The Best REAL Dinosaur.

ART+LIFE(?) Month continues!

With a new movie version of Land Of The Lost -- aka "Ricky Bobby Goes Back In Time" -- coming out, I thought it was high time to again review what we know about dinosaurs and what we only think we know about dinosaurs.

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Anyway, as I was saying, the upcoming film version of "Land of the Lost" has prompted me to begin hoping against hope that Hollywood will for once get it right (while knowing that they won't. Ellen the Cylon? For Pete's Sake, she's DEAD! And Tigh got that other Cylon pregnant, so are we going to have to deal with Battlestar Galactica: Three's A Crowd?) and acknowledge, for once and for all, that velociraptors don't exist and instead will go back to doing what Hollywood should have been doing all along, which is making movies that feature real dinosaurs instead of fake ones. And in making those movies, they should naturally feature The Best Real Dinosaur, which is the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I've pointed out before, in exquisite scientific detail, how I know that velociraptors never existed. This essay is not about that; that's been proven and is over and done with. Nor will this essay even consider other obviously-fake dinosaurs that followed on the entirely-fictitious heels of the "velociraptor." Variraptor, discovered in 1992 and combining a boxing kangaroo with a velociraptor? Get a real job, archaeologists.

No, wait, let me talk a little more about that, because it's obvious that the Fake Dinosaur Industry is thriving. Let's examine the Variraptor, aka "The Boxing Dinosaur."


The "Variraptor" -- which, it cannot be pointed out enough, never existed at all and is obviously invented and fake-- was discovered in 1998 in the South of France and was a scavenger. That's what these people say, anyway. And that must be true, unless it's true instead that the remains were discovered in 1992, not 1998, as this site says. That latter site also says that Variraptor (Latin name Pleasegiveusmoneyanddon'tmakesusget a realjobosaurus Rex) may have"knocked out its prey with a mighty blow before tearing it apart," making Variraptor The Boxing Dinosaur. (Coming soon: Rocky VII: Rocky goes back in time to take on a herd of Variraptors and, for some reason, Mr. T).

That latter site further notes that while some "scientists" lean towards the Boxing Dinosaur, others think it was a scavenger, and then the site goes on to make this "scientific" observation: Regardless, Variraptor likely chased and ate small animals, such as lizards, birds, and the young of other dinosaurs.

Which is neither scavenging nor hunting animals that need to be felled with a mighty blow, and which is a statement that is entirely unsupported by any evidence on that site. Or anywhere, so far as I can tell.

Since, apparently, scientific conclusions can be based on random statements that become true the moment they are printed, I will make this scientific conclusion: The people who made that website have pistachios for brains.

Why can I say that? Aside from the fact that "science" no longer needs "facts" or "proof" or "logic" I can say that because there are, as it turns out, actual facts to believe that "Variraptor" is as made up as all those girlfriends I claimed I had in high school. So if you believe I was popular with the ladies, or that "Variraptor" was the Dinosaur Middleweight Champion (I float like a pterodactyl, sting like an icthyosaurus...) you would do well to consider these facts:

Fact one: The "Variraptor" is currently believed to exist by those "scientists" who like to make up dinosaurs because, hey, who can prove them wrong, on the "evidence" supplied by incomplete remains that amount to about six bones. "Scientists" found about six bones -- some vertebra, a humerus, and a femur.

So think about that: Scientists have invented a dinosaur that stood six feet tall and beat its enemies senseless before eating them, using as a basis for that fabrication six bones. They don't have a head, a chest, a pelvis, feet, hands. They have a piece of spine and a forearm. Based on that evidence, Variraptor should have looked less like a lizardy version of Apollo Creed and a lot more like that old lady Spongebob tried to sell chocolate to.

Fact Two: No raptors, prior to "Variraptor" had ever been found in Europe.

Fact Three: The bones that the scientists found and promptly fictionalized into the "Variraptor" resembled the bones of a Deinonychus. This is a Deinonychus:




A "Deinonychus," (the name means terrible claw) was a fierce predator, archaologists say, and may have been 11 feet long that probably didn't hunt in packs but certainly was fierce.

Fact Four: A few brave scientists who are more interested in "science" than in money, fame, or being in Michael Crichton's next book, have already cast doubt on whether or not "Variraptor" ever existed. One, Steve Brusatte (who may be this guy) wrote that "there is nothing to suggest that variraptor is even still valid. He cites to a paper in 2000 that noted that the bones on which the creation was based were found "quite some ways" from the rest of the specimen.

Fact Five: Nobody ever saw any of those "girlfriends" that were so in love with me. But that doesn't prove anything, you jerks! They all lived in Toronto.

So the question is, then, if some scientists in France found some bones of a well-known, interesting dinosaur that was already heavily studied, why on earth would they then decide to simply create a dinosaur out of thin air?

