Unicorn Mare Defending her Foal

Unicorn Mare Defending her Foal

This is a pretty buff unicorn mare.  A mare is a female horse so I guess a female unicorn would be a mare...however, if this offends the unicorns, my apology.  In the Fablehaven book series by Brandon Mull you are told that unicorns have rather unique parents.  (That is a good series, by the way.)

Remember that in ancient Greece books on unicorns were in the Natural History section of the library, not in Mythology or Fables etc.

Teratophoneus the Tyrannosaur

Teratophoneus curriei with young

Teratophoneus curriei was a tyrannosaur that was rather recently found in Southern Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  It was found in 75 million year old rock.  Paleontologists from the University of Utah think that some kind of barrier separated the Northern Theropods like Tyrannosaurus rex, Albertosaurus sarcophagus, & Daspletosaurus torosus.  The northern tyrannosaurs or tyrannosaurids had longer and narrower skulls with more teeth.  The southern Tyrannosaurids like Teratophoneus curriei had shorter skulls and less teeth than their northern cousins.  So some kind of geographical barrier, mountains or sea perhaps separated these two groups of tyrannosaurids and this led to differences in their evolution.

The Genus name, "Teratophoneus" means means "monstrous murderer".  The species name, "curiei"
is in honor of my former professor from University of Alberta's Phillip Curie.  He has done a great deal of work in dinosaur paleontology.  I took a few online classes that Dr. Curie helped teach.  These classes were via Coursera.  I highly recommend those courses.

Last Saturday and Sunday at the University of Utah there was a "Dinofest" activity and my wife and I attended and took notes.  LOTS of new things were shared so I will pass it on over the next few weeks...pass it on via this blog.  I learned more about Teratophoeus at one of the lectures.  I have seen the skull at the Brigham Young University Museum of Paleontology.

You will notice that I drew feathers on my drawing of Teratophoneus.  Dr. Mark Loewen spoke
about these tyrannosaurids in the western U.S.  . . . and even about similar dinosaurs in Europe and Asia.  Dr. Loewen thinks that it is possible that one day we will find feather impressions on a U.S.
tyrannosaurid.  .  . maybe even on a T. rex.  I have mentioned on a previous blog that this is a possibility.  So, I drew feathers on my drawing of Teratophoneus.  Maybe they did not have
feathers, but maybe they did!  Notice the shorter skull on my drawing.  Southern tyrannosaurs had
only 13 teeth in their maxilla or upper jaw...while northern tyrannosauids like T. rex had 14-15 teeth in their maxilla.

As far as size, Teratophoneus was quite a bit smaller than a T. rex.  An adult Teratophoneus weighed an estimated 5 tons or 2,000 lbs (4,535 kg).  Teratophoneus was about 25 feet long (7.62 meters).

I hope you enjoy coloring the Teratophoneus, the monstrous murderer.

Unicorns, Swans, Brownies, and a Cat

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Today there are some more coloring pages done by 11 yr. old Brielle.  The drawings have not appeared previously on this blog, although similar drawings have been posted.  You can look at her style of coloring and try to imitate it, or do your own thing.

I am also posting a drawing of a Calico/Tabby cross.  In other words, what might a Calico cat crossed with a Tabby cat look like?  The drawing is a cartoon kitty.

Brielle's Unicorn and Fairy

This unicorn is colored traditionally ..meaning it is white. 

Unicorn and Fairy

This is colored in a traditional way, with the unicorn being white.

Brielle's Unicorn at Sunrise by a River
This is colored non-traditionally with a brown unicorn that has a rainbow colored horn.

 Unicorn at Sunrise by a River

Brownie Woman saved an Apple for the Unicorn Foal

This drawing made sense to me because Brownies and Unicorns
are both mythological / magical beings.  +

Brielle's Swan with Cygnet
When I look at this picture, that I did a while ago, I think that maybe I was drawing a white goose
  instead of a swan.   Notice that Brielle colored the water you seen below the surface a darker, almost teal blue.  She did a very nice job blending colors I think.

Swan with Cygnet
  Also, my birds looked too much like bats, so I deleted them from the drawing.   

Calico/Tabby Cross Kitten

This might be what a Calico cat crossed with a Tabby cat would look like.

