prehistory times 111

21344_PrehistoricTimesCover.qxp_PT #73 covers 10/6/14 8:22 AM Page 1

21344_PrehistoricTimesCover.qxp_PT #73 covers 10/6/14 8:22 AM Page 2

21344_Prehistoric Times-111.qxp_Prehistoric Times #73 10/8/14 12:00 PM Page 1

The PT Interview: Julius Csotonyi. . . . . . . . .Fredericks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Baryonyx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The Weald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abdale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

How to Draw Dinosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Collectors Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Dinosaur Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Knol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Doyles The Lost World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lavas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Whats New in Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Thylacosmilus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Origins Life-Through-Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . Debus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Little Golden Book Dinosaurs . . . . . . . . . . . Quinn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Paleonews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Interview: Sculptor Dan LoRusso . . . . . . . . . Liebman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Mesozoic Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Dinosaur 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Telleria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

PT Interview: Author Max Hawthorne . . . . . Fredericks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Gorgo Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bengel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Prehistoric Times No. 111 FALL 2014

Publisher/Editor: Mike Fredericks

145 Bayline Circle, Folsom, Ca 95630-8077

(916) 985-7986 between 8-5 PST M-Fbusiness hours only please.

FAX (916) 985-2481 [email protected]

www.prehistorictimes.comDont forget PT is also available as an

app for your phone or computer

PT logo by William Stout Redone above by Thomas Miller

Front cover graphic design by Juan CarlosAlonso

Advertising:Full page - $150 b&w - $400 color;

1/2 pg - $100 b&w - $300 color;

1/4 pg - $75 b&w - $200 color

$30 U.S. Only (one year, 4 issues) third class postage.

$35 U. S. first class postage and Canada

$45 South of the border & across the Atlantic

$50 Across the Pacific

Table of Contents

All payments in U.S. funds. Credit card payment through our site onlyOr mail your check/MO/cash to our address. Subscription Information below:

Prehistoric Times 145 Bayline Circle Folsom, CA 95630-8077

Subscribe Today! Visit our web site and use your credit card (through Paypal only) tosubscribe, resubscribe or buy back issues www.prehistorictimes.com

Join the Prehistoric Times group for free on Facebook

Mike Fredericks

Tracy Ford

John Sibbick

Davide Bonadonna

Mauricio Anton

Kevin Hedgpeth

Julius Csotonyi

Greg Paul

Andrey Atuchin

Jorge Blanco

Mark Hallett

Fabio Pastori

JA Chirinos

Paul Passano

Phil Brownlow

Trisha Brummitt

Betty Reid Martin

Wade Carmen

Meg Bernstein

Mike Landry

Jim Kuether

John F Davies

C W Gross

Dan Holland

Bill Unzen

Christian Juul

David Kinney

David Hicks

Chris Alfaro

Fredrik Spindler

Pedro Salas

Joe Stansburg

John Trotter

Martin Garratt

Jason Ward

John Womack

Tony Phillips

Jared McGowan

Joseph Ortega

Artists in this issue:

Mike Fredericks

Tracy FordRandy Knol

Phil Hore

Allen DebusRobert Telleria David Bengel

Dan LiebmanJason R Abdale

John LavasJeff Quinnwww.prehistorictimes.com

Writers in This

4 Prehistoric Times No. 111 Fall 2014

Write your own funny caption to theWrite your own funny caption to the

photo above and win a free one yearphoto above and win a free one yearPT subscription. PT subscription.

SSUUBBSSCC RRII BBEETTOODDAAYY!!

TThhee PPTT ss tt aaff fff tt hhaaa nnkkss yy ooo uu (( ssee eeenn

bbee ll ooww )) !!


Well, anotherquiet summer

went by in which I hardly heard from any of you.Like I say after most every summer, I know you wereout fox-hunting and playing polo on your yachts,while I sat here alone in my shack, wondering if any-body still liked me. Oh woe is me (have I got yoursympathy yet?), but I do love fall and am very gladthat summer is once again behind us for another year. Now that everyone isback indoors again, I hope you will all resubscribe and pick up a few ofthose back issues you missed.

Nevertheless, I think I was able to rise out of my depression long enoughto put together another groovy issue of PT. I review Steve White and Juliussamazing new book called The Art of Julius Csotonyi in this issue and alsointerview both men. The great information and fantastic art abounds in thisfantastic new book you will want to purchase. I was also fortunate enoughto get Julius to allow me to show a work of his art on our front cover. Juliussdigital painting is a scene of a group of Utahraptors overpowering aHippodraco; a very beautiful work with moody lighting.

Of course Phil Hore is here wonderfully describing both Baryonyx andThylacosmilus. As usual we received more artwork than I could jam in. Ieven took up half of Mesozoic Mail to show some more. Thanks to all of youfor that. To further elaborate on the world of Baryonyx, Jason R Abdale tellsus what it would have been like to have lived in its world in the Weald (dec-orated with John Sibbick artwork) Of course Tracy Ford is here and he talksabout dinosaur skin textures in his How to Draw Dinosaurs. It also would-nt be PT without Allen Debus who has some fascinating paleo-history forus. Our Randy Knols Dinosaur Collector had a lot to describe with all ofthe new dinosaur figures coming out and I tried to take up the slack with myusual Whats New in Review column too. Of course he and I are both veryfortunate andgrateful for all ofthe beautifuldinosaur figureswe receive forreview in PT. Wehave reviewedJohn Lavass LostWorld book in PTand now he writesa nice articleabout DoylesLost World for usthat is lavishlyillustrated byJohn. Infrequentyet long time PTwriter JeffreyQuinn shows usthe original art-work he was ableto acquire fromthe 1950s LittleGolden BookDinosaurs that I absolutely adored as a child and Ill bet many of you did too. TheBattat brand dinosaur figures are back again. Randy and I review them and DanLiebman of Dansdinosaurs.com interviews its sculptor Mr Dan LoRusso, a namefrom the past who has also been a long time friend of PT. Robert Telleria is becominga regular (and welcome) writer in PT. He interviews the director of the new film titledDinosaur 13 which is all about Sue the famous Tyrannosaurus fossil. My goodfriend David Bengel does a bang-up job showing us how to build and paint two com-pletely different versions of the new Gorgo model kit. I also interview MaxHawthorne, author of the fast-paced and well-written book Kronos Rising andmuch, much more. Thanks again to all of you and enjoy, everyone! See you next year.

MOVING?? PLEASE let us know your new address the second you plan tomove. Many subscribers move and never bother to let us know. The magazine is NOTforwarded and it costs us to resend the magazine later to your new digs.

Also if you subscribed to PT by sending your payment anywhere except directly tous, please know that we only received a paltry percentage of that payment. The peopleyou sent the payment to get the lions share of it. When you (hopefully) renew yoursubscription PLEASE do it by sending your payment directly to us. We are a verysmall business and could really use your support. Thanks so much.

ARTISTS! PT does not pay for submissions but many artists whose work is seenin Prehistoric Times get paying work from other sources. Please send jpg files of yourartwork scanned at 300 DPI resolution. Send as an approx 4 jpg with your name inthe title of the image--example--Triceratops by John Smith.jpg to our e-mailaddress or send good copies (that you dont need returned and that arent larger thanour 9 x 12 scanner bed) to our mailing address in California. We need your art andinfo. For #112 Apatosaurus & Liopleurodon (Deadline - Dec 10, 2014) For #113Ankylosaurus & Glyptodon & Archelon (Deadline - Mar 10, 2015) Thank you!

Prehistoric Times No. 111 Fall 2014 5

FROM THE EDITORA

d design by Michael Stevens

GREAT CC HH RR II SS

TT MM AA SSGIFTS!

MANY DIFFERE

NT DESIGNS!

Richard Attenborough 1923 - 2014

You have probably already heard the sad news of the passing ofRichard Attenborough in August. Attenborough was a highly

accomplished actor who starred in many classic films including TheGreat Escape and the remake of Miracle on 34th Street. But PT

readers know him best for his character of John Hammond inSteven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993) and the film's sequel, The

Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997). He will be missed.

Baryonyx in Wealdon John Sibbick

www.johnsibbick.com ATTENTION PEOPLE OF EARTH!ATTENTION PEOPLE OF EARTH!It is time yet again for PT PIX in which PT readers choose

their favorite prehistoric animal items of the year in the following categories:

Best prehistoric animal book of 2014Best prehistoric animal toy figure of 2014Best prehistoric animal model kit of 2014

Best prehistoric animal scientific discovery of 2014

PLEASE e-mail, phone or write in your choices (or single choice or two ifyou dont have a preference for all of the categories.) Come on, companiesthat send us review items actually place a lot of pride and importance on

winning PT PIX, all thanks to your votes. Also, of the people that response, Iwill pick a few names out of my Jurassic Park baseball cap to win a yearssubscription to your favorite dinosaur magazine (thats PT, by the way.)

