of the membrane, a trailing position for the hind limbs is unlikely; it pushes the centre of gravity back, and increases turbulence. For a volant theropod, it would seem unlikely that it would extend its legs behind it if they're not supporting part of a flight surface, and it also seems unlikely that a volant animal would rely on a narrow wing as suggested in the left-hand diagram. The right-hand diagram shows a deep chord, within which the (estimated) centre of gravity comfortably sits, when the legs are brought up, underneath the body, and out of the airflow.

Speculative illustration showing possible extent of contour feathers on Yi qi, and a possible centre of gravity. Note that the animal brings its legs in under itself, out of the airflow and therefore reduces turbulence. This also maintains a more-central centre of gravity. (Copyright © 2015 Gareth Monger)

Where the trailing edge of the membrane attaches (e.g., the body, or the hind limb) is not clear. Flying dinosaurs which use feathered wings benefit from legs which are independent of the wings. They can run into the airflow to achieve lift-off, or they can jump into the air, with the wings already committed to the flight strokes and not involved in the jump (compare pterosaur quad-launching). Having a skin membrane attached to the leg might be problematic since the legs (if not held out behind) would need to be elevated in order to maintain a level flight surface, and not one which partially faces into the airflow. However, that brings the leg and the membrane attached to it forward, reducing the tautness of membranous wing. Bearing that in mind, one might expect the membrane to attach on the body, somewhere in front of the hip, and not to the leg. The styliform element could work as a means by which the animal adjusts the tautness of the membrane, in a similar way to how a pterosaur is thought to do so with its apparent ankle attachment. Without that extra strut, the animal might enjoy less control and increased flutter in the membranes.

Yi qi in flight. (Copyright © 2015 Gareth Monger)

One of the key questions raised by this is why would a theropod go the route of developing a membranous flight surface when so much experimentation with flight (and there seems to be a lot of it!) is concerned with forming a continuous flight surface from elongated feathers? A major difference between scansoriopterygids and other, flighted, theropods is their elongated third digit. As suggested earlier on, it could be that this is an adaptation towards an arboreal lifestyle, enabling the animal to climb trees and other steep surfaces more easily. And it could be that selective pressures favoured the extension of the postpatagium instead of the feathers present on the arms. Whatever the case, feathers for flight persisted, and the theropodan flight membrane proved an evolutionary dead-end. Hopefully, additional specimens will come to light, adding to our understanding of this weirdo dinosaur.

Many thanks go to Mike Boyd for enabling me to write this particular article.

Learn To Let Go: The Ever-Changing Look Of Dinosaurs

I recall several occasions from my college days when tutors advised students not to get too precious about their work. This wasn't just a sly put-down; it was practical advice. Colossal (but avoidable) balls-ups, ranging from illustrating a tortoiseshell butterfly with incorrectly-arranged leg segments, to dropping a cup of hot chocolate on a near-complete painting could be soul-destroying, severely limiting your options for correction. Often, there's only one option: start again. Illustrating in college was very different to illustrating commercially. The most noticeable difference was that a college assignment would give up an entire term to one brief, whereas commercial briefs were rarely so generous. During my briefest of flirtations with Dorling Kindersley, I'd get a call in 5pm with a couple of details for a required illustration, and my deadline would be 10am the next day. I guess that's not typical, but it does serve to demonstrate that there's not always enough to time to sit back and bask in your illustrative awesomeness when you've only had about three hours to throw something together. In short, it taught me not to be too precious about my work. (Even if it survives the production process long enough to be seen by its target audience, it's then got to run the gauntlet of critics and trolls...)

Few people would argue that 2014 has been anything other than a cracking year for palaeontology. More specifically, dinosaur fans got to open their Christmas presents early, with the release of new reconstructions of Deinocheirus and Spinosaurus. The latter has been a mainstay of popular palaeontology literature for over half a century, with many dinofans relatively confident of the animal's real-life appearance. On the other hand, Deinocheirus has often featured in those very same books for the opposite reason (explained here simply for those weary blogonauts who may have stumbled across Pteroformer by accident). Deinocheirus mirificus was discovered in the mid-'60s by Professor Zofia Kielan-Jaworoska, during a Polish-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi desert. The mostly-scattered skeleton of D. mirificus comprised some vertebrae, ribs and two enormous arms and scapulae. In spite of a few peculiarities, the arms resembled those of other ornithomimids. The key is in the 'enormous' bit: 2.4 metres is a lot of arm. And it's easy to see why that would cause excitement. Deinocheirus is a theropod and theropods are traditionally murderers. Enormous heads full of lots of teeth, which themselves are always compared to steak knives - well, at least in '80s dinosaur books. But it's their arms which this is all about, and when someone finds what is, at the time, the biggest set of theropod arms ever, well, they must belong to the biggest theropodan murderer ever.

