In the world of education, we often hear complaints that people know more about celebrities and fictional characters than about science. Taking a moment to scroll through Twitter or Instagram, it can be easy to agree with such complaints. It can be a constant struggle for educators to find a way to make abstract concepts from science more interesting than ideas from fiction, like the Force or giant robots. But what if there were a way to use people’s fascination with pop culture as a tool for education? What if there were a way to use pop culture to make science relatable and accessible? What if there were a way to use pop culture to make scientists and educators more approachable? That is where the Cosplay for Science Initiative comes in.

The Cosplay for Science Initiative is a science-communication project that uses cosplay, the practice of dressing up as a character, to help break down barriers between audiences and scientists, and make science education more accessible. For example, dressing up as Dr. Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park to talk about the science behind the franchise’s fictionalized dinosaurs. The Initiative was founded in August of 2017 by four nerdy friends who also happen to be paleontologists: me, Gabriel Santos of the Raymond M. Alf Musuem of Paleontology, Brittney Stoneburg of the Western Science Center, Michelle Barboza-Ramirez of the Femmes of STEM podcast and UF alumna, and Isaac Magallanes, a graduate student at the University of Florida. Each of us have research interests in science communication and education and wanted to develop ways to make science education more accessible.

Separately, we had all used pop culture in the past as a teaching tool; I had cosplayed as Professor Oak for a Pokémon Paleontology event at the Raymond M. Alf Museum, Brittney and her museum had attended pop-culture events to talk about fossils, and Michelle and Isaac had talked about science facts behind pop culture in their Instagram accounts. It wasn’t until Brittney and I attended Nerdbot-Con together to talk about the science of Jurassic Park cosplaying as Jurassic Park characters that the Cosplay for Science Initiative was born (Fig. 1). After seeing how easily interested attendees were in our fossil booth and how easily the attendees engaged with the paleontologists at the booth, Brittney and I realized how great of a tool cosplay could be for making science relatable and scientists approachable. Since then, the Initiative has attended four conventions, multiple events at other institutions, developed a steady following online, and has even appeared in a couple pop culture articles (here and here, and see below) to talk about science education and pop-culture.

The Initiative as it is now has added three official members: Kellen Kartub, a chemistry PhD candidate at UC Irvine (Fig. 2), Dr. Matt Hudgens-Haney, a neuroscientist, and Ginny Liz, a PhD candidate in Physics and Education. We are beginning to look at establishing local chapters in other parts of the world. As nerds, scientists and educators, our goal is to reach out to communities to foster science appreciation through the use of nerd and pop culture. The initiative strives to make science a part of audiences’ everyday lives and interests, to encourage approachability and trust in scientists as educators, and to create a community that acknowledges the importance of science and appreciates it as we do, all while having fun with it.

Most recently, the initiative attended Los Angeles Comic Con by bringing a pop-up natural history museum to the convention exhibition floor (Figs. 3–6). Now, fossils and natural history specimens must seem like an odd thing to take to a comic-book convention surrounded by thousands of apparently more interesting pieces of pop culture. The fossils and specimens would seem as if they could hardly compete with the rows of superhero statues, anime art and cartoon collectibles for the attention of the amassing fans. But by adding a fun pop-culture twist to the pop-up museum, say by calling it the Natural History Museum of Pokémon and cosplaying as Pokémon Professors, we can make the odd fossils and scary scientists something familiar and attractive to the comic-con audience. With this, the initiative allows audiences the opportunity to discover how science inspires science fiction: in this case, how real fossils and specimens inspired the world of Pokémon. The familiarity and popularity of Pokémon hook the audience and grab their interest; it then becomes easier to introduce scientific concepts, such as deep time and extinction.

Here are a few close-up examples (Figs. 7, 9, 11, 12), and some fossil counterparts (Figs. 8, 10, 13), in which the Cosplay for Science Initiative linked Pokémon with palaeontology, natural history and science education (artwork by Valeria Pellicer):

In the panels shown above, the Cosplay for Science Initiative showed audiences how a fictional world they love is inspired by the world in which we live — and that sometimes, the real world is just as interesting as fantasy worlds. Through this, the initiative hopes that audiences will develop an appreciation for the science hidden in their everyday lives, and a passion to learn more about the things they love.

RAM specimens housed at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, CA.

WSC specimens housed at the Western Science Center in Hemet, CA.

Suggestions for further reading:

Mohns, Mariel. “Cosplay for Science: Meet the Team.” The Sartorial Geek Oct. 2018: 38-44. Print.

https://anchor.fm/scicommjc (Episode 2)

Introduction:

Non-avian dinosaurs are iconic animals that dominated life on land for 170 million years during the Mesozoic era, and have captured the imagination of scientists and non-scientists alike for as long as we have known about them. As a result, dinosaurs have also dominated palaeoart — artistic representations of past life. Palaeoart is closely linked to the science of palaeontology, resulting from the desire to reconstruct what extinct organisms looked like when they were alive, and is increasingly informed by the latest scientific discoveries. This article provides a brief historical account of dinosaur palaeoart, explaining how this work has changed as our understanding of the anatomy and biology of dinosaurs has improved.

Scaled-up lizards:

The first scientific attempts to recreate the closest extinct relatives of birds on the basis of their fossils date to the nineteenth century. The first ever reconstruction of the skeleton of a dinosaur (Fig. 1A) is the work of English palaeontologist Gideon Mantell, created in 1832 but not published until 1968. Mantell’s ideas inspired what are probably the oldest life restorations of dinosaurs (Fig. 1B; Iguanodon, Hylaeosaurus, Megalosaurus and birds, accompanied by turtles, plesiosaurs and crocodile) and their environment (the 140-million to 125-million-year-old Wealden formation in southern England), made in 1833 by the artist George Scharf. In this work, non-avian dinosaurs were depicted as huge, crawling lizard-like animals. Among them, Iguanodon was thought to be the largest, at about 30 metres long (today we believe that such large sizes were restricted to some sauropod dinosaurs), with a rhinoceros-like horn (Fig. 1; the discovery of 31 well-preserved skeletons in 1877 in a Belgian coal mine proved that this horn was actually a thumb spike). This image dominated palaeoart for nearly two decades, partly owing to the small number and incompleteness of dinosaur fossils known at that time (for example, in 1824, the only known remains of Megalosaurus were single bones of several individuals). Other artists who reconstructed dinosaurs according to Mantell’s interpretations included John Martin (Fig. 1C), Samuel Griswold Goodrich and Josef Kuwasseg.

