Dinosaurs, with Special Reference to the American Museum Collections

S, ALLOSAURUS, TYRANNOSA

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They range from small slender animals up to the gigantic Tyrannosaurus equalling the modern elephant in bulk. They were half lizard, half bird in proportions, combining the head, the short neck and small fore limbs and long snaky tail of the lizard with the short, compact body, long powerful hind limbs and three-toed feet of the bi

rtman is one of the most notable and successful collectors of fossil vertebrate

es of such gigantic size. But among the carnivorous dinosaurs we fail to find any indications of aquatic or even amphibious habits. They might indeed wade in the

of dinosaurs, large and small, mostly of the carnivorous group, which lived in that region in the earlier part of the Age of Reptiles, and much has been learned from them as to the habits of the animals that made them. The tracks ascribed to carnivorous dinosaurs run in series with narrow tread, short or long steps, here and there a light impression of tail or forefoot and occasionally the mark of the shank and pelvis when the animal settled back and squatted down to rest a moment. The modern crocodiles when they lift the body off the ground, waddle

s far in this country are exceedingly scanty. Two or three incomplete skeleton

ir Richard Owen and the restorations due to the imaginative chisel of Waterhouse Hawkins, have made it familiar to most English readers. Unfortunately it w

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rom the American Museum Jo

aurus, this animal is of gigantic proportions being

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eton of Allosaurus in

uffs near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, the richest locality in America for dinosaur skeletons, and is a part of the great collection of fossil repti

form part of a great public museum in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, the city undertaking the cost of preparing and ex

imen. In 1899 when the collection was purchased from his executors by Mr. Jesup, the writer went to Philadelphia under the instructions of Professor Osborn, Curator of Fossil Vertebrates, to superintend the packing and removal to the American Museum. At that time the collection made by Hubbell was still in Memorial Hall, and the boxes were piled up just as they came in from the West, never having been unpacked. Pr

rs. They were dense black, hard and uncrushed, even better preserved and somewhat more complete than the two fine skeletons of Allosaurus from Bone-Cabin Quarry, the greatest treasures that this famous quarry had supplied. The great carnivorous dinosaurs are much rarer than the herbivorous kinds, and these three skeletons are the most complete that have ever been found. In all the years of energetic exploration that the late Professor Marsh devoted to searching for dinosaurs in the Jurassic and Cretaceous forma

found in the rock, looked as if they had been scored and bitten off, as though by some carnivorous animal which had either attacked the Brontosaurus when alive, or had feasted upon the carcass. When the Allosaurus jaw was compared with these score marks, it was found to fit them exactly, the spacing of the scratches being the same as the spacing of the teeth. Moreover, on taking out the Brontosaurus vertebrae from the quarry, a number of broken off

n the position to suit the exigencies of an open mount, and to accommodate the pose to the particular action; the head of the animal was lifted a little, one hind foot planted upon the carcass, while the other, resting upon the ground bears most of the weight. The fore feet, used in these animals only for fighting or for tearing their prey, not for support, are given characteristic attitudes, and th

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tion of Allosaur

ons of years ago, when reptiles were the lords of creation, and 'Nature, red in tooth and claw' had lost none of her primitive savagery, and the era of brute

s), the knee bends forward as in mammals and birds, not outward as in most modern reptiles. The articulations of the foot bones show that the animal rested upon the ends of the metapodials, as birds and many mammals do, not upon the sole of the foot like crocodiles or lizards. The flat vertebral joints show that the short compact body was not as flexible as the longer body of crocodiles or lizards, in which the articulations are of the ball and socket type showing that in them this region was very flexible. The tail also shows a limited flexibility. It could not be curled or thrown over the back,

ptiles. But if so we might expect from the analogy of the lizard that the scales of the head would be ossified and preserved in the fossil; and there is nothing of this kind in the Carnivorous Dinosaurs. We can exclude feathers from consideration, for these dinosaurs have no affinities to birds, and there is no evidence for feathers in any dinosaur. Probably the best evidence is that o

dlands in central Montana, where t

of smell of the mammal, the keen vision of the bird, the highly developed reasoning power of both, were absent in the dinosaur as in the lizard or crocodile. We may imagine the Allosaurus lying in wait, watching his prey until its near approach stimulates him into a semi-instinctive activity; then a sudden swift rush, a fierce snap of the huge jaws and a savage attack with teeth and claws until the victim is torn in pieces or swallowed whole. But the stealthy, persistent trac

