the month in snapshots

four snapshots taken in eight minutes

kids sleep in the damnedest ways 

pre-naptime snapshots

Sunday Snapshots

Mischievous #1 and #2

Naomi wanted Ainsley to have her favorite toys

goofy girl

Ainsley sure is chunking up!

the year in books [XIII]

This next installment of 2022's Reading Queue is a mixture of science fiction and fantasy. On the Sci-Fi side is Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, John Scalzi's The Kaiju Preservation Society, and David Weber's Out of the Dark. None of these were particularly great: Aurora stacks poorly compared to his other works, Scalzi's Old Man Series isleagues above the jittery narrative style than this pandemic-era work, and while David Weber's writing was flawless, the story in Out of the Dark just went weird places. It was originally a short story which was 'blown up' to novel size (it should've remained a short story). In the fantasy camp is Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold, George R.R. Martin's Fevre Dream, and Michael Eames' Bloody Rose. All of these were great reads, though Top Tier is a tie between the grimdark Best Served Cold and Mississippi Steamboat Vampire Thriller Fevre Dream. 

Dino of the Week: Gigantspinosaurus

Type Species: Gigantspinosaurus sichuanensis

Classification: Dinosauria – Ornithischia – Thyreophora – Stegosauria 

Time Period: Late Jurassic

Location: China

Diet: Herbivore 

The Chinese stegosaur Gigantspinosaurus lived in the Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic. It was small-sized, reaching fourteen feet snout-to-tail and weighing 1500 pounds. It’s distinctive appearance consists of relatively small dorsal plates – a testament to its primitive, basal placement within stegosauria – and extremely large shoulder spines, even larger than those of the later African Kentrosaurus. These shoulder spines were twice the length of the shoulder blades on which they rested. The plates on the neck are small and triangular, and the head would’ve been relatively large with thirty teeth in the lower jaws. Its hips were broad and narrow, its forelimbs were robust, and the low neural spines of the four sacral vertebrae and the first tail vertebra were fused into a single plate. Scutes were discovered among the remains, but their placement on the body is unknown. Skin impressions show rosettes with a central pentagonal or hexagonal scale surrounded by thirteen to fourteen ridged smaller square, pentagonal or hexagonal scales. Gigantspinosaurus was a low browser that likely fed on ferns and cycads. 

Dino of the Week: Epidexipteryx

Type Species: Epidexipteryx hui

Classification: Dinosauria – Saurischia – Theropoda – Coelurosauria – Maniraptora – Paraves – Scansoriopterygidae

Time Period: Late Jurassic

Location: China

Diet: Carnivore 

The paravian theropod Epidexipteryx grew only ten inches long and weighed just over a third of a pound. It had a distinctive short snout and large eye sockets. Its teeth were restricted to the front of the jaws, and they were unusually angled forward, a feature seen again only in the Late Cretaceous theropod Masiakasaurus. Skull similarities between Epidexipteryx and later oviraptosaurs has led some researchers to speculate that Epidexipteryx may be the sort of dinosaur that was ancestral to the oviraptosaurs. A key similarity between the two is how the lower jaw curves down and away from the upper jaw, especially towards the end; thus the lower front teeth always pointed forward instead of up into the upper jaw. Researchers speculate that this strange design in Epidexipteryx was to catch specific prey. Its diet was probably small insects, worms, and larvae, especially those found in trees. That it was arboreal (a tree-dweller) is evidenced in its incredibly long fingers. Its second finger was much longer than the first, and the third finger was much longer than the second, growing half as long as Epidexipteryx’s body. This has been interpreted as an adaption for an arboreal lifestyle. Its long fingers enabled it to climb trees while gripping firmly to the trunk. The long fingers could also snatch worms and larvae burrowed into tree holes. As a tree-dweller, it may have made nests for its young. The short forelimbs and long fingers would’ve made walking about the ground a difficult task, and thus prone to predation, so it may have rarely gone down to the forest floor. 

Epidexipteryx was covered in simple body feathers composed of parallel barbs; these body feathers were unique in that some appear to arise from a ‘membranous structure’ at the base of each feather, a facet that some scientists believe is a critical stage in the evolution of modern flight feathers. Epidexipteryx’s most fascinating feathers are found on the tail. Its tail bore unusual vertebrae toward the tip which resembles the feather-anchoring pygostyle of modern birds (and some oviraptosaurs, strengthening the possible oviraptosaur connection); and spreading from this base of its tail were four unusually long feathers. Each was composed of a central rachis and vanes; unlike modern tail feathers, the vanes weren’t branched into individual filaments but made up of a single ribbon-like sheet. These feathers are thought to have been similar to those of a peacock; as strict display feathers, they may have been present only in male Epidexipteryx in order to attract females. If these were indeed strict tail display feathers, they are the first in the fossil record and the precedent of hundreds of different bird species today. 

