Fragillimus335

Being a lover of nature alive and extinct, I keep track of the species that I encounter in the wild.  My "life list has just cracked 350 species! I try to photograph the animals I see as well. Does anyone else document the animals they have seen?

Highlights on my list include, Mountain goat, Grizzly Bear, Banded Gecko, Ferruginous Hawk, Fisher, Stellar's Jay, and Great Horned Owl.

I finally saw it last week.  I was initially apprehensive about the movie, but I had heard great things, so my hopes were high.  Sadly, the movie fell very flat for me.  I think it is the worst of the series.  The lack of interesting characters, scatterbrained plot and most of all, too much/half-assed cgi, along with poor creature design. Take a look at the raptors in JP3 and compare to Jurassic world raptors… yikes, Tyrannosaurus suffers the same cgi failure.  Even the star, the mutated Indominus… looks like it was done last minute compared to the original jurassic park, now 20 something years old.  Every single dinosaur looked goofier, stupider, and more fake than previous movies.  That is the reason I could not love this movie, not because I'm a paleontologist (In training!), but because I love dinosaurs, and this movie didn't take much care with them.  I'll leave you with some parting comparisons.

Jurassic World- 6.5/10

oi57.tinypic.com/2uq0m5k.jpg
oi62.tinypic.com/2ryqzc5.jpg vs oi62.tinypic.com/22xov4.jpg

Woo!  I'm doing actual paleontology!!!  I just cemented some work with the invertebrate paleontologist at my college.  I will be co-authoring a paper describing 5 new trilobite species!!! I already have them named and everything.  It will be amazing to have FIVE new animals out in the universe named by yours truly!

A NEW AMPHICOELIAS PAPER HAS DROPPED!!!

This paper basically sums up that if Amphicoelias was real and correctly described by Cope, it was absolutely huge.  They estimate vertebra height at 2.80 meters, with a centrum 90cm wide, and a femur length of 4.76 meters!!!  I'll save the estimates of body size for another post, but that indicates a 70+ meter 150+ ton animal.  Anyway, the paper then follows with ecological studies that indicate that such a huge animal is beyond the bounds of it's environment. (I don't buy it)  And that Cope may have made a mistake in his measurements.  They propose the 1500mm vertebral height Cope typed should have read 1050mm, which they state is a somewhat unlikely idea.  If it truly was 1050mm, the animal still had a 1.95 meter tall dorsal, and a femur 3.3 meters long.  

The paper also sinks Amphicoelias fragillimus into A. altus, considering it an adult of altus. They then sink A. altus into Diplodocus altus, keeping Diplodocus altus as the formal name for all Amphicoelias material.  The paper comes with some awesome figures, and includes ontogeny into their estimations. It's a very cool paper, and I suggest taking a look!

Diplodocus may claim the title of the biggest dinosaur ever found!

www.voluminajurassica.org/volu…

How many more do you think will be described before 2014 is over?  Place your bets!


My guess… 9 more species.