Pliocene Mauricio Antonwww.mauricioanton.com


Hi, Mike, I was at the Royal AlbertHall in London last week for a perfor-mance of Journey To The Centre Of TheEarth - Rick Wakeman's classic albumbased on the Jules Verne story. This wasthe full works with orchestra and choir,as well as narrator, rock band and, ofcourse, Rick (resplendent in his goldcape) at the keyboards. It's the first timethe music has been performed in full likethis since the 1970s and it was a superbevening. If you know the album, thenyou will be familiar with the sectionentitled The Battle - to quote from thenarration: "Five days out to sea they wit-nessed a terrifying battle between twosea monsters." When Rick performedJourney back in the 70she had big inflatable mon-sters on stage, but thistime round we had to set-tle for images projectedonto the big back-screens.For The Battle, Rick usedthe image in the attachedphoto. It's a very niceillustration of a plesiosaurand ichthyosaur, althoughI'm not sure the latterlooks terrifying enough toengage in battle with theplesiosaur - morebemused! There were nocredits for the images, so I don't know the name of the artist, nor whether itwas produced specifically for the show, or just a stock image, but I thoughtit worth sharing with you. If Rick does tour the show in the USA, it is wellworth checking out. The original album is celebrating its 40th anniversarythis year. I can't believe it was released that long ago and I very clearlyremember going down to the local record store to buy it, as I was at univer-sity at that time. It makes me feel very old....Best Regards, David Webb UK

Sounds like a great evening, Dave. I dont think I have heard thismusic since I too bought the record back when I was in college. Youreminding me of it had me going out and buying the CD which Ienjoyed (even without the visuals you had.) It brought me back to 1974so much that about halfway through the CD, my mind was telling me itwas about time to flip the album over to hear the other side. Yes, wereold - editor.

Good article by Allen Debus on "The World a Million Years ago" attrac-tion. I believe Al's correct regarding the exhibit's 1973 stint at Chicago's OldTown. During the 1980s, Francis Messmore told me that the show's lastUSA appearance was at that location. I spent a lot of time hanging out with

friends in Old Town in 1972-3. At thetime it was "the" place to be, where thecity's (still mostly "stuck" in the 1950s)hippie scene was more or less "happen-ing." I do indeed remember a lurid "tor-ture" or "horror show" set inside a haunt-ed-house-type structure, with bloodieddummies hanging out of windows, scarysound effects, etc. For some long-forgot-ten (and stupid) reason or other, I neverwent inside. Presumably, had I done so, Iwould have seens some of Messmore &Damon's prehistoric critters as well as

hapless victims being stretched on racksand being thrust into Iron Maidens.What both Allen and I seem to havemissed! Don Glut, Burbank, Ca

Hi Mike, After seeing the P.T. cover-age of the waterhole kit, I just had tosend along my pictures of my kit so far.Notice I have included a prehistoricswamp that I picked up from Mike E.years ago when I took the casting class.A bit small in proportion, I imagine, butit seems to add to the scene to me. Iadded some magic sculpt to that sceneto make it fit with the waterhole kit intwo different configurations. SamMarsh

I love your magazine. I wanted to be a paleon-tologist since I was 4 years old and could pro-nounce all the names of the known dinosaurs in'68 (wow I'm old). My parents were very proud ofme but my relatives didn't know what to make ofme. Thank you for your work; it is very muchappreciated as I get to live my childhood dreamsthrough your magazine. Best regards, PhillipHillenbrand, Jr. Santa Ana, Ca

Winner for entry for last issues photo cap-

tion competition:"...and at that endyou'll find the sec-ondary brain alongwith the standardcorkscrew, toothpickand tweezers."; BruceWoollatt London,Ontario, Canada(Bruce won a sub-

M E S O Z O I CM E S O Z O I C

M A I LM A I L

RIGHT: Long timePT subscriber (andlong time CRAZY)Wade Carmen sent ushis idea for a creaturebased upon the terribleSYFY Channel mon-ster movies that hecalls Piranharaptor.

David Wronko and his sister took this photo from a boat on Lake Champlain in2009 while looking for the sea monster there known as Champ. He says therewere no boats, swimmers or wind, but a strange wake in the water which appeared

to come from a dark serpent-like object passed their boat. You can see what gottheir attention in the upper right of the water.

Sam Marshs Watering Holemodel

Scene from Journey To The Centre Of The Earth.- Rick Wakeman's recent concert based on the Jules

Verne story.

6 Prehistoric Times No. 111 FALL 2014


scription.)READER ART

Thylacosmilus John C Womack

Baryonyx sculpted by DavideRonchi and painted by Martin

Garratt

Baryonyx Bill Unzen

John Sibbicks Baryonyx sculpture

John Sibbicks Baryonyx

Thylacosmilus Tony Phillips

Jared McGowan

Three views ofBaryonyx

Gregory S Paul

Prehistoric Times No. 111 FALL 2014 7


1. Dinosaur Collectibles price guide co-written and signed by PT editor $492. Linde 1950s Coffee Premium plastic dinosaur figs 7 from Austria. $12ea.3. Rare 8th Linde figure to complete above set: Rare Rhamphorhynchus $454. Marx orig. sm/med 50s/ 60s dinosaur toy figs (green, brown, gray) $5 5. Marx orig. Krono, T-rex (pot-belly or slender) $39, Brontosaurus $34 6. Marx original second series dinos/mammals $12 each, set of 8 - $797. Marx 45mm cavemen (6 diff) $7 ea Marx 6 cavemen (6 diff) $15 ea. 8. Multiple (MPC) dinosaur plastic figures many colors $5-10 each (inquire) 9. JH Miller waxy plastic 50s Woolly Rhino, Mammoth/Mastodon or Stego $65 10. Sinclair 1960s green plastic 10 brontosaur bank $2411. Sinclair 1934 Dinosaur book $25 & Sinclair1964 Worlds Fair booklet $1512. Sinclair 60s colorful Hardback The Exciting World of Dinosaurs $4413. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs 64 NY Worlds Fair dinos in several colors @$3514. Sinclair rare hollow NY Worlds Fair Brontosaurus looking backward $6615. Sinclair album and complete stamps set1935 $35 or 1959 $2016. Sinclair 60s solid Worlds Fair dinos (6 diff. various prices) (bagged set $79)17. Sinclair Oil 1960s dino chrome metal tray $6918. Hollow, dimestore plastic dinos, 60s/70s six different $8 each (see photo)19. SRG Small metal dinosaurs pterosaur $59, T. rex, Tricer, Dimetro, Tracho, Bronto or Stego $35 ea. SRG Large metal Tricer, Tracho, or T. rex $69 each

20. 60s Japan Porcelain Dimetrodon, Stego, Bronto, T-rex or Protoceratops 5 @$2421. Nabisco silver prehistoric mammal cereal premiums early 1960s $10 ea. All 8 $7522. Nabisco/Fritos dinosaur premiums, gray (60s) $5 each, 1950s green & red $10 ea.23. ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)plastic dinosaur figures. $15 ea, Pteranodon $2524. View Master Prehistoric Animals 1960s comp. 3 reels/booklet nm $2425. 1960s La Brea Wm Otto bronze 3 Saber-toothed cat (short tail)26. Animals Of The Past Golden Stamp Book 1968 - $3927. Teach Me About Prehistoric Animals Flash cards 1960s $4928. Brooke Bonde 60s dinosaur trading album w/ set of cards attached $5929. Pyro white box MIB dinosaur model kits, Proto, Dime, Stego, Tricer, @$3930. Palmer 1960s Mastodon skeleton or Brontosaurus skeleton $39 each MIB 31. Marx Linemar 1960s one inch metal dinos. T. rex $24 ea.32. Golden Funtime 1960s Dinosaur trading cards unpunched in book $89

PT back issues 31, 33, 41, 42, 52, 66, 74-76, 78, 85, 92-110 $8 each or $12 eachforeign. (PT issue prices include shipping)

Please add $6 shipping in U.S. Call or e-mail me about condition.

Mike Fredericks Prehistoric Times 145 Bayline Cir.

Folsom, California 95630-8077 (916) 985-7986

[email protected]

The PT DinoStoreVintage dinosaur collectibles for sale from PT magazine

21. Nabisco cereal prehistoricmammals

13. Sinclair hollow dinosaurs

25. ROM plastic dinos 7. 6 inch Marx large cavemen

11. 1934 Book

26.StampBook

16. Sinclair 1959 Oildino stamps & album

32. 1960s GoldenFuntime dino trading

cards in book

22. Nabisco dinos

13. Left:Sinclair 1960s

hardback

24. 60s Viewmaster

30. Palmer

20. 1960sJapan


2&3. Linde

8. MPCMultiple dinos

18. hollow dinos

10. Sinclair banks

16. Sinclair bagged set

19. SRG

1. Collectiblesbook

27. Flash cards28. Brooke Bond

17. Sinclair chrometray 1960s

25. Wm Otto sabertooth

30. Palmer

31. MarxLinemar tinymetal T. rex


Payment Received.

Transmission incoming from Time Inc. Entertainment:

Experienced adventurer Mike Hatcher has taken on the expedition of alifetimeto survive a year by himself deep within the Mesozoic. More thanjust reality TV, while testing new technologies for future visitors to thepastlike Mikes base camp, the secured environmental habitat called theCompoundhe will face the challenges of this new world alone with onlythe dozen state-of-the-art microcameras tracking his progress at all times forcompanionship. Thanks to the sponsorship of Time Inc. and the ImagoMundi Society, join us now as Mike Hatcher lives throughMesozoicDays.

The heat of the day rises from the baking earth in sheets of haze with con-vection causing the air to shimmer and blur the distant tree line. Sittingunder the shade of a broad tree next to the freshwater river running past therear of the compound is Mike Hatcher in a wide brim bush hat shading hiseyes from the bright Mesozoic suns glare.

There is nothing better on a hot day than a chilled beer. He says to oneof the auto-cameras buzzing about the scene. Unfortunately I dont haveany beer.

Mike pulls at a small rope dipping into the stream by his feet. After a fewyanks, a small bag breaks the surface. Opening the sack he pulls out whatlooks like a bushel of blackberries. He picks a few of the berries and dropsthem into his mouth as he sits backs and sighs.

