Dinosaurs? Yes, Please!

A Blog Post By Lady Felicity

I consider myself very fortunate in that most of the things which always interested me as a child still have some significance or place in my adult life. My love of animals and the sea, my fascination with seeing the world, seeing different cultures and delving into ancient ones where possible – through making our travel documentaries and with Curios Aquatica, those things are still very much present in my life.

I do still share one passion with the majority of children though, a love of dinosaurs. My sister has always been intrigued with geology. Her gemstone collection started at a young age and has since grown not just to take up a considerable amount of wall space in her home but to her now owning a gemstone and fossil shop called Island Gems.

My sister and I started working for Island Gems as soon as we each moved to the Isle of Wight. She quickly became a manager (and when the owner was ready to retire some years later, the new owner of the business) while I became the head fossil tour guide.

Some years later, a certain Greg Chapman worked next door to Island Gems and would often pop in for a chat. A few more years passed and I found myself training him as our fill-in tour guide. . . later I found myself exchanging marriage vows with him while stood beside a life-sized replica triceratops. . . as you do. . .

The Isle of Wight is the best place in Europe for finding dinosaur fossils. Many places can boast of fantastic marine fossils such as ammonites, belemnites (fossilised squid shells), ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs (marine reptiles). To find actual dinosaurs (land living reptiles with the hips placed underneath the body rather than to the sides like crocodiles or the Dimetrodon which is often wrongly mistaken for a dinosaur), the Isle of Wight is the place to visit. This does not mean, however, that dinosaurs can’t be found in other places too. They are usually found in a museum rather than walking along a beach like we regularly do on the Isle of Wight.

Whenever we start researching a new destination to make one of our adventure documentaries, I like to have a quick check to see what (if any) fossils can be found in that place.

When we visited the Isle of Man to make Railways, Castles and Seals, Greg was in charge of everything. The research, organising, booking, everything. For someone who over-organises to the level I am known for, that was quite an experience for us both! Even then, however, Greg knew to check for fossils and the main fossils found on the Isle of Man- crinoids (sea lilies)- feature briefly in that video.

During our most recent travel adventure in Romania: Seeking Dracula’s Castle, the video, as the title suggests, was less about seeing what the country has to offer in general and focused more on one specific thing there (which you can watch for yourself using the links at the end of this post).

Despite this we couldn’t resist a quick dinosaur and fossil related search and discovered that Romania has its fair share (by this I mean about six different species) of dinosaurs, one of which, the Magyarosaurus Dacus (‘Magyar lizard’), is incredibly both the biggest dinosaur found in Romania and yet it is also (one of) the smallest sauropod species (long neck) found in the whole world.

While most of the dinosaurs found in Romania can also be found in countries like Austria, France and Spain, they do also have one species also found on the Isle of Wight – Valdosaurus (Wealden Lizard), as well as two species Zalmoxes (Dacian Deity) and the aforementioned Magyarosaurus which are unique to Romania.

I realise for those of you who have sadly grown out of your dinosaur-obsessed days, I probably lost you for a moment there. For those of you who love dinosaurs still or are happy to walk around a beautifully presented park which demonstrates the majesty of these long dead (or evolved if you are one that accepts each time you see a bird you are looking at a dinosaur) creatures, there is such a park (Dino Parc, Rasnov) in Romania which doesn’t disappoint.

If you are also like me and lean more towards the old fashioned feeling museums rather than the often too sterile, state of the art, ‘gadgety’ museums, there is a great National Geology (and fossil) Museum waiting for you in Bucharest too. As well as having some old-fashioned, Victorian feeling model displays, it had some genuine fossils (I always get a little thrill whenever I see some fossils from the Isle of Wight included and have rarely been disappointed. This Museum was no exception!) as well as a fantastic room ‘full of rocks’ as Greg so eloquently put it. In truth it was a room I felt would have had my sister practically drooling, the gemstone specimens were so fine.

One of the things I like most about the world of fossils, of palaeontology, is that it is always changing. We are forever finding new specimens, new species. The regular advancement in science means we are always learning more, changing and adapting past theories and ideas regarding these prehistoric creatures and the world they lived in. It does mean that you think you know what you are talking about, you have all your ‘facts’ straight and then yet another scientific paper is published and you have to change everything you thought you knew (don’t get me started on Brontosaurus/ Apatosaurus or Seismosaurus/ Diplodocus!).

It does also mean that likely in ten years time, I will re-read this blog post and find some inaccuracies, either in what I have written or in what I believed to be the truth at the time of writing this. That’s palaeontology for you!

