Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Baddest Dino You've Probably Heard Of

Above: CGI Spinosaurus from Monsters Resurrected.

Yesterday, I covered the first part of the Discovery Channel's night of dinos on December 6th. After Clash of the Dinosaurs, Discovery aired a less-promoted special on Spinosaurus (apparently the first in a series) called Monsters Resurrected: Biggest Dino Killer. According to Tom Holtz, who was interviewed for the show, a second (apparently better, from his POV) special focusing on Acrocanthosaurus will air in the coming weeks or months. The point of this series seems to bring focus to lesser known giant carnivorous theropods.

The "lesser known" conceit was the first in some bizarre choices, pseudo-errors, and misleading narration/imagery to come from this special. Altogether, I can't say it was "better" than CotD, but to me it was heaps more interesting because of all these little quirks, and some very cool paleontologist segments, not to mention CGI sequences that lasted more than 3 seconds apiece.

Above: For the reference, an accurate Spinosaurus head. By Steve O'Connor, licensed.

First, to call Spinosaurus little-known is a bit of a reach, isn't it? The narrator started nearly every post-commercial break segment with a line like "The most terrifying dinosaur you've never heard of." Yeah, Jurassic Park III wasn't as popular as the first film, but isn't Spinosaurus at least among Brachiosaurus in the ranks of well-known second-tier dinosaur stars nowadays? Or is it only among us dino fanboys? But who else is watching this show?

The next thing that struck me was the design of the CGI Spinosaurus. It is pretty darn inaccurate by today's standards. But... it isn't based on today's standards. It's clearly a direct copy of an older, very awesome drawing by Todd Marshall, down to the dewlap, the spikes, and the almost certainly inaccurate croc-like scale detailing. Whether Marshall was a consultant for the show, or they just ripped his design off after it turned up on Google Image Search, I don't know. Anybody know the scoop? Because if he wasn't involve, this is definitely a case of blatant plagiarism.


Above right: Spinosaurus by Todd Marshall, blatantly plagiarized by me from Google Images. Left: Spinosaurus from Monsters Resurrected.

The main inaccuracy in their Spino model is the head. Now that we have decent skull material, we know Spino has a very narrow, thin snout with a distinct kink in the top and a huge rosette of teeth on the robust lower jaw (see accurate drawing, above). This is all thanks to dal Sasso and his team, who were featured extensively in the special (very cool to see) along with a life-sized model of an accurate skull. Does nobody notice the difference? Adding to the confusion, the special also featured segments with Lawrence Witmer in his famous anatomy lab (and Dr. Holtz's segments even super-imposed him into the lab via green screen, according to his comments on the DML!) . Witmer was shown using computer modeling to re-construct Spino based on the type specimens (destroyed in WWII) and with gaps filled in from the related Suchomimus. Unfortunately, the producers don't seem to have realized that the skull Witmer used was a stand-in, and anytime the skull of Spinosaurus was discussed (that is, every 2 minutes), the (very different) skull of Suchomimus was shown. Suchomimus skull also matches the one Marshall probably based his drawing on, so the accurate, dal Sasso restoration as briefly shown ends up looking very out of place.

Above: Not Spinosaurus.

Also bizarrely, the (almost universally accepted) idea that Spinosaurus was primarily a fisher is only addressed briefly at the very end, along with the hypothesis that the sail could be used as a fish-luring shade as in modern herons. The rest of the time, the talking heads like Holtz discuss ways Spino may have dispatched their prey, probably thinking of fish and small/juvenile dinosaurs and other vertebrates, while the animation shows it picking up and eating a small Rugops like corn on the cob! Never mind that the hand articulation would make corn eating impossible for theropod dinosaurs.

The commentary throughout the episode is actually very good, and mostly accurate, as it's coming from the pros, which are given more talk time than in some other specials. However, the animation and narrator talking about how bad-ass the Spinosaurus is are clearly meant to make it look like a bigger, meaner version of t. rex, rather than a giant heron. Don't get me wrong, giant herons would be damn scary, but I doubt they'd be running around eating abelisaur shish kebab and gutting giant mesoeucrocodylians like fish (very gory and kinda cool, don't see that in a lot of docs!). Also, there was a lot of speculation treated as fact. The bite and feeding style of Spinosaurus is based on modern crocodiles, by experts, but it's just speculation, not the basis of studies, and I've already seen people trying to add this to Wikipedia in the mistaken belief that it's been demonstrated scientifically. It's not even really a well-reasoned speculation, as the snout of Spinosaurus itself is more like a gharial than a crocodile. But maybe the expert quoted was thinking of the broader- snouted Suchomimus.

