my first (and maybe last) debriefing...

this was turning out to be the biggest day of my life... at least as far as weird things happening to me all at once was concerned! which is saying something, as they seem to happen to me all the time!!!

i'd solved a major fossil poaching case, been captured by the poachers, witnessed not one but two major battles for stolen fossil eggs, in the end been rescued by my former roommate, and learned that not only he but also my legal guardian are both members of a top secret scientific organization!

as if that list weren't big enough, now i had the head honcho of said secret organization, palaeo-central, wanting to speak with me. this was, of course, the very intense professor paradigm. a man who last time i'd seen had promised for something terrible to happen to me if he caught me meddling in this poaching affair... so i wasn't exactly excited about the talk we were about to have.

i nearly jumped out of my skin when he asked me his first question. i was expecting him to scream at me. instead he calmly asked "you weren't harmed were you?" he seemed to ask it out of concern and almost sympathy (not something i'd expect from paradigm).

"no," i answered in a half lie. though my wrists were rope burned and i had a big bump on the back of my skull from the kick, but overall i'd been worse.

"good," paradigm actually sounded genuinely happy to hear. which was odd, i'd always gotten the impression he didn't like me. "now tell me traumador," he prompted. oh great i thought, here it comes! "how did you figure out this was where the poachers were digging?"

i was confused as he didn't sound mad or anything... that and as it was an opening to show off how clever i'd been (i so rarely pull off clever things due to the small brain and all) i proudly explained how i'd collected micro fossils from around all the poached quarrys, had gotten help studying them, and of my big geology break through in the museum's collections...

after i concluded my tale there was an awkward silence. i was ready for paradigm to explode at hearing the depth of my meddling. instead he finally just answered. "impressive," if i didn't know any better i'd guess he was, well, impressed.

the silence returned, and this time it wasn't going to end unless one of us started a new tangent. i figured i was safe from him getting mad now, as paradigm had had plenty of opportunity to yell at me by this point.

"what is palaeo-central exactly?" i asked... which was probably a little bold on my part, but hey what did i have to lose at this point?

paradigm shifted slightly, as though to assess whether i was worth of the answer or not. apparently i made the cut as he instructed. "walk with me."

paradigm started hiking away from the poaching site and back towards the highway, and as he'd asked me too follow i walked along side him. "before i tell you any of this, you must swear to complete secrecy everything i tell you."

"sure," i promised, though its not like palaeo-central is the best kept secret out there...

"we are everything, and yet nothing, that the rumours claim us to be," paradigm explained... or at least i think he was explaining? everything and nothing, he was losing me with the first sentence. oh well, at least it wasn't the first time this had ever happened to me.

paradigm seemed to pick up my confusion, yet he hadn't looked at me, he just seemed to know what he'd said went over my head. it was weirdly familiar somehow.

he started over talking at my level. "palaeo-central in a nutshell is the protective agency watching over all aspects of the science of palaeontology. this mostly centres around fossils," he paused to ensure i was keeping up. "this includes who can and should be collecting fossils, what are they being used for, and most important ensuring they are being used to increase and better humanities collective knowledge of the past." okay this i'd already heard. "our mandate extends beyond fossils though. we deal with the human side of fossils too, including scientists and researchers, traders, collectors, companies, religious groups, and even governments on occasion."

"so you guys are like the james bonds of science?" i asked, as i pictured paradigm pulling out rocket packs for us to ride back to the museum.

paradigm made a strange noise through his re-breather. had it not be so short i would have thought it was a chuckle, but if it was it lasted less then a second. "well, that is what our enemies are meant to think. despite our reputation, palaeo-central is not all seeing, or comprised of an army."

this was a bit of a surprise. after all the hoopla everyone had been making about palaeo-central i had envisioned it as being a huge operation like in the movies. "no, we are rather a loosely organized network of specialists and operatives scattered throughout the world's palaeontologic institutions, who while working a normal job in the field, carry out the secret mandate of safe guarding fossils from the 'dangers' of the greater world."

