me, the first palaeontologist to dig up a triceratops skull, whispering softly: what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuckkkk
fun fact: modern paleontologists and archaeologists have pointed to some greek vase art of mythological monsters as being evidence that the greeks dug up dinosaur skulls and were like “what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuckkkk”
and then they did the Greek Thing and painted naked men fighting the monster
or, well, a deeply flawed representation of what they imagined the fossil had looked like while alive, an early form of paleoart.
but sometimes they also just. drew the skull and slapped a black blob monster onto it? anyway i love the greeks.
Sometimes I remember that there’s a massive beef in the paleontological community between Jack Horner and Robert Bakker and it’s so big that when they both worked as advisers on the Jurassic Park films, Spielberg made 2 characters based on them and had a T. rex eat Bakker’s character as a favour to Horner.
“The bearded paleontologist Dr. Robert Burke, who is eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex in Steven Spielberg’s film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, is an affectionate caricature of Bakker.
In real life, Bakker has argued for a predatory T. rex, while Bakker’s rival paleontologist Jack Horner views it as primarily a scavenger.
According to Horner, Spielberg wrote the character of Burke and had him killed by the T. rex as a favor for Horner. After the film came out, Bakker recognized himself in Burke, loved the caricature, and actually sent Horner a message saying, ‘See, I told you T. rex was a hunter!’.”
Steel Phoenix Studios 