As LBT dinosaurs go, Rooter is a very interesting case. His two-and-a-half-minute appearance in the first movie is all that we have ever seen of his species in the entire Land Before Time series. Because of this, and the fact that he is very rarely referenced in LBT media, the exact nature of his species is open to interpretation. However, by comparing Rooter to a range of likely candidates, (plus a bit of logic to help trim down the list,) I think we can come up with a plausible explanation as to his identity.
First off, what do we know about Rooter? He is clearly an ankylosaur, or armored dinosaur (a relatively small one at that, seeing as he is only a little taller than Littlefoot), with a squat, segmented, almost armadillo-like body, short, slightly sprawling legs, three rows of bony spikes or knobs down his back, large subrectangular eyebrows (a feature not known in any dinosaur species I am aware of
), a short, slightly recurved horn on the end of his nose, a second, vaguely pyramidal horn or bump in the center of his snout, and a small tail club with two large, outward-curving spikes.
I suppose if we were to go with the “simplest explanation = best explanation” hypothesis, then we should argue Rooter to be an
Ankylosaurus, the most famous armored dinosaur. However, Rooter doesn’t really resemble an
Ankylosaurus, especially when we compare him to Mr. Clubtail, who unquestionably belongs to that genus.
I believe the hypothesis that Rooter is a
Hylaeosaurus to be somewhat more likely. However, despite bearing the distinction of being the third dinosaur to be scientifically described,
Hylaeosaurus is known from relatively poor fossil material: scattered fragments and two partial skeletons, the better of which consists of only the front half of the body minus most of the skull. Because of this, we have fairly little to go on in terms of comparing Rooter physically to a
Hylaeosaurus.
Hylaeosaurus is known to have sported three rows of armor plates down its back, which is consistent with Rooter's appearance; however, it also possessed large bony spikes on its shoulders and hips, which Rooter clearly lacks. And although it was quite well known in the early days of dinosaur studies,
Hylaeosaurus has received little attention from the dinosaur authors and illustrators of the last century (as far as I know, anyway). As such, I rather doubt that Don Bluth would have been likely to stumble across
Hylaeosaurus whilst looking for candidates to offer words of wisdom to his sauropod protagonist.
I have my own idea of what kind of dinosaur Rooter could be; a genus of ankylosaur that I suspect very few people are familiar with:
Scolosaurus. I base my nomination on the fact that, in the movie, as Rooter turns to leave, the camera cuts to a wide shot in which we briefly see a small club with a pair of spikes at the end of his tail.
Only one family of ankylosaurs, the Ankylosauridae, is known to have possessed clubbed tails (
Hylaeosaurus was a polacanthid, and thus probably did not bear a club), and of these,
Scolosaurus is the only genus I have ever seen illustrated with a spiked club. Allow me to present this illustration by Czech artist Zdeněk Burian
this illustration by Czech artist Zdeněk Burian, depicting
Scolosaurus being menaced by the tyrannosaur
Gorgosaurus (who bears a distinct family resemblance to a certain Sharptooth, I might add
). From the club on its tail, to the shape of its body, to the posture of its legs, to the segmentation of its armor, this ankylosaur is a dead ringer for Rooter (it even has a little horn on its nose!). In fact, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if I learned that Bluth had looked at that exact same picture whilst researching dinosaurs for his movie. In summary, I believe we can safely argue that Rooter is based on a
Scolosaurus.
However, there is a twist in my hypothesis:
Scolosaurus is a genus that no longer exists. Apparently, it is now considered to be the same dinosaur as
Euoplocephalus tutus (In a sense, poor
Scolosaurus got off even worse than
Brontosaurus; while the latter was sunk into
Apatosaurus, it at least got to keep its specific epithetó
excelsusóand some paleontologists have lobbied for its former genus name to be resurrected.) Though I don’t know the details for certain, it would appear that
Scolosaurus’s tail spikes actually belonged on its back, and the whole dinosaur was much closer in appearance to
Ankylosaurus than to Rooter. So where does that leave us?
If you wanted to be strictly scientific, then you could call Rooter a
Euoplocephalus, despite the difference in appearance (It’s the same premise as referring to Littlefoot and his folks as
Apatosaurus, despite the fact that they are based on the “invalid”
Brontosaurus). Or you could say, “to heck with biological nomenclature and scientific accuracy!”
and call him a
Scolosaurus. I have one more idea, however: why don’t weóthe LBT fansógive Rooter his own species name? There have been other dinosaurs in the LBT saga that do not appear to belong to any known species (the “Hidden Runner” in the TV series, and a couple of bizarre-looking leafeaters seen lounging under a tree alongside an
Ankylosaurus and a
Parasaurolophus during the credits of LBT II), and I seem to recall certain fanfiction writers devising their own dinosaur species. As a possible scientific name for Rooter's species, I propose
Rhizoryctes hinglei (Rize-or-ick-teez hing-gul-eye), “Hingle’s Root-Digger.”
(I personally like to refer to Rooter’s kind as a “digger,” given the implications of his name and the fact that when we first see him, he is buried in the ground.) Whaddaya think?
Well, what do you know? :! Six days, seventeen hours, and twenty minutes since my introductory post, and I'm already at Petrie level!
I never thought I could write so fast!