Here's hoping you enjoy coloring the pictures!
  Try blending colors like Brielle, but still do your own thing.  

Feathered Tyrannosaurus rex

Feathered Tyrannosaurus rex

So far all of the T. rex skeletons that have been found have had no evidence of feathers.  Some fossilized Theropods (meat eating dinosaurs) were found with feather impressions.  A relative of T. rex was Yutyrannus hauli.  Yutyrannus was featured in a previous post.  They were 30 feet long, covered in feathers, and they do not appear to have been wimps. Also, some paleontologists have suggested that T. rex chicks, babies, may have had feathers to keep warm.  T. rex adults may have possibly lost their feathers as they grew up.  However, we may one day find a feathered adult. T. rex.

Now before you get all upset, realize that just because it had feathers that does not make it a cute little wimpy chick or baby bird.  After all, we don't think of eagles or hawks as wimpy.  A T. rex, feathered or not, would have still had the strongest bite of any land animal ever.  That would be 12,800 lbs of bite force in a T. rex bite.  A great white shark only has a bite force of 4,000 lbs.   Tyrannosaurus rex would have had the 5 ft. (1.5 m) skull and head, weighed 9,000 lbs (8,160 kg), and been 40 ft. (12 m) long from head to tail.  It would have been up to 20 ft. (6 m) tall.  So, if one day someone finds a feathered Tyrannosaurus rex, don't freak out.  T. rex will always be one of the scariest monsters to ever have lived!

Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops

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Tyrannosaurus rex vs Triceratops horridus

This blog post is about T. rex and Triceratops.  These two animals were some of the last non-avian dinosaurs to live on the Earth.  They were big and they were rivals.  Fossilized droppings are called coprolite.  Coprolite has been found that contains pieces of what are obviously Triceratops bones.  Since we know that T. rex had very powerful jaws we can infer that that coprolite was once droppings from a Tyrannosaurus rex.  There were many Triceratops in the late Cretaceous Period.  They were herding animals.  Triceratops was the biggest Ceratopsian dinosaur to ever live.  But Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land predators to ever live, and T. rex had the strongest bite force of any animal that ever lived.

Triceratops horidus had a ball joint where its head attached to its neck.  This meant that it could swing its long brow horns like two long swords.  Triceratops was around 30 feet long and 10 feet tall.  Triceratops had the biggest head of any land animal ever!  Its brow horns were the length of broomsticks...but much sharper and much stronger!  Recent estimates of Triceratops weight put it at up to 26,000 lbs, (12,000 kg).  

Tyrannosaurus rex was 40 feet long and 18 feet tall.  It had a crunching bite that could crush right through bones.  When a T. rex killed an animal, the prey was eaten... bones and all.  Models of T. rex jaws have been built based on the muscle scars found on the jaw and skull.  Those models could crush bone with ease.  T. rex teeth were up to 9 inches (23 cm) long.  Some new computerized estimates of the biggest known T. rex, Sue, put her weight put it at 18,000 lbs, (8,160 kg).  Sue's fossilized skeleton is at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

So, Tyrannosaurus rex was taller than a full sized Triceratops, but a full sized Triceratops was actually heavier than the biggest known T.rex.  Both had deadly weapons to use in a fight.  Therefore we can see that a fight between T. rex and Triceratops would have been quite a match!

Today's drawings are individual drawings of T. rex and Triceratops.  I will eventually do a coloring page drawing of the above "T. rex vs Triceratops".  For now enjoy coloring today's dinosaurs.  Technically Triceratops is my favorite herbivorous dinosaur and T. rex is my favorite carnivorous dinosaur. The below drawings are done in part with dot shading.  Feel free to color the dotted areas as well as the other parts of the pictures.  I hope you enjoy coloring them.  

Tyrannosaurus rex on the Prowl

The dot pattern is to show where the person coloring
 the picture COULD use a darker color.

Triceratops horridus with Bulls eye Pattern
The spots are done in a bulls eye or target pattern.
 This can also be called a false eye pattern that helps make the
 animal look bigger to a predator.  

