Dinosaurs Today : They are not all extinct.

When I first was interested in dinosaurs a lot of assumptions about them were faulty.

Dinosaurs were considered to be cold blooded, slow, not too bright and lived for 600 million years and died out when they could not adapt to change.

Not very flattering eh? In retrospect we got it wrong, we humans are very self-centered and we don't like thinking other species may, in some respects, be greater achievers than ourselves (sharks, crocodiles and even cockroaches leap to mind as species which have the runs on the board that we have yet to achieve).

The truth is dinosaurs were highly evolved life forms and they have not become extinct at all! What became extinct was the non-avian dinosaurs, some of the avian dinosaurs are with us today and are still adapting and evolving. Where are the avian dinosaurs you ask? Look up in the sky my friend, they are the birds!

www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/dinosaur.html
University of California, Berkely (Museum of Paleontology) A good overview and as much depth as you want. When you get in click on "systamatics" to learn the groupings of the dinosaurs.

www.oocities.org/dinosaurbero
"Beri's Dinosaur World". Good drawings (artwork), some learning and something for the kids as well.

www.oocities.org/capecanaveral/launchpad/2045
Lost Worlds of Brian Franczak. Very good drawing (artwork) with good links to other good artists.
## This site has not come up for some time and is a matter of concern. The the author of the site immediately below claims sone knowlege and says he has been assured a site will be re-established.

www.oocities.org/paleoportfolio/interview-michael_skrepnick.htm
Interview that refers to Brian Franczak (toward the end). Where I found reference to Zalinger and the Tyrannosaurus.jpg shown below. The links on this site are excellent.

Tyrannosaurus.jpg. From original painting.

Also search out Rudy Zallinger 'Age of Reptiles' mural and 48 card set. Died of cancer in 60's. My earliest influence. Made dinosaurs as real to me as any living animal.

www.dinosauria.com
Dinosauria On-Line. An excellent tool for researching dinosaurs. I also use it to obtain the pronunciation of dinosaur's names or other details about dinosaurs found in the more image orientated sites.

www.isgs.uiuc.edu/dinos/dinos_home.html
Dino Russ's Lair at the Illinois State Geographical Survey.
From this home page you can explore the site and also access Dinosaur Encyclopedia 4.
www.isgs.uiuc.edu/dinos/GIFs_path.html
Dinosaur gifs you can use. Please send him dino gifs. ** 21 Sep02 Page comes up but gifs have been removed. Email him **

www.oceansofkansas.com
Oceans of Kansas. Marine reptiles. Immense site with a lot going on.

Click on the image to see Dinosaur Cove (155kB). The scene, from a mini-sheet of postage stamps featuring Australian dinosaurs shows some of the warm-blooded dinosaurs that thrived in the Dinosaur Cove area under the polar weather conditions that prevailed during the Early Cretaceous (100 - 125 million years ago).
(Original artwork by Peter Trusler; reproduced with permission of Australia Post. 155kB)

Source:-

pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/dinosaurs.html
The USGS Australian section from which the Dino Cove panorama above is taken.

dinocove2.html
Summarises the USGS Australian section important points. ** Not Done Yet! **

www.oocities.org/dannsdinosaurs
Dann's Dinosaurs. Excellent. Has a number of references to Australian Dinosaurs. See his Australian mirror which is dedicated to Australian dinosaurs and is hosted, apparently as a community service, by an Australian ISP company.

Aussie John's Personal Choice

www.bbc.co.uk/dinosaurs
The highly acclaimed BBC production, Walking With Dinosaurs website. Fact files, videos, sound, lots of images, wallpapers and everything you wanted to know about the series. Look for the famous "Big Al" screensaver and a good on-line interactive game where you live life in the Jurrasic era as an Allosaurus, one of the greatest killing machines to ever walk the Earth.

www.bbc.co.uk/beasts
The BBC follow up production, Walking With Beasts website. More recent extinct animals.

Ever wondered what sort of effort goes into making the dinosaur images you see in books and film. Well you can certainly have a lot of fun and satisfaction modelling anything you like in Rhino 3D and who knows what eventually might come from it!

The brachiosaurs in this scene are a single object modelled in Rhino 3D then copied, re-scaled and re-orientated to make a group of three. The rendering of the exterior of the brachiosaur model to make it look realistic and the superimposing and placing of lights on an image made from a photographs of forest would have taken the author/artist, Daniel Ljunggren, far more time than the construction of the dinosaur itself.

Rhino 3D can be downloaded for evaluation and permits 25 saves before ceasing to function. It is a Windows package, very intuitive to use and it's price very reasonable even more reasonable for bonavide students or teacher/academics. It has given me a lot of pleasure. See my Rhino section at acadrhino.html If you would like to look into 3D modelling.

www.earthsci.org
Earth Science Australia. A North Queensland School area site dedicated to the geosciences.

gsa.org.au
The Geological Society Of Australia. The organisation who now host the School site above.

Aussie John's Site Page Last Updated And Links Checked: 28 June 2003

Dinosaurs Today