All in all, an interesting, schizophrenic doc, and I'm really looking forward to the Acrocanthosaurus installment, as that's known from much better remains, not to mention footprint evidence of hunting behavior. However, Discovery needs to get the experts to help write those commercial break trivia questions, and provide pronunciation guides--the poor guy kept calling it SPIN-o-saur-us, as in the Spin Doctors.

Oh, and this is two in a row that got the sauropod feet (nearly) right! The show featured Paralatitan, and you could clearly make the hands out as fingerless stumps. SV-POW must be having some effect!

Above: Hooray for sauropod feet!

22 comments:

  1. Sounds like the Graphics team or the writers didn't think to get consultation from the experts they interviewed....which would have been a smart idea.

    And, speaking of which, why not revies JFC (Jurassic Fight Club)? My friend ("Dinosaur George" Blasing, the creator of JFC)) would LOVE to hear some excellent critique on it! :)

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  2. Excuse me, "revies" should be "review." Sorry.

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  3. Not a bad idea. I usually miss shows like this but have managed to catch them more lately... actually i'd probably still miss them most of the time if it weren't for my wife flagging them down for me! I'm a little rusty on the details of JFC but if I can find it online I might throw a quick review up of a few episodes. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how well your friend may come off in them. Generally I'm not a huge fan of sensantionalism and speculation on paleo 'documentaries', since the public has some pretty solidly in-built notions that everything they're seeing is supported by sicence (and when something obviously isn't, they dismiss scientists in general, not the production/writers, for presenting speculation as fact!).

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  4. Last time I checked, there were still some Jurassic Fight Club whole episodes on Youtube. Just a warning though: when it comes to the realism factor, it isn't very good - okay, to be frank, it is abominable. (No offense to your friend Mr. Blasing, Raptor Lewis, just being truthful.) You just can't expect too much from popular media, even ones that call themselves documetaries. But it has a lot of dinosaurs being flung about like rags to keep viewers entertained.

    Raptor Lewis - I concur, I'd like to see more reviews like this, too!

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  5. Sorry, but Suchomimus DOES NOT have a broader snout than Spinosaurus, take a look at the front view of a Suchomimus skull:

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suchomimus_skeleton.jpg

    vs

    A spinosaurus skull:

    http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6805/00887e96b716669d9454edf.jgp

    Sorry I had to manually type out the url as I was not able to copy/paste. Anyway, the gharial comparison is much better suited for the narrow snouted Suchomimus/baryonyx. The Spinosaurus skull actually does rather compliment the shape of an American Crocodile or the Orinoco Crocodile. And I do recall a short post by Jaime Headden theorizing that Spinosaurus' bite was likely powerful due to the sturdy construction of the skull as it relates to torsional forces.

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  6. Just a moment, I made a slight typo on the second url above. I typed .jgp instead of .jpg.

    Regards.

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  7. Anonymous:
    You may be right about the snout width and I was (being a bit unclear in) referring to the dorsoventral width rather than lateral width. With the exception of tyrannosaurs few theropods have anything but relatively narrow snouts laterally, unlike crocs where the breadth of the snout is about the same as the back of the skull.

    However the Spinosaurus skeleton image you used isn't a great example. It looks a little too broad compared to other known jaws, and this example is not even a cast, but a sculpture! Here's a pic of it being carved out of foam:
    http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/090615/GAL-09Jun15-2172/media/PHO-09Jun15-165686.jpg

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  8. I disagree, from every other reconstruction I've seen of Spinosaurus' skull from a frontal view its proportions as it relates to breadth has looked identical to the Japanese exhibit I've posted above.

    Actually, looking at the Japanese exhibit from its profile, it rather undercuts the depth of the mandible right after the kink, if only just a little bit.

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  9. Like the blog! But what do you mean "almost certainly inaccurate croc-like scale detailing"? There are no skin impressions of Spinosaurus, and Ceratosaurus is known to have had croc-like scutes down the back, so the resoning there seems way off to me. Please don't call something "almost certainly inaccurate" without showing any evidence for this assertion.