Pictures of Jesus to Color

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Today we have pictures of Jesus and Jesus with a child.  The colored pictures were colored by 11 year old Brielle, my talented neighbor.  You can copy her style or do your own creative coloring.  You may notice that Brielle knows how to blend colors to get a beautiful result.

25 Year Old Jesus Colored by Brielle

Copyright 2016 Robin Lyman

25 Year Old Jesus

This picture was featured in a previous blog.

Jesus with Dark Haired Little Girl Colored by Brielle

Copyright 2016 Robin Lyman

Jesus with Dark Haired Little Girl 

Jesus with Light Haired Little Girl

Jesus with Young Boy
This is Jesus with a young boy from modern times.  The boy is into Karate. 

Remember that Jesus loved the little children.  He said, 

                   "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me:  

                     for of such is the kingdom of heaven.""  Matthew 9:14

Jesus also said, 

                   "Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name,

                      receiveth me..." Mark 9:27

From the Book of Mormon, the prophet Mormon wrote: 

                    "...teach parents that they must repent and be baptized, and humble 

                      themselves as their little children, and they shall all be saved with 

                      their little children."  Moroni 8:10

From the Old Testament, King David wrote:

                   "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb 

                    is his reward.  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children

                    of the youth.   Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them..."

                     Psalms 127: 3-5

Tyrannosaurus rex vs Didelphodon vorax

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There was a mammal living in the Late Cretaceous Period that we call Didelphodon vorax.  There were other species of Didelphodon as well.   Didelphodon has a more powerful bite than other mammals of the period.  It also was bigger than all or most of the other mammals.  Size was not necessarily an advantage for mammals that were trying to avoid being a snack for the Theropod (meat eating) dinosaurs.  After the big non-avian dinosaurs went extinct the mammals were free to get a lot bigger...wooly mammoths, Colombian mammaths, Indricotherium, African elephants, short faced bears, polar bears, & etc.  Non-avian dinosaurs refers to the ones that had not evolved into birds.

Anyway, back to Didelphodon.  They weighed up to 11 lbs (5 kg) and appear to have had a skull like a Tasmanian Devil and a body like a weasel or maybe an opossum.  They had a bite that was unusually powerful so it may have eaten, among other things, turtles and/or shellfish...like clams.

The picture is of a Didelphodon vorax that was caught up in a tree by a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Who do you think will win that fight?  Although if Didelphodon vorax does not become a T. rex candy bar, it would be a win for the Didelphodon.

Tyrannosaurus rex vs Didelphodon vorax

Smilodon & Prehistoric Bison

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Today I drew another, more accurate Smilodon fatalis, the saber tooth cat.  I think I said previously that an artist never completes a work of art, we just abandon it.  I was never happy with the Smilodon I drew a few days ago...and I just abandoned it.  I thought I could do better.  I wanted a Smilodon fatalis coloring page drawing to be more similar to my detailed colored drawing that I posted with the coloring page drawing.  I think you will be pleased with the results.  I also drew one of the Smilodon prey species.

Smilodons were larger than any modern cat and not closely related to any living modern cat, having its own branch on the phylogenetic tree of Family: Felidae.  (See my previous post on Smilodon  to learn more about the size.)  Paleontologists and Biologists have done experiments and analyzed the saber teeth of Smilodon and the conclusion is that the teeth were used to stab the prey.  The saber teeth were not strong enough to rip through flesh of a prey animal, but they were strong enough to stab the prey in the throat etc. and kill it..or ever strong enough to stab a prey species and cause severe bleeding so Smilodon only had to wait a few minutes for the prey to bleed out and die...then Dinner!  That dinner was probably larger prey like the prehistoric bison, Bison antiquus.

Bison antiquus was a huge bison, and a direct ancestor to our modern North American Bison, (commonly called buffalo).  The prehistoric bison was up to 25% larger than our modern bison, and Bison antiquus had huge horns that stuck out to the sides like a Texas Longhorn cow or bull.  Bison antiquus were up to 7 1/2 feet (2.27 m) tall, 15 feet (4.6 m) long, and it weighed up to 3,500 lbs (1,588 kg)!

