Triassic Park Page IX

This parodies the song "Chaos" from the entertaining fanmade Jurassic Park Musical.

Likely didn't expect a TetZoo Time character revelation on Raptormaniacs, did you? King Preter thinks that "ephemeral" means "difficult to see". (TetZoo Time exists as a comic in the Raptormaniacs universe; it's not that contrived.)

CAMP stands for Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, a giant volcanic region associated with the breakup of Pangaea and the end-Triassic extinction. Signor-Lipps effect describes the phenomenon that the fossil record is generally not complete enough for us to ascertain to full temporal range of a taxon, which, among other things, can make mass extinction events appear more gradual than they really were.

I have tried something new for this one: a recorded demo of the song parody. There is no musical accompaniment, but I hope it is helpful to readers who are unfamiliar with the song and/or cannot get the lyrics to fit. It's only me singing in my own voice and should not be taken to indicate the canon voices of my characters. I do not usually pronounce "Ostrom" the way I do in the song; I appear to have subconsciously changed it to something I found easier to sing.

Turn to Stone Page VII

Several events conspired to prevent me from finishing this page as early as I'd have liked, besides the fact that it's the longest page in this story arc. At least it's up now!

The song is a parody of This Day Aria. If setting Savape on Fuzzlehead appears too harsh, keep in mind that Tianyulong is one of the reasons the Speculative Dinosaur Project ground to a halt (though there have supposedly been myriad developments behind the scenes). That, and Skull can be quite vengeful when he feels like it.

Another Attempted Revolt Part II

The second half of the story.

Uh, yeah.

There's a perspective thing in the last panel that I didn't have room to fully establish. Ostrom is supposed to be in the extreme foreground, which is why he looks almost the same size as Ebeff.

Apologies for the frivolous nonsense. If it explains anything, this was originally intended for April Fools', but I managed to come up with something more sophisticated and decided to save this for later.

Tough Questions

What are the answers to these questions, anyway? For the first one, clearly not any single individual deinonychosaur would be able to spontaneously fly if it belongs to a taxon that can't fly to begin with. However, we do know that some small deinonychosaurs could probably fly. Presumably, a newly-hatched deinonychosaur wouldn't be able to fly, but we don't know how long it took for them to fledge.

For the second question, I suppose it also depends on what kind of neornithine we're talking about. Flightless ones will never be able to fly no matter how much they eat, but what about flying ones? Some birds feed their young every fifteen minutes. Assuming it generally takes around twenty days for these birds to fledge, they'd have eaten around two thousand insects by the time they leave the nest!

I don't think we can give a definite answer to the last question. My guess would be "a lot".

Guest: Balaur

Parody of the P-p-platypus.

Thank goodness for scanners. I no longer have to awkwardly type up the script. I still apologize if my handwriting is in any way hard to read*, but at least the image is quite clear.

*If so, all you have to do is ask!

I chose to adopt the thought-provoking hypothesis that Balaur bondoc was a strange herbivorous dromaeosaurid instead of the conventional double-bladed superpredator image, because it's funnier. And, frankly, more interesting.

I Love the World

Savape leads the world's eumaniraptors in a parody of Discovery Channel's I Love the World commercials (2008 version and 2009 version). Guest singers include (in order of appearance) Avisaurus archibaldi, Scansoriopteryx heilmanni, Hesperornis regalis, Pyroraptor olympius, Sinornithosaurus sp., Troodon formosus, Hesperonychus elizabethae, Rahonavis ostromi, Utahraptor ostrommaysorum, Mei long, and Velociraptor mongoliensis.

As usual, I'll provide lyrics.

I love the crashing,
I love the ashy skies,
I love trees falling,
I love when I can't fly,
I love the whole world and all its meteorites,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da.

I love tsunamis,
I love real bloody things,
I love to die fast,
I love the tyrant kings,
I love the whole world and all its extinctions,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da.

I love disaster,
I love ankylosaurs,
I love volcanoes,
I love rogue herbivores,
I love the whole world and all its doom and death,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da,
Boom de ah da...

Parts of the Skull

Skull has a sclerotic ring now.

A (compressed) parody of Brainstem from Pinky and the Brain.

Here are the lyrics. If anyone wants to sing along, start from the second to last verse of Brainstem ("White core matter, forebrain, skull..."). I might write an extended version in the future; there are still many parts of the maniraptor skull I haven't included here.

Naris, orbit, lacrimal,
Braincase, braincase!
Dentary, teeth, jugal, nasal,
Premaxilla.
Sclerotic ring, antorbital,
Maxilla, and mandible,
Intramandibular... the skull!

Raptormaniacs "Theme Song"

I originally wanted to create a blog to talk about interesting things about dinosaurs in general. However there are already many blogs that do that, most of them by paleontologists, or at least people who actually know what they're talking about. Instead, my blog will be the home of what will hopefully become a webcomic starring the "Raptormaniacs". Who are the Raptormaniacs?

Sung to the tune of the Animaniacs theme song*. If you aren't familiar with Animaniacs, go here. Listen to it a couple times. You'll catch on real quick. Trust me.

The three main singers are Deinonychus antirrhopus, Jinfengopteryx elegans, and Archaeopteryx lithographica. Other dinosaurs here are (in order of appearance): Passer domesticus, Albertonykus borealis, Caudipteryx zoui, Therizinosaurus cheloniformis, and the skull of Tsaagan mangas.

I'm not sure how difficult my writing is to read. No doubt it's probably a tad small. So, here are the lyrics.

It's time for Raptormaniacs**,
In some of us our teeth do lack.
Smaller prey we do attack,
On plants we also snack,
We're Raptormaniacs!

We have got feathered wings that can grow to be real long,
'Cept alvarezsaurids, but theirs are still quite strong.***
With our semilunate carpals we can tuck our arms away.
Just be your best,
Don't touch our nests,
Or else you're gonna pay!

We're Raptormaniacs,
We can run up trees real fast.
Our variety is vast
And not just fossil casts,
We're Raptormaniacs!

Some of us can swoop and fly to help them get around,
Others think that things are better going back down to the ground;
We need agility and speed because predators abound.
With killing claws
And toothy jaws
We prowl where food is found.

We're Raptormaniacs,
We're survivors to the max.
We went to H**l and back
When a space rock left a crack.
We're Raptorman-y,
They say we're brainy,
Paul, Gregory,
Raptormaniacs!
Those are the facts.

*Animaniacs and all related elements, including the Animaniacs theme song, are property of Warner Bros. The drawing and parody lyrics are mine, though.
**Here "raptor" means maniraptor, not deinonychosaur or hypercarnivorous bird.
***Maniraptor forelimb reduction is also found in many flightless birds, and to a lesser degree troodonts and some oviraptorosaurs. However, none of these have the strangely powerful forelimbs alvarezsaurids did.