Deinocheirus mirificus: Reaper-saurus or nay? Speculative reconstructions of this animal depicted it as everything from a giant dromaeosaur to a tyrannosaur. It's as if people wanted it to have been a killer. Available on a t-shirt here! (Copyright © Gareth Monger)

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was also initially known from similarly-scrappy remains, though enough was recovered for a tentative reconstruction on which palaeoartists would base their illustrations and sculptures for years to come. Spinosaurus's exact relationships with other theropods were largely unknown, allowing artists a certain amount of leeway regarding which better-known theropods they stuck a sail on the back of. Before 2014, reconstructions of Spinosaurus rarely moved it away being the top predator of its time - perhaps of all time - and the much-loved oft-maligned Jurassic Park III did nothing to change this. It did, however, hammer home the long, slow snout for which spinosaurs are now so-well known. It had already featured in many '90s images, but there's nothing like a Jurassic Park film to shoehorn a dinosaur's image into popular culture.

And so 2014 happened. Papers were released and rumours confirmed. Museums and dinosaur parks alike bulldozed their now-redundant mounts and fibreglass monstrosities and Dorling Kindersley deleted its back catalogue. I exaggerate, of course. But of the two animals, Spinosaurus was the major upset. Its new look rendered nearly all previous reconstructions inaccurate, but also caused a bit of a stink among fanboys, many of whom didn't like the new 'design'. The paper written by Ibrahim, et al (2014) showed Spinosaurus to be heavily modified towards a largely-aquatic lifestyle, its hindlimbs reduced to the extent that running around on land was unlikely. It didn't take long before people took to social media to complain about the new reconstruction, and that's understandable - it's awkward. It doesn't fit with people's preconceptions of how theropod dinosaurs should look. Even some dinosaur workers remained unconvinced (see here and here for initial responses from Mark Witton and Scott Hartman). It's worth noting that, as an aquatic non-avian theropod, it represents something of a first, so there's nothing to compare it to. In case you missed it, here's Davide Bonadonna's illustration for National Geographic:

Two Spinosaurus aegyptiacus swim for their food in Davide Bonadonna's dynamic illustration. (Copyright © National Geographic. Used with permission.)

It was interesting to note so much nostalgia for the older, inaccurate, versions of Spinosaurus. Of course, Deinocheirus didn't attract much of that, for its own, older reconstruction(s), was a far-from-settled affair. But it did serve to remind us that we must not take for granted the reconstructions of extinct animals. For me, an illustrator, these updated versions are exciting; they break rules and challenge our ideas. But some people reacted as if this represented something wrong with palaeontology. Questions were posted in social media palaeontology groups, such as, "What do you think is cooler, spinosaurus [sic] with long legs or short legs?" Responses ranged from those directly answering the question, to those querying what 'cool' had to do with anything. Could it be that there are people who think that this will boil down to a popularity contest between old and new restorations? Or maybe a whole generation of Jurassic Park III fans is upset that there is no longer any point in asking palaeontologists who would win in a fight between a Tyrannosaurus and a Spinosaurus.

Deinocheirus mirificus wades out into the shallow waters of a Late Cretaceous Mongolian landscape. (Copyright © Andrey Atuchin. Used with permission.)

For many, first contact with extinct dinosaurs is made through illustrated books on the subject. Naturally, these animals' life restorations may be remembered into adult life and may continue to represent a strong connection to childhood. The nuances of a particular illustration or sculpture or animation might leave a mark which never fades. But it seems many people - perhaps those who have maintained only a passing interest - regard their personal nostalgic response as more important than the science. It might seem trivial, but it soon becomes an issue with which palaeontologists must contend when inexplicably popular media portrayals fail to keep up with science. By its very nature, palaeontology is constantly evolving. It follows that its pictorial representations will evolve too - whether you like it or not.

Big, big thanks must go to Andrey Atuchin and Davide Bonadonna, both of whom supplied digital versions of their excellent illustrations at very short notice, allowing me to use them in this article. Click their names to visit their websites.