True Story:  A very young prehistoric bison calf died or was killed 11,000 years ago in Northern Utah, along what was once the shore of the ancient Lake Bonneville.   (Maybe it was killed by a Smilodon.)  11,000 years later a building was being remodeled and one of the construction workers at the construction site found this bone.  It is a femur or upper arm bone of a prehistoric bison calf.  The bone was taken to a museum to have it identified.  These types of bones are fairly common around the shores of what was once Lake Bonneville.  The femur is not fossilized because it is just not that old.  It takes way more than 11,000 years to fossilize or for bone etc. to turn into stone.

Prehistoric Bison, Bison antiquus, Calf Femur

You might be able to see that THIS Smilodon fatalis coloring page is much more similar to my colored pastel chalk and Prisma colored pencil drawing of Smilodon fatalis.  Feel free to try and copy my coloring including stripes etc.  However, you can always color it in your own way!

I hope you enjoy coloring Smilodon fatalis and its prey species Bison antiquus.

Smilodon fatalis

Smilodon fatalis Copyright 2008 Robin Lyman

done in colored pastel chalk and Prisma colored pencils.

Prehistoric Bison called:  Bison antiquus 

Prey species of saber tooth cats like Smilodon fatalis

Unicorns and More Unicorns

Susie the Unicorn

This color drawing of the unicorn is Copyright Robin Lyman, 2012.  

   I drew this colored unicorn from a photo of my niece's horse.  The horse was named Susie.  The drawing is done in color pencils and pastel chalk.  If you look closely you will see that animal fur and/or hair can be composed of many different colors.  Try this in your coloring of animals.  A "brown horse's" hair or/and fur is actually several different colors that blend together when you look at the horse from a distance.  You can blend colors with crayons by coloring in the same place very lightly with more than one color of crayon...OR by drawing many short lines or long lines to represent individual hairs. I have done a coloring page that resembles this drawing so you can see if you can make your drawing similar to mine, or color it your own way. 

I hope you enjoy coloring the following unicorn pictures.

Susie the Unicorn Coloring Page
Susie is a little younger in this drawing, notice that she is a
 little smaller and her horn is shorter and smaller. 

Unicorn in the Hills

Unicorn near the Mountains at Sunrise

Unicorn with 2 Fairies

This picture is for small children to color. 

Ponies and Shetland Ponies to Color

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Mother Shetland Pony with Foal

Ponies are small horses that as adults are less than 14.2 hands.  A "hand" is a measurement that is equal to 4 inches.  So a pony is less than 56.8 inches tall, that would be about 4 feet 9 1/2 inches tall,  or 1.47 meters tall.

The Shetland Pony is a breed of pony that originated in the Shetland Isles North-east of Scotland.  The breed, to register as a Shetland Pony, can not be over 42 inches tall, or 1.06 meters tall. Shetland Ponies may be a combination of interbreeding between the original ponies on the Shetland Isles, Viking horses, and Celtic horses.

During the industrial revolution Shetland Ponies were used to pull mine carts to help supply coal for the factories.  The last coal mine that used Shetland Ponies closed in 1972.  Now this gentle breed of pony is often ridden by children.  The Shetland Pony is also quite intelligent.

My drawings today include a mother Shetland with her foal.  This drawing is at the top of today's blog.  Remember that a foal is a baby horse, less than 1 year old.  A female foal is a filly and a male foal is a colt.  Cartoon ponies have become very popular over the last several years.  I draw them in my own styles.

A Paint Pony, (one with spots)... and she has a friend!  I drew one Shetland Pony whose mane is so poofy it covers his eyes.  There are some Pygmy Ponies in love under the rainbow!  And, a pony between two trees!   I hope you enjoy coloring them all!

Shetland Pony with Poofy Mane

Pony between Trees

"Paint" Pony & Friend

Pygmy Ponies in Love 

Smilodon to Color

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Smilodon was one of many saber toothed cats.  Sometimes they are called "saber toothed tigers," but they are not closely related to any modern cats or even tigers.  That being said, they WERE cats.  they were more robust that any modern cat.  In this case, "robust" means bigger size, bigger muscles, and tougher.