Ahhhhwho needs a refrigerator when a nice streamdoes the same job? These are Caytoniales, an early versionof a fruit that oddly tastes a bit like apples. One of the thingsI hadnt thought about on this journey is the lack of plantdiversity: no grass, very few flowers, and almost no fruit.You never know what simple things youre going to missuntil you dont have them, and at the moment Id kill just tobite into a fresh apple. Guess Ill have to wait a few moremillions years before they evolve or I get home.

Mike swallows his mouthful of chilled fruit and lookscarefully at the camera through the wavering heat. My out-back fridge does have a drawback though, I placed somemeat in a creek a couple of weeks ago to try and keep it freshin much the same way. Not only did I lose the meat to some-thing hungry during the night, I lost my little camping spotbecause several crocodiles began hanging around the areawaiting for an easy meal, possibly encouraged from whatev-er broke into the meat locker. I was kind of afraid the easymeal might be me.

The picture slowly pans away as the camera pulls higherinto the sky, with Mike sitting under his tree, happily munch-ing on the last of his berries. The image picks up Mikes bikesitting square in a large patch of sunlight with its solar panels

recharging the vehicles batteries. The image flickers into focus with aneerie green glow. Mike is still at the same tree, though now hes hidingbehind its thick trunk watching the river warily. One camera floats closeover his shoulder, and, with a small turn of his head, he begins to narrate ina very quiet whisper.

I fell asleep in the warm sun, one of the stupidest things you can do

around here, I have to admit. I was lucky something big and toothy didntcome along and ruin my nap. His sheepish smile indicates his true feelingat how dangerous this situation could have been. I woke up when the nightstarted to cool, but before I could leave, this thing entered the river.

The view switches to the river. The slow-moving water is a dark, blackribbon with the distant shoreline all but invisible. Tiny green beads of light

by Phil [email protected]

John Sibbickwww.johnsibbick.com

Pedro Salas

BaryonyxBaryonyx

Frederik Spindlerwww.frederik-spindler.de


Jason Ward


flick about the scene, insects out to find food or amate. From out of the black edge of the view twobright lights appear just above the level of the water.At first they remain steady and then suddenly growlarger and closer until one disappears altogether. Asecond camera moves to the side, and the owner ofthe strange glowing orbs comes into focus. The glowwas the reflective quality of a reptilian eye sittingnear the rear of an enormous crocodile-like skull. Themouth is wide open with rows of sharp teeth drippingwater and the lower jaw submerged just under the sur-face. With slow sweeps of its head the predator movesits enormous jaws back and forth, waiting for a victimto enter the deadly trap.

I think weve found what stole my dinner, Mikesays, ensuring the tree is always between himself andthe predator.

With a snap the enormous jaw closes, and theBaryonyx stands up with a large fish struggling in itsmouth attempting to escape. For the first time the predators true size isapparent, 30 feet long and armed with an enormous claw on its thumb,which it uses to spear the wriggling 7-foot fish and toss it to the shoreline.

Mike takes the opportunity to improve his position when the enormous spin-osaurid heads toward shore to devour its prize. The green infrared imagesuddenly twists and manages to capture a new predator also eyeing off thestill-wriggling fish. Slipping out of the river a large crocodile scuttles

toward the mealand opens itsmouth wide to hissout a warning tothe Baryonyx.

This should beinteresting. Mostof the reports Ihave read suggestthese theropodswere mainly fisheaters and theirnarrow, elongatedjaws were inca-

pable of withstanding the strain of biting something larger like anotherdinosaur.

Dropping to all fours to bring its head lower, the dinosaur starts prancingaround the crocodile with far more agility than an animal its size should becapable of. The crocodile tries to pivot and keep its formidable jaws between

them both, but the Baryonyx is simply too fast and is soon standing to oneside. With an opening the dinosaur lunges forward and clamps its jawsacross the crocs head, and then with a powerful heave it pulls the entire ani-mal off the ground and flings the reptile away with a snap, flick, and twistof its head.

Holy. . ., well I guess that answers that one, Mike almost giggles in aweas the microcamera zooms about and catches the crocodile sailing throughthe air before hitting the mud bank once, before rebounding into the waterwith a splash. That was impressive.

The Baryonyx moves over to its prize and grips the fish with one of itslarge clawed hands. In one motion it bites the fish and tears a large chunkof flesh away and gulps it down with a toss of its head. Three more similarbites and the entire fish is gone. Back in the river a very sorry-looking croc-odile emerges and starts swimming away with slow sweeps of a tail that nowhas a noticeable kink along its length. A large, ragged wound across its neckis bleeding profusely but, thanks to the almost miraculous restorative factorall crocs have, will soon heal. Above the river the sky is lightening, andMike, stifling a yawn, gives the camera a salute and then puts a single fingerto his lips as the Baryonyx reenters the river behind him. Returning to itsoriginal fishing spot, the predator starts fishing again, and Mike settles infor a long wait before hed be able to leave the scene.

Officially Baryonyx (heavy claw) was discovered in 1983 by an amateurfossil hunter called William Walker, who discovered a large claw protrudingfrom a clay pit in Surrey. The claw and a few bones were collected andshown to the Natural History Museum in London, which went to work at thesite and found nearly 70% of the skeleton. This specimen can today be seenin the main dinosaur hall at the NHM. A second skull was uncovered in

Mike Landry


Meg BernsteinShapeways Baryonyx model

painted by Martin Garratt


Spain a few years later, and aseries of track ways found near-by were also believed to be fromthe same theropod. These werefollowed by more fossils, includ-ing several of those iconic claws,

uncovered in Africaand on the Isle ofWight.

At nine feet talland thirty one feetlong, Baryonyx wasmedium sized for thegroup it belongs too,the spinosaurids. Thelargest of these,Spinosaurus, was thelongest of alltheropods at 50 to 60

feet, makingBaryonyx onlyhalf the size,though featureson some fossilsare suggestivethat theybelonged to ayoung animal, anindication thatthey could havegrown far larger.Everything aboutthese dinosaurs isweird. The elon-gated skulls had aslight kink in them (likely to stop prey from escaping the mouth), and thesnout ended in a large bony knob. The jaws contained 96 teeth with a slightkeel and tiny serrated edges, with 64 teeth along the lower jaws and 32 alongthe top. All of this gave Baryonyx a crocodile-looking skull, a design to helptrap their prey within the jaws.

The head itself was alsoheld at a flatter angle thanmost theropods, with theS-shaped curve in the neckfar less pronounced. This,along with more robustarms, indicates these ani-mals may have spent partof their life on all fours, astance that would havehelped them catch theirmain prey. A diet of fishwas confirmed byScheenstia (a large ray-finned fish) bones andscales found within theBaryonyx skeleton. Allspinosaurs have been

found in river and delta sediments that also contain very largefish species, and so the idea that these predators hunted along afreshwater river, much like grizzlies do today, is certainly possi-ble.

Similarities between crocs and spinosaurs is not new, suggest-ing that Baryonyx remains were found much earlier than 1984.In 1820 the famous British paleontologist Gideon Mantelreceived some teeth found near the same location as the originalBaryonyx, which were described as belonging to a large croco-dile. Two decades later Richard Owen named this apparent croc-

odile Suchosaurus cultridens (crocodile lizard soukho-sauros + dagger-tooth culter-dens) after the Egyptian

Christian Juul

James Kuetherwww.paleoguy.deviantart.com


John Trotter

Pedro Salas

Baryonyx sculpture Pedro Salas

John F Davies

Joe Stansbury


crocodile god, Sobek. In 1897two jaw fragments and a singletooth were uncovered in Portugaland described as another croco-dilian, Suchosaurus girardi. Thetooth was lost for some timeuntil a fire in 1978, when it wasrediscovered during the cleanup.In the twentieth century morefossils were found on the Isle ofWight, including a strange fore-arm destined to sit in a box unde-scribed until the late 1990s whensomething of a revolution beganto occur with these early finds.All of these crocodile fossilswere studied and redescribed asbelonging to a baryonychine orsome other closely related spin-osaur.

Adding to the long list of sur-prising developments in paleon-tology Down Under, recently acervical vertebra from VictoriasCretaceous coast has beendescribed as the countrys firstspinosaur fossil. Interestingly,the fossil is almost identical tothose belonging to Baryonyx. Thisshouldnt be surprising becausespinosaurs are a known Gondwanagroup. Some, includingSpinosaurus, Cristatusaurus, andSuchomimus, have been found inAfrica, while South America alsohas several species such as Irritatorand Oxalaia (from African deityOxal /o-sha-LA/ may God wish,from Yoruba Obatl king of whitecloth). These indicate spinosaursmay be an old group that had spread

across the globe before thebreakup of the superconti-nent Pangea, (althoughwith the recent discovery ofraptors and early tyran-nosaurs in Australia wehave a growing geographicrelationship between theNorthern and SouthernHemisphere continents thatrequires some explaining.)

It would seemrather than beingpart of some small,sideline theropodgroup, Baryonyx and its closest relatives may have been one of the most suc-cessful, with individuals living across Gondwana and Laurasia. Perhapsmore species will soon be recognized, plus one has to wonder how manymore prehistoric crocodiles out there are waiting to be reclassified as spin-osaurids.

