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velociraptor

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…

Thunder Beast: It Came From 1993

Toys October 3, 2023

Ever run into someone whom you haven’t seen in years – or even decades – in a very unlikely place? A couple of weeks ago I went out for pizza in Leicester with Agata, and the somewhat quirky restaurant we visited had a small table inhabited by a range of rather ugly, cheap, chunky dinosaur figures. Most of them I recognised from recent forays in toy and gift shops (and the Natural History Museum gift shop, sadly), but one of…

The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers – review

Book Review August 2, 2023

Back in 2021, plesiosaur-lovin’ scientist Adam Smith collaborated with author Jonathan Emmett and illustrator Adam Larkum to bring us Adam’s first children’s book – which was, naturally enough, all about plesiosaurs. Or rather, one particular plesiosaur species, namely Albertonectes vanderveldei. Now, Smith and Emmett are back, joined this time by artist Stieven van der Poorten, for a book that’s all about…Tyrannosaurus rex. But wait! It’s actually about how reconstructions of the animal have changed through time, and why. So it’s not as…

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Jurassic Park toy collector cards

Vintage Dinosaur Art June 14, 2023

Brian Franczak was one of the best palaeoartists around in the early ’90s, and I still feel (as I did a couple of years ago) that we don’t feature his work here quite enough. Happily, then, an opportunity presents itself in the 30th anniversary of That Movie. You know the one: Unix systems, expensive ice cream, disappointingly flimsy road signs. All that stuff. I didn’t fancy writing yet another article praising that movie to the skies for how groundbreaking and…

Vintage Dinosaur Art: World Atlas of Dinosaurs – Part 1

Vintage Dinosaur Art January 25, 2023

It’s 2023, and we have a rule here. It’s an arbitrary rule, but here we are: We count everything as “vintage” that is 20 years old or older. That means, try not to die of shock here, that everything up to 2003 is now eligible for a Vintage Dinosaur Art review. Them’s the breaks. A whole new millennium is opening up for us! Now, when I think of what dinosaur books look like in the 21st century, I mostly think…

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Utahraptor: The Deadliest Dinosaur

Vintage Dinosaur Art December 13, 2022

As Don and Donna Month draws to a close, what better way to end this series of reviews than with the meanest, baddest, freshest dinosaur of the mid-to-late-nineties? It’s easy to take for granted these days, but back then, the newly-described Utahraptor was a pretty big deal. It was a case of life imitating art. Here we had what was, seemingly, a dead ringer for those oversized movie raptors, except released into the world only months after that movie came…

The Dinosaurs of Silesia

Attraction Review Vintage Dinosaur Art June 20, 2022

Zoo Chorzów, or the Silesian Zoological Park, is located a stone’s throw from the centre of Katowice in the Upper Silesia region of southern Poland. The zoo was founded on its current location in 1954, as part of the Socialist-era post-mining development of a big city park also including an amusement park, a planetarium, a sports centre and an art gallery. And there’s dinosaurs. The Dinosaur Valley section of the zoo, or the Kotlina Dinozaurów, was finished in 1974. Originally,…

Prehistoric Planet: Take Me To The River

TV review May 25, 2022

The third episode of Prehistoric Planet provides reassurance that at least some of our favourite stars will return. Velociraptor is the first animal to make a re-appearance, this time depicted hunting roosting pterosaurs on a cliff face around a waterfall. Not content with just sticking fantastic-looking feathers on their maniraptors and calling it a day, the Prehistoric Planet team want to show us exactly how the creatures make use of their plumage. In this case, Velociraptor utilises its ‘wings’ and…

Prehistoric Planet: I Bless The Rains Down In Mongolia

TV review May 24, 2022

Our second trip to the Prehistoric Planet takes us to a series of desert landscapes, including the Gobi, North Africa and South America (twice). And in contrast with the first episode, it’s rather heavy on dinosaurs – as one might expect, given that a marine reptile flopping around in the sands wouldn’t look very dignified. Other creatures do significantly feature – pterosaurs, of course, and a little anonymous lizard chasing flies around the faces of sleeping Tarbosaurus. However, the dinosaurs…

Vintage Dinosaur Art – Graveyards of the Dinosaurs

Vintage Dinosaur Art March 10, 2022

I always enjoy receiving books from overseas that date to my childhood, but were never released in the UK (or if they were, were really well hidden) – there’s a special fascination in seeing what contemporary, for example, American kids were reading while I was devouring The Ultimate Dinosaur Book and Dinosaurs! magazine (er, the UK version). Graveyards of the Dinosaurs was (very kindly) sent to me from the US by Herman Diaz – thanks once again, Herman. It features a…

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