It’s wonderful though. In many ways the dinosaurs are gone but their remains are still being discovered, their life and world is still fascinating and surprising scientists each year, they live on in children’s imaginations and in mine. I will always be grateful to these long ago creatures for the role they played in my imagination as a child and, more recently, the role they played in me finding my husband. I hope to see the world, to see and learn so many more incredible things, there is so much out there but everywhere we go, if it makes it into our travel documentaries or not, I suspect I will always at least check for dinosaurs and fossils in every country I visit.

Thanks for reading, stay safe!

Felicity

The Torture Exhibition

Curios Aquatica

A blog post by Lady Felicity

If you have read any of our previous blog posts you will have noticed that I am usually the one to write about animals. If you have read my blog about whales (here) or Sharks (here), you will have likely realised that I am a bit lovingly obsessed and fascinated with the sea. Always have been.

I have always been likened to a mermaid, even by strangers on occasion. My long hair added to the fact I have always swum my own version of the butterfly stroke, which heightens the resemblance further. I loved swimming so much my family even had a pool installed in our garden when I was a kid. We lived on the outskirts of a city, far from the sea… yet the obsession was there anyway. Documentaries, films, anything about the sea, I couldn’t get enough.

My Mum can’t swim, so on every family holiday my Mum would watch like a hawk as my sister and I dragged our Dad into the sea.

Deeper. I always wanted to go deeper. Big waves? Even better!

I wanted to travel the world, see every country, its culture and wildlife and particularly its oceans and marine life. I was the only one in my family with this passion and it took Greg to really make it start to happen.

I am big on wildlife and conservation. Since I moved to the coast I see the sea almost every day. I walk on the beach and I usually end up finding and taking litter away with me. The days you find creatures (fish, dolphins, sharks, sea horses, jelly fish) washed up on the beach are sad. When those creatures are tangled up in nets and plastic rubbish… it’s actually gut wrenching for me.

I remember one day when I was leading a fossil tour along the beach with a school group. Usually something I thoroughly enjoy but on this morning some fisherman had been to work. They had caught small sharks and gutted them, throwing back the parts they didn’t want. Those ‘bits’ had washed onto my beach. Hundreds of shark heads and stringy bits of flesh littered the beach. It was everywhere. The kids ranged from fascinated to horrified. Some started trying to pick the bits up… It was horrible. If you did read my post about sharks (here) you will understand a bit more how truly devastating I found this.

I was desperate to make a difference. To stop, or at least improve, the levels of pollution finding its way into the worlds oceans, to clean up the sea and beaches for all that beautiful marine life that people rarely get to see (and as a result, it seems, so often don’t really care about). Surely if people saw, knew and understood they would care!?

It was during one of my (likely too many) passionate talks (ok, maybe rant is the right word) with Greg, after I had hauled up a particularly large amount of rubbish from the beach, that he suggested maybe he knew a way that we could make a bigger difference.

Greg is an entertainer. It is a world he knows and understands. It can also be a platform on occasion. Perhaps together we could come up with a show that educates while also entertaining.

Curios Aquatica was born:

Curios- linking to fossils and mythology. Before people knew what fossils were, collectors would sell them to tourists as curiosities. The ammonite, for example, was a prehistoric squid with a shell which people even now sometimes mistake for a fossilised snail shell. In Victorian times this curiosity was sold as a petrified snake, cursed by an abbess. It is also where we get one example of a fiji mermaid- the remains of a monkey combined with those of a fish. . . there are all sorts of fossils, myths and weird and wonderful things that fell under the banner of ‘curiosities’.

Aquatica- pretty obvious, ‘of the water’.

Curios Aquatica therefore- Mysteries of the Water. Perfect.

Next was to develop our show and its characters. Next came Fliss the Mermaid.

Fliss is not the ‘Disney princess’ style mermaid most people expect. This was very  important to me. Fliss is real and in real life you don’t (or certainly shouldn’t!) approach a wild animal and assume it is your best friend. It may be beautiful, it may look cute and friendly, but that doesn’t mean it is safe and it certainly doesn’t mean it feels ok with you forcing an interaction onto it.

Fliss the mermaid represents marine life but also wildlife in general in my eyes.

Fliss cannot speak ‘human’. Greg has joked that this is due to her not wanting to learn lines for shows and events (also true!), but it is down to her being a wild animal. What animal (aside from some birds) can verbally speak to humans? Yet that doesn’t mean they don’t communicate. If you have read my whale blog (here) you will already know how complex their brains are, that they have their own unique language just as evolved as ours. Doesn’t mean we can speak ‘whale’.

How many people have come into contact with other people that don’t speak the same language as them and yet, through gestures and expressions been able to understand each other anyway?

How many people have a dog or cat which they can’t speak with (ok, I know most owners speak to their pets anyway but I mean have a two way conversation with… I don’t count my cat meowing back!) and yet communicate with and understand anyway?

