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Dinosaurs in the Dark at Ouwehands Zoo

Attraction Review January 23, 2024

That time again: Another zoo in the Netherlands has been dinosaurified! Previously I showed you the dinosaurs that came to ZooParc Overloon, Dierenrijk and GaiaZoo. This time, it’s Ouwehands Dierenpark in the town of Rhenen that has been visited by creatures from millions of years ago. There’s a twist, though; whereas the previous attractions centered around the usual models and animatronics, this attraction is a dinosaur-themed edition of Ouwehands’ yearly Light Nights winter event. That means these dinosaurs are light…

Dino Weeks at Dierenrijk

Attraction Review May 28, 2022

So, you might imagine we’ve all been spoiled a bit lately, what with Prehistoric Planet and all. It’s easy to develop high expectations, and to expect everything to be subject to the same sublime standards of visual quality and scientific accuracy. Lest we get too comfortable, I think it prudent to take a stroll among some good old fashioned ugly Chinese dinosaur animatronics. It’s good to be reminded that dinosaurs in public spaces can still be rubbish, too. Take it…

Dino Weeks at ZooParc

Attraction Review October 29, 2020

Dinosaurs and zoos, they go together like peanut butter and jelly. A lot of the major zoos in the Netherlands have some sort of dinosaur presence, from the beautiful sculputures at Artis Amsterdam to the Dinobos at Amersfoort (remind me to talk about GaiaZoo’s Dino Dome someday). Not to be outdone, the small, regional zoo known as ZooParc Overloon has been taken over by animatronic dinosaurs for the autumn of 2020. The dinosaurs are some of the ones also found…

Return to Het Dinobos

Attraction Review August 16, 2020

I’ve been having a pretty crazy summer, so when a dear friend of mine offered to take me to Dierenpark Amersfoort, a lovely, lush, forested zoo in the town of the same name, I jumped at the chance. Within the zoo is a bit of forest dedicated to dinosaurs: Marc visited for the first time in 2011, and I’ve been a few times as well. I was wondering if anything had changed and how the pandemic measures would affect my…

Vintage Dinosaur Media: Dinosaurs! The Multimedia Encyclopedia – Part 2

Vintage Dinosaur Art July 18, 2020

I’m going to show you some more of Dinosaurs! The Multimedia Encyclopedia. Since I shared the first part last week, there has been no shortage of you guys telling me about the dinosaur computer progams and games you used to have back when CD-Rom was a thing. Unsurpisingly, there were far more dinosaur-centered computer programs and video games around at that time (1993 – the year of Jurassic Park), many of which might be worth looking into someday… if any…

Vintage Dinosaur Media: Dinosaurs! The Multimedia Encyclopedia – Part 1

Vintage Dinosaur Art July 5, 2020

I can’t pretend that today’s post isn’t fueled by pure, shameless, self-indulgent nostalgia. This little computer program from 1993 is something I spent literally months with as a child, quite undeterred by the fact that I didn’t understand a word of English. I had my own sources for actually reading about dinosaurs, after all (mostly Dinosaurs! Magazine, though my memory of that series has soured since I’ve learnt that the Dutch version ran for only half as many issues as…

Oloroceratops: An Animatronic Dinosaur Meme

Uncategorized November 8, 2019

As readers of this blog should know all too well, palaeoart is a field where copying other people’s work is commonplace. This is especially true if a nonexpert artist has been commissioned to cook something up on the cheap. How many books have been reviewed here whose artwork can be traced back to the old greats? How many lesser artists have we seen who’ve copied the work of originals like Charles Knight, Zdeněk Burian, Robert Bakker, Greg Paul or John…