Let's Read _Prehistoric World: Ceratosaurus_!

This is going to be a weird one.

Then again, Ceratosauria is a weird Infraorder of dinosaurs if you think about it. So let's start reading 2006's Ceratosaurus and Other Horned Dinosaurs.



By Bakker's beard, introducing Ceratosaurus as a "horned dinosaur" will never not be disconcerting as hell. It isn't *untrue*, technically, and that's essentially the translation of "Ceratosaurus" after all. But I'm conditioned to think "Horned Dinosaur" = Ceratopsians, so it's unshakably weird.

Anyway, did anyone in here order a shameless Greg Paul rip-off?



Oof. But at least this isn't as bad as this next picture, which, from the little thumbnail on my desktop, I would have sworn was from the Pachycephalosaurus book.

It's... not a pachycephalosaurus...



Hoo boy. Okay, so this is a rather fanciful restoration of "Majungatholus", who is now known as Majungasaurus. Giving the beast a full-on pachycephalosaurus-style dome is... an interesting choice. And we all know how big a "pumper truck" is, right?



Elaphrosaurus, who was considered a strange-looking ornithomimid in at least one other book, is here correctly included in Team Ceratosauria.



And finally, good old Syntarsus, this time with a fleshy or bony snout-Mohawk. In a book about ceratosaurids, even though he's a coelophysoid (E: Thanks to Albertonychus for the likely reasoning in the comments below.) And still being referred to as Syntarsus, even though this was apparently corrected to Megapnosaurus five years before this book was published. Yeah.

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Sketch of the Day! My go-to response to the "T. rex Trying" meme.

Let's Read More of the _Prehistoric World_ Series!

Last autumn, I shared a few of the books from the oftentimes very odd Prehistoric World series of dinosaur books. I mentioned my local library had more of this series, so here come a few of the rest. As with the first batch of books, these books were all written by Virginia Schomp and published between 2003-2006 by the Marshall Cavendish Corporation. Once again, and unfortunately, the individual artists are not credited. The Ceratosaurus book is meaty enough to have a whole post of it's own, so let's start with this amusing illustration from 2003's Triceratops and Other Horned Plant-Eaters, along with the very obvious joke:



Why the long face, Pentaceratops?



Moving on to Stegosaurus and Other Plate-Backed Plant-Eaters from 2004, we have a disconcertingly old-fashioned illustration of Stegosaurus.



Perhaps that Stego feels down because he isn't part of the "Awesome Shoulder-Spikes" club.



And finally from Stegosaurus, the almost-obligatory plate function theories collection. This one seems oddly sparse. Just once I'd like one of these children's books to acknowledge that gliding stegosaurs were once a thing.



On to 2004's Pachycephalosaurus and Other Bone-Headed Plant-Eaters. Go home, Dracorex. You drunk. Also, possibly an invalid taxon. Maybe.



We'll end with this odd image of a mother Stegoceras charging at another bizarre-looking ceratopsian. The eye-watering perspective aside, this is a pretty neat depiction of speculative behavior.

Next time, we meet up with an old friend yet again...

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Sketch of the Day! Have yet another study of my very favorite model.

Theropods for Thanksgiving - Let's Read The _Prehistoric World_ Series!

Well, we're going to read some of the books in the Prehistoric World series, since my library had a very extensive collection of them. All of these books were written by Virginia Schomp and published between 2003-2006 by the Marshall Cavendish Corporation. Sadly, individual artists are not credited. And all books feature this disclaimer in the credits page:



Methinks more dinosaur-related media could use something like that.

We're going to start with Ornithomimus and Other Speedy "Ostrich Dinosaurs" from 2006. It's timely indeed because here's how the book starts out:



Yeah... about that...

In light of recent revelations, it is worth noting that this, exactly this, is how Ornithomimids were explained, with no variation at all, in every dinosaur book ever. Often, the point would be emphasized with an illustration like this one:



Hmm... for some reason the pose and color scheme on that ornithomimid looks familiar. Well, never mind that now. Here's a really gross version of the "egg-eating Struthiomimus" meme:



Lastly, here's a very strange theory illustrated: fish-eating ornithomimids! What?



Therizinosaurs and Other Colossal-Clawed Plant-Eaters, published in 2006, gives us this memorably ugly depiction of one of my favorite dinosaurs. Seriously, what the hell?



For it's next trick, the book declares that the ever-mysterious Deinocheirus, generally agreed to be an ornithomimid, was a therizinosaur!?



Next post, more outdated maniraptors.

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Sketch of the day!

Have some gesture drawings from election night!