Monty Harper Songbook

Hear this song and/or purchase it: CD Baby • iTunes

I wrote this song for the Museum of the Red River in Idabel, OK, in honor of their dinosaur.

The Acro resembles a T-Rex, though it lived about 45 million years earlier and it was a bit smaller and much lighter. What makes it really unique is the line of "neural spines" that grew down its back from neck to tail. We don't really know what they were for, but picture a T-rex with a punk hairdo.

The cast on display in the museum is of the most complete Acro skeleton ever found. It's very impressive! It was dug up locally and sent to South Dakota to be cleaned and prepared. Local school children raised the money to bring a cast back home for display at the Museum of the Red River.

Acrocanthosaurus atokensis was named Oklahoma's official dinosaur on June 6, 2006. (The official state fossil is Saurophaganax maximus, which also happens to be an impressive dinosaur.)

Acrocanthosaurus, My Oklahoma Dinosaur - song lyric

Acrocanthosaurus buried underneath the ground
One hundred twenty million years you waited to be found
Your bones reveal the tale
Of claws that would impale
And jaws that would avail a preditory carnivore
Still you keep your secrets
My Oklahoma dinosaur

Acrocanthosaurus with your vertebrae so unique
A scientific mystery, they give you your mystique
Like dominoes in a row
Were they more than just for show?
We’d very much like to know what you evolved to grow them for
Still you keep your secrets
My Oklahoma dinosaur

Swing your mighty tail bone; Snap your toothy jaws
Stomp your plodding foot bone; Spring your sharpened claws
Shake your spiny back bone; Sing your lonesome roar
Acrocanthosaurus
My Oklahoma dinosaur

Acrocanthosaurus with your headdress down your spine
We formed a few hypotheses about your cool design
Maybe it kept you warm?
Maybe it made you strong?
Maybe we’re right or wrong but we'll continue to explore
As long as you keep your secrets
My Oklahoma dinosaur

Swing your mighty tail bone; Snap your toothy jaws
Stomp your plodding foot bone; Spring your sharpened claws
Shake your spiny back bone; Sing your lonesome roar
Acrocanthosaurus
My Oklahoma dinosaur

My favorite kind of dinosaur is the triceratops. Has been for almost 30 years, all because way back in kindergarden, we drew cards that had random dinosaur names on them, and whatever you got, you modeled that dinosaur out of clay, and i got the triceratops, and that began my fascination with dinosaurs, and later on science.

Now you can hear this song, along with the entire Songs From the Science Frontier CD, on the podcast Parenting Within Reason, episode 37. It's a free download via iTunes. Enjoy!

P.S. Here's the photo of the Acro taken by Lisa Harper at the Museum of the Red River which appears (partially) on the inside of the CD cover: