RE: The Wonderful World of Weird Tyrannosaurs

[Dinosaur World <dinoworld@msn.com>]

I'm not sure what impresses me more...the numbers of teeth, the numbers of 
fingers, or the backward facing Hadrosaur foot that has been glued to the 
tibia.

If you listen closely enough, you can hear the sound of "Don't you want 
somebody to love" being played in the background as the picture was being 
painted. I bet mushrooms were involved.....


From: Danvarner@aol.com
Reply-To: Danvarner@aol.com
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: The Wonderful World of Weird Tyrannosaurs
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:06:14 -0400 (EDT)

Back in the 1950's and 60's  (in the Baby Boom Dinosaur Boom), a publisher 
in
England put out a series of  "Wonderful World" books. They were very stylish
and trendy with their  illustrations. I had a number of them, _The Wonderful
World of the Sea_, _The  Wonderful World of Mathematics_ (my old man gifted 
me
with that, hoping I'd  forget about dinosaurs), and the very wonderful _The
Wonderful World of  Prehistoric Animals_ by W.E. Swinton and illustrated by
Maurice Wilson. Then  there was the first one, _The Wonderful World_ from 
1954. It
was written by  James Fisher, one of the great popularizers of natural
history back then (he was  a close friend of Roger Tory Peterson's and they 
produced
several books  together). In this book is an illustration of Tyrannosaurus 
(I
don't know the  artists name) that still gives me pause after fifty or so
years. Even back then  I thought it was very odd. It seems as if the artist
studied the Zallinger mural  then dropped some acid. I accidentally bumped 
into it
again today. Here it  is:

http://usscatastrophe.com/kh/wworld/wonderful.world.dino.jpg

Other scans from the book can be seen here, click on images to  enlarge:

http://kevinh.blogspot.com/2006/06/wonderful-world.html

DV