Great reptiles:

The world’s first life-sized sculptures of dinosaurs (Fig. 2) were made by the British artist and amateur scientist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, according to the instructions of the British palaeontologist Richard Owen, who coined the word ‘dinosaur’ in 1842. These reconstructions were created to accompany the relocation of the 1851 Great Exhibition hall from London’s Hyde Park to Crystal Palace Park in 1854, and they remain open to visitors to this day. The dinosaurs recreated by Hawkins are Megalosaurus, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus (Hawkins also reconstructed Palaeozoic and Mesozoic reptiles and Cenozoic mammals). Hawkins’ art represented the first prehistoric theme park, and it helped to popularize dinosaurs, palaeontology and palaeoart. In 1855, with Henry Ward, Hawkins created the first example of dinosaur merchandise — miniatures of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs.

The visions of dinosaurs brought to life by Hawkins and Owen are still gigantic lizards (although not as big as previous estimates), with Iguanodon again having a horn on top of its head (Fig. 2B; this was a result of comparison with the rhinoceros iguana). However, these reconstructions also show some characteristics of mammals. They have a more upright posture, and body proportions similar to those of large living mammals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses. For example, the reconstruction of Megalosaurus looks like a reptile with the head and tail of a crocodile and the body of a rhinoceros (Fig. 2A; we now know that Megalosaurus was a bipedal theropod like Allosaurus). The same dinosaurs also appear in the works of the French painter Edouard Riou.

The kangaroo era:

Major changes in how dinosaurs were reconstructed date back to 1858, when the US palaeontologist Joseph Leidy proposed a bipedal posture for Hadrosaurus, evidenced by the disproportion in the size of its limbs. This was the first skeletal reconstruction of a dinosaur standing upright. The end of the nineteenth century was marked by the discovery of numerous relatively complete dinosaur skeletons in the United States, and shapes depicted for dinosaurs began to differ markedly from those of modern reptiles. They were drawn with more slender bodies, and longer necks and limbs; some had spikes, horns and bony plates, uncommon in modern animals. However, because of their association with living reptiles, they were still considered slow, heavy, large, cold-blooded and relatively unintelligent. During this period, all bipedal dinosaurs were depicted in a characteristic kangaroo pose (Fig. 3A, B). As in the standing kangaroo, the tail of the reconstructed dinosaur was lowered to the ground and served as a third leg. During walking, it was dragged along the ground. The spine was almost vertical, which gave the profile a human-like character. Quadrupedal dinosaurs were also reconstructed dragging their tails along the ground (Fig. 3C–E). Some of these, such as sauropods, were illustrated living in swamps or lakes, submerging most of their body in water to help counteract its weight (Fig. 3E). Their necks were curved like those of swans, meaning that their heads were always above the water.

The most famous and influential artist of this era is the American Charles Robert Knight. Knight created illustrations of dinosaurs in the Impressionist style, under the influence of the palaeontologist Edward Drinker Cope. Other famous artists of this period are Rudolph Franz Zallinger, Zdeněk Burian, Gerhard Heilmann and Heinrech Harder.

The dinosaur renaissance:

Again, the discovery of new fossils led to the next step forward in the accuracy of dinosaur palaeoart. In 1969, palaeontologist John Ostrom described an unusual (for the time) theropod dinosaur called Deinonychus. It was thought to be relatively small (2.5–3.5 metres long), a bird-like, agile, fast predator with a relatively large brain (Fig. 4A). This finding, along with the discovery of dinosaur tracks showing running and herding behaviours, publications on the idea of warm-blooded (endothermic) dinosaurs and the realization that dinosaur tails were held upright, triggered the ‘dinosaur renaissance’, a dramatic change in how these animals were viewed. Since then, dinosaurs have been portrayed by some leading palaeoartists as dynamic, warm-blooded and often quick, with complex behaviours. Their spines were set roughly parallel to the ground, and they no longer dragged their tails (Fig. 4). Another significant change in the drawings and sculptures of dinosaurs was the presentation of sauropods as terrestrial animals (Fig. 4C). Skeletal drawings in the form created by Charles Knight in the 1940s and similar to what we see today — white bones on a black background representing the body profile during life — were popularized by Gregory Paul and Robert T. Bakker (Fig. 4D). It is during this time that the word paleoart was first used, by the US artist Mark Hallett. It quickly became widespread.

The work of palaeoartists became increasingly scientific and they put more emphasis on studying the anatomy of modern animals and the palaeobotany of the landscape. In addition, they developed ways to reconstruct anatomy with scientific accuracy, and worked more closely with palaeontologists. Some even started writing scientific articles themselves. At the same time, some palaeontologists began to pay more attention to palaeoart.

The dinosaur renaissance did start some negative trends, however, such as the reconstruction of dinosaurs with very small amounts of soft tissue (sometimes with every opening of the skull visible in the reconstructed living animal), as well as a focus on extreme violence and dynamic poses in the illustrations, so that viewers could get the impression that dinosaur life was a constant fight for survival.

