Cultural depictions of dinosaurs have been numerous since the word dinosaur was coined in 1842. The non-avian dinosaurs featured in books, films, television programs, artwork, and other media have been used for both education and entertainment. The depictions range from the realistic, as in the television documentaries from the 1990s into the first decades of the 21st century, to the fantastic, as in the monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s.
The growth in interest in dinosaurs since the Dinosaur Renaissance has been accompanied by depictions made by artists working with ideas at the forefront of dinosaur science, presenting lively dinosaurs and feathered dinosaurs as these concepts were first being considered. Cultural depictions of dinosaurs have been an important means of translating scientific discoveries to the public.
Cultural depictions have also created or reinforced misconceptions about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, such as inaccurately and anachronistically portraying a sort of "prehistoric world" where many kinds of extinct animals (from the Permian animal Dimetrodon to mammoths and cavemen) lived together, and dinosaurs lived lives of constant combat. Other misconceptions reinforced by cultural depictions came from a scientific consensus that has now been overturned, such as dinosaurs being slow and unintelligent, or the use of dinosaur to describe something that is maladapted or obsolete.
Depictions are necessarily conjectural, because petrification and other fossilization mechanisms do not preserve all details. Any reconstruction is thereby an artist's view that, in order to stay within the limits of the best knowledge at the time, must necessarily be inspired by other pictures already scientifically proved.
The classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor has proposed that the profusion of literary descriptions and imagery of the griffin in Greek and Roman literature and art beginning in the 7th century BC to the 3rd century AD were influenced by observations and travelers' accounts of fossilized beaked dinosaur skeletons found in the Turpan and Junggar basins and Gobi Desert. She noted that according to Aristeas, Sophocles, Herodotus, and other ancient writers, griffins were said to inhabit and lay eggs in nests on the ground in the lands beyond the Issedonian territory of the region surrounding the Altai Mountains. Tales of these griffins traveled from east to west along the silk routes. Mayor draws connections to Protoceratops , a frilled dinosaur and Psittacosaur fossils and dinosaur nests with eggs conspicuous in the Gobi, [1] sharing features associated with griffins: sharp beaks, four legs, claws, similar size, large eyes (or eye sockets in the case of the fossils), and the neck frill of Protoceratops, with large open holes, argued as inspiring descriptions of the griffin's large ears or wings. [2] The palaeontologist Mark Witton notes in his blog that Mayor's suggestion ignores pre-Mycenaean accounts, and has not found favour with archaeologists including N. Wyatt and T.F. Tartaron. [3] [4] [5] Many Near Eastern and Minoan artworks feature imaginary composite creatures, including quadrupeds with birds' heads but these were not called "griffins" and no writings link them to the strange beasts of Central Asia. There are no pre-Mycenaean or Minoan texts to relate bird-headed quadrupeds with classical griffins.
