No, not the Jaracz-o-saurus!
Those of us who grew up with the NWT in our little hands probably remember this little guy - he might be a mascot of our generation, might he not?
For those unfamiliar with him, he graced the inside end sheets of the New World Translation - the infamous green version - and was placed squarely in the center of what is now the Sahara desert, I believe.
For decades, of course, I saw him, looked at him, thought "Generic dinosaur." Then I began wondering - WAS he just a generic dinosaur? Was he a brontosaurus playfully raising up on his hind legs to enjoy the tender greens at the top of a spinach tree? Hmmmm...
My answer came from a funny place - a book I treasured during my pre-teen years titled "All About Dinosaurs" (1953) by Roy Chapman Andrews. More than any other single individual, Roy Chapman Andrews was the real person upon whom the character Indiana Jones was based. He explored the world and he revealed the truth of the rocks, and went on to become Director of the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Growing up in New York City, it was one magnificent resource that I had access to that fired up my mind.
Page 13 of ALL ABOUT DINOSAURS offers an illustration by Tom W. Voter of Anchisaurus. Look familiar? We can't prove plagiarism of Mr. Voter's work by the WTS - after all, the Watchtower's anchisaurus has his hands in a different position, doesn't he?
Other interesting tidbits about the anchisaurus are that he was a prosauropod from the early Jurassic period, about 200 million to 188 million years ago and was a vegan. By contrast, the ever-popular T. Rex lived about 85 million to 65 million years ago. Bones later identified as anchisaurus were discovered in 1818 in Connecticut, and later in Massachusetts, relatively close to Brooklyn, and nowhere near the Sahara.