Bakker, a US palaeontologist and palaeoartist, was a key figure in the dinosaur renaissance. He published influential books and articles with innovative illustrations (such as Fig. 4A) that inspired generations of scientists and illustrators. Bakker and Ostrom popularized the view, suggested by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley in 1867, that dinosaurs are very closely related to birds. The most influential artist of the dinosaur renaissance is Gregory Paul, author of books and articles about the reconstruction and life appearance of dinosaurs, as well as high-quality illustrations. The other key artists of the time include Hallett, Doug Henderson, Eleanor M. Kish, John McLoughlin, Peter Zallinger and John Gurche.

Post-renaissance dinosaur art:

In 1988, Paul’s book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World fuelled the idea of feathered dinosaurs in mainstream palaeoart (Paul, Bakker and Hallett had been depicting theropod dinosaurs with feathers as far back as the late 1970s). The presence of feathered dinosaurs was confirmed by fossil discoveries in Asia in the second half of the 1990s, including forms such as Sinosauropteryx (Fig. 5A) and Caudipteryx. This led palaeoartists to depict dinosaurs with feathers instead of reptilian scales (Fig. 5A, B), chiefly in those theropods that are most closely related to birds (coelurosaurs). Furthermore, drawings of sauropod heads started to place the nostrils lower and more forward than before (reflecting attempts to reconstruct the ancestral-reptile nostril configuration), and with larger amounts of covering soft tissue. Most sauropods were reconstructed with one-clawed hands (titanosaurs were drawn without claws) and ‘n’-shaped feet, based on studies of tracks. Diplodocus and its relatives (and sometimes other sauropods) were illustrated with a row of triangular dorsal spines, as suggested by discoveries of fossilized skin impressions. For several years at the end of the twentieth and start of the twenty-first centuries, sauropods were reconstructed with their necks parallel to the ground (Fig. 5C), and it was claimed that they could not raise their necks much higher (this was a result of a study of the bones in sauropod necks, and of digital modelling). Subsequently, debate over head and neck posture in sauropods was re-invigorated (based on the study of the postures of extant amniotes, that is reptiles, birds and mammals); it is still unresolved. This is reflected by the existence of palaeoart showing both types of reconstruction (Fig. 5C, D).

The study of melanosomes, pigment cells that gave feathers their colour during life, brought about further advances in the accuracy of palaeoart. This allowed, for the first time ever, reconstructions of feathered dinosaurs with potentially true feather colours (Fig. 5A; the first Mesozoic dinosaur reconstructed with real plumage colour was Anchiornis in 2010). However, a limitation of this approach comes from the fact that the melanosomes representing certain colours are fossilized in different ways, and we do not definitively know what impact fossilization processes have on the preservation of pigments.

Unfortunately, some negative trends stemming from the dinosaur renaissance were continued. The plumage recreated was often too thin, and in certain cases all muscle and bone outlines were still visible (Fig. 5B). The backgrounds to artworks were conservative, with mostly flat, stage-like plains as the foreground and other elements, such as volcanoes, only a background.

Some of the most important palaeoartists from this period included Luis V. Rey, Stephen Czerkas, Wayne Barlowe, Julius Csotonyi, Todd Marshall, Crawley Creatures group, Tyler Keillor and Raul Martin.

The soft-dinosaur revolution:

The latest movement in palaeoart began in the 2010s and was popularized by the release of the groundbreaking book All Yesterdays by John Conway, C. M. Kosemen and Darren Naish, with skeletal drawings by Scott Hartman. Followers of the ‘soft-dinosaur revolution’ produced reconstructions of extinct animals with realistic amounts of soft tissue. They noted that we often do not know from the skeleton alone whether a species of dinosaur could have had skin features such as dewlaps, wattles, soft crests or frills (for example, it has been suggested that the large nostrils of ceratopsians and hadrosaurs probably housed some sort of soft-tissue structures), or large deposits of fat, like humps. Drawing on this, modern palaeoartists often incorporate speculative aspects into their work.

The discovery of numerous fossils with preserved coverings of filaments or feathers (at the beginning of 2017, more than 40 feathered dinosaur species were known) has resulted in the bodies of all maniraptorans (a group of coelurosaurs closer related  to birds than to ornithomimids) being shown covered with dense feathers, as in birds (Fig. 6A). The longest feathers are on the legs and at the ends of the tail. More and more other dinosaurs are also now presented with feathers (Fig. 6C–E). However, there is currently limited information (i.e. through the use of phylogenetic bracketing to interpret the integument of dinosaurs) on how common feathers were among dinosaurs. Furthermore, we find dinosaurs such as Kulindadromeus (a small Jurassic neornithischian; Fig. 6D) with extinct forms of skin covering that we cannot compare to anything that exists today. Spikes, horns and plates are also shown in artworks, covered by structures make of keratin, the same material that makes up hair and feathers. To avoid duplicating the negative trends, mistakes, stereotypes and tropes of past eras, current palaeoartists often also show speculative, less well-known behaviours (Fig. 6B, C; such as playing or mating displays).

Opponents of this trend suggest that allowing more speculation can result in very unrealistic reconstructions. Moreover, it may be difficult for non-scientists to appreciate which aspects of palaeoart are firmly grounded in scientific evidence, and which are purely speculative, leading to misunderstandings of dinosaur biology.

Despite the field’s long history, the first official definition of palaeoart was not formulated until 2015. Modern palaeoartists are increasingly self-aware, open to new ideas and discussions about the reconstruction process. Many images of dinosaurs are now created using computer software. Today, there are many well-educated palaeoartists with a strong background in palaeontology and anatomy. Among them are John Conway, Mark Witton, Emily Willoughby, Scott Hartman, C. M. Kosemen and Davide Bonadonna.

