Scolosaurus Cutleri! London, 1934

Sphere, 22 Sep 1934, p 418

A Canadian Armoured Monster

“Scolosaurus Cutleri”: This fossilized dinosaur, one of the finest specimens of its kind in the world, was found in Alberta and is now in the reptile section of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. It has never before been photographed adequately, but “The Sphere” has been able to obtain the pictures shown on this page with the help of the authorities who had the heavy glass panelling removed from the great showcase in which the monster is placed.

By Dr WE Swinton, FRSE (of the Reptile Section of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington)

The remains of this dinosaur were found, in 1914, by the late Mr. WE Cutler in the Upper Cretaceous sandstones half-way up a 400 ft high cliff bordering the Red Deer River in Dead Lodge Canyon, Alberta. Mr. Cutler was working for the Trustees of the British Museum and this sandstone slab with its bony content arrived with other material in London in 1915. On account of the War its preparation was delayed until 1919 when Mr. LE Parsons, one of the preparators, returned to his more peaceful vocation.

The removal of the matrix, or stony covering, from the bones was completed on one side and it was decided to continue the process on the other side and so have the whole skeleton free. During this second operation the preparator noticed a thin brown layer of sandstone with a more or less regular ornamentation, which proved after further investigation to be the imprint of the original skin. The skin itself has long since perished, but here, faithfully reproduced, was its cast. Plans were accordingly altered and this trace of the epidermis was slowly and very carefully followed until the whole of the back of the dinosaur was exposed. Thus, as the dinosaur now mounted on its side for better display, there can be seen the whole of the armoured back and, on the other side, as much of the skeleton as could be developed.

The armour in the skin is particularly well developed and of great interest. The neck is protected by transverse strips of bone separated by a short strip of flexible skin charged with bony granules. Together these strips are shaped rather like a skull, and unfortunately, they were so identified by the collector. Actually, the skull is missing, and probably remains on that canyon cliff separated from its exiled companion complement by “a waste of seas.”

Behind the neck plates is a considerable area of the flexible granular skin which is indented on each side where the arms meet the body. Behind this there are four transverse strips of bone, each 10 in from back to front, and all separated by narrow belts of flexible skin. Thus, the front part of the body was protected by these four belts of armour and the neck plates. The hinder half is covered by a large plate of bone apparently formed by the fusion of three transverse and inflexible strips, with traces of polygonal scutes. This buckler, or “lumbar shield” is a feature known in several other dinosaurs. The tail was apparently covered by five alternating and polygonally marked segments separated by the usual thin strips of flexible skin.

Upon this segmented cuirass were placed spines, plates and bosses of bone arranged symmetrically. There were two spikes on each side of the neck (as can be seen in the model), three longitudinal rows of somewhat flatter spikes on each side of the body, two rows on each side of the tail, and on the last segment but one of the tail, two enormous spikes. The spikes on the neck were about 6 in high, but all of them no doubt during the animal’s lifetime a horny covering which would make them even more impressive and much sharper. A whole battery of sharp spikes protected the upper arms. Between the spikes are polygonal plates of bone, and elsewhere the skin is loaded with little ossicles.

Although the tail is thick and apparently unwieldy the only conceivable purpose of its tail-spikes is for offence or defence, and probably was used like a crusader’s mace.

The front legs are shorter than the hind, and the animal walked with the elbows and knees stuck out from the body and the feet wide apart. It must, therefore, have resembled a large, broad, and low tortoise with a spiky shell and a long tail: a sort of animated tank armed against its great flesh-eating contemporaries. The total length is 18 ft, the breadth 8 ft, and the estimated weight not less than 2 tons.

The late Baron Nopsca maintained that it was insectivorous, and he calculated that it probably ate 7,000 beetles and grasshoppers a week. Probably it slipped into the river and was drowned, the immense weight of its armour pulling it down and capsizing it. Lodged on some sandbank the carcase decayed, and a plane leaf actually blew on to it and was preserved. Eventually it became silted over and fossilized, to lie entombed for 75,000,000 years.