There were three species of Smilodon.  The several Smilodons found in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California, USA, are called Smilodon fatalis.  These Smilodons were trapped in the "predator trap" of the tar pit, could not escape, and thus were preserved for us to enjoy.  Smilodon fatalis weighed up to 620 lbs (280 kg).  If you consider all three species of Smilodon, then you will see that they are found in many parts of both North and South America.

Much of Smilodon's extra size and weight came from its front leg and shoulder muscles.  The muscles of the front half of Smilodon were much more robust than any modern cat.  The biggest modern cat is the Siberian Tiger.  They can weigh up to 675 lbs (306  kg).  But a Smilodon from South America, Smilodon populator, weighed up to 880 lbs (400 kg).  So Smilodon populator was the biggest cat ever to live on Earth.  Still, a full grown Grizzly or especially a Kodiak Grizzly Bear weigh around twice that much.

The name "Smilodon" comes from Greek and or Latin, meaning "blade tooth."  The name "fatalis" was used to mean "fatal" or deadly.  So, you could say that the name "Smilodon fatails" means
"Deadly Bladed Tooth"!  Often in Latin, like in Spanish, the noun is put in front of or before the adjective.  So in Latin or Spanish we say, "Blade-tooth deadly" or more precisely in Spanish, "Diente De Cuchilla Mortal."  In Latin, "Smilodon fatalis"

We actually don't know for sure what color or pattern the fur was on Smilodons.  However, most of us artists add stripes or spots... or a combination of both.  I am including on today's page a drawing I did of Smilodon fatalis.  The drawing was a close up and done in pastel chalk and Prisma colored pencils.  You can look at it while you color and see if you can find the similarities in my coloring page drawing.  However, the drawings are not identical, only similar.  You can see if you can imitate my choice of coloring, but you are probably going to have fun coloring it in your own way.

Smilodon fatalis   Copyright Robin Lyman 2008

Smilodon fatalis near the Forest

Yutyrannus & Other Feathered Dinosaurs

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The Yutyrannus hauli was discovered in 2012.  It is possibly an early ancestor to Tyrannosaurus rex.   At the very least they are related with a common ancestor.   Yutyrannus lived in what is now China.  It had 3 claws on each hand, and surprisingly, it had filamentous feathers.  Also called stage 1 feathers or proto-feathers.  This animal was 30 feet (9 meters) long.  It weighed just over 3,000 lbs. (1.361 kg).  So, it was considerably smaller than a T. rex.  But the FEATHERS!  Yutyrannus is the largest known Theropod dinosaur to have feathers or proto-feathers!  This might mean that its possible decendant, T. rex, may have also had feathers!  No T. rex has been found to have feathers, but that might be discovered one day.  Some paleontologist point out that larger animals have trouble getting rid of heat so feathers might have been a problem.  Some paleontologists think that T. rex young might have hatched with proto-feathers, to keep them warm while they were small.  Then as the young T. rex matured and got larger they no longer needed them so they lost the feathers.

Yutyrannus hauli

The Velociraptor is a well known dinosaur, however, a fairly new discovery has our view of it changed.  In 2007 paleontologists found quill knobs on a forearm of a Velociraptor fossilized skeleton.  The quill knob shows where feathers are anchored in the bone.  Modern birds have these quill knobs.  So, we used to just infer that Velocirapto movies but we now know that they DID have feathers.  I loved the Jurassic Park / Jurassic World movies, but their Velocirpators should have had more proto-feathers or even regular feathers...but not flight feathers.  Velociraptor looked less like lizards...  and more like very large roadrunners.  Velociraptors were actually about 6-7 ft.

(2+ m)  long... and about 4 ft. tall (1.6 m).  Yes, there were other raptor dinosaurs that were bigger. . . so the movies can still have 15 foot long raptors...such as Utahraptor!
Just because an animal has feathers it does not mean it is or was not a vicious killer!  Velociraptor was found in what is now the Mongolian desert.  Where the fossils were found is STILL a desert area.  You'll notice that the species name indicates where the fossilized remains were found.

