Dinosaurs - my job!

[Lt. Killer M]

Thursday I went to Aathal in Switzerland (close to Zürich) to check out a specimen of Psittacosaurus neimongoliensis. here are some pics:




http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Lt. Killer M/200361415377_gesamt klein.jpg
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note how small the entire animal is!

Also, the position of the arms and legts is suspicious - it is a good position to sit on eggs like that, covering them with arm and leg......

[Lt. Killer M]

and a rigth lateral view of the skull. note the horns on the jugal and the rostral bone that carried the parrot-like beak!

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Lt. Killer M/200361415402_skull right lateral small.jpg
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[Lt. Killer M]

now, I am NOT sure about the exact species here - this might be P. ordosensis, too - I will have to check that out... ;) that's what I get paid for .....

[Lt. Killer M]

they have a LOT of nice stuff at that museum, not only bones but life size reproductions, too:


Deinonychus:



http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Lt. Killer M/2003614154850_deinonychus small front repro.jpg
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[Lt. Killer M]

OK, some people wanted to know what a dinosaur is and what an archosaur is and so on.....


here is a pic that shows a typical dinosaur skull from the side:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Lt. Killer M/200361416419_archoskull.jpg
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now, Archosauria is a group of animals that includes todays Crocodilia, the dinosaurs (including the birds!) and a number of extinct groups such as the Pterosauria (flying repitles of the mesozoic).

typical for the entire group is the presence of an opening in front of the eye, the antorbital foramen, two temporal openings (behind the eye), only the lower of which is visible here (the other one is on the top of the skull for diosaurs usually) and a primary jaw articulation (which they share with other reptiles (and indeed fishes) except for the line going to us mammals). This means that there are several bones in the lower jaw and the one called articulare articulates with teh one in the skull called quadratum.


now, what maeks this animal a dinosaur? actually, the easy features are NOT found on the skull except for the elongates vomers (bones behind the palate bones on the rof of the mouth - cannot be seen in the pic).

a lot of other things are used to seperate dinosaurs from non-dinosaurian archosaurs. But they all pertain to the body, not the head:

- three or more scral vertebrae (?)
- scapulocoracoid glenoid (shoulder articulation) facing fully backwards
- low deltopectoral crest that runs one-third or one-half of the way down the shaft of the humerus
- three or fewer phalanges in the fourth digit of the hand
- largely to fully open acetabulum (where hte leg contcts the hipbones)
- fully offset head of femur with a distinct neck and ball (parallel in human, e.g. - means the legs go fully UNDER the body)
- greatly reduced fiblua (one of the two bones in the lower leg).

and some more....

[Lt. Killer M]

now, some more archosaurs:
Tapeiara wellnhoferi, a longtailed pterosaur. Can you see the two tiny openings behind the huge orbit? the opening in front of the orbit has secondarily been lost in these pterosaurs.


http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Lt. Killer M/2003614162941_Taperiara.jpg
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[Skyfish]

Archosaurs kick ass dude !

[Lt. Killer M]

another littel archosaur (I hope the pic is not copyrighted, I do not know where I got it from):



http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Lt. Killer M/2003614175924_crocrun.jpg
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see how the legs are UNDER the body (but not fully, as in dinosaurs)?

This pic illustrates why it is a very bad idea to anger a crocodile - especially threaten young ones....... they make a squeaking sound to which any adult - but especially the mother - reacts witha full scale attack on the threat. Not a show of force, an attack........ and on rough ground and up to a few hundered meters a croc CAN outrun a horse........ sometimes.......

[Lt. Killer M]

one mroe dino pic for today:

Big Al

the secondmost-compete skeleton of an Allosaur ever found... htis is a replica of the skull as the museum had to give up the dig - it was sadly a few meters outside the lad they were allowed to dig on (they found Big Al 2 later, even better preserved ;)).....

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Lt. Killer M/2003614181447_big Al small.jpg
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[col]

But where are the pix of those three girls ???? ;)

[Lt. Killer M]

LOL col, you DOM, I have a pic of one if you want it ;)

[Shabbaman]

Now we're talking about girls, did your dancing partner already recover? And show some pictures of that dinosaur dung you're working with ;)

[Lt. Killer M]

Shabba: no, no. ;)

she'll be back later this week (shudder) and I do not work with dung atm

[ProPain]

Nice pics and posts! Apart from renaming you Ross from now on I'm left with several questions :
- What does DOM stand for? (Dirty Old Man would be my guess)
- What 3 girls, what dancing partner?
- Is there a link between these girl(s) and the skyfish poll concerning the ex gf?
- What dung? (Dinosaur dung would be stone dinosaur dung by now if it would have survived I'd think)

PP

[Lt. Killer M]

PP: why Ross?

DOM - you are a smart guy ;)
3 girls: the museum is privately owned - a family business. The owner has 4 daughters, 3 of whom I met...... my dancing partner is gone (as usual) :( so 'no sports' - where's my Whisky and the Havannas?
link: no, not really
- yes, it would, and there's people working on that kind of stuff, but not me.

[ProPain]

Ross from friends, who also works on dinosaurs.

[Lt. Killer M]

doh! I never watch that (shit).

[Shabbaman]

He has a t-shirt with the text 'tyranosauros ross'.