Fabio Pastori

www.fabiopastori.it

CW Gross

Paul Passano

Wade Carmen



To many paleontology buffs, when the words Early Cretaceousare mentioned, nine times out of ten, they think of prehistoricEngland. The reason why is because not only are the animals discov-ered in this area and dated to this time some of the more famous ofthe dinosaur species, but moreover, this was where dinosaurs werefirst discovered. As such, southern England holds a special place inthe hearts of bone diggers as the birthplace of modern paleontology.

The area of southern England where many fossils from the earlyCretaceous Period have been discovered is referred to as the Weald the word comes from the German wald, meaning forest, due tothe large areas of woodland in this part of the country. The rocks inwhich many fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures havebeen found are referred to as the Wealden Group, consisting of theWessex Formation on the bottom and the younger Vectis Formationatop it. These rocks are dated from 140-125 million years ago.

The Wessex Formation is the older of the two geologic formationsthat make up the Wealden Group. It dates to the Barremian Stage ofthe early Cretaceous Period, approximately 140-130 MYA. Basedupon many of the fossil animals found here, including freshwaterfish and freshwater mollusks, the area appears to have been a verywater-logged environment full of lakes, rivers, ponds, and marshes.Although dinosaurs are the most famous, other creatures have beenfound here, including five species of crocodiles, three species ofmedium-sized pterosaurs, a freshwater shark, and even a tarantulaspider called Cretamygale which was discovered in amber. TheVectis Formation lies above the Wessex Formation, and is dated tothe Aptian Stage of the early Cretaceous, approximately 125 MYA.Some dinosaur bones have been found here, but the VectisFormation is more well-known for the large abundance of fossilizeddinosaur footprints.

Although fossils and possibly even dinosaur bones have beenfound for centuries, paleontology as we know it came into existencein southern England during the early 1800s. Reverend WilliamBuckland, a minister and a geology professor at Oxford University,is credited with naming the first dinosaur. In 1824, he found a jaw-bone of a large, extinct meat-eating reptile and named itMegalosaurus the first dinosaur to be officially named.

Two years earlier in 1822, the first remains of what was to be rec-ognized as a dinosaur were discovered by Dr. Gideon Mantell andhis wife Mary. Unlike Mantells creature, the teeth suggested thatthis was a giant plant-eater. Since the teeth bore a striking resem-blance to those of an iguana lizard, Mantell named his specimen

Iguanodon, iguana tooth. Art and popular media frequently showIguanodon and Megalosaurus in combat with each other, butMegalosaurus was already long extinct by the time Iguanodonappeared.

Iguanodon was only one of several dinosaur species that were dis-covered in southern England during the early to mid 1800s. Mantellwould later discover or name a few other species. In 1842, the lead-ing British anatomist Sir Richard Owen placed all of these creaturesinto a group called the dinosaurs. During the founding years ofpaleontology, dinosaurs were seen as gargantuan lumberingquadrupedal behemoths. This was the design that was put forward bySir Richard Owen, and it was the design that was immortalized at theCrystal Palace in London, England. Beginning in the 1860s, thisclassical image began to change, with dinosaurs being shown asthinner and sleeker, and walking on two legs, although it was still notas accurate as the modern image.

Now, lets take a look at the various dinosaurs that lived in south-ern England during the early Cretaceous Period, and well begin withthe most famous one of all: Iguanodon. Numerous species have beenfound and described, although paleontologists claim that a few areactually misidentified. In the early Cretaceous, there were seven dif-ferent species of Iguanodon throughout the world, the largest onemeasuring over 30 feet long.

Living alongside and underfoot was a smaller related herbivorecalled Hypsilophodon. This was an 8-foot fast-moving creaturewhich was found in 1849 on the Isle of Wight. Due to its long fin-gers and toes, many paleontologists of the 19th and early 20thCenturies believed that Hypsilophodon was a tree climber, but thisproved to be wrong. Its remains have been found in England, Spain,and Portugal.

The largest creature to have lived in the Weald was Pelorosaurus,an 80-foot long sauropod closely related to the much more famousBrachiosaurus which lived in North America and Africa during thelate Jurassic. Few remains of this animal have been found, but itappears to have been a widespread species. Amazingly, some of thefossils of Pelorosaurus which were found were preserved skinimpressions. They show that the creature was covered in hexagon-shaped scales measuring 9-26mm in width. Pelorosaurus was offi-cially named in 1847 by Gideon Mantell, the same man who discov-ered and named Iguanodon.

The Weald was also home to two armored dinosaurs:Hylaeosaurus and Polacanthus; some paleontologists believe thatthey might be the same species. These creatures were known asnodosaurs picture an ankylosaur but without a tail club. Instead,these creatures relied on rows of plates and sharp spikes along theirbacks and sides for defense from predators.

And speaking of predators, the Weald had more than its fair share.So far, eight different species, ranging from 6 feet to 30 feet long,have been found here, and must have made life for the herbivoresthat lived in this swampy moor utterly terrifying. No complete spec-imen of any theropod has ever been found in England dating to thistime period all of the evidence comes from fragments or partialskeletons. They include Aristosuchus a compsognathid, possiblymeasuring 6 feet long, twice the size of Compsognathus, Baryonyx the largest carnivore in the landscape, measuring 30 feet long,Becklespinax a ridge-backed sinraptorid, somewhat related toAllosaurus, possibly measuring 25 feet long, Calamosaurus possi-bly a large compsognathid reaching 10-15 feet long, Eotyrannus an early tyrannosaur, measuring 15 feet long, Neovenator another

Art John Sibbick

www.johnsibbick.com

The Weald: Southern England during theEarly Cretaceous Period

by Jason R. Abdale [email protected]



allosaur relative, measuring 25 feet, Thecocoelurus an ovirap-torosaur or egg thief dinosaur, and Valdoraptor a mysteriousdinosaur known from a few foot bones, but possibly another medi-um-sized allosaur.

The landscape seems to have favored medium-sized carnivoresranging from 10-25 feet long. Becklespinax is known only from

three unusually longvertebrae, and wouldhave given it a promi-nent ridge runningalong its back like

Acrocanthosaurus. If Becklespinax was indeed related to Sinraptoras some paleontologists have suggested based upon the shape of thebones, then it might have been a large scavenger, since Sinraptorssmall puny hands and stubby fingers would have been useless forfighting and grappling prey, not at all like the gigantic meat hooksof Allosaurus. Some, like the compsognathids and Eotyrannusmight have been pack hunters.

The largest and most famous English dinosaurian meat-eater,Baryonyx, was discovered fairly recently during the early 1980s.Based upon direct fossil evidence and current hypotheses regardingits spinosaur relatives, Baryonyx might have been primarily a fish-eater, since large numbers of fish scales were found in its stomach.However, it wasnt averse to eating other things, since the bones ofa baby Iguanodon were also found within its ribcage.

The Weald, the region of southeastern England known for its earlyCretaceous fossils, is one of the most famous areas of ground inpaleontology. Here were found some of the first dinosaurs to be offi-cially named and described. The fossils found here portray an envi-ronment with a diverse amount of wildlife from spiders to fish tocrocodiles to giant dinosaurs. The great thing is that even after beingworked over for almost two centuries, these rocks are not tapped out.

Scientists are still discovering new species here, andthere is likely much more to be discovered. As statedbefore, many of the dinosaurs found here are knownonly from small bits and pieces. Maybe you will be thelucky one that will find a complete skeleton and add asubstantial piece of knowledge to our understanding ofwhat life was like in prehistoric England.

Dinosaur Playsets An Illustrated Guide to the Prehistoric Playsets of Marx and MPC

Coming Soon!

Finally! The definitive reference work on the dinosaur playsets from these two iconic companies!

Perhaps the most endearing of dinosaur collectibles to many people are the lines of figures and playsetsproduced by the Louis Marx Toy Company. The figures have attained a near iconic status among collectors of

dinosaur toys and memorabilia. Frequently considered something of a baby sister to the Marx dinosaur line isthe series of prehistoric figures and playsets put out by the Multiple Products Corporation (MPC) at roughly thesame time period. Often confused with one another, the dinosaur output of these two companies has shaped the

perception of what these prehistoric beasts were like in the minds of generations of children and adults.

Unfortunately, up to this point there has not been an abundance of detailed information available concerningthese popular lines of prehistoric toys, and much of what is out there can be wildly inaccurate, frustrating, and

confusing to the beginner and serious collector alike. Author Jeff Pfeiffer has compiled this fully illustrated 8 x 11-inch volume to help playset enthusiasts navigate the prehistoric output of these two legendary toy

companies. Written with both the novice and seasoned collector in mind, this book starts at the basics, withbrief histories of each company, discussions of the various dinosaur figures and accessories found in these

playsets, and (most significantly) over 175 full color photographs, encompassing most of the boxed dinosaurplaysets, carded sets, and bagged assortments of both Marx and MPC. This represents the most comprehensivework on the prehistoric playsets of these two companies to date. Information is also presented concerning thevarious reissue and knock-off sets that were produced by other companies, such as Toy Street, Spaulding, andWinneco, as well as additional items and games that were directly based on the Marx and/or MPC prehistoric

output. Also included is a handy guide to each playset discussed, with a listing of its contents, year of production, and model number. This is the book that Marx and MPC dinosaur collectors have been waiting for!

Author Jeff Pfeiffer has been an avid collector of Marx and MPC prehistoric playsets for well over a decade. Over the course of that time he has amassed an extensivecollection of playsets from both companies. His passion for dinosaurs began in childhood, when he was given his first set of MPC dinosaur figures as a birthday present,and continues to the present day. Jeff presents Dinosaur Playsets to devotees of the dinosaurs of Marx and MPC as an indispensable tool in their own collecting passions!

