28 Days Of Dinosauria - 27

[swordznsorcery]

Day 27: For years, Allosaurus fragilis was my favourite dinosaur, largely for two reasons. One, everybody else seemed to like T. rex best, and I was contrary; and two, I had this great dinosaur book growing up, with wonderful pictures in it by Rod Ruth. His drawing of Allosaurus was fab. A large therapod from the late Jurassic (around 150 million years ago), it was a little different from most other big, bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs, in that its jaws weren't so strong, and it could open its mouth far wider. This obviously suggests at a different feeding strategy, with some palaeontologists suggesting that it might have preferred ambush to direct assault.

We now know that it had horns of a sort above its eyes, making that Rod Ruth illustration outdated (and admittedly it does have a somewhat skeletal head and neck - modern palaeoartists tend to have a better knowledge of anatomy to guide them), but I still love it. It was tradition back in the seventies to draw dinosaurs as lumbering brutes, but Ruth gave them life and dynamism. His Allosaurus lifts its tail off the ground, and doesn't drag it, as was once believed. That's a creature that you know could chase you down. So yeah. Big Allosaurus fan. (Possibly the stripes also helped.)

Comments

[corvidology]

I also love seeing crocodiles in the role of scavenger. :D

[swordznsorcery]

That awkward moment when relatives drop by expecting to be fed, and all you've got is a dead Apatosaurus.

[corvidology]

Ah, we've all been there...

[thisbluespirit]

That is a great image! (That style looks very familiar to me, so I must have seen some books with his ills in, too, either as a child, or while I was a children's librarian.)

[swordznsorcery]

He did loads of stuff. The dinosaur book I have is one in a series of non-fic books that he illustrated (sharks, prehistoric animals, prehistoric man, reptiles, plus others), and he did fiction as well. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you'd seen some in libraries. They would have been old by the time you were working though!

[thisbluespirit]

Some books were! I had to get rid of many of them, lol. (Children's NF books should be reasonably up to date! And I started working in libraries 20 years ago this April, so it wasn't all that recent. Plus, they re-use illustrations and things. But, yeah, I was not a dinosaur obsessive, but I definitely had some fascination and looked at a few library books on the topic.)

[swordznsorcery]

It is certainly very important for a public place to keep its NF stuff up to date! I do love old encyclopaedias though.

[dimity_blue]

Awww! It's giving the viewer a kind of shy but proud look. "Look at what I caught!"

[swordznsorcery]

I doubt it caught it. It wouldn't stand much chance against something that big. Probably taking advantage of a nice(!) bit of carrion.

[dimity_blue]

I didn't think of that!