Summary:

Our understanding of Mesozoic dinosaurs, and with it their artistic reconstructions, has gone through much change, from huge lizards through monster-like reptiles to more active, agile and bird-like animals. Major shifts in dinosaur palaeoart have also influenced the rest of palaeoart; for example, the dinosaur renaissance made artists prepare more dynamic reconstructions of other animal groups. Moreover, new findings and state-of-the-art research have increasingly shown that in the case of some dinosaurs, we are already very close to reality. Works of dinosaur palaeoart are not quite photos from time travel, but may be the closest we ever get to seeing Mesozoic dinosaurs.

Suggestions for further reading:

Bakker, T. The Dinosaur Heresies (William Morrow and Co, 1986). ISBN: 9780688042875.

Conway, J., Kosemen, C. M., Naish, D. & Hartman, S. All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals (Irregular Books, 2012). ISBN: 9781291177121.

Dean, D. R. Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs (Cambridge University Press, 1999). ISBN: 9780521420488.

Moore, R. Dinosaurs by the Decades: A Chronology of the Dinosaur in Science and Popular Culture (Greenwood, 2014). ISBN: 9780313393648.

Naish, D. Artistic depictions of dinosaurs have undergone two revolutions. Scientific American Tetrapod Zoology blog https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/artistic-depictions-of-dinosaurs-have-undergone-two-revolutions/ (2014).

Paul, G. S. Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. (Simon & Schuster, 1988). ISBN: 9780671619466.

Rudwick, M. J. Scenes From Deep Time: Early Pictorial Representations of the Prehistoric World. (University of Chicago Press, 1992). ISBN: 9780226731056.

Selznick, B. & Serlin, D. A. Buried history of paleontology. Cabinet Magazine Online 28 http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/selznick_serlin.php (2008).

¹Freelance palaeoartist, Kalisz, Poland, sgornicki@o2.pl

Introduction:

Natural history museums are not just exhibit space: a lot of scientific research is conducted behind the scenes. This is the nature of almost any museum. It is often not logistically or financially possible to exhibit every object, and not every fossil is suitable to go on display. The fossils that the public doesn’t see are still important for research, but this is a part of museum work that is often hidden from the public at large. I work at the Western Science Center in Hemet, California. Visitors have no access to our repository, and are often amazed when they learn that less than 5% of our palaeontology collections can currently be seen.

Through an upcoming exhibition and scientific workshop, we are endeavouring to use exhibit space and the Internet to break down barriers between the public and the scientific process. We will be devoting exhibition space to almost our entire mastodon collection (see Fig. 1), much of which would not be considered for display otherwise. We will also encourage scientists to interact with the public while doing research in the space, and then to share the information that they have gathered through social media, webcasts and other platforms. In this way, we’re hoping to give visitors a better idea of the scientific process and make them more scientifically informed and engaged.

Palaeontology and public outreach:

As a scientific field, there are certain outreach challenges unique to palaeontology. For better or for worse, most people’s idea of palaeontology is still influenced by the film Jurassic Park (1993) rather than recent publications; public opinions on the origins of life also do not always match what most scientists think, especially in more conservative areas; and in the public eye, a natural history museum is often seen as a place for children, not for adults. Smaller museums like the Western Science Center also have limited budgets. So how should museums with palaeontological collections use them effectively for public outreach?

We first tried this with a previous exhibition, Stepping Out of the Past, which focused on human evolution. It was developed with Mt. San Jacinto College in California, and from the beginning it used student interns to come up with ideas for, research and produce parts of the exhibition — directed by museum and college staff.

To open up this development to the public and to market the exhibition, we ran a behind-the-scenes blog, ‘Insert Exhibit Name Here’. Each intern wrote a blog post about their experience, and other posts were contributed by college faculty members and museum staff. This not only gave the students experience writing for public outreach, but also gave readers the opportunity to see the numerous steps that are needed to prepare an exhibition. It also resulted in several enlightening discussions that otherwise would not have happened — writers got to interact not only with the public, but also with scientists who were not previously familiar with our museum but had come across the blog (see Fig. 2).

Stepping Out of the Past had more visitors than average for our exhibitions. It closed in May, but ‘Insert Exhibit Name Here’ remains available and several of the interns continue to volunteer at the museum. Having seen demonstrable results with the methods used for Stepping Out of the Past, we’re now looking to apply these techniques to the process of research.

Valley of the Mastodons:

Our new exhibition, Valley of the Mastodons, presents a particular challenge, even given our experience with Stepping Out of the Past. The display focuses on an extinct species that looks similar to an animal with much larger name recognition: the mammoth.

The mastodon, Mammut americanum, is only distantly related to mammoths. The physical resemblances are mostly superficial: both were large mammals with tusks and trunks, like elephants but covered in fur. Mastodons were, in general, shorter and stockier than the Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi) that lived in North America, with a sloping skull and completely different teeth that indicate that they browsed on fruits and nuts (the name mastodon literally means ‘breast tooth’). Mammoths, on the other hand, are thought to have grazed on grasses. In public-outreach events, we have found that the simplest way to compare the species (and one that does not require us to take giant skull casts to every offsite event!) is to look at casts of individual teeth (see Fig. 3). Teeth are especially useful for us, considering that part of the goal of Valley of the Mastodons is to research the unusual size and shape of mastodon teeth from California.

It was a conscious choice to make mastodons a focus of the Western Science Center. Our mastodon collection is one of the largest in the Western United States, and the fossils simultaneously provide a huge research opportunity and a unique emotional connection for visitors (the title Valley of the Mastodons refers to the valley in which Hemet was built). The museum also uses ‘Max’, the largest mastodon ever found on the West Coast, as a mascot for public outreach, through a Twitter feed and a stuffed animal for events. Valley of the Mastodons is a natural extension of these efforts.

The exhibition will be bringing scientists from across North America to study the museum’s collection. We mean to bring these researchers and their work directly to the public in four ways:

1. Opening an in-floor case containing ‘Little Stevie’, one of the most complete mastodon skeletons found in our locality (see Fig. 4). Members of the public will be able to ask questions of the researchers as they measure the skeleton. This will be a massive undertaking — Little Stevie’s case has not been opened since the museum was established in 2006.