"huh?" i dumbly said out loud. it wasn't that i complete didn't understand the professor. what did he mean by specialists and operatives?

paradigm once again seemed to know what had confused me, which was getting eerie, and he clarified. "palaeo-central agents aren't really secret agents like james bond, traumador. i recruit people who are already in key positions in the palaeontologic community. scientists, students, technicians, administrators, collections managers, even tour guides!"

tour guides... that explained dan and craig. dan was a physicist, but had been tour guiding at the tyrrell on the side for years. craig, well he'd always been a tour guide until he'd suddenly taken off to new zealand (though he'd been acting weird just before i was fired from the tyrrell 3 years ago).

"why go to all that trouble?" i asked. "i mean, if fossils are in that much trouble, why not just organize the whole science against the 'threats' it faces."

"i always wondered the same thing when i started as a scientist," paradigm reflected. "sadly academics and scientists aren't the easiest to unify on anything. that alone on enemies that might or might effect them individually. getting the whole science to coordinate a united defense across the different personalities, ideals, politics, and countries we all are divided by is all but impossible. believe me i tried."

"so palaeo-central was the solution," i guessed.

"preciously!" paradigm seemed to approve of my keeping up. "for well over a year i campaigned the worldwide central authority of palaeontology, the international palaeontological committee, to recognize the potential threats facing the science. i fell on deaf ears until 1970, when several high scale incidents struck just as i'd predicted. as of that year my proposal finally had received approval, and i was put in charge of a special task force under the supervision and control of the committee to spearhead a defensive effort. you know it today as palaeo-central."

"wow," i said out loud to a key realization i'd had listening to that. it wasn't about palaeo-central or how it was a branch of palaeontology's focal organization (everyone in the science world knows the international palaeontological committee), but rather paradigm's age! if i followed him correctly, 1970 was an early point in his career... i'm no expert at maths, but paradigm sure looks good for a man his age!

then something suddenly occurred to me in my tiny brain... "hold up, what did megan sauer and jo harvager have to do with the pack of the primordial feather?" i thought out loud.

paradigm stopped dead in his tracks and looked at my intensely. "what are you babbling about?"

i quickly explained how i'd gotten involved in the poaching case as i thought it was what the pack had been up to around the tyrrell. paradigm was baffled by this connection, but not by the pack being up to something fishy. before he could elaborate on his knowledge, my big day got a whole lot bigger!

the thing is had i checked my email earlier that day i'd have known better then to go outside!...

for i'd gotten a dire warning from my mysterious contact in the pack, ruffled feather, who had tried to alert me to the about to unfold situation.

Traumador,

You are in serious danger! Get out of Drumheller now!

We underestimated how important the crate is to the Pack. They've responded to your escaping the Crimson Talons by bringing in an even more dangerous player. Jaden Spectre

Pull out of Drumheller to where ever. We'll regroup and reconsider our actions against the pack later, but you have to get out now! Your life depends on it!!!

Ruffled Feather

i really wish i'd gotten this email...

for just as paradigm was about to reveal what he knew about the pack's drumheller activities, i could have sworn i smelt another human nearby (stupid wind direction!)... if only my hearing was as ubber keen as my sense of smell. i'd have heard the man who was literally stalking me and the professor.

just as i was about to state my concern over the smell, i suddenly was seized from behind by my chest. at the same moment the professor suddenly found himself being punched in the head. despite the complete surprise, paradigm instinctively dodged part of the blow...

this however threw him slightly off balance and our attacker seized the opportunity and slammed his elbow into paradigm's exposed back. before i could struggle i was suddenly overwhelmed by a painful hold applied to a pressure point on my abdomen i didn't even know i had... it really hurt! i couldn't move from my tummy up...

"it's been a while alvar," our assailant addressed paradigm by his first name.

"spectre!?!" the professor loudly proclaimed in surprised response. "what in extinction's name..."

