Re: [dinosaur] Ultrasaurus in Reader's Digest

Ben Creisler
[email protected]



News stories about the "Ultrasaurus" find came out in 1979 around July.

New York Times July 31, 1979, Section A, Page 1

Paleontologist in Colorado Finds Evidence of the Biggest Dinosaur ...

A Utah paleontologist, digging in an ancient dry river bed on a windswept
Colorado mesa, has found bones of the biggest dinosaur that has yet been
discovered — a huge animal that, he estimates, would have been able to look
into a top‐floor window of a five‐ or six. story building.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nytimes.com_1979_07_31_archives_paleontologist-2Din-2Dcolorado-2Dfinds-2Devidence-2Dof-2Dthe-2Dbiggest-2Ddinosaur.html&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=kgUqC1N05DgcW_PxVukWJrTpUFbKqOg1rKcbK2g6vuE&s=RQHBl6_ZxGqK19TuZ7LbTXtXWkUx5ZQARUSX__hj1Ng&e= 
==

People Magazine October 22, 1979

'Dinosaur Jim' Jensen Finds a Shoulder Bone That Was Connected to a Set of
Bones 50 Feet Tall

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__people.com_archive_dinosaur-2Djim-2Djensen-2Dfinds-2Da-2Dshoulder-2Dbone-2Dthat-2Dwas-2Dconnected-2Dto-2Da-2Dset-2Dof-2Dbones-2D50-2Dfeet-2Dtall-2Dvol-2D12-2Dno-2D17_&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=kgUqC1N05DgcW_PxVukWJrTpUFbKqOg1rKcbK2g6vuE&s=uZyph3fitgpq_EWPUOdzvNOx2qAOFzL9kgqAG3Zsd1c&e= 

=====

I browsed the Reader's Digest contents posted as cover images online and
don't see anything that obviously matches in the July through December 1979
issues and early 1980 issues.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__oldmags.com_publications_Readers-2DDigest&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=kgUqC1N05DgcW_PxVukWJrTpUFbKqOg1rKcbK2g6vuE&s=G8EGpS1eguoqbAEbNMSuXDDMW8WTeTwM4x6_dKjEXFk&e= 

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On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 4:55 AM Mike Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:

> I was about eleven years old, so the year would have 1979 or so. I was
> in the waiting room at an optician, to be tested for my first pair of
> glasss. As I waited, I browsed a Reader's Digest and it was there that
> I first read about Ultrasaurus, the greatest of all the dinosaurs!
>
> ... At least, that's how I remember it. But I know memories can be
> deceptive, and after all it WAS forty years ago.
>
> The thing is, I can't find that Reader's Digest. I have the much
> earlier 1973 article in RD, by Jean George, about Supersaurus, and
> it's POSSIBLE that the optician had a six-year-old Reader's Digest in
> a waiting room and that's what I read, and that my mind is filling in
> missing pieces. But I don't think so: I'm pretty sure it was
> Ultrasaurus I was reading about.
>
> As some of you will know, I am part way through a project to
> reconstruct the history of Jensen's big three Dry Mesa sauropods: a
> timeline summarising what I've found so far can be found at
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__svpow.com_2019_07_17_supersaurus-2Dtimeline_&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=rRlOPi0W0w9TDLHsSzNvlZPLsHq8YXMJAFsGJsekG1M&s=D90RQKD9flvl5s6BMQBrR2hF0-37AZupJSebv0zbV1I&e=
> and this is part of
> a larger project re-evaluating Supersaurus, indexed at
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__svpow.com_supersaurus-2Dand-2Dco-2Din-2D2019_&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=rRlOPi0W0w9TDLHsSzNvlZPLsHq8YXMJAFsGJsekG1M&s=AWcAf-EFoJRI7tZFcIP5u-cJoaEcpUshKugpzextVso&e=
>
> As part of that project — and also for sheer nostalgia — I would LOVE
> to recover a copy of that 1979-or-thereabouts Reader's Digest article
> about Ultrasaurus. (It can't have been from before 1979, as that's
> when the not-really-type scapulocoracoid was found and the name
> coined.) But RD's own search facilities are pretty wretched:
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.rd.com_tmbi-5Ffirst-5Fassociated_magazine_&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=rRlOPi0W0w9TDLHsSzNvlZPLsHq8YXMJAFsGJsekG1M&s=7oS6aPEZKPHwf8pnnkdhShAe0RUG6Ktsy9PcL0ZKGQk&e=
> and can't find
> anything. Certainly a search for "ultrasaurus" or even "supersaurus"
> finds nothing.
>
> Can anyone help? I have no idea how, really, but if there's any
> community that can come up with something, it's this one.
>
> -- Mike.
>