Velociraptor mongoliensis with Young

Ceratopsian or Horned Dinosaurs & Waxing Philisophical

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Today is the one month anniversary of my blog.  Since that date I have undergone trachea surgery and helped take care of my wife who had complications from the flu...she got pneumonia.  She has finished a run on antibiotics and is doing much better.  As for my health, my heart was just put through a test and my medical provider is thinking I may need a heart transplant one day, but for now I am OK.  He is just concerned that things will probably get worse.  I started this blog as a way to leave my drawings for people to enjoy and color.  Today we took around 30 pictures to an assisted living facility for the residents to color.  I am truly disabled so getting the copies of my drawings made was exhausting and led to some painful complications in my trachea that I won't describe.  But, we do our best to serve our fellowman in whatever small way we can.  I think that is a great truth in life. We should do the best we can to share our talents/skills, however meager they may seem, to make a difference in the world by making a difference in the lives of others.   I want to quickly give you a few examples where we have served over the years.  We will never be rich and famous, but hey, you can't take it with you anyway and we like to serve.  I play baritone ukulele.  I am not that good, but I wrote song parodies to teach science history and science concepts.  I also wrote song parodies about children's books when I was an elementary teacher.  When my first wife and I broke up and I had two little girls to raise, I took them to the local nursing home to sing for the Alzheimer's patients on Sundays.  It at first was my distraction from the pain I felt at having failed in my marriage.  They, the residents, were not critical and it was amazing to see how lucid they would become to hearing familiar songs.  (They also liked how cute my little girls were!)  I have played harmonica for residents in assisted living centers.  I admit that I am not the best musician, but I try.   My wife has taught Geology classes to people in assisted living facilities.  She has put on magic shows for Jr. High age kids.  She even volunteered at my Jr. High after she had retired form teaching science and was a great asset to me, the Science Department, and the entire school.    We all have talents in some way.  Instead of bemoaning that you are not Bruce Springsteen or Gloria Estefan or Taylor Swift or Pablo Picasso or Albert Einstein or J. K. Rowling, just share the talents you have...whatever talents or skills or knowlege you have...no matter how meager you may think your abilities are.  You can make a difference.  If you look at my art on this blog you can be critical of it.  You can possibly draw better, but I am sharing my talents and doing my best to get better as I go along.  Besides, such as they are, kids LOVE to color my drawings!  (Some adults love to color the drawings too.)  Please remember, never be critical of other people's efforts to serve others... just go thou and do likewise.

I also like to share my knowledge about dinosaurs along with my drawings.  So here we go on Ceratopsians:

Ceratopsian Dinosaurs were the horned dinosaurs.  They had a shield or frill with a hooked beak of a mouth and many had horns.  There are several kinds with some of the earliest being Protoceratops and Montanoceratops.  Those two dinosaurs were the size of a sheep.  The biggest Ceratopsian was the size of a semi truck,.  The biggest was the well known Triceratops.  There were many different sizes of Ceratopsian dinosaur in between Protoceratops and Triceratops...such as Styracosaururs or the newly discovered Machairoceratops.

Paleontologists have discovered places where hundreds of Ceratopsian dinosaurs apparently drown in what appears to have been a herd crossing a swollen river.  Because of this we can infer that Ceratopsian dinosaurs were herding animals.  A modern example is the American Bison (Buffalo) and Caribou. Because we can observe Bison defending their young we can infer that large herds of Ceratopsian dinosaurs may have put their young in the center of the herd to help them be safer from predators like T. rex or raptor dinosaurs.

Protoceratops

This is thought to be possibly the first Ceratopsian Dinosaur
This animal lived in what is now the Mongolian Desert.
It was a desert in the Late /Cretaceous Period too.
Notice that this drawing is more realistic with the Protoceratops'
 feet having toes instead of hooves.

Zuniceratops

This was one of the smallest Ceratopsian dinosaurs at only 11 ft. (3.5 m) and 

weighing only about 330 lbs.  (150 kg.).  Notice that there is no nose horn.  

This is NOT a Triceratops.  It was WAY smaller than a Triceratops.
This drawing is more for younger children.  To be more realistic I would have
made it's feet have claws not hooves.  The early or first Ceratopsians had toes, not hooves.
I also would have drawn the body, legs etc. thinner....
because this dino just didn't weigh much!
Of course not many people now days weigh this much.
Maybe an NFL lineman or the props in  Rugby.

