Restricted Area Five

After 42 years and countless family photos, Blackgang Chine's much-loved 'Dinosaurland' is no more. The majority of the park's endearingly grotesque and climbable fibreglass creations have, alas, gone the way of their living counterparts. However, this is not to say that the park has given up on saurian-themed clifftop gardens - rather, they've been busy developing a revamped Dinosaurland, one in which the creatures aren't content just to stand there looking less-than-pretty. That's right - they've only gone and bought a load of rubbery robosaurs. Welcome, then, to the enigmatically named Restricted Area 5...home to the some of the largest ugly dinosaurs in Britain! So it goes.

All photos by me, unless marked 'NP', in which case they're Niroot's.

Predictably, Restricted Area 5 is presented as a sort of low-rent Jurassic Park, complete with flashing red warning lights and inadequate 'electric' fences, although park owner Simon Dabell has sadly not been seen wandering the grounds in all-white garb and carrying a cane while affecting the appropriate accent. There's a decent array of robosaurs on offer, and they range from the respectable to the downright atrocious. For whatever reason - and it's probably to do with designers not feeling the need to 'monsterise' them - the herbivores fare better than the carnivores. Among the best is the below Iguanodon, which certainly has its problems (wot, no pinkies?) but is a decent effort.

NP

Nearby is a sad-looking (and very large) Pachycephalosaurus, capable only of waggling its head up and down and making mournful moaning noises. Here, Niroot tries to offer it some consolation. Meanwhile, a Stegosaurus just down the way, while looking permanently startled, is still not as bad as all that - various features of its anatomy might be Plain Wrong, but it's a fetching model nevertheless (I'm sure the paint job helps a lot), and benefits from a particularly spectacular vantage point.

RA5's centrepiece is a gigantic sauropod (below), which (along with every other robosaur) remains frustratingly unidentified in the attraction, but has been named in the press as Argentinosaurus. It's odd that none of the dinosaurs have labels; although anyone with the slightest interest in dinosaurs will be able to spot what most of them are supposed to be, there are one or two oddities that take a little guesswork. One gaggle of small theropods (that wave their arms about and emit JP Dilophosaurus noises) appear to be Ornitholestes, based on their approximate size and erroneous 1990s-style nose horn, but it's impossible to say exactly. While a little frustrating, it might be for the best, in the end - without any museum-like labels, the attraction sheds all educational pretensions, making it apparent that the whole thing's just a bit of fun. Or quite a lot of fun, as it happens.

NP

One of the Ornitholestes-things.

The sheer size of the Argentinosaurus does impress, and I appreciate the row of dermal spines - a rare example of aesthetic flair on a model such as this. The towering height of the beast allows it to be seen, looming above the treetops, from the other side of the park. What with the cliffs of the Isle of Wight's southern coastline forming the backdrop, it's certainly quite a sight (it helps that the model looks, shall we say, more convincing from a distance).

The park's other truly giant star attraction is a honking great Tyrannosaurus, which at 16 metres from nose to tail is rather bigger even than the real deal. Clearly JP-based, it boasts hilarious googly eyes (with blinking mechanism), horribly deformed legs, and what seems to be a plantigrade posture. It's a real hoot to be around, particularly as the park have cunningly given its growling enough rumbling bass to dislodge fillings and cure any constipation among park guests.

It begs the question: why not just have a T. rex sit-standing on its feet, bird-style?

Hello everyone. NP

A typically Blackgang sense of humour is maintained throughout RA5. Various signs warn of the danger of literally losing one's head to a dinosaur bite, while another advertises the precarious position of 'T. rex keeper'. Unfortunately, they are sure to enrage dino-nerds everywhere by putting an apostrophe in T. rex. An apostrophe! What fresh madness is this!?

Insert 'Hitler reacts to Blackgang T. rex signage' Youtube poop here.