2. Inviting local students to listen to talks by the researchers before the exhibition opens. We are hoping to livestream these talks online.

3. Having the scientists present their early findings on each mastodon by writing them down on whiteboards, which will then be on display. This will allow visitors to see the observations long before any papers are actually published.

4. Disseminating this information through social media, blogs, discussions with the press and more. This part has already started: every Monday, the museum and the committed researchers post on Twitter using #MastodonMonday, and we are repurposing Insert Exhibit Name Here for this display as design starts to get under way.

Finally, we are also commissioning an art piece of some of the mastodons from palaeoartist Brian Engh. According to observations of the skull (see Fig. 5) and CT scans, it’s very likely that Max was injured in a fight with another mastodon. The art piece will display this prehistoric brawl as close to life size as possible. Once Valley of the Mastodons is over, it will be moved permanently to our main hall. Although this kind of artwork may take up a large amount of an exhibit’s space (and budget), it is hard to overstate the visual impact that two mastodons fighting can have on a visitor!

Through these various means, visitors will be able to speak to scientists directly, ask them questions and observe the research process in real time. At the same time, further scientific collaboration will be encouraged — only a few researchers study mastodons, and this is a rare opportunity for so many of them to be gathered under the same roof!

The results of this initiative are yet to be seen, but we are confident that Valley of the Mastodons will succeed in researching California mastodons and making that research available and digestible for the public (see Fig. 6).

Conclusion:

Public outreach is best done when meeting the public where they are, whether that’s behind a computer screen or in a museum’s exhibition space. Doing research directly in the public sphere gives visitors a chance to see portions of the scientific process otherwise unknown to them. Although not possible in every instance, allowing the public to glance behind the curtain of museum operations and research creates well-informed and often well-motivated citizens who are more likely to support the museum in future.

¹Western Science Center, 2345 Searl Parkway, Hemet, CA 92543
westernsciencecenter.org.

Introduction:

Dinosaurs fit perfectly into the role of movie monsters: many were enormous, or had distinctive characteristics such as spikes, horns, claws and big teeth. The fact that they aren’t found in the modern world (except for birds) excites the imagination, and films represent some of the few opportunities to see them as they may have looked when they were alive. It’s not surprising that the history of movies featuring dinosaurs goes back more than 100 years.

The cinematographic rise of the dinosaurs:

The first moving picture featuring dinosaurs was Prehistoric Peeps (1905), an adaptation of a cartoon with the same name. The film launched the popular trend of showing primitive humans and non-avian dinosaurs living alongside one another, even though the fossil record clearly shows that they were separated by many tens of millions of years. Next came The Prehistoric Man (1908), which tells the story of cavemen and dinosaur drawings coming to life. 1912 saw the debut of Gertie (Fig. 1), a funny female Brontosaurus (or Apatosaurus, as the species had been renamed in 1903), as part of a stage play. At this time, sauropods such as Brontosaurus were often shown living in water to compensate for their large mass, but Gertie was portrayed as an active land animal that behaved like a circus elephant. She was very popular: a short-film version of the stage show, Gertie the Dinosaur, a black-and-white short cartoon with live-action parts, was released in 1914.

A 1913 film, Brute Force (also known as Primitive Man), told the history of an arms race between hostile cavemen groups, and used dinosaurs only as background, but it pioneered dinosaur special effects with a moving life-size model of a Ceratosaurus. It was also probably the first film to use modern reptiles disguised as prehistoric animals. The technique later became common: it turned up in many movies, such as One Million B.C. (1940), Two Lost Worlds (1950) and The Lost World (1960).

Rediscovered worlds:

The first full-length movie to feature dinosaurs is a cinema classic: The Lost World (1925). Based on the 1912 book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it tells of dinosaurs that survived the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, and lived unnoticed into modern times in a far-flung corner of South America. Sculptor Marcel Delgado made dinosaur models for the film based on the work of a leading palaeoartist of the time, Charles Robert Knight. Stop-motion pioneer Willis O’Brien brought these extinct animals back to life using animation.

Based on our current understanding of dinosaur palaeobiology, it is clear that the film contained many scientific errors: all the dinosaurs dragged their tails along the ground (Fig. 2A,B); two-legged dinosaurs were depicted in a kangaroo-like pose, with the tail functioning as a third leg (Fig. 2A); and Brontosaurus was shown to have a flexible neck. However, the reconstructions of dinosaurs were accurate according to the science of the time. In fact, in terms of their behaviour, the dinosaurs from the first adaptation of The Lost World were ahead of their time. Dinosaurs had previously been considered slow, lumbering, cold-blooded animals. But in The Lost World (1925), they were presented as active and agile, and brontosaurs lived on land, as part of a herd. The film did also inspire a few modern clichés: for example, it shows a dinosaur terrorizing a present-day city.

Equally realistic dinosaurs appeared in King Kong (1933), again thanks to the duo of Delgado and O’Brien. The film does include some eye-catching errors, though, including a Tyrannosaurus rex with three fingers rather than two (a mistake that was intentionally repeated in the remake of King Kong in 2005) and a Brontosaurus — in life, a plant-eater — shown with deadly jaws.

The first colour film with dinosaurs was Unknown Island (1948), an alternative film with low-budget special effects. This particularly shows in the reconstructions of the dinosaurs, which were played by people in costumes. This type of costume acting was possible because theropods such as T. rex were thought at the time to have human-like body postures. (We now know that this isn’t true, but Jurassic Park (1993) still used this technique in a few shots). Subsequent monster movies with theropod-like creatures include The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Godzilla (1954) and Gorgo (1961). The storylines of all these films are much the same: a giant prehistoric creature (larger than most dinosaurs) awakes and begins to destroy a city, killings hundreds of people. The creature is endowed with incredible strength and resistance (including against weapons).

