STL Science Center

STL Science Center

24 January 2013

Making Popularity Work

Sometimes we just have to hope a dinosaur will gain more popularity and, therefore, be more in the public eye making it even more popular. Such is the pursuit of some scientists such as Dave Hone, and Gary Vecchiarelli, to name a couple specific examples (they work on exposing the public, as one aspect of their work, to Daspletosaurus and Dryptosaurus respectively). I suppose I could pick one little known dinosaur and champion its cause as they have done, but I prefer to work in a larger scope and simply continue to promote all dinosaurs; this week the animal being promoted, we all know by now, is the strong armed Tyrannotitan. As we have seen, the forelimb of Tyrannotitan is comparable to that of Acrocanthosaurus; short but robust. Additionally, we know that it was slightly shorter, in femur length, than Giganotosaurus. Popular incarnations of Tyrannotitan that already exist are minimal. We saw that there was a tribute video created and posted on Youtube. There are no animatronic Tyrannotitan that I have found; no video game interpretations; no dedicated books; and no cartoons or video games. Considering that the remains of its relatives are as scant as its remains but that they have become popularized in many media, I feel that it will only be a matter of time before Tyrannotitan becomes as popularized as Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. It is far too big an animal, and an interesting animal as well, to not become popular eventually.

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