Tyrannosaurs rex facts and Pictures

So what color was Tyrannosaurus rex?  We do not get skin or scale colors from bones.  We HAVE gotten colors from T. rex relatives who grew feathers.  Some paleontologist at the University of Utah think that someday we WILL find a feathered T. rex.  But maybe we never will.  Perhaps T. rex was too big to need feathers.  With large animals like rhinos and elephants their skin is mostly bare because their problem, in warm climates is loosing heat, not staying warm.  This seems to indicate that maybe a very large dinosaur like T. rex would not need any skin covering like feathers.  So if this is the case, what color was T. rex skin...or scales.  To determine this we need to look at modern animals and make an inference,  Modern animals, some of them, have stripes, spots, or other patterns.  Lizards, some big cats, zebras, some cows, some horses, and etc are examples of animals with spots or stripes.

So that being the case, maybe T. rex had stripes.  Stripes help a predator hide in forest or tall grass.  Stripes also help a species to recognize fellow members of their speices...in other words, a tiger can recognize another tiger.

Spots can help predators hide among leaves of a forest.  And of course spots also help leopards recognize other leopards. . .  OR help jaguars recognize other jaguars.

An inference is when we make a conclusion or supposition about an unknown fact based upon known fact,  So if some modern predators have stripes or spots, then perhaps T. rex had stripes or spots.

T. rex with Stripes 

T. rex with Spots

3 Unicorns and a Narwhal

Cute Little Unicorn

These drawings were done on our Western Caribbean cruise.  Of course we did not see any unicorns in Belize, Mexico, or Honduras.  I suppose that those forests and or jungles would be a good place for a unicorn to hide.  Remember that the Greeks thought of Unicorns as not a mythological creature, but as an animal who was part of nature.  Possibly it was travelers who saw a rhino in Asia or Africa who perpetuated the idea.  It just hit me!  We never see unicorns anywhere!  Maybe people hunted them to extinction... IF they ever were actually real.  OR maybe unicorns are not extinct, they just are in hiding.  When I consider the sad situation where some people kill rhinos because misguided people think that rhino horns have medicinal value...if I were a real unicorn, I'd hide from people too!

Unicorn Mare at Sunrise

Notice the eyelashes are longer on a female.  That is a cartooning trick.  

Unicorn Stallion by a Palm Tree

Here the eyelashes are shorter so it is a male unicorn.  This male unicorn is also drawn more hefty.None of these drawings are traditional unicorns. They are done how I like to draw them.  I put long flowing horse tails on them and give them horse hooves etc.  Traditional unicorns have a tuft on a lion-like tail and have cloven hooves.  Over the centuries the Narwhal horn has been sold to gullible buyers who were deceived into thinking they were buying a unicorn horn.   

Narwhal under the Arctic Ice

Narwhals live far away from the Caribbean.  We did not see any narwhals on our cruise either.  We possibly could have seen them on our cruse 5 years ago to Alaska...but we were probably still too far south.  Narwhals live up north in northern Alaska, Norway, Canada and Greenland.  Narwhals measure 13 to 18 feet, 4 to 5.5 meters.  The big males can weigh up to 3,500 lbs, 1,600 kg.  That long "unicorn" horn is actually an elongated left canine.  Also, the "horn" is really called a tusk.  The scientific name is very descriptive,  I always like scientific names that describe the organism.  For a narwhal it is Genus: Monodon, species: monoceros.   Or just:  Monodon monoceros. It means:  One tooth, one horn.  To be clear...Monodon = one tooth.... monoceros = one horn.  So since the horn is actually an elongated tooth the scientific name is a description that is exactly right.  By the way, never capitalize the species name.  You DO capitalize the Genus name.    

  

Birds of the Yucatan

We saw this rather large bird in Mexico on our way to the Mayan ruins at Konhunlich, in Mexico.  In spite of it being called the "Little Blue Heron" it is still rather large.  It is grayish-blue, also called slate blue in color.  They build stick nests in trees.  Sadly, the species is in decline since the middle of the last century.

