Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center - Newsletter July 2007

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	RMDRC Newsletter Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas Happy Holidays!!! It’s hard to believe December is already here! November was such an exciting month for us that it flew by. We started out with a fun day at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center with Bruce Black’s Magic Show on Nov.1. Bruce’s show had something for everyone. We also kicked off our Community Cupboard food drive in November. The Community Cupboard is a life saver for many local individuals and families in need of a helping hand. With the economy in chaos, the requests are much higher this year and we thank all of you who contributed to the collection effort. Although our food drive is over, you can continue to make contributions by dropping them off at the Community Cupboard or here at RMDRC and we will make sure they are delivered. In November, the Discovery Channel film crews were at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center shooting scenes for an episode of the series "Megabeast". Their trip to RMDRC centered on the dominant predator of the late Cretaceous ocean, the mosasaurs, which were large marine lizards and were distributed world-wide. The largest Tylosaurus on record, at 45 feet long, is among the displays at RMDRC and it, along with several other mosasaurs, will be featured in the episode to be aired next year. The Discovery Channel crew also filmed other prehistoric creatures that lived among the mosasaurs, including plesiosaurs, sea turtles and giant predatory fish, all of which are found at RMDRC. Paleontologist James Lamb from the McWane Science Center in Birmingham Alabama was our guest for the week of the filming. The Nov. 19 edition of the Pikes Peak Courier View featured a front page article written by Norma Engelberg about the filming. You may not have seen this but there also was a short online article about the didelphodon that week as well! Click here to enjoy the article by Norma Engelberg. Click here to enjoy the article about didelphodon. Woodland Park merchants will be kicking off the holiday shopping season with their “I’ll be shopping at home for Christmas this year” promotion. This event runs through Dec. 23 when Santa gives away a basket of goodies to one lucky shopper. Contact Jamie Caperton at 719-686-7775 for a list of participating businesses and info on how to sign up for the giveaway. See our calendar of events for a full schedule of related events for December 6 culminating with the annual tree lighting at the Ute Pass Cultural Center. RMDRC is offering a 10% discount in addition to the regular member discount on purchases in the Prehistoric Paradise gift store. Come shop the largest dinosaur store in the region for truly unique gifts including real fossils, jewelry, games, books, and much more! A family membership makes a great gift that can be enjoyed for the entire year. If you have someone who’s difficult to buy for, a gift card is the perfect solution. Save yourself time and money by letting our staff gift wrap your purchases free of charge. And this year Santa will be at the RMDRC each Saturday and Sunday from 11AM-3PM through Christmas so bring the kids in for a visit. The 4^th annual Colorado Kids Free Day will be held at the RMDRC on Dec.30. This annual event presents an opportunity to bring the whole family out for a day of education and entertainment with Marc Straube of “Cool Science”. Marc will have shows at 11AM and 2 PM and will be here all day for hands on activities. Two kids under 12 will be admitted free with each paid adult. The Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center will be closing at 3PM on Christmas Eve and will be closed on Christmas Day. We will reopen Dec.26 at 9AM as usual so bring your friends and family in for a fun day while they are visiting. Mike and I and the staff of Triebold Paleontology and the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center thank you for your continued support and wish you and yours the very merriest holiday season ever. We look forward to seeing you soon! Sincerely, JJ Triebold President, RMDRC
	From the Education Desk Holidays are wonderful, aren’t they? December is Stress- Free Family Holidays month. Unfortunately, as wonderful as they are, they can add stress for busy families. If you want the holidays to be warm, colorful, fun and not stressful, try some of these tips. Decide as a family if you really need to do everything you have planned. You may be trying too hard and defeating the goal of building memories. You don’t have to do all the shopping, cleaning and cooking alone. Ask for help and divide the work or make your list less overwhelming. Be sure you enjoy your own holidays and parties. The Boy Scouts of America encourages service to others to reduce stress during the holidays. Schedule some activities to nourish your spirit. Church services, musical performances, and plays leave you feeling refreshed and rested rather than frazzled and