Intro
There is a wealth of information out on the internet about all the various species of dinosaur but here is the information from the kit info sheet from 1981 (so some of this will definitely be out of date) along with a couple of bits of artwork from t'internet.
Perhaps the best know of all the plated, or armoured, dinosaurs was this creature that lived during the late Jurassic period some 195-136 million years ago. With a length of six metres and a weight of about two tons, this peaceful vegetarian is believed to have lived in the swampy areas of the world, feeding upon soft plants that grew in humid and hot climates.
It had an extremely small head compared with the size of its body, and its brain was about the size of a small walnut. It's now believed that this brain only worked the jaws and warned when food or danger was near. It had a small birdlike beak and chewed its food with small, deepset teeth. To facilitate movement, it had two additional brains, or nerve systems, which moved the legs and swung the tail in a danger situation.
Due to the closeness of the bones in the tail it is felt that the Stegosaurus could only make short protective movements with its spike studded tail, rather than swing it around freely for safety from other carnivores.
The twin rows of bony plates are throught to have been for protection of its spinal column and in the Stegosaurus Stenops were not symmetrical in arrangement. The stegosaur family also inclues the Kentrosaurus which had the armoured plates of the lumbar and tail replaced with spikes, and the Scelidosaurus, the first of the Stegosaurs which appeared during the beginning of the Jurassic period.
On a personal note, I've been fascinated by dinosaurs for as long as I can remember and still have several reference books on the subject - Stegosaurus has remained one of my favourites. One of the fascinations to me is the way that this is a constantly evolving subject as more and more evidence comes to light and new theories are put forward.
Here are just a few examples of where my own understanding of the Stegosaurus have changed from my original encounter with this fascinating animal...
Perhaps the best know of all the plated, or armoured, dinosaurs was this creature that lived during the late Jurassic period some 195-136 million years ago. With a length of six metres and a weight of about two tons, this peaceful vegetarian is believed to have lived in the swampy areas of the world, feeding upon soft plants that grew in humid and hot climates.
It had an extremely small head compared with the size of its body, and its brain was about the size of a small walnut. It's now believed that this brain only worked the jaws and warned when food or danger was near. It had a small birdlike beak and chewed its food with small, deepset teeth. To facilitate movement, it had two additional brains, or nerve systems, which moved the legs and swung the tail in a danger situation.
Due to the closeness of the bones in the tail it is felt that the Stegosaurus could only make short protective movements with its spike studded tail, rather than swing it around freely for safety from other carnivores.
The twin rows of bony plates are throught to have been for protection of its spinal column and in the Stegosaurus Stenops were not symmetrical in arrangement. The stegosaur family also inclues the Kentrosaurus which had the armoured plates of the lumbar and tail replaced with spikes, and the Scelidosaurus, the first of the Stegosaurs which appeared during the beginning of the Jurassic period.
On a personal note, I've been fascinated by dinosaurs for as long as I can remember and still have several reference books on the subject - Stegosaurus has remained one of my favourites. One of the fascinations to me is the way that this is a constantly evolving subject as more and more evidence comes to light and new theories are put forward.
Here are just a few examples of where my own understanding of the Stegosaurus have changed from my original encounter with this fascinating animal...
- Age: Regarding dinosaurs in general, when I was a youngster I just thought that all dinosaurs existed alongside each other... nope, unlike a certain series of movies which actually features mainly Cretaceous subjects, Steggy here really was a Jurassic dinosaur and the time interval between their extinction and the arrival of the T-Rex was wider than the time interval between T-rex and today.
- Brains: As mentioned in the above text there was a theory at one point that Steggy had at least two brains; one small one in the head and a larger one around the hips that controlled the back-end based on the discovery of a large canal in the spinal cord. Current thinking is that this is more likely to be similar to the glycogen body in modern birds and provides compounds to the nervous system.
- Plates: There have been several theories around the spinal plates in terms of both their layout and function. As mentioned in the text above the evidence now shows that the plates are arranged in two staggered rows, whereas earlier thinking was that they were in two symmetrical rows (or even in a single row). With regards to the function of the plates there are still a few theories including defence, thermoregulation and display.
- Thagomizer: Finally this is possibly my favourite Steggy factiod... the spiked tail had no formal name until Gary Larson published this cartoon in 1982, from which time the term Thagomizer has been generally accepted
Kit
Onto the kit and being from 1981 this is showing its age...
A double-sided sheet with info on one side and instructions on the other
And the parts... not a lot here
Although I don't think the build will pose many problems the challenge will be to produce something as lifelike as possible so there will likely be a lot of filling, sanding & sculpting before it gets hit with paint...
A double-sided sheet with info on one side and instructions on the other
And the parts... not a lot here
Although I don't think the build will pose many problems the challenge will be to produce something as lifelike as possible so there will likely be a lot of filling, sanding & sculpting before it gets hit with paint...
