The Identity of Spinosaurus and Other Paleoart Stories
I’ve loved dinosaurs since I was a kid, and my love for them has only increased as I got older (DISCALIMER: I’m not a paleontologist…just a massive dino fan). Only my interest in them has taken on a new form of late. Now they seem to embody a lot about what I love about science itself. A major part of this is the fact that dinosaur’s ‘identities’ keep changing, offering a fascinating viewpoint on the nature of identity itself.
Perhaps the most exciting example of this in recent times is the case of Spinosaurus and its tail. (I say most exciting, this is entirely subjective as it’s my favourite dinosaur.). Essentially paleotonogloists discovered that its tail was a lot different than previously thought, and in fact pointed towards the fact that it could swim, making it the first known swimming dinosaur. Paleontolgoists knew it had been living near water for some time but not to this level. And more research has shown this again, with it being described as an ‘enormous river monster’.
Now this is fascinating for two reasons. One…we find out some identity about dinosaurs in general. I.e. they can swim (admittedly just one at the minute) and two it shows how the Spinosaurus identity has changed. I.e. previously it was known to not swim and now it does. Of course though the interesting argument here is that has its identity really changed? Not really. It’s not that suddenly with this discovery the Spinosaurus can swim. It has always had this tail, we have only just discovered it. We have only just discovered its true (for now) identity.
This does offer a really interesting viewpoint on what can be known about identities. Just because humanity hadn’t discovered the correct fossil yet, does this mean that it didn’t exist? Similar arguments could be made about dinosaurs and feathers. I.e. the feathers fact was always there, always part of the identity, we just hadn’t discovered it yet.
Paleoart and identity
One of my favourite aspects of dinosaurs is paleoart. And this is really where the identity games begin to come into play. So taking a personal view of Spinosaurus. When I was a kid I had always thought of Spinosaurus as moving on four legs, much more like a Dimetrodon. Now I don’t know where I got this from, but I’m assuming it was from some paleoart (or quite as easily I could have mistaken it as a kid as I haven’t been able to track it down). But it was not until the arrival of Jurassic Park III that I learnt it was on two legs. It was around this time it became my favourite dinosaur.
I find paleoart is fascinating as it seems to visually represent the stuff I find interesting about science. If we look back at how dinosaurs are portrayed, and how this changes over time. We only have to look so far as the amazing Crystal Palace dinosaurs. Whilst they were accurate for the day, now they are not so much. But please don’t think this is a bad thing, the Crystal Palace dinosaurs are amazing things and are well worth supporting(in fact check out here for more). Paleoart is a fascinating observation of how science changes. Similarly I had an eraser with a Deinonychus on it…looking more like a larger Jurassic Park-style raptor, and since the feathers discovery, this has changed. And so bringing this back to Spinosaurus this has led to a whole host of new descriptions of the dinosaur. For a more in-depth look at Spinosaurus from the paleoart perspective please check out this great blog post from the amazing paleoartist Mark Witton. Witton in his book The Paleoartist’s Handbook also looks at the idea of dinosaur memes which I also thought was a fascinating idea. For further in this area also check out All Yesterdays (Conway et al 2012).
I find this not only a fascinating way to view science itself, but also ofidentity. I.e. How much of the identity is revealed, and known, has an impact on the image and perception we have of something. And further to this…if we are looking at the idea of the memes…how embedded do certain representations of identity become in society?