According to Mayor, Navajos used to hold ceremonies and make offerings to dinosaur tracks in Arizona. Tridactyl tracks were also featured as decorations on the costumes and rock art of the Hopi and Zuni, probably influenced by such dinosaur tracks. [6]
The scientific study of dinosaurs began in 1820s England. In 1842, Richard Owen coined the term dinosaur, which in his vision were elephantine reptiles. An ambitious promoter of his discoveries and theories, Owen was the driving force for the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, the first large-scale public dinosaur reconstructions (1854). These sculptures, which can still be seen today, immortalized a very early stage in the perception of dinosaurs. [7]
The Crystal Palace sculptures were successful enough that Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Owen's collaborator, sold models of his sculptures [8] and planned a second exhibition, Paleozoic Museum, for Central Park in Manhattan in the late 1860s; it was never completed due to the interference of local politics and "Boss" William Marcy Tweed. [9]
In the same period, dinosaurs first appeared in popular literature, with a passing mention of an Owen-style Megalosaurus in Charles Dickens's Bleak House (1852–1853). [10] However, depictions of dinosaurs were rare in the 19th century, possibly due to incomplete knowledge. Despite the well-publicized "Bone Wars" of the late 19th century between the American palaeontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, dinosaurs were not yet ingrained in culture. Marsh, although a pioneer of skeletal reconstructions, did not support putting mounted skeletons on display, and derided the Crystal Palace sculptures. [11]
As study caught up to the wealth of new material from western North America, and venues for depictions proliferated, dinosaurs gained in popularity. The paintings of Charles R. Knight were the first influential representations of these finds. Knight worked extensively with the American Museum of Natural History and its director, Henry Fairfield Osborn, who wanted to use dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals to promote his museum [12] and his ideas on evolution. [13]
Knight's work, found in museums around the United States, helped popularize dinosaurs and influenced generations of paleoartists. His early work showing fighting "Laelaps" (= Dryptosaurus ) depicted dinosaurs as much more lively than they would be presented for much of the 20th century. [12] At the same time, improvements in casting allowed dinosaur skeletons to be reproduced and shipped across the world for display in far-flung museums, bringing them to the attention of a wider audience; Diplodocus was the first such dinosaur reproduced in this way. [14]
Dinosaurs began appearing in films soon after the introduction of cinema, the first being the good-natured animated Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914. [15] However, lovable dinosaurs were quickly replaced as moviemakers recognized the thrill of huge frightening monsters. [16] D. W. Griffith in 1914's Brute Force provided the first example of a threatening cinematic dinosaur, a Ceratosaurus who menaced cavemen. This film enshrined the fiction that dinosaurs and early humans lived together, and set up the cliché that dinosaurs were bloodthirsty and attacked anything that moved. [8]
The now-common trope of dinosaurs extant in isolated locations in today's world appeared at the same time, beginning with Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912) and the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Lost World crossed into the movies in 1925, setting heights for special effects and attempts at scientific accuracy. It is unusual, even today, for attempting to portray dinosaurs as something other than monsters in constant combat.
The stop-motion techniques of Willis O'Brien went on to bring dinosaurs to life in the 1933 film King Kong , which merged the tropes of dinosaur combat and dinosaurs in a lost world. [8] His protégé Ray Harryhausen would continue to refine this method, but most later dinosaurs movies until the advent of CGI would eschew such expensive effects for cheaper methods, such as humans in dinosaur suits and modern reptiles with dinosaur decorations, enlarged by cinematography. [8] [17] Dinosaur depictions diversified in the 1930s, spreading to newspaper comic strips in Alley Oop [17] and to advertising for Sinclair Oil. [8]
The Great Depression and World War II combined to sink the study of dinosaurs into a decades-long lull. [18] Scientists considered dinosaurs a group of unrelated animals [19] [20] that left no descendants, and dinosaurs were presented as stupid, slow, stuck in swamps, and doomed to extinction. [21] Scientific dinosaur artwork, primarily from Rudolph F. Zallinger and Zdeněk Burian, reflected and reinforced the conception of dinosaurs as slow and static (one artistic quirk that became commonplace in representations of Mesozoic landscapes, the presence of a volcano, was a hallmark of Zallinger's). [18] From such ideas came the alternate use of "dinosaur" as something out of date. [22]
Films of the time typically used dinosaurs as monsters, with the added element of atomic fears in the early Cold War. Thus, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and Godzilla (Japanese release 1954; American release 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! ) portray monstrous dinosaur-like prehistoric reptiles that go on rampages after being awakened by atomic bomb tests. [8] [23] An alternative appears in Disney's animated Fantasia (1940) in its The Rite of Spring sequence, which attempted to portray dinosaurs with some scientific accuracy (although it has the common error of showing prehistoric animals from many different time periods living at the same time) [8] and also in Karel Zeman's Cesta do praveku (1955; Journey to the Beginning of Time), a Czechoslovakian children's science fiction movie inspired by Zdeněk Burian's work.