"i've just come to study this specimen," this spectre guy replied, holding me up painfully by my throat. "i hope you don't mind too much that i borrow him from you."

to be continued...

ruffled feather

i thought this trip back to drumheller was supposed to be fun!?!

over the last little while it has taken a few dark dark turns... whether it be someone stealing fossils, a break into the tyrrell museum's collections, coming under attack by a pack of raptors, and getting in trouble from professor paradigm... the fun of the trip has departed.

just when things couldn't seem to get any crazier, today as i was checking my eee-mail i got the most puzzling (and worrying) instant message.

instantly i knew it could only mean trouble, because whoever was trying to talk to me had this symbol as their icon... this was the seal of the pack of the primordial feather, the very same group of dinosaurs who'd just tried to kill by velociraptor (and several other species of raptor)!!!
`
before i could react and close the window, thinking the pack was simply trying to cyber stalk me, suddenly the window chirped as whoever was on the other end sent me a message.

Traumador the Tyrannosaur, your current actions have put you in grave danger!

`

`

`

`

thank you captain obvious of the noticing things league!

`

uh thanks for the heads up, but i kinda noticed when you sent the crimson talons to come and kill me!

`

`

`

these were pretty sad scare tactics i thought. maybe the pack should just stick to sending killer theropods to try and get me.

`

The pack hasn't gotten started yet, I assure you. Unless you hurry up in your efforts to hinder the Pack of the Primordial Feather's current plans they'll send a lot more than the Crimson Talons!

`

I offer you information that could help.

`

right "information", which would what, led me into a new trap.

sure you do... do you really think i'm THAT stupid!

who is this exactly?!?

`

actually it doesn't matter.

`

just tell my cousin to leave me alone, and that you should quit you're little operation in drumheller. i know what you're doing, and if you don't stop i'm going to make sure professor paradigm and palaeo-central shuts it down!

okay so that last part was a lie. paradigm had in fact told me if i didn't leave the whole pack and poached fossil thing alone he'd personally see to it that something bad happened to me (my guess was the theropod killing lance the lambeosaur and sternberg styracosaur would be involved).

`

i however was not wanting to give the impression i was on my own, and thus weak. otherwise the crimson talons might try another jurassic park re-enactment on me.

Of course I know, that you know! Why else would I contact you?!?

It is all the pack's matriarchs can talk about at moment. You have the pack worried, and it is about time someone did!

As for who I am, that is not important.

`

Let us just say you have friends inside the pack. Not all of us willingly joined. However most do not have your bravery when it came to saying no to the offer.

`

You just saw the other day what can happen to those who oppose the pack's will... Yet you have faced it and prevailed. I was beginning to wonder if you were worthy of seeking out.

this sounded to good to be true.

if this is true then i'd very much like to know who you are!

`

i'm not risking another pack trap...


I can understand you're concern, but understand mine. If I am discovered, I am dead. The royals would execute me on the spot!

`

You have become a very taboo subject within the pack. Anyone caught even sympathizing with you, that alone directly helping you, is getting harshly disciplined!

So you will either have to trust me based on what I have just told you, or be on your own!

`

i almost felt bad about being so distrusting, considering the risks this dinosaur was taking in trying to help me. that is if they were being truthful.

`

it was just as easy to make up a story like this and try and lull me into a false sense of security.

`

alright let's say i buy this story of yours for now.

what can i at least call you?


`

i still wanted something to identify this dinosaur as.

For now you can call me Ruffled Feather.






alright ruffled feather.

why are you helping me, and not say paradigm?



You and I have a united enemy, that Paradigm does not share. The Primordials are very much an equal threat to both of our freedoms. Something the Professor will never have to worry about.

Besides the "good" doctor has a reputation, you may have encountered, of having as self serving of motives as the Pack's.

I can't trust him to act against the pack in a way that benefits me (and by extension you) as much as another coelurosaur. As one of the only successful dissenters you're among my only hopes. Especially as you're the only none loyalist anywhere near the Tyrrell!

okay that sounded fair enough. i had been finding the professor was very cagey about everything, and never up front.

`

that STILL didn't mean i should trust this ruffled feather... which i guess was the point. no matter what questions i asked on my part or answers they gave on theirs, i was not going to be able to be completely sure.