Well.

I think we know the answer to that, right? As a sometimes-writer, and sometimes-lawyer, I can tell you what you already know: Making stuff up is WAY easier than actually researching things. Also, remember that nobody ever got rich re-inventing the wheel. If you wanted tenure at a university, or a new research grant, or to go on the lecture circuit, would you loudly announce to the world Hey, I found a new dinosaur! Or would you stick to the truth and say calmly, Well, I found a couple more bones from that one dinosaur we know all about.

This increasing fictionalization of science is baffling, frankly, baffling the way I find it baffling now to think back on how boring science classes were throughout my life when science is a wondrous thing that can amaze and explain at the same time. Why invent a new obviously-fake dinosaur when the bones you found are from a perfectly good, perfectly entertaining already-known dinosaur? Doing that just undermines people's regard for science and continues the trend towards having the "truth" be whatever people believe it to be.

2+2 will continue to equal 4, and the earth will continue to revolve around the sun, regardless of how many Wikidiotpedia entries to the contrary there are, and regardless of how many "scientists" abandon "science" in favor of Hollywood. But while those things will continue to be true, people won't believe them to be true, and will instead continue to believe whatever they are told and shown as the line between truth and fiction, art and life (a ha! See, I fit it in!) get blurred more and more.

I need to fight back against that, and so I am presenting, as I said earlier, The Best Real Dinosaur. I do this as a public service to Hollywood writers, to the public itself, and to "scientists," in hopes that by showing them how cool and interesting and remarkable a real dinosaur is, more and more people will want to know the truth, and will want to see real dinosaurs in movies about dinosaurs, and will also insist that "scientists" quit just making stuff up to see how gullible we are.

With that in mind, here, then, is the resume for Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Best REAL Dinosaur. You may not have an opening for him just yet, but you writers and readers and "scientists," keep this resume on file and pull it out the next time you find yourself trying to fill a dinosaur spot:

***************

Tyrannosaurus Rex
Address: Western North American Continent.

Employment History:

Villain: "Jurassic Park," "Jurassic Park 2: Electric Boogaloo" and "Jurassic Park 3: Nobody saw this so I may as well just list it."

Carnivore: "Land of the Lost" TV Show.

Nemesis: "King Kong."

Skeletal Cover Art: "Jurassic Park" the book.

Major Museum Crowd-Pleasing Exhibit: "Sue" at the Field Museum in Chicago

Groups and Affiliations:

Member of the "Coelosaur" group that is more closely related to birds than to carnosaurs.

Linked to Tarbosaurus Bataar, a more-ancient Asian carnivorous dinosaur with similarly sharp teeth and fierce claws.

Co-Ed Community Softball Team (Player/Coach).

Special Skills:

Giant spike-like teeth good for tearing, rending, ripping, ferocious-ing.

Standing 13 feet tall and being 42 feet from tooth to tip of tail.

Moving at up to 20 miles per hour for short periods of time.

Enhanced olfactory senses.

Can take a sharp stick in the back of the throat and still come back to hunt another day. (Much like Diablo Cody.)

*************************

See? What's not to like about that? I look forward to seeing T. Rex incorporated into all upcoming movies, books, and even TV Shows. Let me get it jump started by proposing that this scene be incorporated into a hit series that shall remain nameless:

* * * * *

Commander Adama: What do you mean, there's still more of them? We've already wasted all of our nukes!

Tigh: Why am I siding with the humans, still, when I myself am a Cylon and have impregnated a different Cylon and all you've done is try to kill me so far? Anyway, it turns out that a mysterious thirteenth cylon actually existed and has created a Resurrection Ship and restored all the other 12 versions of Cylons, including numerous copies of me. Want to know what's weird, too? Apparently, the human versions of Cylons can age, because if I've been a Cylon all along and I've known you for decades, then either I was a younger version of myself and have been an aging machine all along, or, for some reason, nobody at the Academy questioned the thought that a new recruit would be a 62-year-old grizzled man.

Commander Adama: I never thought of it that way. Also, if you loved your wife so much, why did you go get it on with the younger, more attractive Number Six? Anyway, who's this 13th Cylon?

Tigh: It's Tyrannosaurus Rex! (A loud roaring is heard and we see a T. Rex on the monitor landing a viper in the Galactica's bay. Immediately, humans start shooting at it, but Starbuck stops them and begins making out with the giant lizard.)

Fade to black.

* * * * *
What? It's way better than how they're finishing the series now.



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Little boys digging catacombs for corpses? Old women resorting to cannibalism to avoid demons searching for her soul? Ghosts in churches, wives returned from the dead, haunted basements, obituary writers with supernatural powers… All of these people can be found at AfterDark: the website that publishes serialized short horror stories. Remember: the scariest things, you CAN’T imagine.