In 1956, Oliver Butterworth authored a children's book, The Enormous Egg. The book and a movie adaptation televised in 1968 by the NBC Children's Theatre tell the story of a boy who finds an enormous egg laid by a hen that hatches a baby Triceratops . The dinosaur, named Uncle Beazley , becomes too big, so the boy brings him to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Beazley is first kept at the National Museum of Natural History, but is eventually transferred to the National Zoo's Elephant House because there is a law against stabling large animals in the District of Columbia. [24] In the later part of the book, Uncle Beazley must be saved from a narrow-minded Senator who wants it destroyed. (Senator Joseph McCarthy was at the peak of his career at the time of writing.)
Dinosaurs gained a home in television in the 1960s animated sitcom The Flintstones , in another example of dinosaurs shown as coexisting with humans (for comedic effect in this case). [17] Dinosaurs also entered comic books in this period in such series as Tor and Turok, Son of Stone , where prehistoric humans fought anachronistic dinosaurs. For those wanting more scientific accounts of dinosaurs, there were the first nontechnical dinosaur books. Ned Colbert's The Dinosaur Book (1945) was the first such book, and its status as the only such book for many years made Colbert an important figure for the coming generations of paleontologists and dinosaur enthusiasts. [8]
In the 1960s, paleontologist John Ostrom began work on the theropod Deinonychus . [25] His findings, which were expanded upon by his student Robert T. Bakker, contributed to the Dinosaur Renaissance, [26] a revolution in the study of dinosaurs. Of particular importance were a reevaluation of the origin of birds that showed them to be closely related to coelurosaurian dinosaurs, [27] reappraisal of dinosaur physiology that suggested they were not the sluggish cold-blooded animals that they had long been assumed to be, [28] and a recognition that dinosaurs formed a natural group. [29]
Soon thereafter came new evidence on dinosaur social behavior, with nests of Maiasaura suggesting parental care. [30] These findings were reflected in the work of a new generation of paleoartists. One milestone was Sarah Landry's feathered dinosaur in Bakker's 1975 Scientific American article, Dinosaur Renaissance. [18]
Louis Paul Jonas created the first full sized dinosaur sculptures for the 1964 New York World's Fair in the "Dinoland" area, which was sponsored by the Sinclair Oil Corporation, whose logo featured a dinosaur. Jonas consulted with paleontologists Barnum Brown, Edwin H. Colbert and John Ostrom in order to create nine sculptures that were as accurate as possible. After the Fair closed, the dinosaur models toured the country on flatbed trailers as part of a company advertising campaign. Most of the statues are now on display at various museums and parks. [31] [32]
In 1967, the Sinclair Oil Corporation gave one of its dinosaurs, a fiberglass model of a Triceratops, to the Smithsonian Institution. The model, which appeared in The Enormous Egg television movie in 1968 as Uncle Beazley, is now on display at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. From the 1970s to 1994, the statue was located on the National Mall in front of the National Museum of Natural History [34] (some sources state that the Kentucky Science Center in Louisville (formerly named the "Louisville Museum of Natural History and Science" and the "Louisville Science Center") now owns the Triceratops model). [31] [32]
The reevaluation of dinosaurs spurred public interest, with the new generation of paleoartists quick to respond. Artists such as Mark Hallett, Doug Henderson, John Gurche, Gregory S. Paul, William Stout, and Bob Walters illustrated the new findings in response to the demand. [18]
By the latter half of the 1980s and into the 1990s, other media were showing the influence of the increased popularity, with diverse depictions aimed at a variety of ages and interests.
