Regular readers of this blog know that its primary mission is to discuss the topic of environmental sustainability in general, and environmental sustainability in the graphic communications industry in particular. Regular readers also know—either to their delight or annoyance, I’m not entirely certain—that the blog also likes to occasionally go off on tangents related to general nature and science, as the blog finds endlessly fascinating the little details (and main points) of what it is we are actually trying to sustain. The blog recognizes that this is a family blog, and whilst I do not envision families sitting around their computers reading aloud Going Green posts—which would be flattering, but weird—we do try to keep the topics here respectable, although the unfortunate faint whiff of snark occasionally wafts up from under the door, no matter how many towels we stuff in the crack. And though not entirely of Victorian temperament, your blogger does try to keep it fairly dignified here in the Going Greenosphere. What I am circumlocuting is to point out that, well, once in a while even Shakespeare throws in a drunken porter scene, and after all  it is a hot summer Friday the 13th, so I am going to sum up what follows in two words: dinosaur sex. Thus forewarned, venture on at your own discretion. The Huffington Post had a post on the topic on Wednesday (which I only just became aware of thanks to Esquire’s Charles Pierce). They provide a summary of the current understanding among paleontologists of how those old thunder lizards—to slightly paraphrase T. Rex—“got it on.” After all, think about a stegosaurus with the armor plates and spikes and everything and how all that lot might have, shall we say, spoiled the mood. Or perhaps not. Who am I to judge? Still, it can’t have been easy. Speaking of equipment, dinosaurs are not likely to have had the standard issue to which we mammals are accustomed:
The males and females of modern-day birds and reptiles have a single body opening for urination, defecation, and reproduction--something called a cloaca (Latin for sewer). Paleontologists believe that dinosaurs had the same basic equipment, and that they coupled by pressing their cloacas together.
I never realized the etymology of cloaca. Anyway, there were some intriguing evolutionary developments amongst the reptiles and birds:
some birds have penises and crocodiles sport penis-like "intromittent organs," and male dinosaurs might have had something similar.
They then proceed to speculate about Tyrannosaurus Rex, and I have been warned about using the word Brobdingnagian, so we shall briskly move along. As for the mechanics of the process, scientists are pretty clear on how that was managed. British paleontologist (Mr.) Beverly Halstead gave some pretty candid talks about dinosaur mating, and summed it up in a 1988 article in the late (and lamented) magazine Omni:
All dinosaurs used the same basic position to mate. Mounting from the rear, he put his forelimbs on her shoulders, lifting one hind limb across her back and twisting his tail under hers to align the cloaca.
Dr. Halstead passed away in 1991, but today’s researchers are pretty much in agreement.
"I don't think there's much doubt about that," Dr. Gregory M. Erickson, an evolutionary biologist at Florida State University, told The Huffington Post in a telephone interview. But, he acknowledged, "It must have been a hell of a thing to see."
A bit of an understatement, to be sure, but we’ll save that visual for the after-midnight version of Jurassic Park. Speaking of visual, The Huffington Post post also includes a decidedly speculative slideshow which I shan’t repost here, but if you’re morbidly curious, have at it. Oh and...my favorite dinosaur? (C’mon, we all have a favorite dinosaur!) I would have to go with the improbably baroque design of the stegosaurus. That was also the hardest model to put together when I was a kid. (I also admire the sleek simplicity of the pterosaur—you gotta love that it flew!—but these flying reptiles are no longer considered dinosaurs per se. Still, one did carry off Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C., so there’s that. Also, too, Rodan.)