Jurassic Park 4: Age of Creative, Integrital and Scientific Extinction

Gawd almighty, what is there to say about Jurassic World which hasn't already been said?  Probably not much, but it never hurts to summarise - especially if you're blogging.  Jurassic World is the subject of much scrutiny, owing mainly to speculation about how the film's designers would render their genetically recovered dinosaurs.  Jurassic Park, in 1993, was perhaps the only occasion the franchise could get away with bald raptors.  Subsequent discoveries set in stone the idea that many, many dinosaurs were feathered. Much was made of the film's reliance on advancements in palaeontlogy. Indeed, they even hired palaeo heavyweight John R. Horner to advise on their appearance (Horner answers some questions about JW here - warning: it's brief). Could dinosaurs receive the Hollywood treatment AND stay true to the ever-shifting science of dinosaurology?  'Would they?' is perhaps a more appropriate question, and one which the JP franchise would answer several times over.

Jurassic Park's Velociraptor: demonic kangaroo lizards.

(Copyright: Universal Pictures)

And so, a few years later, Spielberg served up another monster movie, and aside from throwing in some different dinosaurs and upping the on-screen death toll, nothing really changed.  And that's the snag.  Nothing really changes.  At all.  And not just in Jurassic Park's universe, but in many other films which featured dinosaurs.  Such was Jurassic Park's impact that many other filmmakers simply try to emulate it: "If it's good enough for Jurassic Park, it's good enough for us" or simply, "Well, they must know best". It was as if Jurassic Park's legacy was simply to raise the bar for accurate lighting of scaly hides. With its release, Spielberg, Crichton and Winston were elevated to the heady heights of deities and Industrial Light and Magic became the only name in CGI special effects. A flurry of CGI-heavy films followed, including Jumanji, Twister and Casper. Lots and lots of style over substance. Many, many subsequent television and film dinosaurs were similarly afflicted by this SFX approach.

A fully-feathered Velociraptor mongoliensis, produced for Oxford University Museum in 2003. Still too skinny, though, and the feather arrangement on the 'wings' is inaccurate.
(Copyright: OUMNH/Gareth Monger)

The dominance of the 'JP dinosaur' style was such that it became the preferred look. Even high profile documentaries such as the BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs failed to take that step and feather their theropods, despite coming several years later, and if ever there was an opportunity to do something special, Hobbit-fancying Whovian Peter Jackson missed the mark by about a third of a parsec and delivered an ecosystem crammed with relics hellbent on going extinct by whatever means possible (but mostly just by getting squashed by wobbly sauropods or running off cliffs).  And Jurassic Park's influence here cannot be denied.  C'mon, giant tyrannosaurs and dromaeosaurs? The only thing missing was a giant Jeff Goldblum.  No, wait... the titular character had that covered.

Of course, time's a great healer, and several documentaries did get it right. Although not the first to do so, 2013's Walking With Dinosaurs film certainly put forward some of the best feathered theropods out there. It stopped short of extending this feathery integument to its Gorgosaurus, and it left its ceratopsians similarly in need of insulation. And this may very well be viewed in the future in the same way that Jurassic Park is now, i.e., they could very well have taken that leap, and future discoveries would probably have proven them right. But, unlike Jurassic Park, the Walking With Dinosaurs film did at least move things along from its initial series fifteen years earlier, so much so that its 2013 troodontids bare little resemblance to their 1999 dromaeosaur cousins.

Troodon from Walking With Dinosaurs
(Copyright: 20th Century Fox)

So, bearing that in mind, Jurassic World might appear to be an odd leap backwards. People might be forgiven for thinking that palaeontology is a rather schizophrenic science. Sure, no one expects scientists to agree all the time, but on one hand we've had ten years of increasingly-feathered dinosaur restorations in magazines and on television, and on the other Jack Horner is putting his name to the advisory role of the fourth film in a series which refuses to acknowledge a tsunami of fossil evidence. But if the mob needs someone to hang, they shouldn't turn the pitchforks towards Horner.  I saw him in a lecture, aimed mainly at children, at OUM, back in the late '90s, and he was almost despairing of the film makers' decisions to ignore so much science. He listed palaeontological fact after palaeontological fact, all cast aside in favour of, well, whatever it is that film makers prefer to good, solid palaeontology.  Maybe this was a man, failed by Spielberg and co., trying to limit the damage done by JP's skinny monsters to those kids' understanding of 'dinosaurology'. Unfortunately, come June, it seems that he'll have to do it all over again.

The outmoded image of dinosaurs as 'terrible lizards' may have been knocked over with a fossil feather, but the Jurassic Park monster is standing fast.

Jurassic World will be released in cinemas June 12th, 2015.