In 1990, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., featured an exhibition of dinosaur sculpture by Jim Gary that drew more visitors than any of its previous exhibits. [35] His Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, popular since the 1960s, began being featured in textbooks, encyclopedias, and videos as well as later, by the likes of National Geographic, in their publications for children in 1975, [36] and they featured Gary as the cover story for National Geographic World in September 1978. [37]
For preschoolers, there was the educational television show Barney & Friends starting in 1992; their older siblings had the 1988 animated movie The Land Before Time and its increasing line of direct to video sequels (13 by 2016). Dinosaucers was a cartoon television show from the 1980s. Dinosaurs , a television sitcom, parodied humans and other television shows. Of particular note is Michael Crichton's 1990 novel, Jurassic Park , the popularity of which led to a series of films and other related media. The first of these, Jurassic Park , married advanced CGI [8] with advances in scientific knowledge of dinosaurs. [38] The 2000 Disney animated film Dinosaur was the most expensive movie in 2000, but was a box-office success, as were other films such as the 2009 animated film Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs , the 2012 film The Dino King , the 2013 film Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie and the 2015 Disney/Pixar animated film The Good Dinosaur . The falling cost of computer-generated effects also has recently allowed the increased production of documentaries for television; the award-winning 1999 BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs , the 2001 When Dinosaurs Roamed America , the 2003 Dinosaur Planet , the 2009 Animal Armageddon , the 2011 Dinosaur Revolution , the 2011 Planet Dinosaur and the 2022 Prehistoric Planet are notable examples. There are numerous theme parks and rides dedicated to dinosaurs including Jurassic Park: The Ride at Universal Orlando and Dinosaur in Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
The popular ideals of dinosaurs have many misconceptions, reinforced by films, books, comics, television shows, and even theme parks. Typical errors include: prehistoric humans living with non-avian dinosaurs; dinosaurs as monsters that did little else but fight; [8] [38] the portrayal of a kind of "prehistoric world" where all prehistoric animals are shown to exist; [8] dinosaurs as all large; dinosaurs as stupid and slow-moving; dinosaurs as being lizard-like and all scaled (non-feathered) when many theropod dinosaurs such as Velociraptor had feathers, and the inclusion of many prehistoric animals (such as Dimetrodon , pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and mosasaurs) as dinosaurs. [17] [38] Moreover, dinosaurs did not become extinct due to being generally maladapted or unable to cope with normal climatic change, a view found in many older textbooks. [39] [40]
Reports in the news media of dinosaur finds and dinosaur science are often inaccurate and sensationalistic, and popular dinosaur books usually lag scientific understanding. [38] Dinosaur toys and models are often inaccurate, packaged indiscriminately with other prehistoric animals, [38] or have fictitious additions like the large sharp teeth in some rubber Triceratops toys. [8]
The pejorative use of "dinosaur" as something behind the times has been applied to people, styles, and ideas that are perceived to be out of date and on the wane. [41] For example, members of the punk movement derided the "progressive" bands that preceded them as "dinosaur bands". [42]
However, some popular depictors have striven for accuracy and presented up-to-date information; Michael Crichton [38] and Bill Watterson (of Calvin and Hobbes ) [43] are two recent examples. Paleoartists and illustrators in particular have kept up with research. Popular conceptions of dinosaurs have also been important in stimulating the interest and imagination of young people, and have been responsible for introducing many who would later become paleontologists to the field. In addition, popular depictions have the freedom to be more imaginative and speculative than technical works. [15]
The typical use of dinosaurs in popular culture has been as vicious monsters. [8] There are several distinct genres of dinosaur depictions commonly used: "lost worlds" on modern Earth; time travel stories; educational works for children; [15] prehistoric world stories (often with cavemen); [38] and dinosaurs running amok in the modern world. [17]
The appeal of dinosaurs, as suggested by author, researcher, and dinosaur enthusiast Donald F. Glut, has multiple factors. Dinosaurs were "monsters," yet are safely extinct, allowing for vicarious thrills. They appeal to the imagination, and there are many ways to approach them intellectually. Finally, they appeal to adults nostalgic for what they enjoyed as children. Children have been particularly drawn to dinosaurs over the years. [8]
