Remember this?
In a previous blog entry I named Kritosaurus its main protagonist , but its true real brand new name is Isauria (Latirhinus uitslaniand) is currently in the vaults of the wonderful, “classic” among classics, Museo de Geología in Mexico City on its way to be delivered to UNIVERSUM, a popular interactive museum (mostly for the young generations) dedicated to science and technology also in Mexico City… who knows, maybe one day it could also be a guest of honour in our forthcoming Mexican Dinosaurs exhibition in Monterrey?
This mount of Isauria is the painstaking reconstructive labour of Ricardo Servín Pichardo, Palseontology student of René Hernández, that dedicated many hours to model the missing bones and refurbish the broken ones of this very famous Mexican hadrosaur, first featured incomplete in the Geology Museum back on the 90’s with the skull magnificently reconstructed by the also famous paleoartist Marco Antonio Pineda…
Look at the wonderful way the forefeet are reconstructed. Delicate, precise and accurate in the posture while preserving some evident pathologies!
This only makes evident that Mexican Palaeontology’s got real talent that deserves to be supported and promoted as much as possible!
The Isauria experience was far from the only event…I gave a double talk at René’s class at UNAM and presented some new Mexican dinosaurs artwork like this “Sabinosaurio” for the first time in public.
The main event (200 + people) was at UNIVERSUM with the talk Bringing Dinosaurs Back To Life (AKA Reviviendo Dinosaurios). Following the talk I was happy to present, together with René Hernández, awards for some budding paleoartists I must give special thanks to master craftsman Jorge A Ortiz Mendieta and Ruben MP (Rexisto) for a wonderful Oviraptor present…!
It was no coincidence that there was an exhibition at UNIVERSUM that was also called “Reviviendo a los Dinoaurios” featuring artwork by several Mexican paleoratists including Fomisaurios by Aldebarán (Aldo) Castañeda. René was responsible for having my artwork also extensively featured.
Here with fellow conspirators Angel Ramírez, Carmen Naranjo, Ricardo Servín Pichardo and René Hernández and so many students and dinofans ... thanks to everybody once again for their dedication, appreciation, hospitality, and most of all… great conversation!
To cap it all… Party with Aldo’s famous fomisaurs (taylor made to my colour wishes)!!. including a beer-drinking Labocania and hairy heterodontosaurus!)…farewell until, hopefully, next year!
During one of my visits to vaults of the Museo de Geología, one of the fossils that impressed me most was this (still unnamed) hadrosaur muzzle and beak. Still partly encased in the stone matrix, it gave me a truly realistic image of an almost perfectly preserved, recently deceased animal. Wish I had a cast!
More than a decade ago I was at the entrails of the Instituto de Geologia Museum in Mexico City and René Hernández was laying on my lap an enormous and very heavy femur head of a gigantic hadrosaur. The size was so impressive that it could have been mistaken for an Apatosaurus! But no, it was yet another gigantic lambeosaur found by René’s team in the north of Mexico, land of army clashes with the cartel… even in those days. Scientists trying to excavate in Saltillo or Coahuila have to deal with the terrible scourge of that horrifying “war on drugs” that has been Mexico’s disease for so many years, to do their work.
The Santonian of Michoacán, México, 83 million years ago… A six meter long proto-hadrosaur Huehuecanauhtlus tiquichensis is harassed by a gang of, still unnamed, feral Tanycolagreus-like theropods. What an opportunity to get to basics with some of the wonderful and overlooked prehistoric Mexican fauna! Note the overly tall hip and tail spines emphasised in Angel Ramírez‘s reconstructive labour… an apparent, puzzling characteristic of most Mexican primitive and advanced hadrosaurs. 
Tarbosaurus and Talarurus… the where ends meet in the new exhibition.
It is not only the Holtz/Rey “Dinosaurs The Most Complete Up-To-Date Encyclopedia For Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages…” that is currently available at the illustrious Philip Currie Dinosaur Museum… the museum is also host to yet another version of the StoneCo’s Hatching the Past saga, “TINY TITANS”… and as you can see from the pictures, not so tiny this time! As in all the US displays, they take advantage of some of the big murals that, unfortunately, are not available in the European version (wish we had them here, but space is scarce)… Thanks to Nick and Alanna for the pictures.