Dino of the Week: Eosinopteryx

Type Species: Eosinopteryx brevipenna

Classification: Dinosauria – Saurischia – Theropoda – Coelurosauria – Maniraptora – Paraves – Avialae - Anchiornithidae

Time Period: Late Jurassic

Location: China

Diet: Carnivore 

The paravian theropod Eosinopertyx was originally classified as a troodontid, but further study convinced researchers it was a paravian that belonged with the anchiornithids. Eosinopertyx is known from a single adult specimen. It measured only twelve inches long, and its snout was very short. Its wings were about the same size as its cousin Anchiornis, with the primary wing feathers longer than the humerus (upper arm bone). It had an unusual arrangement of wing bones that would’ve prevented a flapping motion. It had a short tail, and its feet and toes were slender; the feet lacked curved claws for predation or climbing. The short tail lacks feathers, and the hind legs lacked the ‘hind wings’ common in many paravians. Its anatomy implies it couldn’t fly, and the reduced feathers on its legs enabled it to have a wide range of movement when running. Thus scientists are certain that Eosinopertyx was cursorial (running about on the ground). The feathers may have served as insulation, but it’s also likely the arm feathers enabled it to glide as it hopped off tree trunks to either escape predators or chase small prey. It likely fed on insects, lizards, and early mammals. 

Dino of the Week: Chialingosaurus

Type Species: Chialingosaurus kuani

Classification: Dinosauria – Ornithischia – Thyreophora – Stegosauria – Stegosauridae 

Time Period: Late Jurassic

Location: China

Diet: Herbivore 

The stegosaur Chialingosaurus is known from a single specimen that includes a partial skeleton (but no skull); the fossilized remnants include six vertebrae, the coracoids, the humeri, a right radius, and three spines. It was found in the Shaximiao Formation in China, and is one of three stegosaurs known from the environment. The other stegosaurs are Chungkingosaurus and Tuojiangosaurus. Some scientists believe Chialingosaurus and Chungkingosaurus are actually the same genera, rendering the stegosaur count of Shaximiao to two. Contemporaries of Chialingosaurus included sauropods such as Mamenchisaurus and Shunosaurus, theropods such as Yangchuanosaurus and Gasosaurus, and ornithischians such as the early ornithopod Agilisaurus and a heterodontosaur holdout from the earlier Jurassic known as Tianyulong. Chialingosaurus was a small and slender stegosaur that reached only about thirteen feet in length. Like all stegosaurs it was a low browser, likely munching on ferns and cycads. Reconstructions of Chialangosaurus’ armor is guesswork, but it have generally been modeled after Kentrosaurus. Some paleontologists believe that the arrangement of the spines on the hip and tail – and possibly the shoulders – would’ve been used both for defense against predators and as a means of display, differentiating this genera from the similarly-sized Chungkingosaurus. 

Dino of the Week: Caihong

Type Species: Caihong juji

Classification: Dinosauria – Saurischia – Theropoda – Coelurosauria – Maniraptora – Paraves – Avialae - Anchiornithidae

Time Period: Late Jurassic

Location: China

Diet: Carnivore 

The paravian theropod Caihong lived in Late Jurassic China during the Oxfordian stage. It was closely related to Anchiornis and Aurornis. It was a small dinosaur, only sixteen inches snout-to-tail and weighing just over a pound. Its low and elongated skull resembled that of Velociraptor, and it had a crest on its head. It had recurved teeth that were slender and tightly packed in the front of the jaws but larger and more widely spaced in the back of the jaws. The front teeth didn’t have serrations, but the teeth in the middle of the jaw the teeth were more recurved with serrated edges; at the back, the teeth were short and stout with serrations. Its back vertebrae lacked pluerocoels (hollowed-out air spaces in the bones). Its ulna bone in the forearm was longer in the upper arm, a trait which is generally limited to flying birds, and it had long legs. It was covered in feathers, with only the snout and claws featherless. The body contour feathers were relatively longer than those of non-avian dinosaurs, but none of them were likely pennaceous; it seems to have had pennaceous feathers on its limbs. Scientists studied the melanosomes in the feathers and determined that while Caihong’s body and limbs were a sheen-like black like those of ravens, the neck feathers came in iridescent hues similar to those of modern hummingbirds.