One Million Years B.C. (1966) was revolutionary in terms of its special effects. This was chiefly due to the extraordinary talent of the stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen. The film shows tribes of cavemen living alongside dinosaurs, gigantic spiders, lizards and other hominoids. It also mixes dinosaurs from different geological periods, with, for example, fights between the Jurassic-age Ceratosaurus and the Cretaceous-age Triceratops (Fig. 3).

In 1969, John Ostrom published a description of a rather unusual dinosaur (for that time) called Deinonychus. This led to the ‘dinosaur renaissance’, which ushered in a radical change in the perception of dinosaurs among palaeontologists, who started to think of them as active, intelligent animals. However, the dinosaur renaissance was not reflected in films for decades. In the same year that Ostrom described Deinonychus, the Harryhauen-animated The Valley of Gwangi, hit the big screen. It focuses on a large theropod named Gwangi, which survives until the Wild West era, when it is found separated from the rest of the world in an unknown valley. Gwangi closely resembles previous visualizations of Tyrannosaurus. Harryhausen called it an Allosaurus or Tyrannosaurus, noting size as the only difference between these two genera; however, palaeontologists now know that there are many more differences such as the morphology of the skull and forelimbs. Also featuring in the film are Styracosaurus, Ornithomimus, Pteranodon and Eohippus, but there is no logical explanation for how they managed to co-exist.

Dinosaurs also appear in a similar production called Planet of Dinosaurs (1977). This movie is distinguished from previous ones by the concept of people interfering in the world of dinosaurs. In an indeterminate future, the crew of a spaceship crash-lands on a planet very similar to Earth, but millions of years behind in its evolution of life. In fact, it is very unlikely that species identical to Earth’s dinosaurs would evolve on another planet, even one very similar to Earth (lots of events leading to the era of the dinosaurs would have to occur in the same way as on Earth). More than a decade later, the animated adventure drama The Land Before Time (1988) also featured ‘pre-renaissance’ dinosaur restorations, including a young Brontosaurus named Littlefoot as the main character.

Digital dinosaurs:

Jurassic Park (1993) was groundbreaking, particularly in terms of its special effects, which included animatronic models and computer animation. It was also revolutionary in the way the dinosaurs were portrayed. The film presented ‘renaissance’ dinosaurs to a wide audience for the first time. The animals are fast, display complex behaviors and feature state-of-the-art anatomical reconstructions such as spines set in the correct position parallel to the ground, and they no longer drag their tails along the ground (Fig. 4A,B). The film also provides information about the close relationship of dinosaurs with the birds. On the other hand, dinosaurs in the park are often shown as more bloodthirsty and aggressive than was likely. What is more, because of its cultural impact, the film popularized many fundamental errors, including: Tyrannosaurus with a visual system based on movement (Fig. 4C); a large and intelligent Velociraptor with a Deinonychus-like appearance (Fig. 4B); a small Dilophosaurus with fictional neck frill and the ability to spit venom; and a sneezing Brachiosaurus that chewed its food and stood up on its hind legs. The park was created in a much shorter period of time than that necessary for the real dinosaurs to develop into adults. The movie also presented new concepts of bringing dinosaurs back to life through the help of genetic engineering (although the process outlined in the film is now widely recognized as scientifically impossible). Jurassic Park is an adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel of the same name, and many ideas, including some of those mentioned above, were copied from the book.

A year after the discovery of a feathered Sinosauropteryx, a sequel to Jurassic Park appeared: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997; based on Michael Crichton’s novel The Lost World). Despite recent discoveries, this continued to show images of dinosaurs similar to those from the previous film. An educational plus of the film is that the Tyrannosaurus is portrayed taking care of its offspring. The minuses include Procompsognathus attacking large animals (humans) and Pachycephalosaurus that are much too small (Fig. 4D).

Riding on the new wave of computer-generated dinosaurs came the Disney-produced Dinosaur (2000), a children’s film with ‘renaissance’ dinosaurs. Disney’s dinosaurs are largely anatomically correct. Despite this, the picture showed the co-existence of lemurs and dinosaurs, which originally came from very different periods of time and geographical locations. And the main antagonist, Carnotaurus, is shown as about the size of T. rex, but was in reality much smaller.

The signs and impact of the discovery of feathered dinosaurs can first be seen in Jurassic Park III (2001). The Velociraptor gets a new, more colorful design (Fig. 4E), with differences between the sexes and isolated proto-feathers. The film also presents the world’s new largest carnivorous dinosaur, Spinosaurus (Fig. 4F). Spinosaurus, despite being initially described in 1915, had been largely forgotten because of the destruction of the only known, sparse remains during the Second World War. Discoveries made several years after the premiere of the film confirmed that Spinosaurus reached record sizes, but, in contrast to what Jurassic Park III shows, Spinosaurus may have had a semiaquatic lifestyle and mainly eaten fish. In the same year, another screen adaptation of The Lost World (2001) also appeared. Although the book by Arthur Conan Doyle has had a lot of film adaptations, this one is the most faithful to the book. Furthermore, it has the most correctly portrayed dinosaurs. The reconstructions were created by the same team that made the documentary Walking with Dinosaurs (1999).

Only a few films present feathered dinosaurs on the big screen, such as Dinosaur Island (2014). What’s more, the latest continuation of the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic Word (2015), is a step backwards in terms of scientific accuracy. Not only has the appearance of the dinosaurs not been upgraded in line with current scientific understanding, but some dinosaurs are not as accurately represented as in the previous films (these include Velociraptor and Stegosaurus).