`

interrupting this ongoing concern on my part suddenly ruffled feather messaged me...

Oh no! I think someone is coming towards me!

There isn't much time...

Keep probing as you have been.

what am i looking for exactly?




i asked. though i knew the pack was stealing fossils, i didn't know what kinds or more to the point why?

`

What do you mean?

`

You do know what they are doing at the museum right?

How could you not, as they've stolen something very dear to you all in drumheller, especially yourself. It is...

ruffled feathers suddenly cut off and was displayed as offline. i frantically typed a few messages hoping there'd just been a hick up in the innerweb. no good. ruffled feather had shut off their end of the conversation.

`

whether it was due to being discovered or simply to make the charade the pack had just played on me seem more real, ruffled feather was gone...

`

yet thinking about what had just been said, i started to realize there wasn't much danger in what i'd just been told. this couldn't have been a set up for a trap. other then perhaps telling me to look into events as a whole, there were no specifics (times or locations) that could be a trick.

`

besides the crimson talons had attacked me at a random moment. we weren't closing on them stealing fossils. heck we weren't even in the field. what was stopping them from attacking me whilst i chilled out for the rest of my trip as paradigm had told me too?

`

no, there was something to this ruffled feathers that made me want to trust them. if even just about the part of me upsetting the pack.

the question was how had i done that?

that only clue ruffled feather had managed to tell me before being cut off though was "they've stolen something very dear to you all in drumheller, especially yourself." what could that possibly be?

`

as far as i could tell everything that they'd stolen was so far undiscovered, especially by me! how could the area, and i for that matter, hold something dear of we hadn't known of its existence...

`

i guess ruffled feather was speaking of the right of us all to know about fossils, which was something i did real hold dear. i think no one should be allowed to own fossils, but rather that we should all have a right to see and learn from them, but sadly not everyone else feels this way.

`

fortunantely here in alberta the law supports my feelings here. so if i could catch the pack stealing fossils, i'd get them in a LOT of trouble!!!

`

so i needed to review what i knew to start hunting them down (in a sense)!

`

i found the first poached quarry was while searching for the lost quarrys of francis slate.

the biggest find at this site we'd made here was that the poachers had abandoned a lot of substandard equipment. this indicated to us (tony, myself, and yumi) that this was the FIRST poached site of them all. the poachers found some of their gear to be faulty and discarded it. afterall why would they realize this during a later dig and not their first?

there'd been a lot of quarry pits scattered around the dump spot (probably their camp for a week based on the trash left in the otherwise lovely badlands). it was hard to tell which were test digs (to check out their equipment performance) and which were to take out fossils.

these dig pits varied in size from small little meter by meter holes in the hill, to one that was huge. this singular giant dig site was big enough for a full grown hadrosaur or tyrannosaurid at about 11 or 12 meters long and 4 meters wide.

the second poaching i'd found was a few smaller pits. this looked like a days worth of work by the poachers. if i had to guess these were just to test their replacement equipment. which now seemed to be working fine.

the third site was much more likely to be the real target of the pack's efforts. as just like the first site this one had a very large single quarry pit.

`

however unlike the first, this one was bigger then any single dinosaur ever found in alberta! though this implied an exciting discovery, it was also a little worrying that it had been nabbed away before scientists could look at it!

then the strangest act of all on the part of the poachers. they had broken into the museum's geology collections and ransacked the drawers with the specimens of horseshoe canyon formation rocks.

`

i can only assume they were looking for clues in these sample rocks to try and find more of whatever they were poaching. sadly before i could try and find clues as to what, i was interupted and kicked out of the "crime" scene...

`

so in the end i don't know a whole lot other then the pack is digging for some sort of fossil (based on the tools and materials getting left at the sites).

`

i'm thinking the large pits at sites 1 and 3 are the key clues. if i can figure out what the primordials dug up there, then i stand a better chance to expose what they are doing, and more importantly try and recover the fossils they are stealing!

