PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 10: Eucritta melanolimnetes

Scotland is one of the most important palaeontological sites in the world for a particular group of animals - the Stem Tetrapods. Just about every land animal with four limbs, from amphibians to reptiles to birds to mammals, derives from this ancient order of beasties, and Scotland is one of the best places to find them in the world.

PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 9: The Dinosaurs of Skye

Jurassic Skye catalogues a rather mysterious period of earth's history - the Middle Jurassic. While the Early & Late Jurassic are well-represented in the fossil records in Britain, Germany, and the Americas, the Middle Jurassic is a bit more mysterious. Even though it isn't the most prolific of dinosaur-bearing stratographic areas, Skye is nonetheless one of the most important for this little-understood period of our world.

PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 7: Paraproetus girvanensis & Threavia gulosa

When I first started out, I was worried I wouldn't find enough Scottish prehistoric creatures to fill out 31 days: now, I'm finding the opposite, where I'm having to pick and choose which beastie gets a picture! 

PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 6: Dearcmhara shawcrossi

A few years ago, you probably came across one of *those* headlines. You know the ones: palaeontology news reported by someone who doesn't know the first thing about palaeontology, & thinks people are too thick to understand more than the absolute basics of prehistoric beasts. Thus, today's beastie was announced to the world as "NESSIE'S SCARIER/CUTER/COOLER RELATIVE/ANCESTOR/PREDATOR/." Which, given how distantly related Ichthyosaurs are to Plesiosaurs, is a bit like calling a snake a relative of a pigeon. 

But I digress.

PrehiscotInktoberfest Day 4: Hibbertopterus scouleri & Casineria

PrehiscotInktoberfest Day 4: What could have made tracks like these, found in modern Fife?

PrehiscotInktoberfest Day 2: Leptopleuron lacertinum

PrehiscotInktoberfest continues with another cool wee beastie from Elgin's fossil beds - and one with an interesting history of discovery.

PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 1: Saltopus elginensis

Our first Prehiscotinktobersketch is Saltopus elginensis, a wee beastie once thought to be a dinosaur, but currently considered a "dinosauriform" (i.e. give it a few million years).
 
You might have heard of Saltopus if you’re my age or older: for the longest time, it was famous as the first dinosaur to be discovered in Scotland. In 1910, William Taylor found a tiny piece of jaw in the Lossiemouth West & East Quarry: the Württembergian palaeontologist Friedrich von Huene named it Saltopus elginensis (“Elgin’s jumping foot”).

Finally, we Scots had a dinosaur to call our own, to stand beside the many dinosaurs discovered, described and adopted by England! Scotland’s previous claim to fame beforehand was ammonites, trilobites, graptolites, stromatolites, fish, shrimps, sharks, sea scorpions, dicynodonts, “Devil’s toenails,”  missing links, googly-eyed eels, elks, and trees – but no dinosaurs to call their own. Every country should have at least one dinosaur. Even the Cetiosaurus bones found on Skye are just a northern branch of a species discovered in England. Alas, it was not to be: Saltopus was demoted to dinosauriform – a very dinosaur-like dinosauriform, but not a dinosaur itself.

Isn’t that just bloody typical? Scotland finds a dinosaur, and it gets reclassified. Still, there’s something poetic in Scotland’s “dinosaur” being a creature that’s nearly there, but not yet.

BUT WAIT!

Robert E. Howard in Scots: "The Song of the Bats"

The Sang o’the Bauchens

Screivit by Rabert E. Howard  

The huim wis oan the muntain
An the starns war grim an frail
Whan the bauchens came fleein, fleein
Frae the river an the laich
Tae wheel agin the gloamin
An cruin thair witchy yairn.

“We war kings o’ auld!” thay chaunted,
“Rowlers o’ a waurld enchanted;
“Ivery nation o’ creation
“Awnt oor lairdship owur men.
“Diadems o’ pouer crount us,
“Than ris Solomon tae confoond us,
“Flang his wab o’ magic roon us,
“In the form o’ beasts he boond us,
“Sae oor rowl wis braken than.”

Dirlin, wheelin intae wastwart,
Flew thay in thair phanton flicht;
Wis it but a weeng-bat muisic
Curmurrt throu the starn-gemt nicht?
Or the weengin o’ a ghaist clan
Whisperin o’ forgat micht?

Art by the inimitable* Virgil Finlay, a master in the art of illustrating inimicable horrors, courtesy of Monster Brains. Don't have nightmares this Hallowe'en... 

*Cheers Deuce Richardson!

PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 5: Cluthoceras truemani

PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 5 takes us to Carboniferous Lesmagahow: 359-299 million years ago, South Lanarkshire was under the sea, and populated by all manner of weird beasties. 

A Modest Proposal: The Star Trek Multiverse

I watched every new beginning for Star Trek since "Encounter at Farpoint" first aired on BBC2. I was a wee 6-year-old then, but I still remember running across the room, my arms looped in a childish facsimile of the starship Enterprise, in time with the opening theme (must've driven my family mad). Then I watched "Emissary" on Sky One as a somewhat cynical 9-year-old, who initially lamented about a Star Trek that didn't have a spaceship to go off and Explore Strange New Worlds, before being taken in by the station's distinct appeal. I was an 11-year-old bona-fide Trekkie when me & my family got together to watch "Caretaker" when it aired here: Star Trek was arguably at its peak media saturation, with three distinct crews across film and television. Between then and the return of Trek to television in "Broken Bow," I collected the Star Trek Fact Files, amassed a collection of Star Trek games, was fluent in technobabble, fought ruthlessly in The Eternal War, and was in the final four of a quiz at Glasgow's Contagion Star Trek convention one year.

And every single time, for every single new beginning, fellow Trekkies asked: has Star Trek lost its way? First TNG dared to be Star Trek without the original ship & crew; then DS9 dared to eschew the very concept of a Wagon Train to the Stars. At least those were bold new directions, though: for Voyager, the question was whether Trek was succumbing to rehashing TNG, and Enterprise was literally a backwards step in time - both were also criticised for catering to the lowest common denominator. The less said about the new films - and I've said far too much as it is - the better.

So we come to Star Trek Discovery. Much like the new films, it's a reboot that's desperately pretending it isn't a reboot, but a perfectly faithful & compatible continuation of the Prime Timeline. Thing is, there's an incredibly easy way to reconcile Discovery with the Prime Timeline - you just have to change what you mean by that phrase.