Mexico
2006
"Dinosaurs of Mexico"
Issue Date |
29.09.2006 |
ID |
Michel:
3268-3270 Bl. 69 Stanley Gibbons: UPU: MX019.06
Category: pR |
Author |
Designer: Ernesto Castellanos Castellanos
Technicla illustration: Ilustracion y composicion digital
|
Stamps in set |
3 |
Value |
MXN 6.50 - Muzzy
(Muzquizopteryx
coahuilensis)
MXN 7.50 - Sabinosaurio
(Sabinosaurus is
an hadrosau)
MXN 10.50 - ‘Monstruo de
Aramberri' ( pliosaur) |
Size (width x height) |
40mm x 24mm
Mini-Sheet size: 13cm x 9.5cm |
Layout |
3 stamps in mini-sheet |
Products
|
FDC x 1 SS x1 |
Paper |
Couche white, one
side gluing 100gms./m2
|
Perforation |
13 |
Print Technique |
Offset
|
Printed by |
Talleres
de Impresion de Estampillas y Valores |
Quantity |
100,000 mini-sheets |
Issuing Authority |
Servicio
Postal Mexicano |
On end of September 2006,
Mexican Postal Service in cooperation
with The Museo del
Desierto ( The Desert Museum), presented ,for the enjoyment
of
philatelists and the general public , a souvenir sheet with 3 stamps of
prehistoric creatures which leaved on territory of the country
in
far geological past: Upper Cretaceous (100 - 60 Mio. years ago
)
and Late
Jurassic (160 - 145 Mio. years ago ) periods.
The history of life on earth is one of the most thrilling
topics
for the human being, because we intend to comprehend the origin of our
own species.
Our innate curiosity makes us ask ourselves about the origin
of
life, about the diversity of organisms known in the present and the
ones that existed in the past.
Paleontology makes
studies about this creatures that lived in a geological past and is the
source of information
about the history
of life.
In 1926, the German
paleontologist
Werner
Janensch
made the first description of a dinosaur in Mexican soil fossilized
remains of a ceratopsid found in the locality of Sierra Mojada,
Coahuila. Later on some more dinosaurs bones
has been found in Múrquiz municipality.Thereafter,
others paleontologists made another findings in the area in the second
half of the
past century, made Coahuila
was well known at paleontologists community, but the real development was in the middle
of 80’s, when the formal rescue of the first articulate dinosaur of
Mexico to
the world was conducted by a group of scientific of National
University (Universidad
Nacional
Autónoma) of México, with the support of a group of teacher from the
Secretary
of Public Education of Coahuila.
In the
Mexican Republic, Coahuila is the territory with the most abundance of
vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, both marine and continental
enviroments. Most
notable are dinosaur
fossils
of Upper Cretaceous period (70 million years ago) of Mesozoic
era; represented
families of Hadrosaurs, Ceratopsians, Tyrannosaurids, Ornithomimids and
Dromaeosaurids, among others.
This
fossils are in excelent state of preservation. Coahuila is in the top
10 of
places of major fossil richness around the world. In the state of
Coahuila we
find the Desert
Museum ( El
Museo del Desierto)
wich occupy an area of 4,5
hectares (45000 square meters; it is a very
important site of divulgation and research of the natural and cultural
heredity
of the desert, where the paleontology, geology, biology, history and
art
converge. This museum opened its doors on November 27,
1999 and is a nacional icon, due to the fact that it´s
the only museum that deeply investigate the subject of the
desert which
covers almost 60% of the national territory.
 |
MUZZY
(Muzquixzopteryx
coahuilensis)
is the representation
of the flying reptil from Upper Cretaceous, it's age has
been calculated in 88
million years, whose remains were discovered in the 90’s
decade by a
worker of a flagstone quarry in Múzquiz, Coahuila. For
a while it was called “chango fósil”
(chango means boy).
Only one speciment is found to date, this species maybe populated all
the shores of the sea that covered Coahuila with the exception of some
parts to the north. The size of the
adult specimen is about 2,2 meters of wingspan, so its considered a
small reptil of Cretaceous period, whose ate fishes.
Other flying reptiles from the same family
(Nyctosauridae
sp.) are discoverd in USA and Brazil.
|
|
SABINOSAURIO
(Kritosaurus sp)
ON May 2001, a member of the group "Amateur
Paleontologists of
Sabinas" (“Paleontólogos
Aficionados de Sabinas”), found the
fossil remains of this dinosaur that
belongs to the hadrosaurs group commonly known as "duck bills", while
he was working on industrial ground south from Sabinas,
Coahuila. This
is herbivorous
dinosaur ( ate plants only) from the area, it age is
66
million years old and it belons to the Kritosaurid
genera.
They were abundant in the coahuilan territory when it had a great
quantity of tropical type vegetation, which was very similar to a
tropical rainforest of today. It was the most common
herbivorous
in the region during the Upper Cretaceous period of time.
Fossils of Kritosaur allowed for the first mounted
dinosaur ever in Mexico which can be seen at the Museo del Desierto and
which has been given the name of Isauria, it is a 9 meter long skeleton
honouring the actress Isaura Espinoza.
|
MONSTER
OF ARRAMBERRI (Pliosaurus).
Is the representation of a marine reptile based on a young fossil
specimen found by a student of the Sciences of the Earth
Faculty
from
the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, while he was doing a
geological mapping in the year 1985. There are 3 pliosaur
species have been found in the south of Coahuila and in Nuevo
León. The Arammerri
Monster reaches 18 meters in length and lived in the open sea more
than 100 kilometres from the cost 140 million years ago in the Upper
Jurassic and it is considered the biggest predator of all
times. They ate fishes,
pliosaurus and plesiosaurus. Some pieces of a half-digested backbone
that
belongs to an
ictiosaurus has been found in the stomach of
this specimen. Some marks, present on the fossil
bones, indicate that it was fatally wounded by a much larger
specimen,
possibly from the same species.
|
Notes:
Stamps set Name.
Actually there are only one Dinosaur
depicting on
these stamps, two other animals arf not dinosaurs, but Pterosaur
and
Pliosaurus
(flying and marine reptilies). More correct name of the set
should be either "Prehistoric
reptilies of Mexico" or "Prehistoric Monsters from Mexico" rather than
"Dinosaurs of Mexico"
Werner
Ernst Martin Janensch (11 November 1878 - 20
October
1969) was a German paleontologist
and geologist, who is most famous contributions stemmed from
the
expedition he led with Edwin Hennig to the Tendaguru
Beds in what is now
Tanzania. The Museum fuer
Naturkunde Berlin excavated at Tendaguru hill and in the
surroundings for four years, from 1909 through 1911, when
Werner Janensch was an
expedition leader. Many excavated fossils of dinosaurs ( include
Brachiosaurus
brancai, 14
meter high the bigest dinosaur skeleton of the world, shown on
German stamp from 2010 )
from the Tendaguru
Beds are moved to Germany and can be seen in the the Museum fuer
Naturkunde Berlin.
Products
FDC
(First day
Cover) |
Souvenir
Sheet (
back side with stamp release text is here) |

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Circulated cover |
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References:
Servicio
Postal Mexicano web site /
back side of
Souvenir Sheet
Latest
update 09.11.2017
Any feedback, comments or even complaints
are welcome: [email protected] (you
can email me on ENglish, DEutsch, or RUssian)