`

to be continued

a dinosaur that never sleeps... (new york part 2)

i get lots of eee-mail these days, and though i don't normal post most of it, i thought this would be a virtual exchange you the people of the innerweb might like to read.

it's an eee-mail from lillian the albertosaur!

_

hello traumador?

i can't not be sure you are seeing this. i do not understand how this human letter projecting box works...

it has been a few months since i last saw you. i just wanted you to know i miss you very much. especially given the only company i currently have is so. well, unpredictable.

do not get me wrong. i appreciate what you did for me, but this peter human is very full on. though it can be motivating at times, the fact his enthusiasm and determination doesn't cease can be a little off putting sometimes.

be that as it may, peter has so far done what he set out to do. that is bring us to new york city. here he hopes to get me a job at the american museum of natural history.

new york is very different from anywhere else i've been to. it is big. much bigger than even melbourne, which i thought was a large human gathering. new york has many more humans, more than i imagined could be in one place. i can't not even begin to describe the smell of so many of them at once! [we tyrannosaurs have one of the best senses of smell known in the animal kingdom]

new york has been living up to its nickname, a city that never sleeps! as there are no hotels or accommodations that will allow me to stay in them, peter and i have been forced to wander around town till tomorrow morning till the museum opens. yet we are not the only ones wake here.

awesome to hear from you lillian!

no problems reading you on the "letter projecting box", or as the humans call it a puter. i got your eee-mail just fine.

glad you and peter are making progress. i have noticed he is cheerful all the time too. just one of his quirks i guess. no harm has ever come from being positive though has it?... actually come to think of it i've never looked that up.

i wish i could check out new york! though the potential of smelling millions of people at once doesn't sound entirely fun.

how have you been finding not being able to sleep in new york? what have you guys been doing to occupy the time?

why you would want to come to such a concentration of mammals i do not understand, traumdor.

i do find it interesting though that there is plenty to keep us occupied despite the fact it is dark. it has always struck me that humans lack the drive to do anything in the night. unlike those of us who are true hunters. i have always felt alive at night, as though prey might be at hand in the gloom. it is nice to have finally found a place i can act up on my instincts.


not that it is anything like nighttime here. with the number of light orbs they have around this place it is almost as bright as dusk or dawn!

the peter human has been keeping us on the move. he says it'll help not only keep us awake, but generate interest. as of such he has had me parading up and down the streets of this city. which somehow feels wrong.

maybe it is the eerily flat "ground", the sky being blocked out by giant cubes, or the fact i'm completely surrounded by mammals on foot or in wheeled moving containers. this place has me weirded out.

despite this, the one thing i do appreciate while journeying around this city. is that most of the humans are completely unmoved by the sight of me. normally they cower or act in panic. here they simply act like i'm curiosity as opposed to the bringer of doom. even their enforcers barely responded to me. anywhere else i've been outside of a museum these enforcers would have been trying to cordon me off.

i guess that's to be expected. new york has seen a lot of stranger and scarier things than you...

bad guys of every variety including super villians, not to mention the action and super heroes that fight them all. they've had many many run ins with aliens. all manner of scary things have haunted that city too zombies, vampires, and ghosts (though they also have the real ghostbusters there, so its all good!). even my main man godzilla's little mutant cousin romped through there once.

what are you going on about?!?

i do not understand this nonsense you're going on about.

oh sorry. just a bunch of stuff i saw in some documentaries on the TV.

point is based on what i've seen of new york, typically you don't have much to worry about. even if things get hairy and the city is destroyed, they seem to rebuild it every time... in the amount of time it takes for the end credits to segue into the evening news! can you believe that!

it must be nice to be in a place where people aren't terrified of dinosaurs. now i really want to go. i'm looking for such a place!


i find i miss you less talking to you again on this puter box. i hope it is merely the meaning of your words is lost as they travel the world. or is that you truly are so stupid?

this place has been perfectly safe. for me in any case. peter human has had some frightful moments when he was approached by darkly clothed mammals. he claims everything "was just peachy", but i could smell the fear he was emitting. i wonder are these stealthy humans predators of some kind?

if so, it is good to see they know their place in the food chain. for they left peter human alone when i'd stand over him.