January 14, 2021 0

Cutler Urges Museum Here – Winnipeg, 1924

The Winnipeg Tribune, 26 January 1924

Cutler urges Museum Here

Professor Scientist Tells of Pre-History Life on Western Plains

Intimate details of the lives of giant reptiles who were probably the most prominent citizens of the Red Deer Valley, Alberta, 4000000 years ago, were revealed by Prof WE Cutler, FGS, in a lecture at the University of Manitoba Friday night.

Prof Cutler leaves Winnipeg Monday for German East Africa, where he will lead an expedition seeking the remains of dinosaurs who lived there aeons ago.

In his discourse the speaker deplored the lack of a provincial museum for Manitoba. Rare and valuable fossils he said, were continually being discovered in the province, and the museums of the United States were getting them.

Vegetarians saurian of the period about 4000000 BC were described by the Professor, who used numerous slides in illustrations. His investigations revealed the fact that walnut, oak, fig and sassafrass once flourished abundantly in Alberta.

March 20, 2020 0

Dinosaurs in Steveville, 1920

Edmonton Journal 3 Sep 1920

Digging Fossils of Dinosaur in Steveville Field

WE Cutler Getting Another Specimen in Red River Strata

Calgary, Sept 3 – Work on a skeleton of the Ceratopsian or horned Quadruped Dinosaur, provisionally named Eo-ceratops is being proceeded with by WE Cutler, of Steveville, Alberta. One side of the skeleton is almost intact, and part of the other side, but Mr. Cutler states that the laboratories of large establishments would have no difficulty in restoring such parts by plaster casts, tinted to show restoration. The dinosaur is a finely preserved specimen, and Mr. Cutler was obliged to remove rock amounting to 100 cubic yards during the winter, the covering being over 12 feet in thickness. The skeleton is one of the Red Deer River fossils.

February 22, 2020 0

WE Cutler declares support for investigations, 1920

Calgary Herald, 10 Jun 1920

Alberta Scored for not having fossil museum

WE Cutler declares support for investigations in local field is not furnished

Does not object to export of specimens

Complains specimen of Duck-billed dinosaur lies unprotected in Calgary

Referring to the matter of the raiding of Alberta for prehistoric specimens, WE Cutler, paleontologist, of Steveville, Alberta, scores the provincial government for its alleged apathy with regard to encouraging the unearthing of these fossils and providing a suitable museum in which to keep them. He further makes several corrections in an article appearing in the Herald, May 1. He cites instances where for less than the mere asking, the government could have come into possession of very valuable and rare specimens. That it did not do so, renders whimsical in his mind, any criticism of those who have removed the natural history museums of the United States.

Alberta, he says, is not the only locality where the prehistoric remains of reptile monsters have been found. But only having been worked since 1880, the fauna was new to paleontologists. That the American scientists have taken several carloads of specimens and parts of specimens from Alberta, was true, he said: but it was also true that every species save perhaps that of ornithomimus, the bird mimic, is duplicated in the collection of the Victoria Memorial museum at Ottawa.

Specimen in Calgary

Personally, he holds no brief for the American scientists, several of whom he counts among his friendsl but when one considers, he says that the complete skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur, which he found for the Calgary Natural History Society in 1913, under Dr E Sisley, is lying unprotected in the basement of the Calgary Courthouse, subjected to all sorts of handling by visitors, then, he declares the remarks on the deportation at the end of the Herald’s article of May 1, sounds “somewhat breezy to put the matter gently.” Quoting the sentence in that article which he refers to: “and there is no reason why that same skeleton (Cory Duck) should not be reposing in a provincial museum” he explains that the main reason why such is not possible is that there is no money available for a man to work on in order to go into the field each summer with his party and in order to have a man or two to prepare the material when brought home.

