James A. Jensen
In 1956, Romer decided to mount a Kronosaurus queenslandicus skeleton and had to obtain an unusually large amount of money to do the job.
In addition to the unique method of concealing structural elements, Jensen used a curved back wall that had no corners to create the trompe d'oeil effect of a floating skeleton.
He continued to refine new mounting techniques, prepared specimens, describing some, and attempted unsuccessfully to obtain funding for an earth sciences museum.
His most significant finds in Argentina and Antarctica were the holotype of Probainognathus jenseni on Chañares Formation and a maxilla of a Lystrosaurus on Coalsack Bluff.
[citation needed] Starting in 1972, because of the remarkable range of species and number of specimens, he focused on Dry Mesa near Delta, in Western Colorado.
He did work other locales, but the bulk of his collecting time was spent at Dry Mesa which is probably the richest dinosaur quarry discovered in North America in the second half of the 20th century.
First released on November 13, 1973, in local "Egyptian Theater" in Delta, and subsequently aired on several American TV channels, The Great Dinosaur Discovery was originally planned to be trimmed to about 30 minutes for educational use.
[1] Indeed, to obtain a shortened educational version, the full-length documentary was reduced to a 24-minute-long mini-film which started airing on American television channels throughout the US as of 1976.
While the descriptions are sound, his publications reflected his lack of formal training, resulting in errors made in the assignment of sauropod material from Dry Mesa.
[17] As noted above, part of his success in finding specimens was due to his interest in "rock hounds" who jointly combed thousands of square miles of ground each year.
He visited them every year or so, cultivating their friendship with gifts of dinosaur bones in return for information about their latest finds.
[citation needed] Jensen collected "bird" bones in the Dry Mesa Quarry and became interested in the changes necessary for species to move from terrestrial to arboreal life.
His conclusion was that evolution of the ankle and foot was the fundamental change which had to occur so that species could move permanently, regardless of feathers or not, from the ground into the branches of trees.
