Now I am a physician specializing in Internal Medicine, working in a  group practice in Vista, California.  My office is decorated with Dinosaurs.  My bookshelves are full of dinosaur books, model skeletons, casts of teeth, and Dinosaur sculptures.  I have display cabinets full of minerals and fossils.  People often walk down the hall and stop to stare into my room in amazement.  Of course they usually say, "Wow, my kid would LOVE this!  I see you never outgrew them."  Oh well...

I have had this small bronze dino since
early childhood.  There was something
about  it that struck a chord in me that
is still resonating.  The tooth is from a
Spinosaurus.

---

 

ALLOSAURUS

Ants magnificent 1:10 scale skeletal reconstruction of the apex predator of the Jurassic of North America.  This is probably the best full skeleton kit ever produced for commercial sale.  Practically every single bone was a separate piece and the quality of the casting with the  minimal amount of flash was astonishing, given what one usually finds in a resin kit.   There are times when I wish I had painted it to look more "fossilish", but after what I paid for a plexiglass case with a black back panel, I won't seriously consider it.  Anyhow, it is very eye-catching in bone-white.  This kit was sculpted by Dr. Steven Wagner, an Albuquerque Dentist, after extensive research.  Ants planned to produce a number of skeletons, but after getting no farther than a series of some fairly nice dinosaur and hominid skulls, the company went extinct.

I talk a lot about Ants, this kit and many of their other products on the new pages of this website, The Old Bone Odori

Here is a website that goes into considerable detail about this kit:  Brantworks
Brant was a research scientist in an Australian biotech company who has a serious interest in dinosaur skeleton models.  His interest was so serious that he became the director of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs, which was a full time job!   Of course, working full-time isn't the same as making a living and he is now back to Biotech, this time in New Zealand.  He managed to track down one of these kits and felt that as rare as they are, he didn't think he should build it.  Instead, he cast a complete new kit from the pieces and then went on to rework the pelvis and sacrum as he found there were some subtle errors in the original, as well as adding a furcula (wishbone).  I am impressed.  In his assembly,  he uses brass connectors in each of the joints rather than glue.  It sounds rather tedious, but it is a great idea.  I built this kit back in the early 90's and it was my first resin kit.  I don't recall that I even used accelerator to get the superglue to set.  Today, it is very fragile.  Brittle may be the most accurate description.  I have probably had to repair the tail at least four times as it tends to sag and eventually fall off somewhere around the 25th vertebra.  I recently moved my practice to a new office and when I picked up the model, the right leg fell off.  I glued it, using Zap-kicker this time, but when I went to put it on its new shelf, it fell off again.  While in transit, the head and first cervical vertebra fell off, and when I accidentally dropped the skull, it and that vertebra went their separate ways.  In regarding the puny locater tabs on the hip and the skull/cervical vertebra articulations, I realized that little short of a solid mass of cured superglue would be likely to stand up to the gravitational stresses those parts will face in the future.  Rather than make it appear that my beast suffers from serious ankylosing spondylitis, I decided it was time for pinning.  Trying to steady the cervicals while drilling a hole through their center without disrupting the entire neck was a pretty anxiety-provoking experience, as was turning the whole model on its side so I could angle the micro bit on the Dremel into the hip socket without breaking anything else.  Ultimately, the operation was a success and I was able to insert short lengths of textured finishing nails into the sockets and join the pieces with a satisfying sense of  strength as the skull and leg now remain steadily suspended.   For more on the fixes required as this kit ages, see page 5 of my Old Bone Odori.

The Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus Skulls are more of Lascha Tskondia's work for Ants, now

available from Echoes In Time.  They were purchased unfinished and I painted them to resemble real fossils.

I have a more images of these interesting models, as well as many others on the new pages at The Old Bone Odori

This is the skull of an interesting creature that actually lived somewhat before Dinosaurs and was more closely related to crocodiles.  This was built from a kit by Wiccart.  I have a number of kits from this company featured on these pages.  I believe that I bought an example every kit that Steve Harvey  made, with the exception of his complete Rhamphorhynchus skeleton.  Unfortunately, he closed his company in late 2000 and is no longer producing these kits.  As with Ants, companies making nice dinosaur models are as likely to become extinct as non-avian dinosaurs themselves.  The quality of these models was fabulous and I'll be sorry when I finish building the few still hiding in my closet.    There are some very nice full-skeletal sculptures available today from Healthstones, but you don't get the satisfaction of building and finishing the kit yourself.  Again, there is a lot more on the story behind these skulls and many more images at the new Old Bone Odori

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                                                                                                                         TAKING LICENSE WITH DINOSAURS

Every once in a while, someone looks at  my license plate holders and asks me, "What  is a ... how do you pronounce that anyway?"  After I tell them , they usually look just as mystified as before I answered.   However, there are  a few folks who say, "Wow!  How cool!   A Die-nah-NAI-kuss license plate!"  That makes it all worth it.