British Fossil Molluscs

During the part of his war service spent in Britain, he made a collection of British fossil molluscs. This, he says, was intended for Calgary’s museum, when a proper and scientific care and reception were assured. The work which produced them cost him something in the neighbourhood of $1000 and the collection reposes at present in the safekeeping of the British Museum of Natural History, London. He had always desired, he said, that this province should inaugurate a museum to educate its people regarding the natural wonders which it contains, and which at present, when brought to light, occasion remarks of the greatest ignorance. A classified museum in his mind, would place the whole matter on an accurate scientific basis.

Commenting on the paragraph appearing under the sub-heading “Others Ate Him” which sub-heading referred the Cory Duch, that is supposed by scientists to have formed the piece de resistance of the sea serpents of that period, he declares that the pythonomorph was not only purely marine and therefore had never seen corythosaurus but he was also previous to him in existence. Bronosaurus and diplodocus both related to each other, and with dentition too weak to eat anything harder than semi-aquatic vegetables, had both died out millions of years prior to the advent of the corythosaurus. The tyrannosaurus rex, he says, did not live here, but this error was less, owing to the fact that the almost equally as large gorosaurus lived here then. Pterandodon and pterodactyl would hardly have been able to handle him.

February 20, 2020 0

Ex-Calgarian to Lead Scientific Party in Africa, 1924

Calgary Herald, 22 March 1924

Ex-Calgarian to Lead Scientific Party in Africa

WE Cutler is entrusted with important excavation researches

Is highly praised by London Times

Expedition is being sent out in behalf of British Museum

It has been announced that sufficient funds have now been raised to permit the British Museum to send an exhibition to East Africa for the purpose of unearthing several prehistoric fossils of dinosaurs and other animals and according to the London Times, WE Cutler, who was formerly a resident of Calgary, and who is considered one of the greatest authorities on work of this kind, has been chosen to head the expedition. Mr. Cutler conducted successful excavations for prehistoric specimens in the Red Deer River Band Lands. He acted in behalf of a Calgary syndicate.

Speaking of Mr. Cutler’s ability, “Science,” under the date of March14, says: “Mr. Cutler has for many years had an unrivaled experience of collecting for the British Museum and other museums, large dinosaurian and similar fossils in North America, and is therefore conversant with the methods of extracting the specimens from the matrix and packing them in such a way as to withstand the stress and strain of the journey to the museum.

Germans Secure Specimens

It has been stated that during the time that East Africa was under the control of the Germans, several splendid specimens of Dinosaurian and other Paleozoic creatures were unearthed and removed to museums in Germany with some information as to the possibilities in the venture the directors of the British Museum have been considering the possibility of sending an expedition to East Africa for the past five years.

Mr. Cutler’s Assistant

LSB Leakey, of St John’s College, Cambridge, who was born in Kenya colony, and whose father is a clergyman near Nairobi, will be Mr. Cutler’s white assistant on the expedition and has been chosen to fill this office because of his knowledge of native habits, language and customs in that section of the world. Mr. Leakey is a specialist on birds, mammals and plants and will make several collections of specimens of this nature while the expedition is in East Africa.

Sites of Excavation

The sites in which the expedition will operate are about four days’ march north and slightly west of Lindi at a place called Tendaguru. It was in this locality that the Germans unearthed the famous gigantosaurus. This site is now overgrown with a dense mass of foliage and is only sparsely inhabited but it is believed that the field may be opened up for excavation purposes without any great difficulty. Another area about two miles east in the Moemkuru Valley will also be investigated. The working season of the year is confined to the months from May until December and during the wet season when about 17 inches of rain is precipitated both exploration and excavation are practically impossible.

Sir Horace Byatt, governor of the Tanganyika Territory has offered every assistance at his disposal to make the expedition a success and the trustees who are baking the expedition are hopeful that great results may be obtained.

February 18, 2020 0