Prehistoric Animals and other stuff, USA

It is time for letter D today and even though the title has no D or whatsoever, this is a D-related post... I just hope it wont spark any controversy as this actual issue of stamps had :)

A bunch of D-stamps here, however, the main focus is of course on the top right corner, where four dinosaurs are displayed.

These were issued by the USPS on 1st of October back in 1989... and managed to enter the list of some of the most controversial stamps in the US history.

Who could be offended by a block of four stamps honoring animals that had been dead for millions of years? In this case, paleontologists, who maintained that two of stamps contained errors. The dinosaurs labeled as brontosauruses were, in fact, apatosauruses, they said. And the pteranodons weren’t technically dinosaurs at all, but flying lizards. Postal officials admitted the latter point but noted that the stamps were officially named the “prehistoric animal series” and that the term “dinosaur” had merely appeared in promotional materials.
The other two stamps, honoring the stegosaurus and the tyrannosaurus, escaped any controversy.
So, to keep the peace in the postal waters, the title of this post refers to Prehistoric animals, instead of dinosaurs, as initially foreseen :)

As for the other 3 stamps on the left: first is a Davy Crockett stamp issued in 1967. Davy was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier".

Below it is a stamp from 1962 featuring Dag Hammarskjöld who was a Swedish economist and diplomat that served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Hammarskjöld was the youngest person to have held the post, at an age of 47 years upon his appointment.

The last of the stamps was issued in 1969 portraying the Dartmouth College case which was U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court held that the charter of Dartmouth College granted in 1769 by King George III of England was a contract and, as such, could not be impaired by the New Hampshire legislature (whatever that means...)


And last but not least, this cover is part of Bryon's super cool postal experiments, since as you can see, these stamps bear the cancellation of the Dinasour Post Office, and Dinasour is an actual very small town in Colorado.
Hopefully, no paleontologists would be offended by that :D

Check out the other D's here! 

And have a nice Sunday! :)

Prehistorical Animals - Australias Age of Dinosaurs, Australia

After an early 5 am morning rise for watching the Australian Open, it is time to post some Australian stamps too.
Ok, I will admit that I was actually a bit lazy to search for some nice shaped stamps I have...it was simply easier to go for something Australian...but it did fit in nicely with the current AO event :)

I really love this sheet of stamps issued in 2013, showing a number of dinasours. The colours are just so beautiful and even the dinasours dont seem so terrifying...except for that first guy with the name of Koolasuchus. My knowledge on dinasours is, let's just say, non-existent, so I'll just give you a few facts on each one, relying on what google has to say about this bunch of guys here.
I already mentioned the Koolacushus, which was an aquatic temnospondyl estimated to have been around 4 to 5 metres, with a mass of up to 500kg. It is an extinct genus of brachyopoid temnospondyl in the family Chigutisauridae. Fossils have been found from Victoria, Australia and date back 120 Ma to the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous. Koolasuchus is the latest known temnospondyl.

On the following stamp we have two representatives of Serendipaceratops, a dubious genus of herbivorous ornithischian dinosaur from the early Cretaceous Period of Australia.

The third stamp shows the Timimus, a genus of small coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Australia. It was originally identified as an ornithomimosaur, but now it is thought to be a different kind of theropod, possibly a tyrannosauroid or unenlagiine

The fourth one, on the top, is a Diamantinasaurus, (meaning "Diamantina River lizard") is a genus of derived titanosaurian dinosaur from late Albian (Early Cretaceous)-age rocks of Australia

Below the River lizard are two representatives of the Qantassaurus, a genus of two-legged, plant-eating ornithischian dinosaur that lived in Australia about 115 million years ago, when the continent was still partly south of the Antarctic Circle. It was named after Qantas, the Australian airline ( in honor of the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service, which shipped fossils around the country as part of the Great Russian Dinosaurs Exhibit between 1993 and 1996, and sponsored expeditions to South America and Eastern Europe).

And the last guy on our exhibit here is an Australovenator, (or a Southern hunter), a genus of megaraptoran theropod dinosaur from Albian (Early Cretaceous)-age rocks (dated to 95 million years ago) of Australia.


I really wish there was some place on Earth where dinasours still existed...for me it is somewhat difficult to grasp the idea of such animals walking around and the whole concept of such creatures existing is really cool! Just don't ask me to pronounce all those names and genus and stuff :)

For more fun choices, visit Violet's blog.

Sunday Stamps