MUSEUMS

The Royal Tyrrell is a fabulous Paleontology-only museum in Alberta.  Their website has a virtual tour of their exhibits.
The American Museum of Natural History has an excellent section on Dinosaurs.  This is actually a link to the Hall of Saurischians,but there are a lot more ancient creatures to see.  Just keep exploring!
The  Peabody Museum at Yale University has a great tour of the famous Zallinger mural of the Mesozoic and even some of the Paleozoic.

DINOSAUR-LOVERS

  While they may not have been Dinosaurs, there were impressive reptile rulers of the seas during the Mesozoic, and there's a great webpage about them at  THE OCEANS OF KANSAS PALEONTOLOGY .

WOW! Ryoji Tabuchi is an amazing sculptor!  He is an extremely talented woodcarver and has made an extensive collection of skeletal reconstructions.  There are dinosaurs, mosasaurs, pterosaurs and even some mammals.  He shows several of them in various stages of carving and construction so that you can see how he does what he does.  That probably makes them even more impressive.  He used to have an extensive website but now all I can find is his Facebook Page Taburin
It has plenty of pictures of his sculptures, not to mention his poodle.  Being Facebook though, it is not as organized as his website used to be. Oh well, modern social media strikes again.  Talk about being a dinosaur!

I mentioned Brantworks in the caption to my Allosaurus skeleton model above.  Brant Bassam is an Australian with a serious interest in dinosaur skeletal models.  His website has a lot of fascinating images and information about skeletons he has built or is working on.  If he isn't satisfied with the accuracy of a piece, he modifies it or makes his own. 

Horst Bruckmann's Dinosaur Model Collection has many galleries of beautifully built and painted models of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life.

 Kazunari Araki is one of the world's premier dinosaur sculptors and his website is extensive.  

Gaston Design is a company that makes full-size replicas of dinosaur skeletons, so you will need a LOT of shelf space, not to mention a sauropod sized budget to purchase most of their products.  They do have a fabulous 1/12 scale Apatasaurus, sculpted by Phil Platt, that is a bit more affordable. 

  MEGALANIA   is a rather old website that has not been updated since 1998.  Nonetheless,  it is fun to look around at Larry Dunn's models and kit reviews, some of which may actually still be in production.

  PREHISTORIC TIMES is a magazine devoted to art, models, toys, collectibles and a little bit of science about Dinosaurs and other paleo subjects.  It's a lot of fun; the type of magazine I would have loved to stash under my bed in college.  It has provided a place for us Dino-consumers to learn about the amazing things being made today, and probably has done more than anything to provide a market for all of the other sites in this section.

Dinotoy Forum is a vast website devoted to dinosaur toys, models, art, collectibles and the people who collect them. 

Dinosauriana is an extensive website devoted to the history of dinosaur models, toys and collectibles.  The author recently wrote Scale Model Dinosaurs, a book cataloging every dinosaur model and sculpture that he could document over the past three of four decades.  I am actually included among its pages as a featured collector!

MACHOSAURUS REX :  Horror of the Mesozoic
It has been theorized that the large structures on the head may have been
used for signaling a mate.  It is unlikely it could hear very well at all.

Paleo Ring used to be a great way to find websites on paleontological themes. At one point there was were at least 200 and you could browse from link to link.  Now most of the links don't go anywhere and there are only a few "featured" sites anyhow.  I am leaving the links up as relics of the past.  My guestbook used to be here as well, but it no longer works as I suppose it is just as well as it mostly filled up with spam and stopped adding any signatures after I set it up to require my review before it would appear to the public.  The internet evolves faster than just about anything.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

This Paleo Ring site is owned by   Frank Galef.  If you use this link, put tyra in front of it! [ Next Site | Previous Site | Next 5 | Problems? ]  Want to apply for membership?