Summary:

Filmmakers are sometimes guilty of misrepresenting or misusing scientific facts to produce the best story. Indeed, many modern movies are largely unconcerned about the scientifically accurate visualization of dinosaurs. Before the dinosaur ‘renaissance’, filmmakers’ visions were often ahead of current scientific views, particularly in terms of reconstructions of dinosaur behaviour. However, the impact of the renaissance was not seen in cinemas until two decades after it emerged in the scientific world. In recent years, only a few films have presented feathered, bird-like dinosaurs. Most stay with their traditional depictions. Fortunately, there is an alternative opportunity to see these extinct animals in motion, in the form of television documentaries such as Planet Dinosaur (2011), Walking with Dinosaurs (1999) and When Dinosaurs Roamed America (2001).

Suggestions for viewing:

Dinosaurs Movies (1993) Director: Donald F. Glut.

Movie Magic : DINOMANIA (1996) Glacier Point Production & The Discovery Channel.

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) Director: Winsor McCay.

The Lost World (1925) Director: Harry Hoyt.

King Kong (1933) Director: Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack.

Jurassic Park (1993) Director: Steven Spielberg.

¹Freelance palaeoartist, Kalisz, Poland. Email: sgornicki@o2.pl

Introduction:

Scientific research is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, drawing together experts from a range of fields to generate knowledge and address major problems. This is particularly true for palaeontology, which stands at the intersection of a wide array of disciplines including geology, biology, chemistry, materials science, statistics and biomechanics. Although scientific innovation is principally driven by trained scientists, research opportunities often present themselves to others — in palaeontology, this can tie into the strong public interest in famous extinct animals such as dinosaurs and mammoths. Indeed, palaeontology has an extensive history of important contributions by people without formal training, from Mary Anning’s sensational fossil finds in the early nineteenth century, to a recent news story about a young boy from Prince Edward Island in Canada discovering a missing link in early reptile evolution. Harnessing the potential of students and amateurs for palaeontological research is crucial to ensuring growth in our discipline, and is important for those of us who are keen on developing better relationships between academia and the public.

Modern palaeontology is at the crossroads of interdisciplinary studies, and people in the different fields must communicate effectively for research to work well. A popular and successful way to manage interdisciplinary projects is the Agile method. This involves splitting large projects into smaller, more manageable, short-term components, and regularly checking in on what the project goal is, whether it has changed and how previous work has addressed that goal. Agile project management is ideally suited to academic research, where the end point is often loosely defined, and goals often change within the boundaries of the research initiative. We hope to demonstrate that the Agile method is also appropriate for student and non-specialist initiatives, especially in interdisciplinary fields such as palaeontology.

We are using the Agile method in our research and teaching laboratories at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Canada. We believe that research driven by students and non-specialists is an important part of hands-on active learning, where it helps to develop critical-thinking skills and teaches people to apply their knowledge to challenges in the wider world. In the rest of this article, we showcase student-driven initiatives that show how the Agile method is useful in palaeontology.

Importance of independent research for students and non-specialists:

Hands-on experience is a fundamental aspect of palaeontology. Getting involved in research  has repeatedly been shown to foster lifelong learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), resulting in a more scientifically literate society. According to the final report of the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, exposure to practical research initiatives promotes critical-thinking skills and retention of scientific information. Research projects teach people to work independently both in and outside the discipline, because they require effective time and project management. Researchers must develop and sustain their own initiative, responsibility and accountability, individually and in groups, and must be effective at decision-making and problem-solving. Research initiatives for students and non-specialists help to build an appreciation for uncertainty, ambiguity and the limits to knowledge. They show how personal experiences and biases can affect analyses and interpretations, helping members of the public to weigh in on scientific debate.

Traditional research initiatives promote independence and learning in isolation. However, working alone is now unusual, as stronger links are growing between disciplines. Interdisciplinary education is becoming ever more prominent in STEM, but every discipline speaks its own language, which can make effective communication challenging.

Interdisciplinary research therefore requires tools that help people to communicate and keep the project going across all groups, while allowing enough flexibility to help participants to get over difficulties. Project-management professionals are taught these techniques; however, such skills are not often taught in modern science. The Agile method focuses on breaking up a daunting research project (see the storyboard in Fig. 1) into a series of small, manageable tasks (called stories). A key part of this method is the ability to quickly and effectively adapt to changing project requirements. These principles are ideally suited to large research projects with multiple investigators, and they let members with different levels of experience interact effectively and continuously. Continual reflection on aims and work done so far by every team member reduces the tendency to be discouraged by the amount of work required to complete the project. The approach also keeps people from being trapped in a research direction that may not prove useful.

The storyboard acts as a daily log of research progress, and allows all members of the research team to contribute and to respond to changes in project direction. Like a comic book, a project storyboard consists of several stories that each occupy a single panel. It maps out the daily sequence of tasks that are necessary to achieve the overall research goal. Stories describe specific project tasks, which each have components that can be completed in a day.

Taking the study of a new fossil as an example, the storyboard would map out the steps to produce the diagnosis, description and comparison that typically accompany a formal scientific description of a fossil. Each of these tasks would be an independent story. Each story is accompanied by a title simple enough for all members of the research team, from primary investigators to students and non-specialists, to understand. In our example, our first story would be “taxonomic literature”, which would consist of producing a list of important papers needed to describe the fossil. On a daily basis, the person assigned the task would create an annotated bibliography from every article read, and generate a short synopsis. The next story would involve gathering the relevant information from the literature search, for instance, producing known size ranges of previously studied specimens, or identifying key characters of the fossil that are important in designating species. This allows the new material to be effectively compared, and brings the entire team onto the same page. Daily assessment of the work places tangible boundaries on what data should be targeted next, from size ranges to the presence or absence of key characters. Future stories could involve illustrating the fossil material, analysing the data collected, or eventually describing each section in the systematic palaeontology. Each of these daily goals would be free to move and evolve as new data is collected, or as project goals are completed.

