Today is the official publication day for my new children’s picture book The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers. As previously announced on this blog, the book was co-written with Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Stieven Van der Poorten, and published by UCLan Publishing. We are all so happy with how it has turned out. Tyrannosaurus rex is the main star of …
Allow me to deviate from plesiosaurs for a moment to focus on a different kind of Mesozoic vertebrate – dinosaurs! I’m delighted to announce that my second children’s book, The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers, will be published later this year, and I’m also excited to reveal the front cover. It’s a ‘kind-of’ sequel to The Plesiosaur’s Neck (2021) …
Newman and Tarlo (1967) In 1967, Barney Newman and Lambert Beverley Tarlo authored a three-page short article in the popular magazine ‘Animals’, a short-lived periodical published weekly by Purnell from 1963 to, at least, 1967… I’m not sure when it eventually fizzled out. Their article entitled “A Giant Marine Reptile From Bedfordshire” provides an account of plesiosaur …
A month has passed since my new book, The Plesiosaur’s Neck, was published. So, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the events and reactions that followed its release. Firstly, it was exciting to see the book in the wild, particularly at the Heffers branch of Blackell’s in Oxford, where Adam Larkum was …
Pick a random piece of plesiosaur paleoart and chances are the animal will be depicted with an arched back. A hump, almost. But did plesiosaurs really have the hump? This arched posture can be traced back in the scientific literature to Andrews’ 1910-13 seminal works on the marine reptiles from the Oxford Clay. He reconstructed …
There are many different plesiosaur toys, replicas, statues, and other commercially available models. Here is my collection. It isn’t quite exhaustive, but it’s getting there. Many of these are now out of production and have become rare collector items. Others are in production and available to buy today, and new figures are released every year, …
The Crystal Palace plesiosaurs The first ever life-size models of prehistoric animals were produced in the early 1850s by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. They were revealed to the world at Crystal Palace in London, 1854, and today they grace the grounds at Sydenham Hill, where they are classified as Grade 1 listed buildings. The models represent …
The topic of plesiosaurs sometimes extends outside of the realm of science and into popular culture. Plesiosaurs first entered the public consciousness as early as the 1850s when life-size models of prehistoric animals were erected at Crystal Palace. Plesiosaurs have had guest appearances in movies, TV shows, and other fiction – more than you might …