RA5's other theropods are, alas, predictable robosaur dreck. Naked dromaeosaurs (that make cougar sounds) are one, sadly predictable, thing, but a spitting Dilophosaurus with a bloody frill is quite another. IT WAS TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO, GUYS. If there's one thing to be said for the Dilopho-thing, it does allow for a good photo opportunity (see below).

I've got one up on Nedry. NP

Awful model, FANTASTIC view. Two things that rarely go hand-in-hand, but that's Blackgang for you

Overall, RA5 is a worthy addition to Blackgang - a fittingly kitsch and silly update to the beloved Dinosaurland that's sure to entertain the park's many visitors from now until the time when the models tumble into the sea below (or their rubbery skins fall to bits - whichever is sooner). While it's sad to see the old Blackgang dinos go, a park like this can't trade on nostalgia forever, and one can hardly blame them for wanting to have something novel to pull in the punters.

That said, a small number of the old models do remain, and are just as popular (mostly as improvised climbing frames) as they always were. Among them is what I have christened 'Stegoslug', the hideous, sprawling stegosaur with a plain adorable face, alongside the Polacanthus, Scolosaurus and (for whatever reason) Doedicurus. Some things just never change.

NP

 One last thing worth mentioning...this pterosaur. Its face. That is all.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: About Dinosaurs

It might have one of the most generic titles going, but About Dinosaurs (1972) distinguishes itself with Michael Spink's highly distinctive illustrations. Ditching the normal quasi-realistic style that illustrators attempt in educational books like this, Spink instead opts for monochrome, crosshatched beasties against simple backgrounds with bold washes. It's a delightfully unusual approach.

The book is presented as the story of a time-travelling...male in a safari outfit named, for no especially good reason, 'Quizkid'. (Yes, there's a quiz in the back, but...that's a tiny component of the book. And there's no mention of this being part of a wider series. If any older readers are able to shed some light on this, it would be much appreciated, ta.) Quizkid is described as a "daring traveller, brave hunter [and] single-minded scientist," who hails from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. He carries a pair of binoculars, an outsized time-machine-watch, and what is either a gun, a flask, or both - perhaps firing scalding hot Earl Grey at the soft parts of threatening saurians. He's also very creepy-looking (see below).

Naturally enough, Quizkid's epic voyage through the Mesozoic begins in the Triassic period. However, while he does also encounter some phytosaurs, synapsids and other non-dinosaurs, all of the dinosaurs he runs into look very much alike - long necks, long tails, small heads, and dense crosshatching. Therefore, I have decided to skip this blog post ahead to the Jurassic. You can thank me in the comments.

Quizkid initially surveys the Jurassic swampscape from the back of an "unwitting" brontosaur, albeit one that nevertheless looks rather cross. Although author Margery Morris' text is generally very accurate, one can nevertheless count on at least one anachronism on each spread (in this case, the presence of Cetiosaurus in Late Jurassic North America). In this scene, the animals also appear to have been mislabelled - the 'Diplodocus' is clearly modelled on Neave Parker's Cetiosaurus, while the 'Camarasaurus' is suspiciously long, thin, and low-slung. I do enjoy the expressiveness of the animal's faces, particularly that of the brachiosaur, who seems to be posing for the artist.

My favourite illustrations are those with colour backgrounds - the animals seem to 'pop' from them, like they're animation cells, or the creatures are characters in one of those old, cheapy, handheld LCD games. There's some rather odd stuff going on here, otherwise - while Quizkid attempts to politely warn Bronto of the impending toothy danger, Allosaurus has developed an horrific ankle deformity and Archaeopteryx sports coathanger hooks for hands.

Abandoning Bronto to her fate, Quizkid moves on to inspect some of the other denizens of Late Jurassic North America...alongside a few anachronistic additions. Megalosaurus, determined to appear throughout time and space, here shares a genial discussion with Stegosaurus; again, the expressiveness of Spink's creations proves quite delightful. Meanwhile, a rather alarming Ornitholestes chases the much earlier cynodont Oligokyphus, which is depicted elsewhere in a more 'realistic', but still rather freaky and slightly shrink-wrapped, form.