The book will be available through Authorhouse.com, and from various online outlets such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.


Art John Sibbick

www.johnsibbick.com


SSooff tt DDiinnoo ,, WW aarrmm DDiinnoo ,,

DDiinnoo ccoovveerreedd wwii tthh ffuurr??

The possibility of feathered theropods came into vogue during thedinosaur renaissance in the late 1970s to 1980s. It was not well accept-ed, but some artists did put feathers on theropodsBakker, Paul,Hallett. With the finding of Sinosauropteryx it became a reality. Becausebirds evolved from theropods, it is rea-sonable that small theropods also hadfeathers. Based upon theropods foundwith feather impressions includingtroodontids, dromaeosaurs, oviraptorids,therizinosaurs, ornithomimosaurs, andsmall tyrannosaurids, (but notornithopods because they are far fromthe avian lineage) science is finding thisto be true.

In the last decade, two interesting,feathered ornithopods were discov-eredPsittacosaurus, with sparse, long,thin quills on its anterior caudal ridgeand the rest of the body covered withscales, and the heterodontosaurid,Tianyulong (Shandong Tianyu firma-ment Museum of Nature + dragon),which has integumenteary patches on itslower cervical and upper dorsalvertebrae and longer quills alongthe anterior portion of the tail(Figure 1).

A new small ornithopod (about ahalf a meter long) has beendescribed by Godefroit et al. 2014.Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus is abasal ornithopod (neornithischian)from the Middle to Late Jurassic ofSiberia (Figure 2).Kulindadromeus (Kulinda run-ner) is known from severalbonebeds, ranging from small tolarge individuals. Luckily theintegument was preserved in sever-al specimens, and it is really inter-esting. The preservation is thesame as in the feathered fossilsfrom the Jehol (Rh) biota innortheastern China, basically pre-served as dark carbonaceous films.There are three types of scales andthree types of feathers. The threetypes of feathers are, first,monofilaments that are widely dis-tributed around the thorax, on theback, and around the head. The fil-aments above the head are thin

(~0.15 mm in diame-ter), short (10 to 15mm in length), andcurved, with no pre-ferred orientation, likewhen you wake up andyour hair is all messedup. Those along thethoracic and abdomi-nal area are wider (0.2to 0.3 mm) and longer(20 to 30 mm). Theyare much shorter thanthose onPsittacosaurus andTianyulong. Howeverthey are more similarto those found inS i n o s a u r o p t e r y x .Second, along the

humerus and femur, the filaments aredifferent in that they lack a shaft, occurin groups of six or seven filaments thatconverge proximally, and arise from thecentral region of a base plate (similarlyAlifanov et al., 2014, described thesame filaments). Individually the fila-ments are 10 to 15 mm long, with theones on the humerus wider (0.2 to 0.4mm) than those on the femur (0.1 to 0.2mm). They resemble down feathers. Thebase plates do not touch each other, andare found in patches in a hexagonal pat-tern. This would mean the animal didnot look like a fully featheredSinosauropteryx. The third type of fila-ment is found along the proximal part of

the tibia in clusters of six or sevenribbon-shaped elements that are lessbundled together proximally and areclose to the bone surface. Each fila-ment is 20 mm long and 1.5 to 3 mmwide with a dark median axis alongits length. Carefully, the thin superfi-cial carbonaceous sheet wasremoved revealing the presences of~10 thin (50-to-100-micrometer)internal parallel filaments withineach ribbon-shaped element. Thishas not been seen in any other feath-ered dinosaur.

The three scale types are, first,small (

Psittacosaurus and Tianyulong, the tail ofKulindadromeus has at least five longitudi-nal rows of slightly arched scales. Thelargest scales (~20 mm long and 10 mmwide) occur along the proximal part of thetail. The caudal scales are thin (

Pick up your copy of thiscomputer disc direct from theauthor. Please note it is a PDF

format so you must have Adobe Reader.The disc sells for $22 including shipping.Contact Joe at [email protected].

Joe accepts Paypal.

With over 2000 full color photos and a wealth of information ondinosaur and prehistoric animal collectibles from the 20th centuryby expert Joe DeMarco and a half dozen other experts, this disc

allows you to also become the expert with just a touch ofyour computer mouse.

Dinosauriana, The Compendium



LEFT : As Safari Ltd has retiredtheir figures over the years and

changed their paint schemes, theoriginals have become more col-lectible. Fred Snyder sent us this

photo of his Safari Ltd prehistoricfigures in their original grayish

paint from around 1988.

RIGHT : A 1966 King Kong toy playset by theMPC company. No dinosaurs included (even

though MPC made many dinosaur toy figures)but that is because this is based upon the

Saturday morning Rankin/Bass cartoon show ofthe same name. On the TV show the young son

of the Bond family living on Mondo Islandbefriends Kong and the two go on many adven-tures (well, for the one season that the program

lasted.)

ABOVE : A set of gold-colored metal ringswith interesting dinosaur art on the face of

each of the set of five. The artist is unknownfor these gumball machine disk rings from the

1970s.

LEFT : Battery operated, remotecontrol, hard

plastic Tyrannosaurus fromJapan made in the 1960s. Itseyes lit up red as it walked

along. A Triceratops was alsoproduced. Sears stores sold the

pair in different packaging.

BELOW: These original blueprint plans are for a store display for thesmall rubbery prehistoric animal figures by Inpro of England whichwere also sold here in the U.S. A space is provided for each figurewhich was probably glued to the base. The oil rig must be a refer-

ence to how the prehistoric animals turned to oil?

ABOVE : The Fuller Brush Company has been anAmerican institution for many decades. The Fuller Brush

man sold items door to door. These are three dinosaurshaped soaps that the American house wife could purchase

for her children in the 1960s.

LEFT : PT writer Robert Telleriawanted me to acknowledge the

latest Kaiyodo figures in theDinotales series which he says

are tough to find. The first picture is the

Siamotyrannus quartet, from2001, of which the green version

is the first and rarest.At the bottom of that same

photo, the T. rex was a 2005magazine exclusive and the UHA

Mikakuto pewter Ceratosaurusskull was a campaign exclusive

in 2003.The bottom photo shows therarest of the series - the UHAMikakuto campaign silver fig-ures from 2002. (To the left he

also describes the new 2014Kaiyodo marine reptile set.)

RIGHT : The latest Kaiyodo set ofprehistoric figures is called CapsuleQ Museum prehistoric marine setand includes Plesiosaurus (light

and dark versions), Pliosaur,Pliosaur skeleton, Archelon, and anIchthyosaur giving live birth. Eachincludes a tiny skin diver figure to

show scale. The lighter coloredPlesiosaur is the rare figure.



by Randall [email protected]

www.dinosaurCollectorSiteA.com

This summer has seen an erosion of the tradi-tional Toy Fair role, due to the internet. Twomajor companies have released new Dinosaur toyseries, bypassing Toy Fair. The Nuremberg ToyFair has its roots in the trade fairs dating back to the Middle Ages. This isnot the end of the Toy Fair, but it will need to be redefined. It is no longerthe place where companies do most of their yearly sales. Internet supportedJIT (Just in Time) and the electronic mall allows retailers to integrate theirlocal inventories to their suppliers. You can sell it on your site and have thewholesaler actually ship to the customer, or as a brick and mortar store youcan automatically reorder stock. This affects not only Toy Fair but the roleof the distributors who are becoming less important. New releases that wereonce carefully guarded secrets saved for Toy Fair are nowannounced on the web and talked to death on blogs andforums in the fall.

Ravensburger is familiar to collectors for thepaleo art associated with their puzzles andboard games. Their Tiptoi dinosaur bookshave nine different dinosaur figures, somesporting articulated jaws. There is free soft-ware to download for audio files and an orangespot on the figure that when triggered spewsdino trivia. It sounds like a rerun of the Jaxxsfigures distributed by Discovery Toys. Therelease is scheduled for September but no pho-tographs of the figures have been shown.

The new release with the biggest buzz is the Terra series from Battat. Anongoing fantasy on web blogs has been a Battat return from the dead. Battathas returned, with the first four of an initial 12 figure release. Dan LoRusso,one of the original Battat designers, is back, the Boston Museum is nolonger involved, and the Target chain is exclusively carrying Terra. PTobtained a sample of the first four figures; Dacentrurus, Cryolophosaurus,Pachyrhinosaurus and Nanshiungosaurus. All the figures are sold with cus-tom boxes for display and with educational information on the back. Thediorama box is similar to the Safari Ltd Sue series packaging and the oldJASMAN diorama series. Nanshiungosaurus brevispinus is a primitive ther-izinosaur that is known from a partial skeleton. Most reconstructions utilizemuch later but better-known fossils like Beipiaosaurus. The figure is paint-ed in realistic browns and tans that break up the silhouette. The torso is longand deep, with a short tail and long neck. The closed mouth ends in a beak.The large claws on the forearms are used for a tripod stand, making the fig-ure very stable. The figure bucks the current convention of depicting alltherizinosaurs as bird-like with feathers and dewlaps. While the much latertherizinosaurs display bird-like features, the existing Nanshiungosaurusfossils show no evidence of feathers. This is a unique figure for Battat fansand a viable toy for kids. The box diorama presents Nanshiungosaurus in alush forest. Dacentrurus armatus is a Late Jurassic stegosaur found inEngland. It resembles Kentrosaurus, but is more closely related toMiragaia. The green coloring makes for an intuitive comparison with theWild Safari and CollectA Kentrosaurus. The green darkens at the top, cre-ating a natural waterline. The narrow plates and spikes that run along theback are a third shade of green with black accents. The feet are detailed,with 5 front toes and 3 on the back feet. The shoulder spikes are green andcurve up and back. The skull is long and held relatively high with a fold ofskin under the throat. This is a very attractive figure. The box diorama hasthe figure standing on a dried lake bed surrounded by a forest. Collectors,when you buy the figures, and we all will, save the packing to display the

figures. I think Battat should expand their packaging and give buyers theoption to purchase larger display boxes for multiple figures.