The scientific discoveries of dinosaurs sometimes led to creation of local museums with positive impact on the local society and economy. Some of the best examples are the dinosaurs from Lourinhã Formation that changed the town of Lourinhã, in Portugal, famous for the dinosaur eggs. Found in the Upper Jurassic outcrops of Lourinhã, Portugal, and first published in 1997, the Paimogo dinosaur egg clutch is one of Portugal's most remarkable fossils, with over one hundred eggs preserved in association with embryonic bones, of the allosauroid theropod Lourinhanosaurus . However, many questions about it have remained unanswered, even until the present day. After its discovery, this extraordinary fossil became the keystone of a small local museum, greatly kick-starting regional tourism, while also holding the fossils in trust for future generations to study. More than 20 years later, continually sustained paleontological interest from the public has even given rise to both a highly successful dinosaur theme park in the region and an aspiring UNESCO Geopark. [44]
In April 2016, a proposal was submitted to the Unicode Consortium to encode the heads of three dinosaurs considered exemplary, the Tyrannosaurus rex , the Brontosaurus , and the Triceratops , as emoji. [45] In the next year, 2017, the Unicode Consortium decided to add two dinosaur emojis to the Unicode and emoji standards: the Tyrannosaurus rex (🦖, at codepoint U+1F996) [46] and a sauropod (🦕, at codepoint U+1F995). [47]
Triceratops is a genus of chasmosaurine ceratopsian dinosaur that lived during the late Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous period, about 68 to 66 million years ago in what is now western North America. It was one of the last-known non-avian dinosaurs and lived until the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago. The name Triceratops, which means 'three-horned face', is derived from the Greek words trí- meaning 'three', kéras meaning 'horn', and ṓps meaning 'face'.
Sinclair Oil Corporation was an American petroleum corporation founded by Harry F. Sinclair on May 1, 1916. The Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation amalgamated the assets of 11 small petroleum companies. Originally a New York corporation, Sinclair Oil reincorporated in Wyoming in 1976. The corporate logo featured the silhouette of a large green Brontosaurus dinosaur, based on the then-common idea that oil deposits beneath the earth came from the dead bodies of dinosaurs.
John Harold Ostrom was an American paleontologist who revolutionized the modern understanding of dinosaurs. Ostrom's work inspired what his pupil Robert T. Bakker has termed a "dinosaur renaissance".
Agathaumas is a dubious genus of a large ceratopsid dinosaur that lived in Wyoming during the Late Cretaceous. The name comes from Ancient Greek: αγαν - 'much' and θαυμα - 'wonder'. It is estimated to have been 15 metres (49 ft) long and weighed 17.5 tonnes, and was seen as the largest land animal known at the time of its discovery.
Tyrannosaurus rex is unique among dinosaurs in its place in modern culture; paleontologist Robert Bakker has called it "the most popular dinosaur among people of all ages, all cultures, and all nationalities". Paleontologists Mark Norell and Lowell Dingus have likewise called it "the most famous dinosaur of all times." Paleoartist Gregory S. Paul has called it "the theropod. [...] This is the public's favorite dinosaur [...] Even the formations it is found in have fantastic names like Hell Creek and Lance." Other paleontologists agree with that and note that whenever a museum erects a new skeleton or bring in an animatronic model, visitor numbers go up. "Jurassic Park and King Kong would not have been the same without it." In the public mind, T. rex sets the standard of what a dinosaur should be. Science writer Riley Black similarly states, "In all of prehistory, there is no animal that commands our attention quite like Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the tyrant lizards. Since the time this dinosaur was officially named in 1905, the enormous carnivore has stood as the ultimate dinosaur."
Charles Robert Knight was an American wildlife and paleoartist best known for his detailed paintings of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. His works have been reproduced in many books and are currently on display at several major museums in the United States. One of his most famous works is a mural of Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, which helped establish the two dinosaurs as "mortal enemies" in popular culture. Working at a time when many fossil discoveries were fragmentary and dinosaur anatomy was not well understood, many of his illustrations have later been shown to be incorrect representations. Nevertheless, he has been hailed as "one of the great popularizers of the prehistoric past".
The dinosaur renaissance was a highly specified scientific revolution that began in the late 1960s and led to renewed academic and popular interest in dinosaurs. It was initially spurred by research indicating that dinosaurs may have been active warm-blooded animals, rather than sluggish cold-blooded lizard-like reptilians as had been the prevailing view and description during the first half of the twentieth century.
