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Holtz on JP# second try
The reality behind the dino tales
University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas R. Holtz Jr.
looks over
the fossil-rich strata at Dinosaur Provincial Park in
Alberta. Holtz served
as a consultant on "Walking With Dinosaurs" and "When
Dinosaurs
Roamed America," and wrote a "Jurassic Park" dinosaur
guide.
NBC's Jim
Avila profiles
Jack Horner,
the inspiration
for the
paleontologist in the
"Jurassic
Park" movies.
Then, NBC's
Brian Williams
and Peter
Makovicky of the
Field Museum
discuss
recent
discoveries.
By Alan Boyle
MSNBC
July 17 ? Could a Spinosaurus really take on a big
bad T. rex? Could a pteranodon really fly away
with a 12-year-old boy? How realistic are those
dinosaurs on the big screen, anyway? Those are
the kinds of questions that intrigue paleontologist
Thomas R. Holtz Jr., who wrote the book on the
dinosaurs of ?Jurassic Park.? The answers?
Respectively, they?re yes ... no ... and it depends.
THIS WEEK is prime time for Holtz, a professor at the
University of Maryland who specializes in the
study of theropod
dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex. ?Jurassic
Park III? is opening
in movie theaters across the country Wednesday.
Meanwhile, on
cable TV, the Discovery Channel is featuring a
new
documentary, ?When Dinosaurs Roamed America,?
which
follows in the footsteps of the popular
miniseries ?Walking With
Dinosaurs.?
Holtz was a consultant for both of the
TV programs. And
although he wasn?t involved with the movie
itself, he got an early
peek at the screenplay so that he and fellow
paleontologist
Michael Brett-Surman could write ?Jurassic Park
Institute Field
Guide,? aimed at kids who want to know more
about the science
behind the story.
It should come as no surprise to those
familiar with the
Hollywood jungle that the film?s dinosaurs
don?t exactly play it by
the book.
REALITY BITES
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The animation and puppetry in ?Jurassic
Park III? are top
of the line, and the action is ?very much in
the adventure flick
genre,? Holtz said. ?But there seems to be less
of an attempt to
do realistic dinosaurs than there was in the
first two movies,? he
said.
To cite just one example, a horned
theropod dinosaur that
pops up during the movie ?is sort of
unidentifiable,? although
Holtz thinks the animators were going for
Ceratosaurus. ?The
shape of the horn was incorrect, the whole
shape of the skull
was incorrect,? he said.
In another scene, a winged pteranodon
creeps up on an
unsuspecting boy and opens its mouth to display
rows of teeth.
?But the word ?pteranodon? means ?wings without
teeth.? That
was kind of odd; I don?t know why the animators
did that,?
Holtz said.
A pteranodon goes after human
prey in "Jurassic Park III." If such
creatures existed today, they
would be scary, but their bones
would be so delicate that "a good
solid punch is going to seriously
injure or kill one of these things,"
paleontologist Thomas R. Holtz
Jr. says.
?They have the pteranodon carrying a
12-year-old boy
without much effort, but a 12-year-old boy is a
lot heavier than a
pteranodon,? he said. ?Here you have something
50 or 70 pounds
carrying something heavier than itself. Now, a
Quetzalcoatlus,
that would be different.?
Holtz also thinks the raptors ? cast as
the street gangs of
?Jurassic Park? ? are starting to move into a
realm of full
dinosaur fantasy. ?The raptors (in the movie)
are becoming more
and more removed from Velociraptor in terms of
appearance, to
the point where you actually see the X-ray of
the skull of
Velociraptor and it has almost no bearing on
the true skull,? he
said.
In ?Jurassic Park III,? dinosaurs also
exhibit an intelligence
far in excess of their brain capacity. In
reality, ?they were among
the brainiest creatures of the Mesozoic (but)
they still fall at the
lower end of the bird and mammal range,? Holtz
said. He also
chuckled at the line claiming that the raptors
were smarter than
bottlenose dolphins and primates ? a statement
put in the mouth
of a primate paleontologist.
If they?re so smart, ?getting off the
island would be one of
the first things to do ? and then take over the
world,? Holtz said.
The movie also gives only the slightest
nod to one of the
hottest debates in the dinosaur field: whether
the darn things had
feathers. In ?When Dinosaurs Roamed America,?
the raptors are
so covered with feathers that they almost look
like killer emus. In
contrast, the only evidence seen on the raptors
of ?Jurassic Park
III? is the occasional crest of feathers on
their heads.
?The producers probably had to decide, do we go with the
latest discoveries and make the star creatures
look radically
different, or do we keep them consistent with
the previous
movies?? Holtz speculated.
KEEPING UP WITH REALITY
Perhaps it?s actually a sign of how far
paleontologists and
producers have come that they can debate the
finer points of
dino-anatomy. For ?When Dinosaurs Roamed
America,? Holtz
and other consultants could log onto a
collaborative Web site to
double-check drawings and scripts for
scientific accuracy. The
experts debated online how the Quetzalcoatlus?
wing membrane
might have been stretched over its frame, and
whether the Early
Jurassic creatures represented by fossils from
the American
Southwest might also have been found on the
East Coast.
?When Dinosaurs Roamed America? also
incorporates
findings from New Mexico?s Zuni Basin that were
published
only a few weeks before the show?s television
premiere. The
most notable find was Nothronychus, a seeming
relative of
Tyrannosaurus rex that was a plant-eater
instead of a
meat-eater.
A Tyrannosaurus rex, at left, faces
off against Spinosaurus in
"Jurassic Park III." Holtz likes the
idea that Spinosaurus is the "new
villain" for the film series, even
though in real life it never
encountered T. rex. Tyrannosaurs
ruled the earth 30 million years
after Spinosaurus' heyday.
Even ?Jurassic Park III? is keeping up
with paleontological
trends, highlighting a ?rising star? of the
dinosaur world called
Spinosaurus, Holtz said.
?It was very cool to have Spinosaurus as
the main villain,? he
said. ?Apparently, this Spinosaurus has a real
taste for humans,
because it chases them all over the island
instead of going after
other dinosaurs.?
If the spinosaurs were actually living
today, they would
probably find humans to their liking.
?They were at least in part fish-eaters,
and they would use
these crocodile-like jaws to hold onto fish
about the size of a
human being and gulp them down,? Holtz said.
?So them going
after something the size of a human is pretty
reasonable. In fact,
it?s probably more reasonable that a
Spinosaurus would go after a
human than a Tyrannosaurus.?
THE BIGGEST AND BADDEST
In reality, the two terror-saurs were
separated by the early
Atlantic Ocean and about 30 million years ? but
hypothetically
speaking, Holtz says it wouldn?t be surprising
if Spinosaurus could
take down the king of the reptiles.
?When you?re dealing
with these supergiant
predators, it?s like, what?s
stronger, a crocodile or a lion?
Whatever gets a good grip on
the other one wins,? Holtz
said.
But Mother Nature would
probably be the biggest,
baddest adversary for the
residents of a real-life Jurassic
Park: From what Holtz has
seen, there?s just no way that
one lush tropical island could
support the nutritional requirements for herds
of dinosaurs.
?Flying over the island, you should see
these totally
denuded areas where the Brachiosaurus has gone
through,? he
said.
In fact, he suggested that the plot for
?Jurassic Park IV?
could take an eco-conscious turn.
?You have concern on the part of
environmental activists
that, OK, you brought these animals back, now
you?ve got to
take care of them ? because this island is not
the place where
you can keep them,? he said.
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