Posted on 05/28/2006 6:09:41 AM PDT by S0122017
'Hogwarts' Dragon Unveiled By Larry O'Hanlon, Animal Planet News
May 24 — A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter's alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the "Dragon King of Hogwarts" on Monday in Albuquerque.
The newly described horny-headed dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia lived about 66 million years ago in South Dakota, just a million years short of the extinction of all dinosaurs. But its flat, almost storybook-style dragon head has overturned everything paleontologists thought they knew about the dome-head dinos called pachycephalosaurs.
"What you knew about pachycephalosaurs — you can chuck it," said Spencer Lucas, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.
"Dracorex hogwartsia is a rather fantastic new dinosaur," affirmed paleontologist Robert Sullivan of the State Museum of Pennsylvania.
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For years dinosaur experts had thought the classic dome-headed, head-butting sorts of pachycephalosaurs evolved from earlier flat-headed ancestors. The last thing they expected to find at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs was a dramatically flat-headed pachycerphalosaurs, or "pachy."
"If you were going to predict the kind of dinosaur that would live at that time, it would not be this," said Lucas.
Without so much as a nod of the head or the waving of a wand, hogwartsia has reversed the pachy family tree.
"Instead of going from flat-headed to domed, you're going from dome-headed to flat," Sullivan told Animal Planet News. Along with several colleagues, Sullivan co-authored the first detailed study of the new dinosaur, published this week in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Bulletin.
Dracorex hogwartsia, which translates as "Dragon King of Hogwarts," was unearthed in 2003 in the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota by three amateur fossil hunters working in cooperation with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. But it wasn't until it was at the museum, while the fossil was being carefully prepared, that renowned dinosaur researcher Robert Bakker happened to catch sight of it while visiting. Bakker then recruited pachycerphalosaurs expert Sullivan and other paleontologists to take a closer look.
As for how it got its name? A group of children at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis drew the connection to the fanciful school of witchcraft that the famous fictional wizard Harry Potter attends and came up with the name hogwartsia.
"It's a very dragon-like looking dinosaur," said Sullivan.
J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has been notified and apparently rather likes the new name.
"I am absolutely thrilled to think that Hogwarts has made a small claw mark upon the fascinating world of dinosaurs," said Rowling, according to a museum press release. "I happen to know more on the subject of paleontology than many might credit, because my eldest daughter was Utahraptor-obsessed and I am now living with a passionate Tyrannosaurus rex-lover, aged three.
"My credibility has soared within my science-loving family, and I am very much looking forward to reading Dr. Bakker and his colleague's paper describing 'my' dinosaur."
Thanks, kind words get me out of bed in the morning.
Got a new album started at Pbase, still chasing critters, until I'm allowed to hunt politicians.
http://www.pbase.com/tsiya/root
http://photobucket.com/albums/v244/tsiya/
The First Fossil Hunters
by Adrienne Mayor
foreword by Peter Dodson
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Thanks, I'll check the photos. Man, you must have a lot of animals in your area.
Dragon Ping!
Just at that moment, the roar of a dragon reached his ears. Ken smiled. He was fascinated by the creatures. They were so majestic, and powerful!
When he was much younger, his uncle had taken him to see the huge Ke’Karnoss. They had faced the beast in its courtyard. For a time, Ke’Karnoss had stared at them, as if studying their appearance. Then he cocked his head in a distinctive manner, and Uncle Faard had pulled him into the shelter of the dragonshield he was carrying. Flames washed over them, slightly singing his curly hair.
After the flames stopped, he could hear the sound of the dragon’s indrawn breath. He was smelling them.
Faard stood again. “This is my child. You will come to respect him as you do me.”
The dragon spoke then, a growling reverberation within the walls. Ken translated the sound, “I know him now.”
It had been a ritual trial by fire. Dragons, though now considered domesticated, were still ruled by prideful rituals of honor and procedure. Woe unto him who tried to take shortcuts!
His uncle had explained it to him. “They are a proud race. They do not consider themselves to have been conquered. Instead, they behave as though we are their servants. As long as we both play that same game, there is no harm, but any fool who tries to push a dragon around soon gets what he deserves, and it still happens quite frequently.”
You need to check your pronoun antecedents here -- it's not clear where all the "he," "him," and "his" are pointing.
Aside from that, it sounds zippy!
There. Fixed. Now for the rest of the book ...
Thanks! Try not to get too excited though. I'm just now putting the story elements together. I wrote that section to give myself a little of the flavor of it.
Oh boy, I was walking with you into the den, I felt the dragon smell me... I think he snorted!
WOW, fabulous and scary.
Dragon Ping!!
Ken sat on his towel and stared out at the sea. He sensed and felt the approach of the dragon. Wind from the wings swept over him, and the ground trembled slightly with its landing.
Ken looked around. There had been no sound.
Ke’Enarsha stood within a pace from him, towering over him.
“I could eat you.” Rumbled the dragon’s deep voice.
Ken rose smoothly, and faced toward the dragon. Naked after his swim, he stood with his arms stretched out wide, and with his eyes closed. Something told him this was an appropriate way to present himself as a sacrifice.
“Eat me, then, and end my troubles. Begin your own.”
There was only silence in answer. Then he heard the dragon’s indrawn breath, and braced himself for what would happen.
Warm air wafted gently over his drying skin, as the slitted nostrils of Ke’Enarsha opened wide upon him. He opened his eyes. Ke’Enarsha lowered his head.
Ken stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the huge scaly head. “I love you, too, Ke’Enarsha.”
The rumbling voice spoke again. “Let us ride.”
Ken grabbed his towel and draped it over the rough scales behind Ke’Enarsha’s short frill, and climbed up to sit behind his head. He held onto the wicked looking horns that came up to form the upper apexes of an inverted triangle.
Ke’Enarsha spread his wings into the stroke position, and Ken could hear the wheezy sound of the organic bellows drawing in air between the dragon’s shoulder blades. With a sound like a small door slamming shut the lungflap closed and there was an immediate thunderclap of noise.
Ken was thrust violently downward as the dragon sprang upward. Then he power-stroked again and again, gaining altitude with each beat of the wings. In a moment, they were gliding South along the coastline, riding the onshore breeze as it rose onto the land.
Ken screamed in exultation. Ke’Enarsha turned his head slightly, looking back at him. The corners of his huge mouth gave a slight twist in the dragon equivalent of a big smile.
Ken twisted the head and squeezed with his legs as if he were trying to control the huge beast.
Ke’Enarsha swayed slightly, dipping left and right. Ken shouted in triumph again. Who could feel gloomy while riding on a dragon?
Excellent!
I think it only makes sense: a few bones were going to be found: and the "classic" T-rex and others absolutely look like the drragons of myth.
When the dinosaurs died, then flexed into twisted shapes as the muscles dried, the result is a "dragon-like" flying shape as well. (Or worm-like Chinese dragon...)
Fahrenheit 451 is one of my all-time favorites.
Is it the genesis of your screen name?
Only incidentally.
"Salamander" has more mythological connotations than most people would ever dream of.
[only part which is the fact that I'm a "fire sign"]....;]
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