there is only a few more hours before morning and the museum opens. peter human is hoping they'll let me sleep somewhere within, and he can find his own sleeping territory.

i hope you are finding something worthwhile in drumheller. i miss our old home, and very much wish we could trade places. that way you could visit your precious dinosaur "friendly" city, and i could return to a place where we can at least exist.

i get eee-mail...

there's been some tangents on the blogospheriod recently about the Eee-mails my fellow bloggers get. i got one today that makes for a great post. so here's a fun sample of the Eee-mail i sometimes get!

my good innerweb pal raptor lewis writes to my Eee-mail (traumador@gmail.com) the following:

_
Yo Traumador! How ya doing?

It's me Raptor. I'm doing some drawings of dinosaurs and I need a little help. I'm doing Jurassic herbivores. I need your help with coming up with a few. I can only come up with Stegosaurus, and sauropods like Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Mamenchisaurus, etc.

Can you help me think of more? And can you send pictures of them via email? That would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry to bug you.

Your online buddy,

Raptor

P.S.- If you're thinking I'm a dromeosaur, then you are wrong. I'm not even a dinosaur. I'm a paleo-lovin' American human.

now though i'd never claim to be a huge expert (both due my size... get it? pun INTENDED!.. and also my knowledge) on the jurassic period, as we tyrannosaurs are the last of the last of the cretaceous a good 70 million years after the jurassic ended, i will try to take a stab at it and help you out raptor.

so let's take a quick look at the jurassic period with a...

so the jurassic period.

well to start off with the jurassic is just one of many time periods that geologists and other sciency folks use to better keep track of the huge amount of time this planet has been around. think of it like a month on the calender, only this calender has about 21 months (just for the time life has been around!) and these each have several MILLION YEARS in them compared to the 30ish days each a real month has. scientists label these simply because frankly it makes it easier to get ones head around. i know i can use that help!

the jurassic is the 5th most recent time period (as in going back INTO the past from now, its the 5th you'd go past on your way to the beginning of time... if you started at the beginning and travelled forward to the present the jurassic would be the 18th). the time period before the jurassic was the triassic, and when the jurassic was over it became the cretaceous period.

the jurassic started around 208 million years ago and went on to finish 146 million years ago. meaning it was 62 million years long. nearly the same amount of time dinosaurs have been extinct, but remember this is only one of three time periods the dinosaurs were alive for!

here is what the world looked like towards the END of the jurassic (as in the end closet to our own time, about 150-146 million years ago). the reason this is important is that the way that the earth's land and water were arranged (you'll notice different than it is today, but yet still recognizable) had a HUGE effect on dinosaurs and everything else living back than.

the world's landmasses are always moving around on things called continental plates. through a process called plate tectonics the land (and also ground that makes the bottom of the ocean) are like surf boards cruising the hot liquid ocean of magma inside the earth. as the plates float around they often smash into each other, and than later on split up. this changes the size of not only the land on earth, but the size and shape of the oceans. oceans as it turns out are probably the most important thing effecting living things on earth. whether the living things are right by the water or not!

prior to the time of the dinosaurs in the permian, the time period before the age of dinosaurs (about 60-50 million years before the jurassic) all the continents of the world had smacked into each other and got stuck together for a while. this created the super continent pangaea (it was made "super" by being made up of ALL the worlds possible land masses... sort of the way that super heroes vehicles always become more super when they combine into a mega vehicle!). this was not the first time a super continent has formed on earth, but it was the most important for life on earth.

due to the effects of having less coastline (in other words water touching land) pangea had really mucked up weather systems. having ocean close to you means you get more rain, and rain is key for plants to survive. because pangea had a lot of land WAY away from the ocean, most of it turned to desert. by the end of the permian the worst extinction event in the world's history had occurred, about 95% of life on earth was gone!