Stegosaurus is one of the most recognizable types among cultural depictions of dinosaurs. It has been depicted on film, in cartoons, comics, as children's toys, as sculpture, and even was declared the state dinosaur of Colorado in 1982. Stegosaurus is a subject for inclusion in dinosaur toy and scale model lines, such as the Carnegie Collection.
The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs is the sixth book in Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen's The Magic School Bus series.
Dinamation International Corporation was a robotics effects company based in San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, and Tustin, California, United States.
The Age of Reptiles is a 110-foot (34 m) mural depicting the period of ancient history when reptiles were the dominant creatures on the earth, painted by Rudolph Zallinger. The fresco sits in the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, Connecticut, and was completed in 1947 after five years of work. The Age of Reptiles was at one time the largest painting in the world, and depicts a span of nearly 350 million years in Earth's history.
Paleoart is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence. Works of paleoart may be representations of fossil remains or imagined depictions of the living creatures and their ecosystems. While paleoart is typically defined as being scientifically informed, it is often the basis of depictions of prehistoric animals in popular culture, which in turn influences public perception of and fuels interest in these organisms. The word paleoart is also used in an informal sense as a name for prehistoric art, most often cave paintings.
Uncle Beazley is a life-size fiberglass statue of a Triceratops by Louis Paul Jonas. It is located near Lemur Island in the National Zoological Park in Northwest Washington, D.C., United States.
Paleontology in Montana refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Montana. The fossil record in Montana stretches all the way out to sea where local bacteria formed stromatolites and bottom-dwelling marine life left tracks on the sediment that would later fossilize. This sea remained in place during the early Paleozoic, although withdrew during the Silurian and Early Devonian, leaving a gap in the local rock record until its return. This sea was home to creatures including brachiopods, conodonts, crinoids, fish, and trilobites. During the Carboniferous the state was home to an unusual cartilaginous fish fauna. Later in the Paleozoic the sea began to withdraw, but with a brief return during the Permian.
A substantial amount of paleontological research has occurred within or conducted by people from the United States. Paleontologists have found that at the start of the Paleozoic era, what is now "North" America was actually in the southern hemisphere. Marine life flourished in the country's many seas. Later the seas were largely replaced by swamps, home to amphibians and early reptiles. When the continents had assembled into Pangaea drier conditions prevailed. The evolutionary precursors to mammals dominated the country until a mass extinction event ended their reign.
Mark Hallett is an American artist best known for his illustrations of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Having originally coined the term "paleoart" to refer to science-based paleontological illustration, Hallett remains one of the most influential masters of modern dinosaur imagery. He currently lives in Dallas, Oregon.
Louis Paul Jonas was an American sculptor of wildlife, taxidermist, and natural history exhibit designer.
This timeline of ceratopsian research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the ceratopsians, a group of herbivorous marginocephalian dinosaurs that evolved parrot-like beaks, bony frills, and, later, spectacular horns. The first scientifically documented ceratopsian fossils were described by Edward Drinker Cope starting in the 1870s; however, the remains were poorly preserved and their true nature was not recognized. Over the next several decades, Cope named several such genera and species. Cope's hated rival, Othniel Charles Marsh, also described ceratopsian remains. In 1887, Marsh mistook a Triceratops horn for one belonging to a new species of prehistoric Bison. Marsh also named the eponymous genus Ceratops in 1888. The next year, he named the most famous ceratopsian, Triceratops horridus. It was the discovery of Triceratops that illuminated the ceratopsian body plan, and he formally named the Ceratopsia in 1890.