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  10. Anonymous:
    Scutes and scales are different things. Skin impressions from ornithischians, ceratosaurs, allosaurs, and some coelurosaurs all show almost exactly the same pattern of small, pebbled scalation. Some forms also had osteoderms interspersed among these, but none are the grid-like, rectangular, tightly packed scute covering of the illustrations above. Ironically, the only dinosaur known to have rectangular-shaped scales at all is Triceratops (on the belly).

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  11. Albertonykus-

    Actually, it's as accurate as these shows are going to get for scientific accuracy. Mr. Blasing DOES acknowledge the inaccuracies in the show, but for entertainment and success, sadly, the facts had to be sacrificed. Blaim the public and NOT my friend, please.

    Visit http://dinosaurgeorge.blogspot.com/ or http://www.dinosaurgeorge.com/ for more information. (And, no, this is NOT spam.)

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  12. And, Albertonykus, it's hard to find that balance when it comes to these documentaries between science and entertainment! TOO much Science and you bore the audience, too little, and you seem like an idiot being rideculed. The audience likes to think they know everything. George has been studying Paleontology for over 37 years and certainly knows what he's talking about. (Seriously, ask Dr. Holtz!) Since he is in the Public Speaking and Television industries as well, he is well aware of the balance that is almost Impossible to meet! Please, give him more credit than that!

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  13. Raptor Lewis:
    "And, Albertonykus, it's hard to find that balance when it comes to these documentaries between science and entertainment! TOO much Science and you bore the audience,"

    I have to disagree here, and I hear this sentiment a lot. This is not a JP action movie, it's (presented as) a documentary on an educational channel. People come to these things with the expectation that they're being presented with facts: maybe entertaining facts, but still facts. If the facts are not entertaining enough, why make a show about this subject? If the real facts of paleontology bore you, then you are not really interested in paleo to begin with, IMO. When regular people get into paleo because of entertainment-infused paleo shows, and find out that many of the entertainment elements were not factual, they feel they've been lied to (which they have) and will often get turned off from the subject.

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  14. Good points, but remember that though I am passionate about the subject, I still get bored if it's ALL lecture! So, I find there's no direct correlation between aforementioned statement about if "you find the actual facts boring, then they are not really interested in the subject" and being passionate about it, yet still finding TOO much science boring. I get that way, because that is not what the shows are for. Why catch their attention, only to lose it, lecture style. Personally, they can read more about it later, so why destroy their interest in the subject with a lecture-type show?

    Anywho, you need to lighten up, in my opinion. Where's your childhood curiousity for Dinosaurs? There's nothing wrong with being a kid at heart. Personally, I'd rather watch an entertaining Dinosaur documentary with some minor inaccuracies, then watch a lengthy monotonous documentary that is accurate to last detail. I mean, what got you into Paleontology and why are you interested in it? Please don't take that opportunity away from the public with your anal "Factual" attitude. I apologize for the attack, but this takes the fun out of science, honestly.

    Remember, Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Even Dr. Holtz of Maryland doesn't mind the inaccuracies because he is open-minded and hopes that people will be interested in the subject.

    Anywho, just some food for thought, Marty.

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  15. I guess I'm just an optimist who believes it's possible to have an entertaining show that is also perfectly accurate. Dinosaurs did some pretty interesting things, and looked way cool. These types of shows have them doing inaccurate interesting things and looking cool in inaccurate ways. Again, I'm not saying they should be all lecture. My ideal dino doc would be a movie like The Bear following one dino through a year of its life with no narration at all (like the original Disney Dinosaur was supposed to be before corporate interference). This would necessarily include heaps of speculation, but if it's grounded in current theories, that's fine. Shows like Monsters Resurrected appear to have done their research, decided what they found out is boring, and made up new conclusions. Fine: you think the real Spinosaurus is too boring, so you have to sex it up? Why not pick a different dinosaur that fits better in the story you want to tell?

    To answer your question, I suppose when I was a kid "fun" didn't mean "let's see who'll win this weeks grudge match." Imagining a prehistoric world full of strange and fascinating animals was enough for me, they didn't have to be sexed up. I grew up on docs like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eQ3LDhGfpU

    Which is still one of my faves and was extremely accurate for its time, save for a few minor details.