From a practical perspective, the Agile method limits project design to short-term tasks. No aspects of the final product are designed until it is certain that they are necessary. In this way, only the highest-priority tasks are addressed. Similarly, if it turns out that certain tasks are not essential, they can be rejected with little or no time having been spent on them unnecessarily. This approach is called a ‘lean’ development method. Ideally, research teams should meet every day for a quick review. Projects with interdisciplinary teams benefit most from this approach, because the simplicity of the daily project titles, combined with the visual simplicity of the storyboard, allows workers from all disciplines to understand the overall project goals and continue to contribute at all stages rather than limiting their input to specialized topics. Ultimately, the Agile method integrates all members of the research team, while splitting progress into manageable components in which all members remain engaged. The interested reader is encouraged to consult our suggestions for further reading at the end of this article for more details.

Advanced Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory (AIRLab) initiative:

We are currently setting up a team-based interdisciplinary undergraduate palaeontology project. Our students will be taught, and given the opportunity to use, Agile project management. We will begin by explaining the concept behind AIRLab, and then describe a specific student-driven project.

AIRLab is an upper-level student-driven project similar to an undergraduate research thesis, but it emphasizes team-based learning within a large project. A team of students, non-specialists and faculty members is assembled, ideally people with different, yet complementary specialities. The team is given a broad research challenge, and participants have complete freedom to select research directions and define their storyboard. Each week, the student team meets with supervisors, who act as sounding boards to help the team to consider all options, ultimately helping them to stay on the path to the final goal. Students manage and maintain their ever-changing storyboard, which records all project-related decisions, directions and outcomes. Students gain a sense of accomplishment as stories progress, and become aware of the speed at which they can complete stories. This will help them to estimate the time required to achieve important project milestones, and ultimately to complete the project.

As part of a future AIRLab palaeontology project, our research challenge (storyboard) will be to design and build economical, reproducible and functional chambers to investigate tissue decay under varying oxygen levels. These chambers must be equipped with instruments to gather precise data on changing chemical conditions as a result of decay. This project leads directly into investigations of the biases that influence exceptional fossil deposits — that is, sites that preserve soft-bodied organisms, rather than the typical fossil assemblages of bones, teeth and shells. These exceptional fossil sites, called Lagerstätte (see articles on Palaeontology Online by Jonathan Antcliffe (Ediacara biota; Fig. 2A) and Victoria McCoy; (Mazon Creek; Fig. 2C), are exceedingly rare. Lagerstätten such as the Burgess Shale in Canada (Fig. 2B) and Mazon Creek in Illinois (Fig. 2C) represent the richest source of anatomical information for extinct species and offer more complete views of diversity patterns in deep time than more typical sites. Interdisciplinary studies that examine the physical, chemical and biological factors that control the timing and process of fossil preservation (taphonomy) are a necessary first step in correctly identifying any trends in the fossil record. At first glance, building such instruments is daunting. However, with appropriate guidance and strict adherence to the Agile method, the student team will quickly learn to dissect the project into manageable components and assemble a storyboard. Once the instruments are constructed, tested and approved, decay can be monitored in real time and our studies of fossilization can begin.

Evaluating progress:

In research, the evaluation of progress is usually straightforward. The typical research goal will be a paper suitable for publication in a scientific journal; however, the scope and success of the project will dictate the output. As data is gathered, evaluated, interpreted and discussed, research directions will change and progress will involve active data-gathering. A successful storyboard will form the backbone of the manuscript, highlighting productive research avenues and outlining the steps towards successful completion. Each section of the manuscript will be laid out comprehensively, and each member of the team will be fully aware of every step taken. This alone will make most research projects easier and quicker.

Evaluating progress in education is more daunting. AIRLab emphasizes self-evaluation of personal growth and personal limits to knowledge. Project participants are asked to reflect and report on the following two questions in each regular review meeting:

• What is the goal of the project?
• What have I done to support the progress of the team?

This is particularly important in projects for which effective teamwork is required. Based on their ability to address these questions in each project meeting and the number of completed stories they have contributed to, the student can be given a grade that accurately reflects their contribution.

Concluding remarks:

As faculty members, we are often approached by students and amateurs about getting involved with research. For most, this is their first attempt at conducting research, so proper project design and management is often more important than the actual scientific question. We hope that we have showcased the benefits of strong project design and management using the Agile method. We think it is efficient and comprehensive, and we believe that it is ideally suited to interdisciplinary research in palaeontology. We have personally witnessed the benefits of incorporating research into an undergraduate education, and we have no doubt that society at large benefits when members of the public have experienced research initiatives first-hand.

Suggestions for further reading:

Field, M., Lee, R. & Field, M. L. 1994. Assessing Interdisciplinary Learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 58, 69–84. doi:10.1002/tl.37219945806

Kenny, R. W. 1998. The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University. Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. OCLC:39120079

Kockelmans, J. J. 1979. Why Interdisciplinary? In: Interdisciplinarity and Higher Education, Kockelmans, J. J. (ed.), pp. 123–160. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN:9780271002002

Kuh, G. D. & Schneider, C. G. 2008. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter. Association of American Colleges and Universities. ISBN:9780979618147

Committee on Undergraduate Biology Education to Prepare Research Scientists for the 21st Century, National Research Council. 2003. BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. The National Academies Press. ISBN:9781280183195

Newell, W. H. 1992. Academic disciplines and undergraduate interdisciplinary education: Lessons from the school of interdisciplinary studies at Miami University. European Journal of Education 27, 211–221. doi:10.2307/1503450

Newell, W. H. 1990. Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development. Issues in Integrative Studies 8, 69–86. Link

Seymour, E., Hunter, A.-B., Laursen, S. L. & DeAntoni, T. 2004. Establishing the benefits of research experiences for undergraduates in the sciences: first findings from a three-year study. Science Education 88, 493–534. doi:10.1002/sce.10131

¹Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.