#FOWC Archives – Page 19 of 102

May 1, 2024May 2, 2024

Y is for Yucatan

The Big One! Asteroid impact site in Chicxulub, Yucatan. Graphic from *Atlanti*c.

BOOM! or maybe it was boom…boom…fshhhh..whap booma-booma…boom..bubble boom glub glub Boom…

Which was it? Luis Alvarez had one story, and he was laughed out of the paleontologist’s room. Until he wasn’t. Gerta Keller, who disagreed with him, has been laughed out of the same rooms. She’s won prizes for her research. Can they both be right?

There are multiple stories here. First, there is a story of a scientist who had a crazy idea and some data, which took decades for scientists to confirm. Then, there’s a second story, of a scientist still fighting for her own version, one which would upend those decades. Plus, there’s the underlying story, of what killed off all the dinosaurs. Between story one and story two, there’s still uncertainty about story three.

It’s been called “The Nastiest Feud in Science.” It’s still ongoing, even though now they do know where the asteroid hit. The crater is in the Yucatan.

April 29, 2024April 30, 2024

W is for Wings

Pteranodon longiceps, at the NY Museum of Natural History

The flying dinosaur is a tricky concept. If you search “flying dinosaur,” you get a hundred sites that refer to pterosaurs as flying dinosaurs. But they’re not dinosaurs; they’re not on the dinosaur clade (family tree). They don’t have the right kind of hips or the hole in their head (see Letter “A”). Maybe 10% of those internet sites put “flying dinosaur” in quotes to show they at least know something, although most don’t bother (including MSN, Youtube, LiveScience and so on). Just to be clear, pterosaurs were flying reptiles, but not dinosaurs. Now that we have that out of the way, they were also cool. Just look at the bones, the arms, the wings!!!!

Meanwhile, scientists talk about non-avian and avian dinosaurs. What’s that about? Some reputable sites say the non-avians meant cold-blooded, the big giant sauropods. Others label all dinosaurs non-avian except for the one line, Avialea, that produced the modern birds. To recap, flying reptilian pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. Birds are avian dinosaurs. I would argue that makes all other dinosaurs non-avian. And one specific type of non-avian dinosaur was so close to birds that it may be considered a missing link between the two bird and dinosaur branches.

Whether dinosaurs or avian or not, their flight is also the subject of the day. How did they fly–compared with modern fliers? And what was so unusual about archaeopteryx, the fossil with a feather? I want to acknowledge right up front that I was inspired in this post by the paleontologist guru professor of the Rediscovering the Age of Dinosaurs Great Course, Kristi Curry Rogers. She specifically compared pterosaurs–those wonderful flying giant reptiles–to birds and bats, so I am going to borrow and share several of her ideas here.

April 26, 2024May 5, 2024

T is for T. rex

Feathered TRex from Everything Dinosaur blog (2018)

Mr. T!

Why wasn’t in named T. regina? (Tyrannosaurus regina, Queen of the dinosaurs?) I suppose that’s a pipe dream. Consider who discovered them first and named them first. Women weren’t in charge of naming at the time.

He was a formidable guy. And there were a lot of him around, as the world seems to be full of many T. rex and general tyrannosaurus species specimens. They’re finding them practically every year out in the deserts of China and Montana. T. rex is arguably the most popular dinosaur, the best known. Plus, people love to make fun of those tiny arms.

The History of the Finding

The first person to find T. rex fossils was named after P.T. Barnum, circus showman, which seems appropriate. His name was Barnum Brown, and he was the new naturalist running the brand spanking new American Museum of Natural History in New York. They had a bit of funding, so Barnum was out in the west digging for bones. And he found them.