Pages

Monday, April 16, 2012

Death of Another Childhood Icon

Who wasn't just a little bit upset when Pluto was demoted in the solar system hierarchy?  The list of planets we had all memorized, the models we were all familiar with, and the science projects we had all slaved over didn't seem complete without it.  That smoldering spark of childhood innocence lingering in the back of our minds knew life would look different from now on.

Now another iconic figure which for years has fascinated children everywhere has apparently been changed forever.  Thanks to exceptionally detailed fossils found in northern China where a prehistoric volcano created a sort of "dinosaur Pompeii," we now have reason to believe all the dinosaurs of the Dromaeosauridae family, including Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus, were feathered.

Somehow the thought of those undersized arms looking like baby bird wings makes them twice as ridiculous.  I guess this makes Tyrannosaurus sort of like a giant carnivorous ostrich.  Paleontology will never be quite the same again.


2 comments:

  1. Darn! They're messing with my dinosaurs again? I was majorly weirded out when they said dinosaurs really had noses more on the front of their faces like that of a dog... Somehow I'm not quite able to reconcile T-Rex with feathers and a dog nose...

    ReplyDelete