    My beef with today's docs isn't that they're inaccurate. It's that the inaccuracies don't seem to effect the entertainment value at all. Why is it more entertaining to see Spinosaurus ploughing through a herd of Rugops (ridiculous) than stalking a herd of Paralititan and picking off babies (plausible)? Why is a wingless Deinonychus (fiction) more entertaining than one that looks like a giant Archaeopteryx (fact)? Why is it cooler to see them attacking an Astrodon-sized sauropod than a bear-sized one?

    I guess as I hang around the internet more than Dr. Holtz, I'm more jaded. Because what I see personally is people becoming interested in the subject of whether Spino could kill T. rex, rather than the subject of science. If the delicate balance between science and entertainment is skweed towards entertainment, these shows create monster movie fans, not dinosaur fans.

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  16. Anyway, did you miss the part where I said I thought the show was good? ;)

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  17. Truth be told, all existing dinosaur documentaries have inaccuracies, and Jurassic Fight Club has more than average, so I wouldn't say it's as accurate as they could get.

    Remember, truth can be as entertaining as fiction. Think knob-headed "Dracorex" growing into tall-domed Pachycephalosaurus, think Sinosauropteryx being so beautifully preserved we have an idea of its color, think the phenomenal rate that even giant sauropods could grow at, think the weird bristles of Psittacosaurus, think the chewing prowess of hadrosaurs, think Tianyulong, think the wonders sexual selection has brought about, think Leaellynasaura thriving under the aurora australis, think secondarily flightless deinonychosaurs, think the immense span of time dinosaurs have been on earth, think gigantic Argentinosaurus (or Amphicoelias, if you wish) then the tiny bee hummingbird, think troodonts with their asymmetrical ears, think rebbachisaurids, think alvarezsaurids, think how dinosaur science has changed over the years! Surely, it is possible to portray real science as interesting and not turn it into a lecture.

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  18. "I guess I'm just an optimist who believes it's possible to have an entertaining show that is also perfectly accurate. Dinosaurs did some pretty interesting things, and looked way cool. These types of shows have them doing inaccurate interesting things and looking cool in inaccurate ways. Again, I'm not saying they should be all lecture. My ideal dino doc would be a movie like The Bear following one dino through a year of its life with no narration at all (like the original Disney Dinosaur was supposed to be before corporate interference). This would necessarily include heaps of speculation, but if it's grounded in current theories, that's fine. Shows like Monsters Resurrected appear to have done their research, decided what they found out is boring, and made up new conclusions. Fine: you think the real Spinosaurus is too boring, so you have to sex it up? Why not pick a different dinosaur that fits better in the story you want to tell?"

    "My beef with today's docs isn't that they're inaccurate. It's that the inaccuracies don't seem to effect the entertainment value at all. Why is it more entertaining to see Spinosaurus ploughing through a herd of Rugops (ridiculous) than stalking a herd of Paralititan and picking off babies (plausible)? Why is a wingless Deinonychus (fiction) more entertaining than one that looks like a giant Archaeopteryx (fact)? Why is it cooler to see them attacking an Astrodon-sized sauropod than a bear-sized one?"

    Matt's comments turned up while I was typing mine, so I'd like to add: I wholly concur with the above.

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  19. Thanks for clearing that up, Mr. Martyniuk. I knew you said you liked the show, but you're tone gave me the impression of being the uptight "Paleo-Geeks" who forget what it is to be truly interested in the science.

    I mean, for me, a little inaccuracy is good, but as long as it isn't so riddled with it that I feel like throwing up. I mean, JFC COULD have been improved, but I think we need to give my friend more due credit than that! I mean, the concept was good, but when they put it into action, it left a lot to be desired, if you will.

    Personally, I'm so much of a fan, that I am hardly bothered by this. My suggestion is, though, that if you have a concern, then write to some of the Networks and Experts out there and repeat what you said in the post to them in that letter. I would LOVE to see the perfect balance between these two! :)

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  20. "I guess as I hang around the internet more than Dr. Holtz..."

    Good Lord, man!

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  21. The Suchomimus skull reconstruction is incorrect in its proportions - the region behind the orbit should be taller than the snout, not "streamlined" as shown. (See Sues et al., Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 2002).

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  22. Will you review the Acrocanthosaurus episode?

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