short bio

["D. Tanke" <dtanke@dns.magtech.ab.ca>]

 O.K. here's mine. Some of these past bios were extremely detailed,
but I think I'll stay away from eye color, etc.

 Age 35, married 11 years, 2 kids (Lance Austin- 5 years old and a
confirmed Stegosaurus man; and Natasha Anne- 2.5 years old and
interested in "sauruses").
 Started with the Royal Tyrrell Museum back in 1979 as a summer field
volunteer when the museum was the paleo departmewnt at the Provincial
Museum in Edmonton, Alberta.

 I have no formal training (barely made it through high school- was
bored and dreaming about dinosaurs), but I have lots of field/lab
experience, am well read, attend conferences, and correspond with many
collegues. The badlands of Alberta and Tyrrell preparation labs are my
"classroom".

 My interest in vert. paleo and dinosaurs is a different approach from
many people. Because there are so many dinosaurs to contend with
worldwide I have to concentrate and specialize on just a few
families. The Late Cretaceous lower vertebrate fauna is so well
represented in Alberta that I cannot just ignore that aspect. As a
result, I am interested in North American and East Asian Late
Cretaceous vertebrate ecosystems as a whole. Thus I would be more
interested in a new Late Cretaceous fish from Alabama than a new
stegosaur from the mid-Jurassic of India.
 My main love in dinosaurs is, as many of you know, ceratopsians. When
I first started out I wanted to work on chasmosaurines, but we have
found very few of these for our own museum but have done rather well
with centrosaurine material, especially with Centrosaurus,
Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus bonebeds. My interest in dinosaur
paleopathology is relatively new. I hope to be able to learn more
about dinosaur physiology and behavior through the quantitiative study
of dinosaur pathology collections. Hadrosaurs are by far the most
commonly injured/diseased dinosaur in Alberta so they are of interest
to me too.

 One pet project that I would like to take on someday would be to
gather together all the material of the Late Cretaceous sauropod
ALAMOSAURUS and build a composite skeleton. There is enough material
out there to make a good first effort.

 Hobbies: Dinosaurs- I am paid to do my main hobby. I am partial to
old Buick cars and drive a fully restored candy apple red, black and
white 1955 Buick Special. I'm very interested in all aspects of Japan,
her culture, history, etc. I like flying Second World War flight
simulators especially "Aces of the Pacific" where this ace flies for
Japan.  I wanted to get my pilots licence someday, but on my first
introductory flight in 1983 we had a scary crash landing after
clipping a power line. So much for getting my wings..... almost go my
angel wings instead. I do volunteer work around Drumheller too: I'm a
Beaver (Boy Scouts, age 5-7) leader (nickname "Dinosaur"), work at the
"Homestead Museum"- turn of the Century to 1930's farming,
etc. memorabilia. I've also been an adult literacy tutor.

 There's my life.
 
 Darren Tanke, Technician I, Dinosaur Research Program, Royal Tyrrell Museum
of Palaeontology, Drumheller, AB, Canada. Paleo Interests: fossil
identification, collection and preparation, centrosaurine ceratopsians,
Upper Cretaceous vertebrate faunas of North America and East Asia,
paleopathology; senior editor on annotated bibliography of extinct/extant
vertebrate dental pathology, osteopathy and related topics (9,657 entries as
of April 14, 1996). 

Osteopathy Bibliography Homepage at: http://dns.magtech.ab.ca/dtanke