Having submitted my thesis on the 29th of September, a day before the absolute deadline (the University of Bristol permits exactly 48 months to submit a PhD thesis), I thought I could kick back and relax...maybe spend more time on drawing or blogging - but I was wrong.
Not having secured a postdoc position, I spend most days stressing, searching, working closely with academic staff on postdoc proposals, and working on converting my thesis chapters into manuscripts. At the same time, I'm trying to catch up on the reading that I'd put on hold while I was manically typing away on my thesis. I have quite a large 'to read' pile. There are some rather interesting papers out there that I only recently stumbled across and so I must blog about them sometime, when I get my head arround all the head-ouch evolutionary theories and models.
...I have this thing about not posting anything until I have something either interesting or useful to post, so not having devoted much time or effort to blogging, I'd kind of put off on the posting - until I realised that it's been more than a month since my last post...
So anyway, on popular demand, I'd started drawing a Pachyrhinosaurus. I still have to flesh it out, literally, but I just present here the framework on which I will be basing my live-restoration of this animal. As I intend to flesh this out, I didn't really bother with the anatomical details of each and every bone of the postcranial skeleton. I am happy just as long as I can make it look 'real' enough.
I usually want to follow original descriptions wherever possible, but not much has been written on this dinosaur. This was quite surprising to me as I had heard that there are bonebeds of this animal and thus there are plenty of materials to work on. There is that new monograph but I don't have a copy of it yet. So instead, I relied on images from the web supplimented by various photos supplied to my by Traumador Tyrannosaur (cheers!). I have ordered a copy of the new monograph last week, so hopefully I'll be able to start on a MK II Pachyrhinosaurus or more specifically P. lakusti. For this one, I guess it's the type species P. canadensis but I don't think it really matters that much.
Perhaps one of the enigmatic things about this animal is the presence of a bony boss where a nasal horn core should be in most derived ceratopsians. Nobody really knows what covered this nasal boss, such that there are many different reconstructions, some more fantastic than others. I haven't yet decided what I want to do with this but being a sceptic of many things I may go for a conservative reconstruction this time...
Not having secured a postdoc position, I spend most days stressing, searching, working closely with academic staff on postdoc proposals, and working on converting my thesis chapters into manuscripts. At the same time, I'm trying to catch up on the reading that I'd put on hold while I was manically typing away on my thesis. I have quite a large 'to read' pile. There are some rather interesting papers out there that I only recently stumbled across and so I must blog about them sometime, when I get my head arround all the head-ouch evolutionary theories and models.
...I have this thing about not posting anything until I have something either interesting or useful to post, so not having devoted much time or effort to blogging, I'd kind of put off on the posting - until I realised that it's been more than a month since my last post...
So anyway, on popular demand, I'd started drawing a Pachyrhinosaurus. I still have to flesh it out, literally, but I just present here the framework on which I will be basing my live-restoration of this animal. As I intend to flesh this out, I didn't really bother with the anatomical details of each and every bone of the postcranial skeleton. I am happy just as long as I can make it look 'real' enough.I usually want to follow original descriptions wherever possible, but not much has been written on this dinosaur. This was quite surprising to me as I had heard that there are bonebeds of this animal and thus there are plenty of materials to work on. There is that new monograph but I don't have a copy of it yet. So instead, I relied on images from the web supplimented by various photos supplied to my by Traumador Tyrannosaur (cheers!). I have ordered a copy of the new monograph last week, so hopefully I'll be able to start on a MK II Pachyrhinosaurus or more specifically P. lakusti. For this one, I guess it's the type species P. canadensis but I don't think it really matters that much.
Perhaps one of the enigmatic things about this animal is the presence of a bony boss where a nasal horn core should be in most derived ceratopsians. Nobody really knows what covered this nasal boss, such that there are many different reconstructions, some more fantastic than others. I haven't yet decided what I want to do with this but being a sceptic of many things I may go for a conservative reconstruction this time...
Comments
As for the photos no worries. Again if there's a critter from western Canada you want a reference for I've probably got something (that's for anyone else reading the comments too)
The drawing is looking good as always. Can't wait to see him fleshed out.
I myself have started on 3D ceratopsians (of a non neoceratopsian variety that is), we'll have to try and coordinate a ceratopsian restoration month or something. I'll alert Zach to the possibility as I'm sure he'd be game.
Gonna have to try that one the next time I tackle a dinosaur.
Thanks! My internal examiner always tries to comfort me by telling me that my viva would be just like a discussion...but we will see.
Your idea is interesting - I can always cooperate in a thing like that!
>sean
I've always been a bit lazy and didn't really see much point in putting lots of effort into the skeleton that eventually gets drawn over...but then, I recently found out that professional illustrators use tracing paper to make successive layers of reconstructions - ha! What a simple but effective method...
The Tyrrell itself has a new one from Dinosaur Park (one of the fully mounted skeleton shots I think I sent you) that is a good 3-7 million years older than any OTHER known Pachyrhino.
The problem with it is they only have the skull, but NOT the frill. Which these days is the key identifier for Ceratopsians.
This one has yet to be described formally.
From what I understand there is a lot of work needing to be done on the Alaskan Pachys, and determining if they are a new type as well.
The pachyrhinosaur is looking good! Don't worry too much about every bone in the body. I've recieved and read the P. lakusti monograph and it only covers the cranial skeleton. There is no postcranial description, which makes me sad. Here are my only recommendations:
The "unicorn horn" in the middle of the frill is split into three pronts at its base, the two outer prongs curve away from the central one. The frill does not curve upward as strongly as in some other centrosaurines like Centrosaurus and Styracosaurus. The nasal boss would have a fairly rounded upper margin in life. The anterior tip of the boss looks like a spout, in that it curves ever so slightly forward to a rounded point. During growth, the single nasal horn of juveniles (made up of the paired nasal bones) spread outward instead of growing upward, and most of this growth was concentrated at the back of the horn. So it's like new bone is bubbling out between the nasal bones, and the adults end up with a very WIDE nasal horn. Does that make sense? However, when viewed from above, the "final" boss would look like a rounded triangle.
The nasal boss and supraorbital bosses do not "connect." In fact, there's an obvious T-shaped depression separating the three bosses. None of them likely supported some kind of "super horn." Instead, I'd cover the boss with a rugosely-textured horny covering like in musk ox.
And finally, because I'm a stickler for this little detail, centrosaurines had semi-sprawling forelimbs. They could not gallop! :-)
And I'd totally be game for a round of ceratopsid restorations. I want Einiosaurus!
It was nice to finally meet you in person, albeit a very brief encounter. It was a rather busy schedule, wasn't it?
Anyway, I finally got my copy of the monograph this week. It turns out it was delivered to my building but was turned down because it didn't have the name of the Department written on it...I would have thought the porters would know me by now, what with being here for the last 5 years and all....