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e whole weight of the body, exceeded the limbs of the great proboscideans in bulk, and in a standing position the animal was eighteen to twenty feet high, as against twelve for the largest African elephants or the southern mammoth. The head (see frontispiece) is 4 feet 3 inches long, 3 ft.

second included most of skull and jaws, backbone, ribs and pelvis and the hind limbs and feet, but not tail. The third consisted of a perfect skull and jaws, the backbone, ribs, pelvis and nearly all of the tail, but no limbs. From these three specimens it has been possible to reconstruc

rannosaurus skeleton was taken. A

for mounting as the central piece of the proposed Cretaceous Dinosaur Hall. One of the skeletons is temporarily placed in the centre of the Quatern

8 to 20 feet above the ground; the knee joint alone reaches 6 feet above the ground. All the bones are massive; the pelvis, femur and skull are extremely heavy. Experience with Brontosaurus and with other larg

ely, to prepare a scale model of every bone in the skeleton and mount this small skeleton with fle

epresenting our two skeletons of Tyrannosaurus rex, which fortunately are of exactly the same size. A series of three experiments by Mr. Christman on the pose of Tyrannosaurus, under the direction of the author and Curator

nosaurus group for the

ground within easy reach of the visiting observer. The second reptile is advancing, and attains very nearly the full height of the animal. The general effect of this group is the best that can be had and is very realistic, particularly the crouching figure. A fifth study will embody some further changes. The upright fi

to the convulsive single spring and tooth grip which distinguishes the

the sacral plate, characteristic of these very highly specialized dinosaurs, also the marked reduction of

p is on exhibition wit

olid, the jaws much deeper and more powerful, the fore limb much smaller, the tail shorter, the hind limb straighter and the foot

rannosaurus in comparis

a beast of prey. But an animal which exceeds an average elephant in bulk, no matter what its habits, is compelled by the laws of mechanics to the ponderous movements appropriate to its gigantic size. These movements, directed and controlled by a reptilian brain, must needs be largely automatic and instinctive. We cannot doubt indeed that the Carnivorous Dinosaurs developed, along with their elaborately perfected mechanism for attack, an equally elaborate series of instincts guiding their action to effective purpose; and a complex series of automatic responses to the stimulus afforded by the sight and action of their prey might very well mimic intelligent pursuit a

reying chiefly upon seals and fish. There are indeed carnivorous whales of gigantic size, but no very large land carnivore. There were, it is true, during the Tertiary and Pleistocene, lions and other carnivores considerably larger than the living species. But none of them attained the size of their largest herbi

ones. The elephant or the rhinoceros is in fact practically immune from the attacks of carnivora, and would still be so were the carnivora to increase in size. The large modern carnivora prey upon herbivores of medium or smaller size, which they are active enough to surprise or run down. Carnivora of much la

e intelligence to use those weapons effectively under all circumstances. Thus they might be s

on-eaters rather than truly predaceous. The hypothesis can hardly be eff

aur although still of the late Cretacic period, and may have been ancestral to it. A fine series of limbs and feet as also skull, tail, etc., are in the Museum's collections. At or about this time

dinosaurs, and this Ornitholestes some six feet long. A cast of the Compsognathus skeleton is shown, the original found in the lithographic limestone of Solenhofen is preserved in the Munich Museum. The Ornitholestes is from the Bone-Cabin Quarry in Wyoming. The forefoot with its long slender digits is supposed to have been adapted for grasping an active and elusive prey, and the name (Ornitho-lestes = bird-robber) indicates that that prey may sometimes have been the primitive birds which were its contemporaries. In the Cretacic Period, there were also small and medium sized carnivorous dinosaurs, contemporary with the gigantic kinds; a complete skeleton of Ornithomimus at the entrance to the Dinosaur Hall finely illustrates this group.

small carnivorous dinosaur of the Jur

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olestes, by C.R. Knight under

n position as it lay in the rock, and with considerable parts of the original sandstone matrix still adherent. The long slender limbs, long neck, small head and toothless jaws are

eton of Brontosaurus

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A number of very curious plates were found

dt in Germany. They are not true Megalosaurians, but primitive types (Pachypodosauria) ancestral to both these and the Sauropoda

the great English novelist gives of its appearance and habits, based probably upon the Hawkins rest

nd its Prey. By W.D. Matthew. Am. Mus. Na

paration is now def

eleton. By Henry Fairfield Osborn. Bull. Amer. Mus

d finely preserved skeletons of two or more kinds of Carn