Episode fifty minus one is finally here, and we’re back looking at some non-traditional forms of palaeoart! Gemma, Marc and Natee discuss the beloved animatronics made by the Dinamation company in the 1980s and 1990s. Then, Natee and Gemma interview the unsung Sean Hennesy, whose dinosaur comics under the name “Speed Thief” combine art with comedy. We discuss how cartoons can inspire curiosity, and how a little bit of humour can make the knowledge go down better. Is dino animatronic…
You all know about the Crystal Palace dinosaurs. In my lifetime, these went from the poster children of outdated, stodgy views of ponderous swamp dinosaurs, to being the most celebrated monuments of early dinosaur art around. And they are not alone. I’ve made it my mission to visit as many historic, unique dinosaur models in Europe as I can find, such as Boudewijn Bollee’s dinosaurs of Artis in Amsterdam and the dinosaurs of Chorzów Zoo in Poland. This spring, I…
It feels like we’re doing this a lot now, but Marc, Gemma and Natee are once again reviewing a new television show with CGI dinosaurs! This time, the title is simply The Dinosaurs, a four-part miniseries on Netflix narrated by that fellow from Driving Miss Redemption of the Seven Penguins. Also, Marc has an in-depth chat with Dougal Dixon, the maestro of speculative evolution and the writer of half of all of our dinosaur books. He speaks enthousiastically about his…
You know, I’ve only done one Vintage Dinosaur Art project in the entire year of 2025? Granted, it was the mammoth, three part project on Marie Hubrecht at the Lyceum, the results of which are used in her biography, but still. It’s time to crank it up a notch, and the best way to pick up the pace is to scale back the size of the projects. Let’s do a cute children’s book. Dennis Nolan (1945-2022) was a painter in…
Zoos and dinosaurs. I have written a lot about Dutch zoos and dinosaurs on these pages. Most zoos in my home country have some degree of dinosaur presence, in the shape of permanent or temporary model exhibitions, interesting homemade sculptures, themed playgrounds or psychedelic light sculptures. But there was one zoo that had a full blown small natural history museum – complete with mounted dinosaur skeletons – as part of its permanent collection, fully integrated with the zoo and featuring…
We’re trying out something new for our first podcast episode of 2026! Marc, Natee and Gemma are joined by returning guest Christopher DiPiazza, teacher, palaeoartist and now budding palaeontologist. Not only does he fill us in about all his adventures working with fossils from the Maryland Dinosaur Park bone beds, he also joins us for our Vintage Dinosaur Art discussion. Chris introduces us to the work of Pam Mara as it appears in several volumes of Rourke dinosaur books. These…
I think enough time has passed between now and my previous write-up of the Harvard Museum of Natural History that I can post the other big museum I visited during my adventures in Massachusetts, in the summer of 2025. It’s in Boston proper, just about, less than three miles down the road from the Harvard museum in Cambridge, giving the people of greater Boston several quality museums to choose from. It follows that both museums would do well to differentiate…
In the season of Santa and weather so bleak, Three natural history nerds take a peek At young ancient mammals, so fluffy and twee As seen on the new show on Apple TV. In landscapes so snowy and icy and barren They go on adventures, instructed by Darren. Some get dehydrated and some weather-beaten, Alas, all too few of the babies get eaten. Is the show a success, or is it too hokey? Did the BBC trade in old David…
Gemma, Natee, and Marc are back for another attempt at entertaining prehistorically inclined people with carefully edited commentary and interviews with people who actually know what they’re talking about. In this episode, David Armsby’s back and better than ever, Darren Naish’s hair is slicker than ever, and Gemma interviews palaeobotanist and artist Julianne Kiely, who’s here to save us all from painfully generic and/or inaccurate flora in palaeoart. Will Gemma dare challenge Julianne’s assertion that plants are cooler than animals?…
When the days get shorter and leaves start to fall, there’s always a zoo somewhere in the Netherlands that gets taken over by dinosaurs. In previous years, I’ve covered dinosaur events at ZooParc Overloon and the former Dierenrijk, now Eindhoven Zoo. This year, to my mild surprise, it was the turn of our biggest and best zoo, the legendary Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem. Of course, the general quality of Burgers’, combined with the pretty great animatronic dinosaurs on display at…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.