the month in snapshots

 

Eloise and Maggie make great night-time snuggle buddies

Maggie loves taking selfies with her dad

Naomi turned three years old!

snow day fun

just some snapshots of Maggie Moo

Naomi loves taking selfies and random pictures

some more snapshots courtesy of Naomi 

the year in books [III]

The third (and last) of this month's Reading Gauntlet is a series of four 'modern warfare' novels. The first two are considered historical novels, as they both take place during the Vietnam War. The last two are pure fiction: Bond's Red Phoenix looks at what a Second Korean War might look like on the Korean Peninsula, and Coonts' Liberty's Last Stand is an unnecessarily provocative treatment of what it might be like if the State of Texas ceceded from the United States. Coonts has gotten a lot of great reviews on GoodReads, but I'm not sure if I like his writing style. It's not that it's bad; it almost feels too hurried (much like the sort of writing I do; but I'm not a professional). 

the year in books [II]

The second series of books in this year's Reading Gauntlet are science-fiction pics. Peter Watts' Starfish is his first published book, and though the concept was good, the plot didn't go anywhere. His later works are better. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is a legend in the science-fiction community, and for good reason: he looks at what an alien war across the galaxy looks like when you figure in how a soldier could live hundreds of years dependent on light-speed travel. David Brin's The Postman was a bit of a let-down; the book was decent, but I just couldn't get into his writing style. It be like that sometimes. The Ghost Brigades is the second novel in John Scalzi's Old Man's War Series, and it was just as great as the first. I really like his writing style, and his world-building is top knotch. I'm looking forward to finishing the series.

the year in books [I]

The first installment of this year's Reading Gauntlet is a series of history books. The first (and the best of the bunch) was Martin Gilbert's The Somme, an excellent treatment on that months-long slaughterhouse during the Great War. The next four books are focused on the Second World War: two are histories and two are firsthand accounts. Pacific Air recounts the history of the aerial war in the Pacific Theater, and Landing in Hell is a short treatment of the Battle of Pelileu. Every Man a Hero is the memoir of a medic who fought in Africa, Italy, and who was gravely wounded on Normandy. I Marched with Patton is the memoir of an engineer who served with Patton during his push to the outskirts of Berlin. 

Dino of the Week: Scutellosaurus

Type Species: Scutellosaurus lawleri

Classification: Dinosauria – Ornithischia – Thyreophora

Time Period: Early Jurassic

Location: North America

Diet: Herbivore

Scutellosaurus has been a riddle in the ornithischian family tree for a long while. Like its European contemporary Scelidosaurus, it’s been paraded as the kind of dinosaur that could’ve evolved into one of the later, better-known groups of thyreophorans (the armored ankylosaurs and plated stegosaurs). Most scientists consider it a common ancestor of both groups and believe it to be closely related to Scelidosaurus and the later Early Jurassic Emausaurus. Though some want to place it in the Scelidosauridae family along with Scelidosaurus, currently it’s viewed as an earlier, more basal thyreophoran (Scelidosaurus is larger and seems to be a more ‘evolved’ thyreophoran with more similarities to the later ankylosaurs and stegosaurs). 

Scutellosaurus is known from two partial skeletons from Arizona. The remains included portions of the skull and lots of detached bony plates called scutes (from which this dinosaur gets its name). The scutes came in a variety of shapes: some were triangular wedges, others were low cones, some were lopsided trimpets, and still others were curved like horns. Hundreds of detached scutes have been found, but because they were detached, the exact pattern on the body is unknown. Scientists estimate that a single individual had anywhere between two hundred and four hundred of these scutes embedded in its skin like small, raised shields. 

a flock of Scutellosaurus flee a pack of Dilophosaurus

Scutellosaurus was relatively small, growing between four to six and a half feet long, and weighing twenty-fifty pounds despite its light armor. It stood about twenty inches tall at the hips. It was small, slim, and long, and it had an unusually long tail, perhaps to counterbalance the weight of its armor. It probably ran rapidly on all fours since the front limbs had broad, sturdy paws. It could rear up on its longer hind limbs to eat higher plant-stuffs, but it’s unlikely that it could’ve run very well bipedally, since its armor would’ve made it top-heavy. Its mouth had a narrow, beak-like front, and its jaws contained several broad incisors and a row of fluted, leaf-shaped cheek teeth designed to crush plant material. Its head was protected by low bony plates. Scientists speculate that, like the similar-sized heterodontosaurs of the Early Jurassic, this early thyreophoran was gregarious in nature, traveling in ‘family flocks’. 

a Scutellosaurus taking a break with an Early Jurassic turtle

Dino of the Week: Cryolophosaurus

Type Species: Cryolophosaurus elliotti
Classification: Dinosauria-Saurischia-Theropoda-Tetanurae
Time Period: early Jurassic
Location: Antarctica
Diet: Carnivore

The remains of Cryolophosaurus were found in the barren colds and wastes of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. Although some paintings of this carnivore depict it tramping through snow and shaking its weird crest this way and that in a blizzard, Antarctica in the early Jurassic wasn't where it is today; it was nearer the equator, and part of a larger continent; the climate would've been warmer and the land replete with temperature forests. Cryolophosaurus has been called the "Elvis Presley" of the dinosaurs because of its twin set of backward-sweeping crest that resembles Presley's infamous hairdo. Cryolophosaurus sported small horns adjacent to the backward-sweeping crests, Measuring at about twenty feet long, Cryolophosaurus was to the early Jurassic what Tyrannosaurus was to the late Cretaceous: the King of the Tyrants. 

Although Cryolophosaurus was the largest predator of its day (the much larger Allosaurus wouldn't come until millions of years later), paleontologists speculate that it may have been a scavenger rather than a hunter; the crests were relatively frail, and the ferocity of the hunt would likely damage the crests. Because the crest bones have been intact, it makes more sense that Cryolophosaurus scavenged for its food. One large skeleton of this dinosaur indicates it may have been a voracious eater: what looks like an herbivorous dinosaur's rib was found wedged inside the bones of the Cryolophosaurus' throat! Some postulate that this dinosaur choked on its dinner; others argue that the rib belongs to Cryolophosaurus and was maneuvered into that weird position after death. As to the purpose of this dinosaur's crest, it probably served as courtship decoration. 

Dino of the Week: Sarcosaurus

a Sarcosaurus in futile pursuit of two Dimorphodon

Type Species: Sarcosaurus woodi

Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia – Theropoda

Time Period: Early Jurassic

Location: England

Diet: Carnivore

Early Jurassic England was a scattering of low islands stitched across a shallow sea that ran along the northern edge of Laurasia. The wooded islands were home to plenty of wildlife and supported rich ecosystems. The eleven-foot-long Sarcosaurus was the mega-predator of these islands, likely swimming the narrow channels running between them. Sarcosaurus is known from scattered remains – a partial pelvis, a femur, and some vertebrae – but from these scientists extrapolate that it was a lightly-built theropod predator. Its pelvis is remarkably similar to the later – and much larger – Ceratosaurus (hence its reconstruction with a ceratosaur-like head crest), and some scientists believe it’s actually an early species of Ceratosaurus, the direct ‘ancestor’ of the twenty-two-foot-long Ceratosaurus that would dominate the Late Jurassic.