Allosaurus

Fight Scene

• Like Alice, the oak grove sculpture, this Allosaurus takes many of its cues from older tropes. It sports an exaggerated head size and features overgrown teeth as a result. The shape of the teeth more closely resembles those of sharks’ than real Allosaurus teeth, which curve towards the rear of the mouth. Such a shape hooks onto the things the animal bites, and often features in animals that have to grip struggling prey.
• This sculpture features two pointy horns instead of the broad, triangular eyebrows known from Allosaurus skulls.
• Only two small samples of Allosaurus skin fossils have been recorded so far, one of which could not be collected. Both show this animal grew small, pebbly scales on at least parts of its body. We do not have evidence of larger feature scales or scutes for this particular genus, but ceratosaur and tyrannosaur relatives both preserve evidence of such scale arrangements along with the pebbly texture known for Allosaurus. Comparisons with relatives don’t always produce reliable results, but in the absence of other evidence, they can produce reasonable guesses. For the past 30 years, some artists and paleontologists have speculated that Allosaurus bore feathers at some point in its life, but the evidence does not bear that out. One of the skin impressions reported for Allosaurus comes from the juvenile featured in the Stewart Museum, making fluffy baby Allosaurus unlikely. No known tetrapod (a group which includes mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians) switches skin covering types, and what we know of feather development severely complicates scenarios where babies bore both scales and fluff, losing the fuzz as they reached adulthood. Feathered Allosaurus models do not explain the evidence known for this animal. Update: though most scientists now regard the skin sample mentioned here which could not be collected as representing an indeterminate sauropod, a 2022 study includes a preliminary report on additional Allosaurus skin samples revealing the jaw and base of the throat. Both preserve the same pebbly scales seen in other theropod skin impressions, but the underside of the animal apparently bore wide, strap-like scales similar to those from the bellies of snakes or crocodiles.
• Concrete construction forced another three points of contact to make the engineering work, but in this case, the artist managed to sell the tail-dragging pose as a consequence of the fight. In doing so, it also avoids the tail dislocation that makes Alice so grumpy and allows for more realistic proportions along the body.

Rogue’s Gallery

• Though not a complete representation of the animal, this sculpture includes the most true-to-life details. It also represents the only example at the Park of the third Allosaurus species known: Allosaurus europaeus. Details distinguishing these species focus on the head, appropriately enough. The differences which would show in a sculpture center on the nose and eyes. The oldest species, A. jimmadseni, grew a low ridge or crest along its nose, and its jawline followed a roughly straight line from its teeth back to the joint—a “poker face,” if you will. A. fragilis, the most common species, lost the nose ridges and gained a downward bend to its cheekbone, resulting in a sort of “frown face.” As this sculpture shows, the only known and incomplete skull of A. europaeus shows evidence for both the frown and the nose ridges.
• Sadly, this sculpture features generic, cone-shaped teeth. Real Allosaurus teeth have a much flatter cross-section, looking more like knives than cones. They also curve noticeably backwards.
• The red applied to the crests above the nose and eyebrows is speculative. In many modern animals that use crests or other body parts for communication, color plays an important role. For humans, eyebrows play an important role in expressing emotion in particular. As a result, actors in live theater often use eyebrow pencil to darken their eyebrows so people on the back row can still see them and understand the emotions the actors want to convey. By contrast, people with fair eyebrows sometimes seem to others to lack emotion because their eyebrows are harder to see. For whatever reason, Allosaurus likewise seems to have grown its skull bones so as to highlight the eye. In life, these areas plausibly bore bright colors that would draw attention to the eye—red, yellow, orange, or possibly a strong contrast. If the animal’s color scheme were predominantly dark, its crests might turn a contrasting light color to achieve the same effect, and vice versa.
• Behind the scenes: The word “dragon” derives from word roots in Greek and Indo-European referring to sight, perhaps signifying “one with a deadly glance” or “one who watches.” The name Dracula means “little dragon,” and as anyone who has seen Universal’s movie version of his story can attest, Dracula’s eyes play a big role in the horror. Focus on the eye is a common motif in Gothic horror, and gestalt psychologists have found that eye contact can trigger a fear response not only in humans, but in other animals as well. And here we have Allosaurus drawing attention to its eyes. Coincidence? Well, it probably didn’t directly inspire ancient dragon legends, but Allosaurus might have tapped into a common fear—a sort of interspecies collective unconscious spanning eons. Considering how the fear of the eye, and perhaps of being watched, predates our species by probably millions of years, there’s a very real possibility that Allosaurus benefited from looking scary in this way. Allosaurus shared its environment with two other giant dinosaurian carnivores, so the ability to scare weaker animals away from their kills or intimidate stronger animals so they wouldn’t do the same could lend significant advantages in obtaining food. Its contemporary Ceratosaurus appears to have employed a similar tactic, but their physically strongest rival, Torvosaurus, seems to have largely opted out, as if it didn’t need to engage in such psychological warfare. Maybe these crests leveled the Jurassic carnivore playing field for these three species, though such behavior may prove impossible to demonstrate. Take this idea, therefore, as food for thought.