Monatanoceratops

This dinosaur was about 6 (1.8 m)  feet long and weighed about 900 lbs. (400 kg.)
Can you guess where it was found?  (Or, it was found in what state?) It was once thought that it had a nose horn, then they figured out that it was a misplaced cheek horn.  

Centrosaurus

This dinosaur was 19 feet long (6 m) and weighed 6,000 lbs.  (2722 kg.)
It is thought that its horn could point either towards the front
or curve towards the back like in this drawing.

Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus was a large Ceratopsian that was unique because it had full
size horns on its frill to apparently protect its neck from predatory dinosaurs.
Styracosaurus was 18 feet (5.5 m) long.
The nose horn alone was 20 inches (57 cm) long.

Machairoceratops
This dinosaur was 26 feet (8 meters) long.
It had a very interesting horn placement.
Its frill horns pointed forward like the eyebrow horns.
This is one of the newest discoveries in the
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Southern Utah.

Triceratops horridus
Triceratops was the biggest Ceratopsian.  They had one of the biggest heads of any land animal.  They were about 30 ft (9 m) long and weighed in at up to 26,000 lbs (11.8 metric tons).
They were also close to 10 feet tall (3 meters).

Triceratops vs T.rex
This is an educational drawing with the animals,
plants and even the volcano identified.
It is meant for younger children to color. 

Since some modern animals have eye spots to make themselves
 look larger, it is inferred that perhaps some Ceratopsian
dinosaurs had eye spots on their frill. 

Horses and Ponies to Color

CLICK THE BUTTON:  "Free Printable Downloads"  LOCATED AT THE TOP OF THE BLOG...
to be able to print FREE coloring pages!

                                      Continue to scroll down to preview the coloring pages 
                                                       to learn about the animals etc.

Stallion in the Desert
For Older Children or Adults to Color

The horse is a beautiful animal.  I have drawn some realistic and some more cartoon horses or ponies.  Note that for younger kids coloring I do not draw the horse legs as narrow or as they really are.

  The modern horse, Equs ferus, is thought to have evolved from multi-toed smaller horse-like animals from 55 millions years ago.  If you can find a copy of the BBC documentary Walking With Prehistoric Beasts you can see that giant "Terror Birds" used to eat these small horses.  Some terror birds had a beak the size of a volleyball.  There is a scene in Walking With Prehistoric Beasts where some early horses eat some fermented grapes and that puts them off their guard when a terror bird is on the prowl.  I call that episode, "My Little Drunk Pony."
You can see a collecting site for these early North American mammals at Hagerman Fossils Beds National Monument in Southern Idaho in the USA.

Humans began to domesticate (tame and raise) horses around 4,000 years ago.  By 3,000 years ago horses were being used by man practically everywhere in the world.

A few more interesting facts about horses:
-Horses are measured in "hands" so, one hand equals 4 inches.
-Horses can sleep laying down or standing up
-A female horse is called a mare.
-A pregnant mare carries the offspring for 11 months.
-A male horse is called a stallion.
-In the wild, like wild mustangs...a single male leads the herd and has to fight other males to keep his       leadership position.
-All baby horses are called foals.
-A baby female horse is called a filly.
-A baby male horse is called a colt.
-Smallest known horse was only 17 inches (43 cm) tall and weighed 57 lbs (26 kg)
-Largest horse breed is the Shire.  They can be 7 feet 2 inches tall, (2.18 meters) and weigh 3,300 lbs.(1,497 kg)
-A pony is not a baby horse.  A pony is a small horse that is less than 14 hands tall.

uploading coloring pages over the next few minutes.

I recommend a great book series for older elementary age or Jr. High to High School age kids.  As an adult, I also love these adventure books.  They  are set in a sort of medieval Europe, sort of.  The author, John Flanagan, uses names like "Scandians" for Vikings etc.  He never uses real European country names.  They are so well written. . . and they are clean and safe for kids.  "Tug" is the name of one of the Ranger Ponies.  These small but hearty Ranger ponies, in the stories, are descended from what seems to be Mongolian Ponies brought to "Europe." This is a great series of books for boys and girls!

Tug, the Ranger Horse

Horse in a Meadow

A Paint Pony by a River

Pony with Squirrel Friend

Mother Pony and Filly