The Edmontosaurus mummy SMF R 4036 is an exceptionally well-preserved dinosaur fossil in the collection of the Naturmuseum Senckenberg (SM) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Found in 1910 in Wyoming, United States, it is ascribed to the species Edmontosaurus annectens, a member of the Hadrosauridae. The fossil comprises a nearly complete skeleton that was found wrapped in impressions of its skin, a rare case of exceptional preservation for which the term "dinosaur mummy" has been used. Notably, the horny beak is preserved with this specimen. Plant remains found within the thorax cavity had been interpreted as stomach contents, although later research questioned this identification. The mummy's hands are wrapped in skin impression, which was interpreted as evidence for interdigital webbing and an aquatic lifestyle in hadrosaurids; this hypothesis, although universally accepted once, is now widely refused. SMF R 4036 is one of the four best preserved hadrosaurid mummies, and was the second to be discovered. The find was made by fossil hunter Charles Hazelius Sternberg and his sons, who sold their numerous finds to various museums in North America and Europe. Only two years earlier the Sternbergs had discovered the Edmontosaurus mummy AMNH 5060 in the same region, which is now on display at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City.
The Dueling Dinosaurs or Montana Dueling Dinosaurs is a fossil specimen originating from the Hell Creek Formation of Montana. It consists of the fossilized skeletons of a tyrannosaur and a Triceratops horridus entangled with one another and entombed in sandstone. This is identical to the Fighting Dinosaurs, an 80-million-year-old specimen found in 1971 Mongolia where a Velociraptor and Protoceratops were locked in battle and preserved. The "dueling" inference comes from the numerous injuries sustained by both dinosaurs, including a tooth from the tyrannosaur embedded within the Triceratops, although it is not known whether they were actually buried fighting one another. Tyrannosaurus rex was a 40 ft. long carnivore weighing 10 tons and ruled the Cretaceous period with strong jaws and sharp teeth to tear up to 500 pounds of flesh and bone in a single bite. Triceratops was bigger than an elephant and was notified by a rounded skull with horns and a bony frill to intimidate and defend against predators. Despite the scientific importance of the specimen, it remained obscure for decades due to a lengthy legal dispute over property rights to the specimen, which has since been resolved. The fossil is in the possession of and being studied by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, where it went on display in 2024.
At first Nate doesn't see what all the fuss is all about. All he wants is to keep his new pet. But Uncle Beazley, the dinosaur himself, just keeps getting bigger and bigger ...(3) "NBC Children's Theatre (1963–1973): The Enormous Egg: Episode aired April 18, 1968". IMDb.com, Inc. 2008. Archived from the original on March 9, 2008. Retrieved July 3, 2016. (4) MacIntyre, F Gwynplaine (May 28, 2003). "User Comment". NBC Children's Theatre (1963–1973): The Enormous Egg: Episode aired April 18, 1968. IMDb.com, Inc. Archived from the original on March 9, 2008. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
Title: Uncle Beazley...This 25-foot long replica of a Triceratops...as placed on the Mall in 1967...The full-size Triceratops replica and eight other types of dinosaurs were designed by two prominent paleontologists, Dr. Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City, and Dr. John Ostrom of the Peabody Museum, in Peabody, Massachusetts. The sculptor, Louis Paul Jonas, executed these prehistoric animals in fiberglass, after the designs of Barnum and Ostrom, for the Sinclair Refining Company's Pavilion at the New York World's Fair of 1964. After the Fair closed, the nine dinosaurs, which weighed between 2 and 4 tons each, were placed on trucks and taken on a tour of the eastern United States. The Sinclair Refining Company promoted the tour for public relations and advertising purposes, since their trademark was the dinosaur. In 1967, the nine dinosaurs were given to various American museums. This particular replica was used for the filming of The Enormous Egg, a movie made by the National Broadcasting Company for television, based on a children's book of the same name by Oliver Buttersworth. The movie features an enormous egg, out of which hatches a baby Tricerotops; the boy consults with the Smithsonian Institution which accepts Uncle Beazley for the National Zoo. (2) "A Dinosaur at the Zoo". Art at the National Zoo. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian National Zoological Park. Archived from the original on June 12, 2007. Retrieved July 1, 2016. (3) "Uncle Beazley". Histories of the National Mall. Fairfax, Virginia: Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
For a slow-moving dinosaur, Uncle Beazley is widely traveled. Before coming to the Mall in the 1970s, his home was the Smithsonian's Anacostia Neighborhood Museum. In 1994, Uncle Beazley moved from the Mall to his current residence, the National Zoo.