A Dunkleosteus-focused visit to Sea Monster Cove

I bought a trial membership in Meg author Steve Alten’s online venture, Sea Monster Cove (https://seamonstercove.com) to check it out. The basis is that there’s an island site where all the creatures from Alten’s fiction have been brought: there are tours, viewing opportunities, a trailer for a Web TV series, and even hotels with underwater views. I’m not going to review the science here, as my readers know (as Mr. Alten does) that I’ve critiqued him on that a lot. Today, though, I just wanted to see if there’s Dunk-related fun to be had.

The content is still limited. but there is some fun. An online game and more exhibits are promised soon.

The Education Center focuses on the background to Alten’s Lost Sea, where many of his creatures hang out, and discusses the ways (real and speculative) his fish and reptiles could adapt to deep-sea dwelling. The Dunkleosteus shown in the Species Research Center comes with an interesting description: “Overconfident hunter, hard hits on low-level danger prey.” “Overconfident” seems a funny word for the unchallenged apex predator of the Devonian, but it probably makes sense in the predator-stuffed Lost Sea. (Science aside, Alten knows how to make scary toys for his undersea sandbox and have fun with them.) The Dunk’s evolved reproductive characteristics are weird, although far from the weirdest things in this resort.

The Dunk here looks like the model shown at the top of my FaceBook Dunk page, while the animated Dunk, Barkley, is based on a different reconstruction. Barkley has very prominent “wrists” to the fins and what I call the “scimitar” tail. Both look odd to me, but they do appear in some scientific illustrations, so no foul. The viewing opportunities, including one from a shark cage, are fun, and there are snippets of events like Barkley’s mother arriving at the Cove.

My main suggestion (besides, of course, more Dunk experiences) is that expanding the Education Center could do a lot of good. Many of the visitors to a science fiction site like this may want to know more about the real science. The only resource I see is a reference to a shark museum run by Keith Cowley, who’s listed as this site’s Education Director. Links to sites, books, and experts could help them learn about Dunkleosteus, sharks, paleontology, and all the other topics touched on in Alten’s work.

I’ll drop in again at some point and see what shows up next.

(P.S. the online store needs a cooler Dunk hat.)

Top image: Barkley. Bottom: profile in Species Research Center. Used by permission.