Next up, Safari Ltd Wild Safari: Educational support is understood bymost companies as a way ofvalidating the value of theirproducts. Parents want toinvest in their childrensfuture by giving them accessto products that will enrichthem educationally. We haveseen extensive use of educa-tional material added to thepackaging of figures, evenusing chips imbedded toprovide enriched content.Safari Ltd launched

Safaripedia this spring. The first edition provides information on the WildSafari and Carnegie dinosaurs from recent releases. Safaripedia is writtenfor the general public with references to suitable publications. I urge you tocheck it out at http://wiki.safariltd.com/index.php/Dinosaurs.Monolophosaurus, the Middle Jurassic theropod from China, has been onthe list of figures I wanted to see for a long time. The large midline crestrunning along the snout makes it a distinct figure, while many theropodsseem to look largely indistinguishable. We do not get many Middle Jurassic

or Asian models so this is a double bonus.This sculpt supports the figure with a strongbipedal posture on realistically proportionedlegs and feet, ending with a tail that stretchesout straight with a natural drop at the tip. Theforearms have the palms inward. The openjaws have a detailed tongue and teeth. Thereis a modest frill along the spine and the skinis a pattern of irregular scales. The coloringis a toasted brown on top with a light bellyand jaw for a naturalistic feel. The skull isnot mono-colored but has hints of an ocher

blush on the snout and around the eyes. This is a figure with a lot of atten-tion to detail and subtle coloring. It is on my list for best toy figure of theyear. Pachyrhinosaurus is a centrosaur from the Late Cretaceous of NorthAmerica. It is noteworthy as the horned dinosaur that lost it horns. The juve-nile horns are replaced in adults with big nasal bosses that do not look verypractical or useful. The center of the shield sports a unicorn horn while theback rim has two sideways curving spikes and the center top has two inwardfacing spikes. The detail of the skull is intense and I find something newevery time I examine it. The head is cocked to the right as if the animal ismoving and the forelegs are placed inside the stance of the back limbs; adetail commonly missed in toy figures. The skin is scaled and there is a backfrill and detailed feet with the correct number of toes. The dark brown on abase of off-white creates the illusion of an older weathered animal. This isa great, if serendipitous, match for the adults from the Walking withDinosaurs 3D film. If you have the baby Vivid Imaginations pachyrhi-nosaurs, you just found mom and dad. We have had so many pachyrhi-nosaurs that I was jaded by the new ones until I got the figure. The modelfeels natural in a way the Papo figure fails to do. I see a definite win forSafari Ltd. I have always admired the way Safari Ltd looks for ways toexpand the figure hobby. Evolution of Man from Safari Ltd was a surprisethis year. The blister pack contains 5 relatives of modern Homo sapiens.Years ago Bullyland released a set of figures similar to this but on a largerscale. The larger scale made them seem incompatible with the Bullylandmammal series. Safari Ltd has not made this mistake; all five figures are ofa scale to combine with their range of Forest, Jungle and PrehistoricMammals. It highlights the value of keeping a consistent scale to your prod-ucts. The blister pack is great for collectors looking to display and store theirfigures and the back includes educational details. The figures advance intime starting with Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus, thefirst to use fire, then Neanderthal man with his spear and finally Cro-Magnon with his spear thrower. Their use for teaching is intuitive and the

Dinosaur Collector News


Battats newNanshiungosaurus

Wild Safari

S a f a r iLtd Evolutionof Man


ability to integrate them with the animals of the past is a bonus. CollectA Popular: The way we imagine and reconstruct fossil dinosaurs is

changing. The Marx style tail-dragging dinosaurs of the 1950s are extinct,replaced in the 80s by a soft dinosaur revolution that we credit to Bakkerand Paul among others. Dinosaurs became active and postures moved awayfrom the lizard look. But the bodies of the best figures were limited by thefossils. Feathers were added to some smaller theropods but the figures wereshrink-wrapped. Now we are seeing more emphasis on the body tissues, ori-entation of the limbs, posture, locomotion, skin, and tail shape. Featherednon-bird dinosaurs are becoming the standard for serious toy figures.CollectA has created two figures that reflect this latest paleo art revolution.The Juvenile Tyrannosaurus and Bistahieversor capture the look and feel ofthis second paleo art revolution. Bistahieversor was the dominate predatorof the American southwest in the Late Cretaceous, resembling and fillingthe same niche that Albertosaurus did in the northwest. The figure is active,with the torso parallel to the ground and the jawswide to attack, with the tail flexed to the side ina feline expression. The legs are avian slender.The torso is covered in alternating brown andblack dino-fuzz that extends to the arms. Thespine and skull have tufts of feathers. The detailsof the teeth and limbs are elegant. I have no prob-lem with using a base to support the realisticlimbs. The colors do not photograph well, so you will not appreciate the fig-ure fully until you have it in your hands. Juvenile Tyrannosaurus is a gamechanger; fully covered in dino-fuzz on stick legs and leaning forward. Allother dino babies look like chubby preschool toys in comparison. The basesupports the proportions of the legs and body that have a fragile baby birdaura. The color schema reminds me of a baby quail. Both these figuresreflect a maturing of the production process with the evolution of an originalCollectA style. Saurophaganax has been on my wish list for years. It hasbeen rumored to have shown up inEurope with obscure toy sets. I thinkthe challenge has been to differentiateit from Allosaurus. This is an animalbig enough to hunt the largesauropods of the Late JurassicMorrison. Saurophaganax was a toppredator along with Epanterias andTorvosaurus. The CollectASaurophaganax is a graceful model.It has the prominent lacrimal horns,strong forearms with palms in, and a frill along the back. The white teethcontrast with the blackened skull and the upper body is green with brownstripes. The base allows the well-proportioned legs to support the body. Thebody is tilted forward as if feeding from a kill. I think this is a much strongerallosaurid than anything to date from CollectA. Mosasaurus was anothersurprise from CollectA this year. The long eel-like body and heavy jawsshow a convergence with early whales. The front paddles are larger than theback. I am really taken with the color scheme that is based on the whaleshark and is very effective. I do think this figure would be enhanced by adetachable base for display.

GeoWorld Jurassic Hunters Camarasaurus is a strong statement aboutthe style that Dr. Steve is developing. The four species of Camarasauruswere the most common sauropods of the Late Jurassic North America. Itnormally is ignored by toy companies, with the exception being theCarnegie Safari Camarasaurus. GeoWorld provides extensive documenta-tion and even pre-punches the pages for the budding paleontologists to addto their notebooks. The 1:75 scales fits well with the CollectASaurophaganax. The figure has a long neck for high browsing and the legsare of even length. The body is butterscotch with orange spots. The back ofthe head has half a dozen pseudo feathers, an idea based on the finds ofdino-fuzz among ornithischians and given that sauropods are close relativesof the well-feathered theropods. GeoWorld offers alternatives and varietyfor collectors. Bullyland Europasaurus was a fun choice. It was found in Germany, but in

the Late Jurassic those islands were off the coast of North America. So is it

really a European sauropod?Living on the islands probablyaccounts for the small size. Thescale is 1/30 but the figure is stillsmall compared to the 1/40 scalemodels. The figure follows the bra-chiosaur template but the neck ismoderate in length, with a shortersnout and a small toe claw. The

body is beige with brown spots on the upper body. The skin is irregularlyscaled, different from any of the other Bullyland sauropods. It is sad thatBullyland no longer has a distributor in North America as they still do pro-duce quality original figures. I was lucky that Dean Walkers companyDeJankins has a supply from Bullyland for needy collectors. (see ad below)

Schleichs Pentaceratops is very different in style from the Styracosaurusproduced last year. Big Red looks like it could bea Chap Mei toy. This is a robust figure with a pos-ture that has the front leg pawing at the ground.The figure is detailed and like all Schleich prod-ucts, shows consistent production quality. ForSchleich collectors this will be a welcome addi-tion.

Papos new Dilophosaurus is not the JurassicPark version with a frill. Papo theropods tend to be attractive figures thatare designed to look good on camera. I think the posture is eye catching andit reflects the Papo style. The jaw is supposed to be articulated, but minewould not move. The paint seems to be patchy and the joins show. This dropin production quality is understandable with the rise in the cost of paintingin China but if Papo cannot continue to offer the same quality that has beentheir trademark in the past, they have a problem.


