A Farewell to Torosaurus

So now we start working on the science aspect of that shiny new banner up there.

I drew this embroidery pattern upon hearing the growing evidence that Torosaurus, one of the largest horned dinosaurs on record, was actually the adult form of the much more familiar Triceratops… which, of course, means all those dinosaurs we’ve been calling Triceratops are youngsters, still growing.

Skull A is Triceratops, skull B is Torosaurus.  Only, they’re all Triceratops now.  When species are merged, the first published name wins; a rule of seniority.  This is why Basilosaurus -a prehistoric whale whose initial misidentification as a sea serpent led to a name which means “King reptile”- remains Basilosaurus even though a later name, Zeuglodon, is more accurate (what with it being a whale, not a reptile).

So long as we have species named Preseucoila imallshookupis, I don’t think inaccuracy matters much in nomenclature.  If anyone ever named a species after me, it’d probably be something like Talacoxia isageekis.

Anyway, back to Torosaurus!  The most visible difference between the skull of Torosaurus and that of Triceratops is the crest, which in Torosaurus is not only considerably larger, but has two large holes in it (presumably to reduce the weight of the thing).  Turns out, the bone which forms Triceratop‘s crest is immature, indicating there’s still some growing and rearrangement to be had… into Torosaurus.

And so I’ve drawn a picture, for you to embroider, of the adult Triceratops nee Torosaurus, surrounded by the flowers that were just beginning to bloom for the first time in Earth’s history while our horned beastie walked the earth.  Join me, fellow science nerds, in celebrating this little expansion of human knowledge, this greater understanding of the vast past of our planet.

You know the drill.  Click on the picture, and you’ll get the full-res.  I release these free bits of line art (drawn by me, from my strange little brain) under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

You are allowed and indeed encouraged to do whatever you want with the piece(s) (use, reuse, abuse, remix, share), just follow these two simple rules:

1) Give me credit (a link back is always appreciated- that way, everyone else knows they can use it too)
2) Don’t make a profit off any use or modification of my work.

To be fair, should you really want to use them in a profit-making venture, talk to me and maybe we can work something out so everybody wins.  Should you want to say thanks, leave a comment and/or tell a friend or six.  Finally, if you do make something, let me know and I’ll happily blog it!

You can find a reminder/introduction to embroidery, including basic stitches and a by-no-means exhaustive list of methods of transferring patterns to fabric in this post (there’s also a good round-up here).  Finally: if you’ve got suggestions for embroidery patterns you’d like to see, I would love to hear them (no promises, though).  You can find the rest of my patterns under the Embroidery Patterns category.