This is the blogger (me) on the steps of the palace at Konhunlich

Here we are at the Palace at Konhunlich

The black vultures we saw were flying over the ruins at Chitzen Itza.  They have the regular vulture's soaring ability.  It was funny that they were soaring over the ball court, since hundreds of years ago some of the players often were sacrificed after the game.  So the ancestors of these vultures may have had a reason to be circling the ball court.   Did these modern Black Vultures have a species genetic memory?  Probably not, but it is kind of cool and kind of creepy to think about it.  The below pictures are from the Mayan (or Toltec) ball court at Chichen Itza. . . Sorry, but I did not catch a photo of the Black Vultures in these photos.   By the way, the Black Vulture is also called the Mexican Vulture.

Black Vulture or Mexican Vulture

Ball Court at Chichen Itza 

Hoop from Ball Court

Another view of the Mayan Ball Court

Our Guide Philipe holding a solid rubber ball like those used in the Mayan Ball Game

Flying Fish

Realistic Flying Fish

The first flying fish appeared in the mid-Triassic Period, around the time of the first dinosaurs.  All the 64 flying fish species that live now seem to be descended from flying fish that first appeared around the time of the LAST dinosaurs...about 66 million years ago.  Modern flying fish are found in every ocean in the world, mainly in tropical or sub-tropical waters.

We saw flying fish on our cruise in the Caribbean.  The fish would fly off away from the ship as the ship was sailing.  The  flying fish could glide for around 20+ yards, 20+ meters.  We would stand at the lowest deck railing and try to take photos of the fish.  We never could see the fish in the photos, but we did get a couple of videos where you could see the flying fish zipping away from the ship. Sometimes  a whole school of flying fish would surface and take off all at once.  Sometimes it was a few at a time and sometimes just one would fly away from the moving ship's hull.

Young Flying Fish

The younger flying fish seemed to be much smaller and thinner than the adults. Sometimes, as an artist, you are very critical of your own work.  In fact, it has been said that an artist does not finish a work, they merely abandon it.  Having said that, I think this juvenile flying fish needs a somewhat larger head, but from the deck of the ship, and with them flying away so fast, the above drawing is what the juveniles looked like to us.

Cartoon Flying Fish, male

We saw that the flying fish would often drag their tail fins in the water as they flew.  

Cartoon Flying Fish, female

The trick for making a cartoon animal female is often just adding long eyelashes. 

 Of course, fish don't really have eyelashes, only mammals have eyelashes.  

Bottlenose Dolphins

Scroll down to see more dolphin pictures.  Click on the above "Free Printable Downloads" button to print pages to color.  You can scroll way down to see dinosaurs, fairies, unicorns, etc. ....that you can preview and also, you can read about the real or fantasy animal.

Bottlenose Dolphin

Bottlenose dolphins are a very intelligent marine mammal.  They are NOT fish.  Like whales, they breathe air.  They have lungs very similar to ours for getting oxygen from air.  Fish have gills to get oxygen from water, but again, Dolphins do NOT have gills...they have lungs!

There are two species of bottlenose dolphins.  They live in all oceans except the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans.  They are the most common type of dolphin.  They are used in shows and "Dolphin Encounters" in many parts of the world.

The "Dolphin Encounter" we went to had non-captive dolphins who lived in a bay in Roatan Island Honduras.  Our dolphin, Linca, was very entertaining, but he was not always cooperative.  The trainer told us that the dolphins do their thing sometimes and that when they obey it is their choice, not a coerced or forced behavior.  We liked this fact. We also liked that the dolphins were free to go out into the open ocean if they chose to.  We got to interact with an Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin.

Blogger getting a kiss from Linca

Mother Bottlenose Dolphin and Calf

Yes, a baby dolphin is called a calf, just like a baby cow.  Gestation period is one year.  (That means the mother dolphin is pregnant for one year.)  A young dolphin stays with its mother for 18 months to 8 years.  A group of dophins is called a pod.  The pod work together to help raise and care for the young.  So the other dolphins will babysit the young while Mom is out hunting fish or squid or crustaceans.  

Young Male Dolphin with Friend

Now, the above picture is more of a cartoon drawing.  The below drawing is has a small change.  To indicate that a cartoon character is female, you add eyelashes, or draw bigger eyelashes than the males have.   