exhausted. Discuss with your family what makes you happy during this season and really listen to each other. Make your holiday plans based on this discussion. If you love going to parties, then by all means go! If you go only because you feel you have to go, then don’t be afraid to turn down some invitations. The holiday season is a special time for enjoying your family and friends and celebrating traditions. The trick is to identify those things that are important to your family and develop holiday traditions that are uniquely your own. Pace yourself and involve every family member in the holiday preparations….and don’t expect perfection! Celebrate the true meaning of the season. With the current commercialism it is easy for children to be lured into “getting” rather than “giving”. Help them shift their focus outward by encouraging them to choose a gift to be donated to charity, or make gift baskets to be delivered to a nursing home. Older children can volunteer to baby sit or help an elderly neighbor. Love is spelled TIME. Laugh, cuddle and play with your kids. Let them choose their favorite games, activities or book to share with you and have fun. Encourage peace and caring for others this holiday season. Let family and friends know that the gift of time and helping each other is as precious as wrapped gifts. I wish you all heart-warming holidays. Regards, Geri LeBold Education Director geri@rmdrc.com
	From the Business Development Desk Book your school group today! Don't forget about our CAST Program "Community and Students Together" Registration Required Call 686-1820 x 104 Elementary School Days Cost: $7 Middle School Days Cost: $8 Jan. 28 - Green Day/Helping the Earth Feb. 25 - Craft & Fossil Day April 15 - Dino Day What a great place to celebrate your birthday! For a small price children and adults get to enjoy a party in the company of dinosaurs. RMDRC Paleo Patch Program meets all the requirements for the Girl Scouts Dinosaur badge, the Jr. Girl Scout Try-It badge, and some requirements for Boy Scout badges. Call and book your Tour, Birthday Party or Paleo Patch today! Contact us at 719-686-1820 x 104. See you soon! Business Development

	From Triebold Paleontology, Inc. We’ve got Pteranodons flying all over the world this month. A trio is headed to Springfield Science Museum in MA and another pair is going to the Melbourne Museum in Australia. If you have any high, open areas in your home or office, I’m sure we could fly one your way, too! Didelphodon has been making a "splash" since his debut at SVP in Cleveland in October. The original fossil material has found a home in a permanent repository and casts are being ordered from around the country. This ancient mammal relative is quite the buzz right now. Looking ahead to 2009 there are a number of new museum projects around the country. I anticipate our lab technicians being quite busy as these projects get funded and orders start rolling in. While you’re traveling this holiday season, be sure to visit the museums in the areas you’re going to and mention TPI and what great exhibits we have here at RMDRC. Word of mouth referrals are always the best and we appreciate all your kind words. Please have a happy and safe holiday season and we’ll see you in 2009! Tracie Bennitt Sales and Marketing Triebold Paleontology, Inc. tracie@trieboldpaleontology.com
	News from the Lab Preparation is well underway on our large Platecarpus ictericus specimen, Cap'n Chuck. If you're not familiar with it by name, this is the specimen I discovered in late 2006 when I spotted a single dorsal vertebra poking out high in a vertical walled gully. This was the classic "don't look where you don't want to collect" scenario. Jacob Jett and I were given a lift in the Bobcat to see if more was there, and we found the back of the skull eroding out. I named the animal Cap'n Chuck after my father in law, a bit of a joke because I knew the dig might be difficult. We decided to work on it in the spring due to freezing rain and generally miserable conditions. A crew of Mike Triebold, Ray Vodden, Jacob Jett and myself returned in early 2007 to investigate the site further. Using a lightweight (only 35 pounds!) electric jackhammer, we were able to perimeter and collect the specimen in only 3 days. We had to move so much overburden off of the skeleton that we were able to construct a ramp down to the gully bottom, letting us get the huge main jacket out relatively easy. Cap'n Chuck is a very large example of Platecarpus, we estimate the final length to be somewhere in the 20-22 foot range. Almost every bone displays evidence of scavenging by the shark Squalicorax kaupi. Our plan is to prepare the skeleton for molding, then mount the real bones in a display similar to how we mounted IAN, the Platecarpus planifrons that our friend Angus discovered while prospecting with us. (Cap'n Chuck's Main Jacket) Anthony Maltese Curator, Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center 719.686.1820 x106 anthony@rmdrc.com