Brrr.

Moving on to the Cretaceous, and we have another of Spink's lovely backgrounds. Romance is definitely in the air, as a pair of Iguanodon embrace (one can only hope that they'll refrain from any Halstead-style goings on) and a Pachycephalosaurus gives Quizkid the ol' eye and an affectionate smile over a suitably romantic rosebush. No prizes for spotting the obvious Neave Parker nod in the 'perching' Hypsilophodon, who is apparently wolfing down a walnut. Sadly for Hypsilophodon, chocolate and vanilla fondant were not invented until the Maastrichtian (as confirmed by layers of blue confectionery wrappers found at the K/Pg boundary).

I do enjoy how Quizkid appears to have been surprised by Pachycephalosaurus while stopping to inspect a flower. The looming noggin rather reminds me of a certain scene in Jurassic Park, during which Bob Peck is heard to utter, "clever girl". Since Pachycephalosaurus probably wouldn't want to chow down on human flesh, perhaps Quizkid will just end up showered in painful, spiky kisses.

The Cretaceous also brings hadrosaurs and, as usual, different species have the convenient habit of convening in the same place. Happily, Morris is ready to admit that we just don't bleedin' know what all that ridiculous headgear was for, rather than speculate about silly things like snorkels and species recognition.* Spink's illustration, drawing on Knight and others, is utterly charming - I'm particularly fond of Kritosaurus' vain posturing and the enigmatic smile on the face of Parasaurolophus. The simplified, splodgy palms remind me of classic kids' TV from the '60s and '70s, which - as a child in the '90s - I must admit I often found very creepy. Fortunately, Quizkid is the only creepy one here.

Just as it's important to have assorted hadrosaurs clustered together to show off hadrosaur diversity, so too must varied ceratopsians hang around with each other, even if it means a little time-bending. In this scene, the stand-out character is surely the sad, shuffling, pitiable Gorgosaurus. The poor guy - couldn't Triceratops spare just a mouthful? The horned git's just too committed to the "eternal drama", I guess. Meanwhile, Quizkid uses (tiny? Juvenile?) Ankylosaurus as a prop, safe in the knowledge that "he is a herbivore and harmless". 'Cos that's exactly how it works.

But...what's that coming over the hill?

It's Sexy Rexy, of course! Rexy looks positively cheesed off that this piffling pipsqueak would dare confront him. For whatever reason, he also sports a birdlike reversed first toe. Never mind him - check out the lovely naive quality to the landscape, all uniform pyramidal volcanoes and simplified, rounded vegetation.

And finally...after wearing himself out bellowing at no one, Rexy takes a kip, while Quizkid, having safely teleported away to another geological time period for the day, poses like a Victorian hunter next to an elephant's bloated carcass. It's enough to make grumpy Triceratops crack a smile, at least. It's also a fitting way to say 'good night' to the dinosaurs, as the text mentions. Earth may change, but the moon and stars are constant. (Wait, what!?) Love that picture-book sky.

Next time: we travel 20 years into the future, and not a magic watch in sight.

*Sometimes I'm just trolling.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: All About Dinosaurs - Part 2

Onwards with All About Dinosaurs, a book written by the awesome Roy Chapman Andrews, he of Gobi fossil-hunting fame, and illustrated by Thomas Voter. Now, you know you're reading a vintage dinosaur book when...

Swamp-o-pods! Mind you, All About Dinosaurs must surely lose points for lacking a full-length depiction of brachiosaurs immersed up to the very tip-tops of their nasal crests in murky water. Instead, the animals are rather more convincingly depicted wading their way through a swamp, opposite some seriously gigantic palm fronds. I mean, they're nicely drawn and all, but...geeze. They must be a good four metres long! This isn't to say that mysteriously non-floating sauropods aren't mentioned...

...of course they are. "Sometimes [Brachiosaurus] would poke its head above the surface and look about, just as men in a submarine use the periscope to observe the scene above water." Great stuff. Such a nostril placement would remain the convention until into the 21st century, when someone finally dared to move them a little further down the snout (that Witmer guy might have had something to do with that). It remains the norm in toys, animatronics, and CG artworks...or at least, the crappier ones.