Young Female Dolphin with Friend

Howler Monkey and Spider Monkey

Howler Monkey

Howler monkeys have one of the loudest voices in nature.  They are native to Mexico, Central America, and South America.  They are true monkeys because they have tails.  Howler monkeys are between 22-36 in., 56-92 cm ...not counting their tail which sometimes is even longer than the rest of the body.  Their tail is prehensile, which means they can use it to hold on to branches or even to pick fruit.  Males are black in color and females are brown.  There is also a species of red howler monkeys.  They are actually what we might call reddish brown, or if they were a horse we might call it chestnut.  We saw these animals, adult and young, at Lamanai in Belize, Central America.  Howler monkeys build nests to sleep in.

Spider Monkeys

Spider Monkeys have long prehensile tails as well.  They have long, what you might call skinny or lanky arms.  But these monkeys are not weaklings.  They are capable of swinging though the jungle trees at great speed.  They are very athletic...think gold medal gymnasts.  They live, like the Howler Monkey, in trees and jungles of Central and South America, as far north as Mexico.  There are seven species of Spider Monkeys. Recent research and analysis indicate that they are the most intelligent of all New World monkeys.  They live in groups of up to 3 dozen or so and move into smaller groups to forage for food and to sleep.  Spider Monkeys often dwell way up in the forest or jungle canopy.  They are seen up to 100 ft. high, 33 meters.  

Rope  Bridge in Mexico

In Mexico some highways through the forest have Spider Monkey Bridges that look like rope bridges.  These bridges allow Spider Monkeys to cross the highway without any danger.


You may wonder why I drew patterns or spots on the tree bark.  The answer is LICHEN.  Lichen is an amazing type of organism.  It is part bacteria and part fungi.  It come in many different colors.  So have fun with it.  The lichen can be red-orange, blue-green, black, gray, green, white. . . and on and on.  In the Yucatan jungle most of the tees had lichen and the lichen seemed to be kind of pastel colors.  So to all you who love to color, have some fun with the lichen!  Make it any color you want, or use pastel colors, (you color very lightly).  Thank you Dr. Larry St Clair, of  BYU Botany Dept., for teaching us all about the science of lichen.  I feel like when you learn about something in nature you see more beauty in it.  And you notice it much more often, out in nature, when you have studied it!

Lichen on tree in Yucatan Jungle

Animals from the Western Caribbean

Hello to all of you who like to color.  The reason we have not posted for over a week is we went on a cruise.  I have surgery on Tuesday...kind of a rotten thing to do on Valentines Day...but anyway, we decided to go have some fun first.  So we went on a Caribbean Cruise.  We went to the Western Caribbean and had a wonderful time.  We saw pyramids and huge figurines...and ANIMALS.  So, while on the cruise I drew coloring pages for all the animals we saw.  We will be posting them in the next two days...before my surgery on Tuesday.  If you are the believing type, please pray for me.  It should be a fairly routine surgery on my throat, in fact it is a re-do of a T-tube placement.  Still, any surgery has a risk.

I think that we went on the cruise when we did to forget about the surgery and the pain that I am in.  My wife is also having some fibromyalgia pain.   So please pray for us that we can get some pain relief and keep drawing and posting pictures for you to color.

We gave blog website cards out to people we met in Honduras, Belize, Mexico and of course on the ship.  They, the crew from the Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas and the excursion leaders were very kind to us. . . we can't walk very fast nor climb steep stairs or steep inclines.

To wet your appetite I will post three of the photos of animals we saw on our excursions...along with the picture I drew of them.    Here is the complete list of the animals I drew during our cruise:

 Real Modern Animals, most of which we saw:  Flying Fish that were swimming away from the bow of the ship,  Howler Monkeys,  Spider Monkeys,  Land Iguana,   Great-tailed Grackle (a bird with a long tail),  Dolphins,  and  a capybara-like rodent called an Agouti.

Extinct Animals: (We did not see these in Central America) Tyrannosaurus rex and a Parasaurolophus
I
Fantasy Animals:  (Also not seen in Central America)  I drew a few Unicorns.

All these pictures are coming to the coloring pages blog in the next few days.  After I post the ones I am posting today, I will not be able to draw or post for a few days due to recovery time for my trachea surgery.
Keep us in your prayers.

