Re: Sigh

[Tom Holtz <tholtz@geochange.er.usgs.gov>]

>I happened to be browsing through a toy store the other
>day and spotted a big of plastic dinosaurs.  I recalled
>my own childhood collection - now hopelessly out of date,
>of course, tail-draggers every one - and decided to check
>'em out.  Same ones.  I mean, really the _same_ dinosaurs,
>same molds and everything, dedicated tail-draggers.  Tail-
>dragging 'rex, tail dragging stegosaur, tail dragging
>trachodon - not an edmontosaurus, a trachodon.

Actually, in many of the sets, it's Anatotitan, not Edmontosaurus (ripped
off from the AMNH mounts and the Charles R. Knight
Trachodon->Anatosaurus->Anatotitan painting).

>A Mastodon.
>A Mastodon?  In a _dinosaur_ package?  I could forgive them
>if it was "Prehistoric Animals" or something, but not "dino-
>saurs".  The old pteranodon in its bat pose.  _None_ of
>them were right.  But the ultimate insult, lurking deep in
>the bottom of this bag clearly marked "dinosaurs", was the
>dopy-looking glyptodon - I _thought_ it was a glyptodon,
>until I got a close look at it and spotted the antenna and
>little propellor-beanie tail...a rust monster.  A D&D _rust_
>_monster_, forsooth, hanging out with a bunch of obsolete
>reconstructions of actual creatures. I thought I was going
>to ralph, I really did.

Actually, these small tentacled critters have been hanging around in
dinosaur toy sets since at least the early 1970s (and maybe even the late
1960s), long before Gygax et al. incorporated this design for the "rust
monster".  Similarly, the design for the "bullette" (sp?) is also taken
from a squat monstrosity that was available in the same set of "dinosaur"
toys.

I don't know if they still have the "Archaeopteranodon" in these sets
still, but in the good-old-days, they were accompanied by a hybrid
Archaeopteryx-Pteranodon (a feathered beastie sporting a Pteranodon-like
crest and a long Archaeopteryx-like tail).

                                
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.                                   
tholtz@geochange.er.usgs.gov
Vertebrate Paleontologist in Exile                  Phone:      703-648-5280
U.S. Geological Survey                                FAX:      703-648-5420
Branch of Paleontology & Stratigraphy
MS 970 National Center
Reston, VA  22092
U.S.A.