You know, someone ought to gather together some thoroughly outdated illustrations of underwater brachiosaurs - preferably out of copyright - and send them to Ken Ham, politely explaining that they depict animals being overwhelmed by the Biblical flood. It'd be worth a few giggles should he publish them somewhere, or pin them up in his Not-A-Museum. (Blame Darren Aronofsky for this digression.)

Snorkel-o-pods are one thing, but of all the images in this book, I think none quite so neatly encapsulate a bygone age of palaeoart as much as the above. Volcano. Monkey puzzle(-like) tree. Tail-dragging Triceratops. It's a lost world all of its own. The intended focus of this image is the ankylosaur in the foreground, labelled with the obsolete name 'Palaeoscincus'. What's perhaps most notable about this depiction is that, for the time, it's actually very good - unlike many contemporary (and even later) illustrations, the animal has reasonably long legs, a tail that, while too short, isn't ludicrously stumpy, and - sweet Hatzegopteryx above!  - a neck. As is typical of illustrations of 'Palaeoscincus' (another of those genera based on teeth), the animal appears to combine aspects of Edmontonia and Ankylosaurus.

A mosasaur taking on a plesiosaur is another illustration that is simply obligatory for any vintage dinosaur book worth its salt. Er, in spite of the fact that neither were dinosaurs. Typically, the scene will pitch the ferocious aqua-lizard Tylosaurus against the freakazoid plesiosaur Elasmosaurus - a classic clash of the titans to rival even T. rex v Triceratops. Unfortunately, the plesiosaur in the above illustration appears to be a tiddler, and thus looks understandably alarmed at having to face such an enormous, handsomely crested opponent.

Vintage depictions of pterosaurs tend to be as unflattering as descriptions of their palaeobiology (always unable to fly properly, implausibly fragile, and completely useless when grounded). While not all of the pterosaur illustrations in All About Dinosaurs are quite so bad, the above 'pterodactyl' is pretty monstrous - all bat-like wing folds and pointy scales and sinister black eyes. Brrr.

While life restorations are, naturally, what we're most interested in, a great chunk of this book is dedicated to Andrews' fossil-finding exploits in the Gobi - and rightly so. This section is also illustrated throughout, with some of the pieces depicting Andrews' discoveries as they appeared in situ. Hopefully, most enthusiasts of things prehistoric will be able to identify the above remains, belonging as they do to Oviraptor. Voter's work makes it clear that the animal's head has been rather smushed, as if it had walked into the wrong part of Nottingham one night. It's also missing most of its crest, which would later lead to the 'nose horn Oviraptor' meme - in reality, it would have had a tall crest not unlike its relative, Citipati.

Voter's depiction of Andrews' team finding one of their most precious prizes - dinosaur eggs! - is suitably dramatic, with a lone scientist perched atop a monolithic Flaming Cliffs outcrop, with a dazzling sunburst behind. Monoliths...dazzling light...fantastic discoveries...why, there could only be one soundtrack for this. Or you can just shout "I'm king of the world!" But we'll all look down on you for that, culturally snobbish as we are. Particularly as you're sitting there in your underwear.

In any case, Andrews makes it clear that his team went nuts for dino eggs:

"'Bigger and better eggs' was our slogan. Almost every man in camp hunted eggs from morning till night. I found several as did all the others. But George Olsen became the champion dinosaur egg hunter of the world. He had amazing success."

Attaboy, George.

And finally...this illustration is very lovely. Scientists toiling away to reveal the ghostly remnants of long-lost worlds. The theropod, at least, looks approving. Voter turns what might have been a banal illustration of plaster-wrapping into a marvellous reminder of the sheer hard work that goes into the palaeontological science that the rest of us just sit back and enjoy. Wide-brimmed hats off, I think, to Andrews, his team, and palaeontologists through the centuries.