Wednesday, December 6, 2017
A little of this, a little of that
It's a little amusing that when - very recently - paleontologists found this fossil they were so unsure what to do with it some thought it could be a Piltdown-style hoax. And you can't really blame them. A prehistoric creature combining aspects of swan, penguin, and alligator does sound too good to be true. Reconstructed, it looks to have been awkward, all arms and legs. But it must have had some success, enough at least to leave evidence behind.
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2 comments:
It's definitely a pretty interesting looking creature, albeit one I'm just as happy not to be running into on a trip to the park. When one of them wants a peanut you'd best have a bag of them handy.
When I saw this I remembered an article I saw on Nat Geo last year discussing the new evidence that all dinosaurs were likely feathered. It's a very cool concept. They may have been very dangerous to soft and squishy creatures such as ourselves but it would have been wonderful to see them dance.
Heehee, yeah. With pigeons the peanuts and popcorn are optional donations, but that might not be the case with this bad boy.
Just which dinosaurs were feathered and which not will be a bone of contention for a long time, I think. Just like whether or not they were warm blooded. I tend to think not all of them were. But it's interesting that the End-Permean extinction saw a lot of mammal-like reptiles die out, which might be why mammals themselves didn't take off until the end of the dinosaur's era.
That would have been a neat sight too.
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