Stegosaurus in popular culture
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Stegosaurus is one of the most recognizable types among cultural depictions of dinosaurs.[1] It has been depicted on film, in cartoons, comics, as children's toys, as sculpture, and even was declared the state dinosaur of Colorado in 1982.[2] Stegosaurus is a subject for inclusion in dinosaur toy and scale model lines, such as the Carnegie Collection.
As late as the 1970s, Stegosaurus, along with other dinosaurs, was depicted in fiction as a slow-moving, dim-witted creature. The "dinosaur renaissance" changed the prevailing image of dinosaurs as sluggish and cold-blooded and this reevaluation has been reflected in popular media.[3]
Literature
A sketch of a Stegosaurus (based on a drawing by
In Tarzan at the Earth's Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jason Gridley encounters a Stegosaurus in Pellucidar, the world within the Earth. The animal jumps from a height and uses its plates as a gliding mechanism to chase and attack him; the real animal likely could not perform such an act.
Evelyn Sibley Lampman's The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek[4] is a children's book about twins who find a talking Stegosaurus on their ranch in Oregon. She also wrote a sequel, The Shy Stegosaurus of Indian Springs.[5]
The main hero and protagonist of Steve Cole's Astrosaurs series is an anthropomorphic Stegosaurus named Captain Teggs.
In Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park, the main characters come across a sick Stegosaurus at the south of Isla Nublar. It would later be replaced by a Triceratops in the movie adaptation.
Cinema
In the 1933 monster film King Kong, the first creature that the band of rescuers meet, as they chase the abducted Fay Wray deep into Skull Island, is a roaring Stegosaurus, which charges. In the 2005 Peter Jackson remake Stegosaurus is nowhere to be seen, although in the extended edition the Triceratops-like fictional Ferrucutus takes its place. A hypothetical descendant of Stegosaurus, called Atercurisaurus, appears in the tie-in book The World of Kong.
Over the years, Stegosaurus has often been pitted in battle against large carnivorous dinosaurs, on both the big and small screen. It came up against
An ailing Stegosaurus is encountered by the characters in the novel Jurassic Park,[6] but was replaced by a Triceratops in the film version. Although it makes no actual appearance in the film, the name is used; it is on one of the embryo vials stolen (misspelled as Stegasaurus). A group of Stegosaurus also appeared The Lost World: Jurassic Park, as one of the first dinosaurs to be seen, although they were depicted as far larger than the actual animal. They also were seen briefly in Jurassic Park III, Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion.
Stegosaurus is one of the three dinosaur types whose physical characteristics were combined by the designers at Toho, to create the Japanese monster Godzilla; the other two dinosaurs were Tyrannosaurus and Iguanodon. In the American version of King Kong vs. Godzilla this is remarked upon by a reporter, claiming Godzilla was half-Stegosaurus, half-Tyrannosaurus.
Television
Stegosaurus has also featured in several television series. A Stegosaurus has also appeared in one episode of
- Walking with Dinosaurs
- The Ballad of Big Al
- Jurassic Fight Club
- When Dinosaurs Roamed America.
- The fourth episode of the 2011 BBC series Planet Dinosaur
- A skeleton of the stegosaurus was seen in the Thomas and Friendsninth series episode Rheneas and The Dinosaur
- In the Bob the Builder episode Scoop's Stegosaurus Scoop finds bones of a Stegosaurus while he, Bob and Lofty are repairing Farmer Pickles’ drain.
Cartoons and comics
Stegosaurus has also often been featured in children's cartoons. The
Science
In September 2002, a hoax poster was presented at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology entitled "The case for Stegosaurus as an agile,
Sculpture
Sculptor
In 1973 Alexander Calder also created a huge sculpture called, Stegosaurus, that was more abstract than Gary's.[12] It stands 50 feet tall in Hartford, Connecticut.[13][14]
Theme parks
A battle between a
Other
Stegosaurus has long been featured in popular informational books about dinosaurs. This is ostensibly due to its status as being one of the most famous dinosaurs in popular culture. Several older nonfiction books incorrectly stated that Stegosaurus had two brains, due to a mistake made by Marsh during the 1800s, in which a bundle of nerves located in the hips was thought to be a "second brain". However, newer informational works have corrected this, and most nonfiction dinosaur books published nowadays correctly state that Stegosaurus had only one — albeit tiny — brain, located in its skull, as all other known vertebrates do. Stegosaurus has also featured in numerous video games such as Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur Digs, Ark: Survival Evolved, Jurassic World Evolution 2, Combat of Giants, and Carnivores. In the latter game, the animal was depicted as an awkward, lumbering reptile, similar to many outdated illustrations, even though the game was released in 1998, at least a decade after the general public recognized Stegosaurus and other dinosaurs as active warm-blooded beasts.
See also
- Timeline of stegosaur research
- List of films featuring dinosaurs
- Cultural depictions of dinosaurs
- Tyrannosaurus in popular culture
- Velociraptor in popular culture
References
- ISBN 0-521-81172-4.
- ^ "Archives".
- ^ Lucas, S.G. (2006). "The Three Faces of Dinosaurs". Geotimes. Retrieved October 7, 2006.
- OCLC 186951
- OCLC 522032
- ISBN 0-394-58816-9.
- ^ https://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19125592.200.html "The word: Thagomizer," New Scientist, July 8, 2006. Retrieved October 26, 2006. Archived February 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Stegosaurus Changes". Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Department of Paleobiology. Archived from the original on 2006-07-14. Retrieved 2006-03-07.
- ^ "Feedback". New Scientist Magazine. Elsevier. 16 November 2002.
- ^ "Light emitting diodes (LED) & optoelectronic device research at UNC Charlotte". University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Archived from the original on 2007-01-12. Retrieved 2006-12-26.
- ^ "Ed Stokes". Archived from the original on 2012-04-15.
- ^ "Calder's Stegosaurus and the Travelers tower, Hartford". Flickr. 6 September 2008.
- ^ "Images of Stegosaurus, Hartford, Connecticut, 1973, by Alexander Calder. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Scanned from slides taken on site by Mary Ann Sullivan, Bluffton College".
- ^ "Hartford, Connecticut | Landmarks & Monuments". Archived from the original on 2012-03-31. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
External links