the reason i mention this chilling and sad event is that the jurassic marked the final end of pangea and its life killing ways. as of the beginning of the jurassic 208 million years ago pangea started to break apart into what would become the modern continents. of course the continents won't finish properly splitting up till the cretaceous, but their break up started in the jurassic. this drastically changed all sorts of stuff like the climate and environments animals and plants had to deal with. so there was a lot of change in the types of dinosaurs as the time period went on.

despite what many books tell you, parts of the jurassic were actually very similar to the triassic. especially the beginning of the jurassic. the dinosaurs though a bit varied were still of the triassic families. these included prosauropods, coelophysoids, and heterodontosaurids. the only big difference was that many of the large reptiles that had been around in the triassic were no longer present (but not all of them were gone!). at the middle of the jurassic there is growing evidence of a small mass extinction and here we see dinosaur types change as the "triassic" era types disappeared and the first of the more "classic" jurassic families pop up in their places.

the plant scape was a lot different than we're used to today. during this time gymnosperms plants were the main type. gymnosperms is a fancy word for plants that produce their seeds through cones. their still around today, just now they have company in the form of angiosperms, plants that produce their seeds through flowers. the really successful gymnosperms of the jurassic included conifer and ginkgo trees. ferns were also a very common plant during this time (and again are around today, but not in the same numbers as back than).

in the skies the reptilian pterosaurs (which again were NOT dinosaurs!) continued to dominant the sky. they diversified a great deal compared to what they were in the triassic. however midway through the jurassic the pterosaurs would have to start sharing the sky with a newcomer. my relative the birds. though the birds wouldn't start edging the pterosaurs out of the clouds till the next time period...

in the oceans similarly the triassic break outs the ichythosaurs would have their golden age, and despite being forced to become smaller than their huge triassic selves, would diversify as well be one of the most successful of the marine reptiles till their demise in the mid cretaceous.


the most successful of the marine reptiles (other than the sea turtles) the pleiosaur also enjoyed success during the jurassic. like usual they sported their medium to long neck lengths, but towards the end of the jurassic with the evolution of a new short neck version they would spawn some of the earth's most awesome predators ever. the pliosaurs which would enjoy domination of the ocean until the appearance of the mosasaurs halfway through the cretaceous.
_


on the land, true mammals appeared for the first time. turtles, lizards, crocodilians, frogs, and salamanders broke out into major success for the first time during the jurassic as well.
_


now of course i could go on and on about the jurassic for ever (well not quite, but with 62 million years worth of substance i can't hope to cover it all here!) i'm going to end now and answer raptor's question.

so again remember raptor the jurassic is a very long period of time, and saw a very large share of dinosaurs evolve and go extinct. the problem with a lot of books out there is they only present the very end of the jurassic, and make it seem like that was all that was going on.

in reality those are only some of the highlights, and frankly (much like the cretaceous) a lot of the stuff that came before is skipped. which hardly seems fair to me.

so plant eating dinosaurs of the early jurassic included (none of which made your list):


though closely related to the true sauropods on your list, prosauropods were key early jurassic herbivores.

the very primitive ornithischian heterodontosaurs

the tiny primitive relative of armoured dinsoaurs, scutellosaurus

the primitive armoured (although NOT clearly an ankylosaur or stegosaur) scelidosaurus. these are my personal favourite early jurassic dinosaur... even if he'd possibly given rise to the dreaded ankylosaurs...

other common mid to late jurassic herbivores that missed your list include the ever present small hypsilophodonts. not to worry though raptor. almost everyone forgets about these guys!

though they won't amount to much in the jurassic, the iguanodonts appear during this time in forms such as camptosaurus.


though the last additions to your list are of the stegosaur family... stegosaurus did make your list of course... it is important to remember that most of the rest of this family differ greatly from stegosaurus. it is the freak rather than the norm as can be seen by these samples.

so i hope that helps answer your question raptor, and thank you for the eee-mail. it was fun to answer!

to everyone else out there on the web wide world with palaeo question feel free to send them. cause this was fun to answer, and i love getting eee-mails... well actually i like comments on my blog a little more to be honest (i don't check my eee-mail as often as my blog) eee-mails are cool too... traumador@gmail.com is the address.

hope to be answering some of your questions soon!