CollectA Mosasaur

GeoWorlds Camarasaurus

CollectAJuvenile T.

rex


What occurred was this. Lord John had shot an ajouti which is asmall, piglike animal and, half of it having been given to the Indians, wewere cooking the other half upon our fire. There is a chill in the air afterdark, and we had all drawn close to the blaze. The night was moonless, butthere were some stars, and one could see for a little distance across theplain. Well, suddenly out of the darkness, out of the night, there swoopedsomething with a swish like an aeroplane. The whole group of us were cov-ered for an instant by a canopy of leathery wings, and I had a momentaryvision of a long, snake-like neck, a fierce, red, greedy eye, and a greatsnapping beak, filled, to my amazement, with little, gleaming teeth. Thenext instant it was gone and so was our dinner. A huge black shadow,twenty feet across, skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monsterwings blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliffabove us. We all sat in amazed silence round the fire, like the heroes ofVirgil when the Harpies came down upon them. (The Lost World, ch. ix)

The year 2012 marked the centenary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles classictale The Lost World, a novel which has never been out of print since itsrelease. Even if youve never read it, you probably know the story largelydue to its impact on popular culture and being one of few novels to haveentered the common vocabulary. As well as its wide popular influence, TheLost World remains a favourite amongst the palaeontological professioneven to this day.

Although it is often compared with Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre ofthe Earth (1864) and Henry Rider Haggard's 1886 novel She: a history ofadventure (which has also never been out of print), Doyle was the first nov-elist to utilise the concept of an isolated, uplifted block of countrysideinhabited by fauna and flora from bygone ages. The Lost World had a fargreater influence than any of Doyles other science fiction works and the pit-ting of humans against dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals subsequentlybecame a common science fiction premise in both literature and film.

Contemporary writers who were directly influenced by Doyles novelinclude the Russian geologist Vladimir Obruchev (1863-1956) and theAmerican novelist EdgarRice Burroughs (1875-1950).Obruchev penned Plutonia:an adventure through prehis-tory (1915) with a plot basedon the hollow Earth concept(which, by his own admis-sion, had already been dis-proven) and Sannikov Land(1926) concerning an islandoff the coast of Siberia thatwas something of a 19thCentury legend. Burroughsproduced The Land that TimeForgot (1918) and twosequels in the so-calledCaspak series, both releasedin 1918. While Plutonia wasprimarily an attempt to edu-cate readers about prehistoriclife, Burroughs was far lessconcerned with scientific

accuracy. And in spite of his claims not to have read The Lost World, keypassages in his books closely mirror those of Doyles novel, as identified byresearcher Dana Batory. More recent popular titles inspired by The LostWorld include two by the late Michael Crichton whose novels featured aman-made lost world island complete with bioengineered dinosaurs run-ning amok - his 1991 Jurassic Park (which mainly featured Cretaceousdinosaurs) and the 1995 sequel brazenly titled The Lost World. As was thecase with Burroughs, Crichton also claimed to have not been inspired by

Doyles novel.Finally, GregBears novelD i n o s a u rSummer (1998)offered a post-WWII sequel toDoyles story.

In 1925 FirstN a t i o n a lP i c t u r e se m p l o y e dm o d e l - m a k -ers/animatorsWillis OBrienand MarcelDelgado tob r i n gH o l ly wo o d sfirst (silent)

adaptation of The Lost World to the silver screen complete with live orches-tral backing and sub-titles. Although the storyline and characters bore butfleeting resemblance to those of the book, the animation was first rate for itsera. OBrien and Delgado later honed their skills on King Kong (1933)which was a far more polished production. Subsequent Lost World themedfilms invariably fell into the B-grade category, with producers bypassinglabour intensive stop-motion in favour of using actors in rubber dinosaursuits or filming live reptiles adorned with spikes and frills as in Irwin Allensshoddy 1960 version of The Lost World. In 1969 The Valley of Gwangi sawa brief return to respectable stop-motion (this time by the late RayHarryhausen) with an Allosaurus featuring in a Lost World meets KingKong plot that had been conceived by OBrien decades earlier, whereextinct beasts survive in a hidden Mexican valley. Unfortunately, the pro-ducers could hardly have found a less appropriate filming location to mas-querade as a dinosaur habitat, and only five prehistoric beasts were animat-ed (including a pterosaur mistakenly restored with bats wings, a basicanatomical error that afflicted other Harryhausen works but had been avoid-

ed in much earlier films, includ-ing King Kong).

Just as The Lost World playeda role in the genesis of Plutonia,the influence of both novels arevery evident in the children'sclassic 1955 film Cesta doPraveku (= Trip into Prehistory)by the celebrated father of Czechanimation, Karel Zeman.Whereas Hollywood had filmedcontrived scenarios (usuallydinosaurs chasing haplessexplorers) clumsily spliced withreal-time footage, Zeman usedunorthodox but clever tech-niques to ensure a seamlessunion of animation with liveaction. His philosophy of show-ing extinct animals behaving nat-urally in their own environmentwas unusual for its era and pre-


Fig 1. Based on Zdenek Burian (The Lost World Centenary Edition, 2012)

Arthur Conan Doyle and

The Lost World by John Lavas

Fig 2. Edward Malone (TheLost World CentenaryEdition, 2012)


empted later educational TV produc-tions such as Walking with Dinosaurs/Walking with Beasts. Within thePlutonia-like plot of Zemans filmare clear allusions to Doyles novel; aquartet of male protagonists crossinto a prehistoric world where theyfind evidence of cave-dwellingnatives, are attacked by pterodactyls,witness a twilight fight between apredatory dinosaur and a herbivorousone, experience a close encounterwith a Stegosaurus, and watch one oftheir group being pursued by an enraged Phorusrhacos, all of which is duti-fully recorded in a journal by the narrator.

So why, one may ask, did the creator of the worlds best known detectiveturn his hand to writing The Lost World, a work which appears so very dis-tinct from his other works, even in comparison with its subsequent (but lesswell-known) companion Professor Challenger stories? Historically, manyreviews of The Lost World focussed on the literary influences behind thestory, and yet in this case it was very much the non-literary factors thatassumed far greater importance. They involved the Golden Age ofVictorian/Edwardian palaeontology and fortuitous finds of dinosaur fossils,a host of discoveries of some of the world's largest and most unusual ani-mals prior to the novels release, the barbaric slave trade associated with thegreat rubber boom in the Peruvian Amazon and the Belgian Congo, explo-rations of the most inaccessible corners of South America including the for-midable plateaus of the Gran Sabana, and the infamous scientific fraud ofPiltdown Man.

In spite of such eclectic influences, the genesis of the novel may initiallyhave had its origins in little more than a casual bet. As related by the editorof The Strand Magazine at the time Doyle was contributing to that publica-tion, Doyle had made a wager with a friend who claimed that all avenues forwriting new plots for adventure action stories had already been exhausted.Doyle responded that imagination and realism could still be combined innew ways. No doubt he must also have drawn inspiration from personalexperiences such as the sighting of a strange animal when he and his secondwife Jean were on honeymoon cruisingpast Aegina (Egina) south of Athens inthe Autumn of 1907 (his first wifeTouie had died from tuberculosis in1906). Doyle recounted that they hadobserved a creature passing beneaththe boat "which has never, so far as Iknow, been described by Science." Hesurmised that it could have been anextinct ichthyosaur, although hisdescription of an animal with "thinneck and tail, and four marked side-flippers" resembles a plesiosaur (bothtypes of extinct reptile make appear-ances in the novel). Another incident in1909 further fired the imagination, achance discovery of several Iguanodonfootprints that he came across while exploring a quarry close to hisWindlesham home at Sussex. Appropriately, a group of Iguanodons werethe first unknown animals to be encountered by the explorers on the plateau,and stylised images of the footprints were used to adorn the front cover ofan early edition of the novel. Similar footprints had already been discoveredelsewhere in England so the find was not considered to be of scientificimportance. Doyle had keen interests in archaeology and geology, and wasin the habit of collecting related artefacts to be displayed at his home,including plaster casts of his Iguanodon footprints.

When it came to creating the human cast for the story, Doyle drew theirpersonalities from real people friends, associates, former teachers and lec-turers, and leading scientists and celebrated explorers of the day were allthrown into the mix. Doyle was familiar with the exploits of pioneering nat-

uralists collecting in the wilds of SouthAmerica, particularly Alfred RussellWallace (1823-1913), and HenryWalter Bates (1825-1892). He knew SirRoger Casement (1864-1916) and thejournalist Edmund Morel (1873-1924)who had both played major roles inending the slavery associated with therubber harvesting industry in theCongo and Peru. Doyle correspondedwith Colonel Percy Fawcett (1867-?),the British surveyor/explorer who dis-appeared in Brazil in 1925 while

searching for a lost city in the vast Matto Grosso, and he had attended pub-lic lectures by Sir Everard im Thurn (1852-1932) who, along with AssistantCrown Surveyor Harry Perkins, had been the first European to reach thesummit of the 'lost world' of Mt Roraima that defines the shared border ofVenezuela, Guyana and Brazil. Doyle was also a friend of Sir Edwin RayLankester (1847-1929), the director of the British Museum who haddescribed several sensational new zoological discoveries, including theCentral African okapi.

Although Professor Challenger is almost always portrayed as the centralcharacter of The Lost World, it was in fact the narrator Edward Malone whofilled that role. Aged 23 in the novel, Malone was a mixture of a youthfuland idealistic Doyle with attributes of Edmund Morel thrown in. Doyle hadcampaigned and lectured with Morel and Casement in the fight against theexcesses of Belgian rule in the Congo Free State during the reign ofLeopold II, which had for some time been effectively hidden from the out-side world. Morel, who was a journalist for a company that dealt with theBelgian administration in Africa, had begun campaigning after missionariesreturned to America and Europe with harrowing reports of atrocities com-mitted on Congolese natives (including the cutting off of hands and othermutilations), and of entire villages having starved to death once their men-folk had been pressed into forced labour collecting ivory or harvesting rub-ber. Belgian rule was so harsh that the Congo population plummeted froman estimated 20 million in 1885 to 14 million in 1908 (Leopold died in1909) at a time when it should have been naturally increasing. Casement

and Morel also tried to enlist the help ofPolish novelist Joseph Conrad (JozefKorzeniowski) for their campaign, aresult of which was Conrads novelHeart of Darkness (1902), a thinly-veiled expose of the Congo administra-tion that is considered one of the finestexamples of English short-fiction.