	Prehistoric Paradise Store - NEW Arrivals Visit the web site to send great gifts to all your family and friends. Click here to start your shopping experience! ______________________________________________________________________ News links for December 2008 Dinosaur Smelling Skills Open New Angle On Bird Evolution Science Daily (press release) - USA ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2008) — Although we know quite a bit about the lifestyle of dinosaur; where they lived, what they ate, how they walked, ... Dinosaur Stomping Ground Found Popular Science - New York,NY,USA But recently, geologists from the University of Utah uncovered an exceptional find -- a large concentration of dinosaur tracks and rare tail-drag marks. ... Fossilized plants may hold clues to prehistoric mysteries Salt Lake Tribune - United States The fossils of the prehistoric flora, mainly conifers, are the only ones ever found from the early Jurassic Period in the Western United States. ... Riddle of Burgess Shale's fossil-rich deposits solved: Scientists Canada.com - Don Mills,Ontario,Canada But, in the Burgess Shale, the most exquisite detail of soft tissues has been preserved,' an article in the November issue of Geology states. ... Visitors time-travel at Ancient Plant Garden San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA ... sometimes sold as "dinosaur chow," whose pollen has been found in 93 million-year-old fossil deposits. "The redesign reflected a change in exhibit ... Eight-Armed Animal Preceded Dinosaurs Discovery Channel - USA Zhu, a scientist at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, first helped to make the China/Aussie connection ... Living fossil found on New Zealand mainland CNN International - USA WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found nesting on the New Zealand mainland for the first ... 'Living Fossil' Tree Contains Genetic Imprints Of Rain Forests ... Science Daily (press release) - USA ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — A "living fossil" tree species is helping a University of Michigan researcher understand how tropical forests responded to ... Dinosaurs of a Feather, Flock Together Smithsonian - USA It is hard to draw the line between the most bird-like dinosaurs and most dinosaur-like birds. Most of the dinosaurs with avian features were not ancestors ... What Is a Vertebrate Paleontologist? New Video Has an Answer Newswise (press release) - USA But despite this fascination with fossil-hunting – one aspect of the field of vertebrate paleontology – most people would be hard pressed to explain what a ... Parasites And Global Change: Past Patterns, Future Projections Science Daily (press release) - USA ... survived the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs by "jumping" from their ancient reptilian hosts to seabirds and then later to marine mammals. ... Extinct Sabertooth Cats Were Social, Found Strength In Numbers ... Science Daily (press release) - USA The study reported in Biology Letters took a new approach to the question by comparing data from the La Brea fossil record and data obtained from ... Baby dinosaur had full-grown bite The analysis of a rare baby dinosaur skull has confirmed that it had meat-tearing canine teeth normally associated with adults. Sabertooth Tigers May Have Been Party Animals FOXNews - USA The classic interpretation of a sabertooth cat, a 1905 painting by Charles R. Knight in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. ... Skeptics try to shoot holes in dinosaur-track theory Deseret News - Salt Lake City,UT,USA By James Thalman A grouping of sandstone pockmarks in northern Arizona heralded last month as dinosaur footprints by geologists and reported in the news ... The Exciting Evolution of ... Rocks Bird research takes wing with dino-nest discovery Calgary Herald - AB, Canada ... river in the Montana badlands, said Francois Therrien, a co-investigator in the study and curator of dinosaur palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. ... Woolly-mammoth genome decoded: Biologists report that they have for the first time unraveled nearly the whole genetic code of an extinct animal. Ancient turtle discovered on Skye BBC News - UK They were uncovered by a team from London's Natural History Museum and University College London (UCL). "Why did turtles enter the water? We have no idea. ... Discovery Of Giant Roaming Deep Sea Protist Provides New ... Science Daily (press release) - USA The finding is significant, because similar fossil grooves and furrows found from the Precambrian era, as early as 1.8 billion years ago, have always been ... Regenerating a Mammoth for $10 Million New York Times - United States An intact skeleton of a woolly mammoth that is on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. By NICHOLAS WADE Scientists are talking ... Digging dinosaurs in Old Snowmass Aspen Daily News - Aspen,CO,USA “We don’t really know what it is,” said Mike Triebold, president of Triebold Paleontology Inc., which finds and prepares dinosaur fossils for museum ...

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URL: http://www.rmdrc.com/news/RMDRC_newsletter_0908.htm Last Updated: Dec 2008