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Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural; The Past Set Free
Topic Started: Sep 29 2015, 05:21 PM (2,665 Views)
lamna
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The Past Set Free

Living Fossils has grown beyond the confines of strictly controlled domes in the south of England, in 2025 Jurassic is back.

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Introduction

After over a decade of development, opening day is finally here. Welcome, to Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural. At this state of the art facility modern Iberian wildlife lives alongside restored animals from Jurassic Portugal. Animals from the Lourinhã Formation and from Camadas de Guimarota that last walked the earth 150 million years ago now roam freely in over 200 square kilometres (120 square miles) of restored Portuguese wilderness.

This massive area allows all inhabitants, from the smallest invertebrates to titanic sauropods to live naturalistic lives, and the secure concrete base of the perimeter fence allows our restored animals to breed freely without fear of hatchlings escaping into the wild. Small openings at ground level can be sealed during the breeding season and then opened once juvenile dinosaurs are too large to squeeze through to allow invertebrates and small animals to enter the reserve.

Trying to find all those animals in an area the size of Cincinnati might be daunting, but Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural has many ways to get you close. Self driving off-road vehicles will transport you quietly through the park thanks to their electric motors, following herds and letting you enjoy the reserve in comfort and safety. If you're feeling more adventurous and prefer to experience the park in the open air, guided tours on horseback can also be booked. Most animals see the horse rather than the rider, letting you get in amongst the herds without disturbing them.

The park can also be enjoyed from above and below. If you'd like to meet some of your distant cousin and see how mammals experienced the Jurassic then Mammal Warren is for you. Underground tunnels pass under the reserve and other enclosures, giving you a worm's-eye view of dinosaurs as they pass above. Mammal Warren also display our collection of Jurassic mammals, in addition to a cross section of a wild rabbit warren.

If you'd rather see the park from the skies then you can not only look down from the observation tower and restaurant but you can take to the air aboard the airship Victoria.

Many different animals, modern and prehistoric are waiting to be discovered, none more impressive than the park's mascot, Duchess.

Contents

Lusotitan
Edited by lamna, Sep 30 2015, 04:35 PM.
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Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
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LittleLazyLass
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Lourinhã Formation
I'm sold.

Based on the picture I take it we're going with a brachiosaurid placement for Lusotitan?
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Yes, for plot reasons, because it's got a good chance of being correct but most importantly, Brachiosaurids are neat.
Edited by lamna, Sep 29 2015, 06:36 PM.
Living Fossils

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Nice.

I'm definitely excited about the mammals. Jurassic Portugal does boast many multies and dryolestoids
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Hmm... is that Draconyx? Looks to large for Dryosaurus or Phyllodon, although if I'm right it's very gracile for a camptosaur.
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lamna
Sep 29 2015, 06:36 PM
Yes, for plot reasons, because it's got a good chance of being correct but most importantly, Brachiosaurids are neat.
I agree wholeheartedly.
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I found relatively little to base the Draconyx (or the Lusotitan) off of, so these restorations are quite speculative.
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Well, Camptosaurus is it's closest relative, so I might have given it a bit more bulk, but then again it's entirely possible it was built more like Uteodon and other early Styracosternans. The proportions all seem reasonable as far as I can tell.
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Lusotitan

Duchess is the queen of Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural, our pride and joy. She the oldest and the largest animal at the park, and her story pre-dates even the opening of Living Fossils. She was hatched 16 years ago in Colorado at the Jurassic Giants facility. Those were heady days, when de-extinction was becoming a reality and parks dedicated to fossil animals were popping up all over the world.

Duchess was part of Jurassic Giants attempts to resurrect Brachiosaurus altithorax. For unknown reasons none of the Brachiosaurus chicks seemed to survive more than a few months so Jurassic Giants started creating other Brachiosaurids to try and understand the problem, creating a small herd of Giraffatitan brancai in addition to a single Europasaurus holgeri and Duchess, a Lusotitan atalaiensis. All were healthy and thrived for a time, until the lawyers started to circle. As Jurassic Giants was based in the United States and would be home to several famous dinosaurs, InGen's considered it a serious threat to Jurassic World. InGen first focused on stopping the Hell Creek Biopreserve, but Jurassic Giants knew they would be next and their dream of zoo exhibiting the wonders of the Morrison Formation were over.

Fortunately Jurassic Giants had a good working relationship with Living Fossils and the idea for Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural was already being discussed. All other animals at Jurassic Giants and the Hell Creek Biopreserve were euthanized but two year old Duchess was spirited away to Living Fossils' private facilities.

She lived and grew behind the scenes until in 2017 she was moved to Portugal. At that time she was already the weight of a bull African Elephant and had to be moved if she was ever going to be. In 2023 the reserve was nearing completion and she was the first dinosaur released into it.

When she was last measured just before the reserve opened, Duchess was 5.74 metres tall (19 feet), weighed 11.33 tonnes (12.49 short tons) and was 9.67 metres long (31.9 feet long). She is not quite taller than the tallest giraffe on record, and it's hard to be sure if she is heavier than the biggest elephant, but she is certainly much bigger than the average elephant or giraffe, and she's only about a third of her adult size. Despite still having a lot of growing to do Duchess is already sexually mature, and has been laying eggs since 2022, but it will be a long time before she can breed naturally. Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural has five other Lusotitans, three cows, Rita, Iolanda and Margarida and two bulls Estevao and Valerio, but they are all seven years old. Duchess has a huge head-start and it will be a long, long time before the bulls are large enough to mount her.

Duchess leads a largely solitary existence, while the other Lusotitans live in a herd. As they have grown larger the other Lusotitans have started to follow Duchess more often and it is predicted that eventually they will form a single herd.

The other Lusotitans are somewhat shy, being small enough to still be worried about taken down by a single large theropod, Duchess is bolder and has spent more of her life around humans. Despite her huge size she is quiet, gentle and patient. She frequently will approach tours to accept treats, and will tolerate people touching her body and legs, though she dislikes people touching her head.
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Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
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So 34 tonnes is the estimated size for an adult Lusotitan? If I recall correctly, 25~37 tonnes was the estimate for a subadult Brachiosaurus/Giraffititan, and since an adult Lusotitan is around the same size as an adult Brachiosaurus, shouldn't it weigh more?
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lamna
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From what I can make out, estimating dinosaur weights, especially sauropods, is really tricky. Especially when you're working on largely fragmentary remains that are rarely of adult animals. Factor in that this is a captive animal and their growth in accelerated and their lifespans lengthened and it gets even more messy.

You can't exactly look up the size of a 16 year old Lusotitan. Sometimes science is more art than science, a lot of people don't get that.
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Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
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Awesome project! Is this set in the same world as Eden?
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lamna
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Probably not no, this is set only 10 years in the future while Eden is set about a century into the future, so maybe Sheather wants to adopt this as the backstory. I don't have a problem with that.

But I didn't plan for that, this is set in the same world as Jurassic Park.
Edited by lamna, Oct 2 2015, 10:34 AM.
Living Fossils

Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
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I don't recall completely but I think the very earliest semi-dinosaur creatures from GaianAdvance were still 6 or 7 decades away here with the really well-made models not really coming about in until the turn of the next century, so I don't think it could work at all as a background. GaianAdvance is also American, so...
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