otsu

乙(otsu) often appearing as a radical with other characters, this chinese/japanese character has been with me for some time. it can modify or mean all kinds of things, just like any word or character or piece of expression can do- especially when crossing over cultural or conventional lines. witty, with style, "b," ranking second, odd, quaint - these are some of the english equivalents to help describe what this conveys. "otsu" is not the only way it is spoken either; that depends on what characters it is radical to or placed amoung.

but i don't know japanese, so i will leave all of that research and curiosity to you to look up.

today, i am writing to talk about dinosaurs. specifically to express how, for whatever reasons, i tend to, or it turns out upon observation or discovery, that i like the odd, the rarefied, the quaint, the niche nook and shadow of things. i am not solely this way, but - on average, this is something that keeps occurring with me.

i remember when i was in my single digit ages feeling odd or that something was incomplete(my word i use now) or simply "not entirely right" when, in class there would be represented all manner of animal or idea but - not "all" that i felt or knew of. when the schools were teaching us about giraffes and deer and lions and elephants i was wanting to know more about kiwis and tapirs and other animals i could not name but had seen during my many travels to the library with my mom.

even later on in middle school and high school there was a very limited scope of information given about the world or ideas being discussed. this didn't change my curiosity and habits of discovery, if anything it showed me how important it was that i continue to self-study and ask everyone as many questions as i ever could.

often information or what someone says, professional or personal is full of leans and bias. and that's fine, generally it is not a mystery that we each are simply speaking of our own experience, filtered through what we each consider to be real. this can be overlooked however, especially if there is pressure from backers or supporters of what you are presenting - there is then pressure to support what you say or publish as absolute truth. confidence is good- important, but there is a balance to how you present something when sharing information or discovery.

dinosaurs though~
my earliest favourites were probably not dinosaurs at all but ancient sea reptiles(something they didn't teach at the time - everything was a dinosaur) such as tylosaurus or some sort of mosasaur. my first report and dinosaur fully researched was of deinonychus. this would've been around 1980 or 1981. i was captivated by the illustrations i had discovered (old gouache illustrated books from the 50s and 60s no doubt - i can still see the flying dinosaur with it's claw), but also in what i read about the dinosaur.

but short of being popular, the odd are left to be found by those who go searching for them. generally it is no accident or serendipity that i find the things i do. i could be dramatic or romantic and say that it is chance or serendipitous, but the facts support that the reason i will find odd things is because i'm looking for them(directly or indirectly). because i ask, and search, explore i inevitably discover equally odd hiding places of things related or not.

these peripherally-indirect discoveries happen all the time, every day. some more substantial, where they reveal whole ranges of paths to then research, while others are easily followed up on in one or two queries.

ancient creatures i love:

einosaurus: discovered in the mid 1980s but not named until later, this is probably one of the most irritating dinosaurs on my list. its rarity is not the sort that attracts attention. people may like the rare for rare or "being different"s sake, but not with good ol' einy. nope. this dino continues to be under-rendered and illustrated, though the united states did publish a stamp awhile back spotlighting this particular dino. as a note, there is argument about the differences of ceratopsids(dinosaurs with horns that look like triceratops) because some believe that some of the identified species are age variations of the same species.
my favourite dinosaur illustrator doug henderson, illustrated some drowned einosuars in 1988. i'd post a picture here but i don't have it digitally at the moment. i'll post a picture of it in a separate post later on so it's current as well as post it to this particular posting.

tylosaurus: not really rare but not as well talked about as plesiosaurus, elsamosaurus, or the big mouthed mosasaurs. tylo, is believed to have been a kind of ancient monitor lizard-like that returned to the sea.

platybelodon: a prototype (not necessarily ancestor) to the modern-day elephant, this guy existed during the miocene (a favourite time period of mine as well) from 5 to 20+ million years ago. lots of large and fantastic mammals during this time. many artists renderings of this creature have been very neat. there is still debate on the shape of it's face and possible trunk because of the various scar/markings on the skull from tendons and other attachments. i still like the short scooper nub that is illustrated with this creature. it's charming.

orthocone: a massive creature(cephalopod) that used to swim the paleozoic seas(mostly). my favourite ancient creatures are in the oceans.  i was captivated early-on by many of the underwater illustrations of ancient creatures or dinosaurs.  i probably have charles knight and zdeněk burian to thank for that.