The 2014 Mexican Experience!

I bet nobody would be expecting >this< as this year’s “Mexican Experience”; but this is one of many surprises I’ve got from the talented dino-modelers that are located in Mexico. You may know him from previous posts: Aldebran Castañeda‘s fully pose able “Fomisaurs” are becoming the rage and he is just getting better and better.  I will be able to talk more about the making of his engineering marvels soon! In the meantime let me present you our latest collaboration: Deinocheirus! You might recognise it from my previous posts and it was a celebration of it final release in the  well reputed Nature  magazine. I will have to  modify a bit the lower jaw of my reconstructions)… but generally it still holds pretty well!

You might also recognise this small wonder… another pose able and absolutely stunning Psittacosaurus.A magnificent Allosaurus… and several views of the Deinocheirus… simply marvellous!

Here I am again with Aldo…the  Fomisaurus master!

But Mexico was not just about Fomisaurs. I managed to exchange gifts with another couple of  well reputed, excellent modellers: the worldwide famous Héctor Munive  (Tzipactli Splintersaurus) and Ricardo Servín Pichardo… in our exchange of gifts, both gave me marvels ready to be customised by me and will be subject of another article in this blog in the near future.

Mexico was hard work, but fulfilling to a great extent. From the schools of Metepec, Toluca to my old home, the National University in Mexico City (UNAM) , the audiences were hungry for any palaeontological  event. I continue to “preach” the change of the image in the Dinosauria even if we had have two classes of fourth and sixth grade primary school pupils all mixed together. Here are the pupils from Metepec that I visited the previous week.

I was fortunate to be able to share some joy as every year with the  (needless to say) well informed, great students and paleoart fans of René Hernández and Angel Ramírez from the UNAM. I paid special tribute to René in the exchange of gifts as can be seen in the pictures. He took us to the faculty’s lab to show us some specimens… there were many that were mostly finds from the north of Mexico. Some of them still unpublished but bound to amaze everybody on the day of their future release.

The day at the University was, as usual, a  celebration. My special thanks go  to  the dedicated teachers, paleoartists and fans like Lulú Martín that made my stay unforgettable as usual.

And all despite that at the time everybody was still mourning the assassination and disappearance of over 40 teaching students by the obscure forces that keep a good part of Mexico in permanent state of terror and uncertainty.  Only together we can change this one day!