Gorgosaurus

Time for my second Walking with Dinosaurs dinosaur review (the children's version, not the TV) and this time it's my third favourite Arctic dinosaur after Parksosaurus and the Alaskan Troodon. Gorgosaurus.

Gorgon

The Gorgosaurus in the movie is a beautiful iridescent blue, with white and black marking on its skull. I will first say before I go on, is that iridescent blue is unlikely for such a large predator. However, it could be seasonal, or it didn't need to be dull coloured to blend in. To be honest, this is not as big as a deal as another part of the design that I will talk about later. 

The design of the Gorgosaurus seems to be very accurate, and the fact that we have Gorgosaurus instead of Tyrannosaurus on the big screen makes me want to smile. As I've stated before, I don't have such high hopes for the film, but the earplugs will hopefully make me enjoy what I wanted: silent dinosaur film. 

One of my biggest problems with the model is the integument. The Gorgosaurus in this movie are scaly. While it does look like what we always thought tyrannosaurs look like, recent new fossil discoveries show that even big tyrannosaurs can be feathered. In 2011, 3 specimens of the Chinese giant feathered tyrannosaurs, Yutyrannys huali, where found, but they weren't described until 2012. However, I can slightly forgive the scaly Gorgosaurus in the movie, because the models where made in 2010, a year before Yutyrannus was discovered, and a full two years before it was formally described and released to the public. 

Many people use the discovery of Yutyrannus to argue that giant tyrannosaurs, specifically Tarbosaurus  and Tyrannosaurus where fully feathered. Some argue that these animals lived in a much warmer environment than Yutyrannus. Yutyrannus may have experienced snow. Tyrannosaurus didn't, so for now, I am unsure if Tyrannosaurus was scaly or feathered, but I hope for it to be feathered because that would be more interesting. However, with Gorgosaurus it is different. It is around the same size as Yutyrannus, and lived in a much colder place than Yutyrannus did. Four months of darkness and freezing cold every winter. Therefore, it seems that Gorgosaurus was more likely to have feathers. It should be noted that impressions of scales on the base of Gorgosaurus' tail have been found, but it is possible that other parts of it's body are feathered, or that the tail was covered in feathers, but the type of preservation didn't preserve feathers. Also, it seems like the film makers thought that scaly tyrannosaurs would be more recognizable to the audience. 

I give this Gorgosaurus a 8/10.

In the end, I think if the Gorgosaurus won't talk, he will be my favourite character in the entire film. And below, is what the movie tyrannosaur could have been. Until next time.