The first three animals I want to post I drew from photos I took myself in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. All three animals were right next to the sidewalk about 200 yards (or meters) from the ship, right in town.

This is the Great-tailed Grackle 

Great-tailed Grackle

The Great-tailed Grackle is a bird that lives in the southern part of the western and central United States as well as Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America.  They are iridescent 

 black with hints of blues and purples and they have an enormous tail.  They are related to two other Grackle species.  Sorry the photo is a bit blurry.  We were walking fast to make the ferry to the ship. . . so we did not end up stranded in Playa Del Carmen... so I took a fast photo on the run.  Like many people, I thought it was just a raven or crown.  I was very wrong.  

Land Iguana from Mexico

Land Iguana from Mexico

THIS animal made me stop in my boots....so I took a better picture.  This particular iguana is so beautiful. I have seen other land iguanas in Ecuador and Marine Iguanas on the Galapagos Islands, but I had never seen one that had this gorgeous  blue or light bluegreen markings/stripes and a powder blue underside.  They can live up to 60 years and they are omnivourus, eating lots of plants and sometimes centipedes, insects, and carrion (already dead animals).  This adult was about 3 feet long (1 meter).  

Guatusa or Central America Agouti

Guatusa or Central America Agouti

This animal is the Central American Agouti.  This animal was near the other two. . . in a small hollow in the city of Play Del Carmen.   Agoutis are related to the South American Capybara.  Our guide to Chichen Itza told us the name the native Mexican Mayans use for this mammal.., but I forgot it.  Our cabin steward on our cruise told us that it is called Guatusa by the natives in the Yucatan Peninsula.  The "Guatusa" is smaller than the South American Capybara.  An Agouti is about 24 inches long (62 cm).  They mate for life and eat mostly seeds.  They are important to the ecology of a region because they disperse the seeds with fertilizer. (they poop out some of the undigested seeds so they get planted with fertilizer in various places far from the parent plant.) 

Charles Darwin found skeletons of this animal family in South America.  It was named Toxidont or poison tooth by Sir Richard Owen (the great English anatomist who created the term "Dinosaur.")

The extinct species of giant rodent (Toxidont)  that Charles Darwin found in South America was a "ROUS" .   This is "Rodents Of Unusual Size", from the great movie Princess Bride.  So now you know that at some point in the not so distant past, there WERE Rodents Of Unusual Size.  IF these were the rats in ancient South America, can you imagine the size of the cats?*  In fact, 3 million years ago there was a giant rodent in the Americas the size of a buffalo (American bison).  

NOTE:  All drawings and photos are Copyright Robin Lyman 2017
Of course permission is granted to print drawings for coloring. 

*Quote from a docudrama movie that I used to show my science students,  It is called Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Tylosaurus the Mosasaur

Tylosaurus was an enormous predator of the Cretaceous Period.  It has even been called "Sea Rex" ...which is the title of a very cool IMAX documentary.  A Tylosaurus from the movie Jurassic World was actually a lot oversized.  Still, Tylosaurus was probably 46-56 feet (14-15 m) long.  The very longest Mosasaur ever found was estimated to be 56 feet (17 meters) long.   Tylosaurus weight estimate of 15 tons or 30,000 lbs.  That would be 13.6 metric tons or 13,608 kg.  So Tylosaurus was longer and much heavier than the Cretaceous land top predator, T. rex.

Mosasaurs are NOT dinosaurs.  They are marine reptiles.  Dinosaurs were primarily land animals. Mosasaurs had live young and did not lay eggs.  They spent their entire life in the sea.

The first modern reported Mosasaur fossilized skeleton was found in a quarry in Holland in 1764, however, Native Americans had discovered many Mosasaur skeletons in North America long before that.

For years we thought that Tylosaurus had a sanke-like tail.  But now there is some controversy on the tail of Mosasaurs.  Recent findings have shown a tail fluke on some species of Mosasaurs.
Although this was found in some other species of Mosasar, not Tylosaurus, some paleontologist think, that based on the shape of the tail bones, we can infer that Tylosaurus had a tail fluke, and not the snake like tail.  That being said, Tylosaurus and all the Mosasaurs are closely related to modern snakes and monitor lizards.

Tylosaurus with Snake-like Tail

Tylosaurs with Tail Fluke