For his part, Challenger possessedtraits of teachers recalled by Doyle fromhis university days (particularly theanatomy lecturer Professor Rutherford),while Roger Casement and PercyFawcett provided part of the inspirationsfor Lord John Roxton. Doyle had dis-cussed his intended novel with bothCasement and Fawcett at various times;

he attended Fawcett's London lectures on his South American explorationsand made use of details from Casement's correspondence during hisPutumayo investigations into the maltreatment of Indians by the PeruvianAmazon Company which had strong British links (and had come to theattention of the outside world in 1909). It later emerged that under the ruleof one Julio Cesar Arana, the company had been responsible for the deathsof of the local population of mainly Huitoto Indians. Stories of nativemaltreatment emanating from the remote region were at least as horrific, ifnot worse, than had been the case in the Belgian Congo, albeit on a smallerscale. Arana himself escaped justice because the US State Department(whose help was required to secure an arrest) had been unwilling to offendthe Peruvian government, and he died in Lima in 1952, aged 88. In The LostWorld, Roxtons role mirrored that of Casement and he was described as


Fig 4. The forests of Maple WhiteLand (based on Zdenek Burian, TheLost World Centenary Edition,2012)

Fig 3. Maple White Land (The Lost World Centenary Edition, 2012)


one who had carried out a personal waragainst Peruvian slave traders in thePutumayo (spelt Putomayo in ch. VI),which was an essential part of the plot toget the expedition marooned on theplateau.

Doyle utilised the South American trav-elogues of Wallace and Bates (A Narrativeof Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negroand The Naturalist on the River Amazons,respectively) to fill in various details forthe landscapes and rivers traversed by theChallenger expedition as it made its wayto the mysterious plateau. For descriptionsof the extinct animals encountered, heturned to Lankester's book PrehistoricAnimals (1905). Lankester was happy toact as technical advisor for any matterpalaeontological, and suggested the inclu-sion of several newly-discovered fossilanimals in the storyline, some of whichConan Doyle followed through.

Shortly after publication of The LostWorld, newspapers were reporting that aUniversity of Pennsylvania expedition hadset off to Brazil seeking evidence ofDoyles plateau, seemingly adding an auraof authenticity to the whole story. In thisinstance, however, it was simply a case ofeditors sensationalising a scientificanthropological expedition. Nevertheless,it is not surprising that Doyle's story mighthave appeared to be within the realms ofpossibility in its day, because the years leading up to it saw a succession ofsensational new zoological discoveries. These included the mountain gorilla(the second largest known primate), the okapi, the northern subspecies ofthe white rhino (the second largest land animal), the Ituri Forest giant boar,and the pygmy hippopotamus, amongst others. Zoological finds beyondAfrica included the largest land reptile, the Komodo Dragon (which wasonly 'discovered' by western zoologists in 1912) and the Eastern Siberianbrown bear, one of the world's largest bears.

A major archaeological find that preceded the novels publication was theuncovering of the 'lost' Inca city of Machu Picchu by the American explorerHiram Bingham in 1911. Archaeologists and the public alike were astound-ed that such an impressive complex of stone fortifications and terraced gar-dens could have remained undiscovered just 2000 ft above one of the mosttravelled roads in Peru.Accustomed as they were tosuch sensational finds, read-ers in 1912 may well haveperceived Doyle's novel to befar less of a dream-wish thanit appears to us today.

Another famous discovery,announced just two monthsafter release of The LostWorld, was the strange caseof Piltdown Man. Remnantsof this curious 'fossil,' whichseemingly represented thesupposed missing linkbetween ape and Man, hadbeen found in 1908 not farfrom Doyle's home. The findranks as the most infamousscientific fake of moderntimes, and Doyle has been

suggested as one possible suspect, as wasits discoverer Charles Dawson (who isknown to have fabricated other museumfinds). The Lost World appears to containdetails that would have to be unusuallycoincidental if they did not relate to thefraud. Whoever was the true culprit/sbehind Piltdown, one thing is certain -Doyle could not have conjured up a wor-thier mystery to test the great SherlockHolmes himself.

Doyle wrote The Lost World at hisWindlesham home in Sussex during 1911.The text was completed in December, andthe photos and illustrations followed inearly 1912. Publication in The StrandMagazine (which had introduced manySherlock Holmes stories to the public),was in a series of instalments runningfrom April to November 1912 (vols. XLIIIno. 156 to XLIV, no. 263) with paintingsby New Zealand-born artist HarryRountree (Doyles long-time artistic col-laborator Sidney Paget, having died in1908). Coincidentally, Rountree was bornand raised in my own home town ofAuckland. Circulation of The Strand inEngland is said to have reached 250,000.On the other side of the Atlantic, serialisa-tion of the novel began in ThePhiladelphia Press Sunday Magazine(Mar July 1912) with illustrations byJoseph Clement Coll. Although an accom-

plished artist of human figures (albeit for the fact that the natives and theircanoes in the story were depicted as North Amerindians), the basic princi-ples of palaeontology were either unknown to Coll, or he chose to ignorethem. Details of some of his scenes also directly contradict the text, indicat-ing that he probably hadnt read the novel in any depth beforehand.

In October 1912 the first novel version was released by Hodder &Stoughton (London) and simultaneously by publishers in New York andToronto. A more elaborate and collectable edition was published later thatyear, with illustrations by photographer William Ransford and watercoloursby Doyles brother-in-law Patrick Forbes. Early editions featured faked pho-tographs (some of which Doyle created) and maps purporting to representMaple White Land (which was actually a thinly-disguised map of Sussex),named by Challenger for the American who met his death after making his

great discovery. The main inspirations for

Maple White Land mostlikely came from MtRoraima and the RicardoFranco Hills (part of theSerrania Huanchaca table-land) where Fawcett almostmet an untimely fate duringan expedition to the RiverVerde on the Bolivian-Brazilian border in 1908.Maple White Land indeedhas elements of both places(eg. the Towashing Pinnacleat the southern end ofRoraima mirrors the pinna-cle of ascent used by theexpedition to reach the sum-mit of the plateau, and thebamboo forests leading to it

Fig 5. Harry Rountree (The Strand Magazine, 1912)

Fig 6. The Swamp of thePterodactyls (The Lost WorldCentenary Edition, 2012)




replicate those surrounding the base of the Ricardo Franco Hills). Althoughthere had been much speculation in the British Press as to what prehistoricanimal life may have survived on Roraima, the mountain had already beenascended in 1884 by the im Thurn-Perkins expedition, and the summit wasknown to be sparsely vegetated,rocky, inhospitable, and highlyeroded - hardly a suitable habitatfor large animals, dinosaurs orotherwise. The terrain of MapleWhite Land differed markedlyfrom that of Roraima and theRicardo Franco Hills in that itwas more akin to a giganticcaldera with a huge lake at thelowest point in the centre. One ofmy test readers, Michael Fonfe,recently suggested that Doylemight have been aware of thePilanesberg caldera in SouthAfrica. This area features a largelake (Mankwe) resulting from a dam built by Boer farmers in the 1860s, andwas locally associated with late 19th Century Zulu history when tribes flee-ing the wrath of the Zulu king Shaka used it for sanctuary. Doyle servedtime in South Africa as a medical supervisor at Bloemfontein after the out-break of the 1899 Boer War, and returned to the country during his 1920slecture tours on spiritualism, so may well have known of Pilanesberg.Another now famous African caldera (less well known in Doyles time) thatresembles an inverted version of Maple White Land is the Ngorongorocrater in Tanzania (first known to Europeans but Germans rather thanBritish - as late as 1892). The crater features a large lake (Magadi) and sur-rounding swampy areas similar to that described by Doyle.

There were no direct clues given in the novel to specify the location ofDoyles plateau, with Malone claiming to have been instructed byChallenger to agree to withhold its location. However, the book does containa number of clues to Maple White Land (altitude, dimensions, distancesfrom waterways etc), and a compass bearing is obtainable from the text dueto an incident that occurs towards the end of the expedition. Whether thecompass bearing was intentional or not is another matter (Im almost certainthat it wasnt). Despite his brilliance as a story-teller, Doyle was less con-cerned with the finer peripheral details of his stories, a fact openly admit-ted in his 1924 autobiography.

A cursory or inattentive reading of The Lost World can appear to foster themisconception that primitive man and dinosaurswere contemporaneous. Even in scholarlyreviews (where the term 'dinosaur' is often usedto encompass all large prehistoric reptilesincluding plesiosaurs and pterosaurs), it hasbeen suggested that Doyle used artistic licenceby having animals from different geologicalperiods co-exist with each other as well as withhumans. However, Challenger makes it quiteclear in the text on two occasions how this situ-ation came about. The plateau had a restrictedroute of access (a cavern) from the plains below(as used by Maple White and his companionJames Colver), and as animals from differentgeological eras made their way to the summitvia the cavern, they became cut off from theworld below. Thus the original fauna (as old asJurassic) continued to survive alongside recentimmigrants. Challenger envisaged the Indiansand the ape-men as recent migrants, and alsomentioned other recent or extant mammals living on the plateau (the giantelk Megacero

prehistory times 111

Documents