Animals communicate, it’s just we are usually not used to ‘listening’. If we learn their signals, indicators, habits, their ‘language’, we can better appreciate, understand and, in some cases, communicate with them.

This is part of what Fliss teaches people, with the help of Greg.

Fliss is of the sea. She can understand some things, many creatures can, but she needs understanding in return. Fliss is about linking humans and animals in a sympathetic way. She is beautiful and wild but still willing to interact with you if you respect her.

This was very much how I felt about the whales in Mexico. When people hunted the whales, they killed the people. Now that people go out in boats peacefully, the whales approach the boats and interact with people in a beautiful, peaceful way. It is an amazing experience and something to cherish. You compare that to dolphins and orcas forced to live in a tank and interact with you, or be starved and punished. . . who would want that kind of interaction!? Yet that is exactly what happens and what I am desperate to stop.

My thought is that people must just not realise that this is the reality. So I aim to educate them. Through Fliss. Through our shows. Through our travel documentaries. Any and every way I can, I will spread this message. Captivity, certainly for some species such as cetaceans, is torture and should be stopped.

This respect, understanding and appreciation for nature and wildlife is a big part of our message but there is more to it. There is the detrimental effect we are having on it with our pollution (both physical with plastic, oil, etc but some is noise pollution too), our over fishing and the way we feel towards some species.

An example of this is sharks. People fear them, eat them, use bits of them in ‘medicines’, there is very little respect for sharks. The closest most get is pure fear. It doesn’t help that things like the movie Jaws have made people so afraid of sharks. Again, if you read my shark blog you will know there is so much more to them than this poor reputation – an unfair one too which Greg makes clear in this short video:

https://youtu.be/j6JgjcNZIFM

It goes the other way too, sometimes people like an animal, yet still have no respect for it. For example there was a news story about a curious dolphin which approached some people paddling in the sea. The people lifted the dolphin from the water and passed it around so they could all get a ‘selfie picture’ with it. This killed the dolphin. Nature, animals, they not only deserve respect but need it too.

I hope that people on the whole are not evil, that these terrible things are usually done as a result of ignorance and by accident rather than due to malice, greed and soullessness.

So we created a school and scout show with Curios Aquatica. We take a beautiful set, we include puppets and magic, we have fun with the children but we also teach them what is wrong and get them thinking about ways to improve things.

We perform at events, interacting with the public while still encouraging people to think, learn and change the way they perhaps look and interact with the world around them.

We also fundraise for marine charities, helping those that are already trying to improve things and make a difference. Our current marine charity is The Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit. If you would like to support them, please click here to donate.

You may have noticed that there is not a lot of travel in this particular blog post as with Greg’s post about magic recently. We have plans to discuss more aspects of what we do between posts about our travels – especially as our travels are on pause until the world reopens. There will be more travel in next weeks blog but let us know whether you like these posts which take you into other aspects of our work.

Thanks for reading, stay safe and please help save the sea.

Felicity

P.S.

If you enjoyed this blog post, please leave a comment and say ‘hello’!

Free in the USA on Tubi TV at:

https://tubitv.com/movies/678018/seeking-cetaceans-in-scotland

 

Bran Castle – Home of Dracula?

It was between 1377 and 1388 that the castle itself was built, to form a dual role of a ‘customs house’ and a fortress to defend against attempts at Ottoman expansion, and in fact it is these roles which likely saw Vlad the Impaler (our ‘other Dracula’) pass through Bran Castle on his way to solve a dispute between the Wallachia Voivode and the Saxons about tax rates.

The castle changed ownership a number of times, until in 1888, not long before the book Dracula was written, the City Administration of Brasov handed the castle over to the forestry department, and although until 1918 it was inhabited on and off by foresters and woodsmen, in general the castle fell into decay, and could easily have ended its existence as a slowly crumbling ruin if not for the unification of Romania!

After Transylvania became a part of Greater Romania, Bran Castle was gifted, on December 1st 1920, to Queen Marie of Romania. For the next twelve years the castle was restored to the Queen’s requirements, and in 1932 it became a famous royal summer residence – including her own ‘Tea House’ in the grounds which today has become the Casa de Ceai Restaurant, which we would definitely recommend!

I found that from the outside, and in the courtyards of the castle, it felt every inch the Castle Dracula of the books. Inside though in the music room, study and bedrooms, this was a home treasured by a Queen.

All in all the castle is well worth a visit, and marked a wonderful introduction to the Romanian castles on our adventure!

Thanks for reading, and stay safe!

P.S.

If you enjoyed this blog post, please leave a comment and say ‘hello’!

Free in the USA on Tubi TV at:

https://tubitv.com/movies/678018/seeking-cetaceans-in-scotland