Saturday, June 04, 2005

Saw the new exhibit on dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. Now they're saying Apatasaurus never did browse the tops of the trees; supposedly he couldn't lift up his neck very far. And T. rex couldn't run very fast.

I find their evidence unconvincing. No one said Apatasaurus (ne Brontosaurus) could angle his neck up; they said he got up on his hind legs. Which if you look at the way his hind legs are so much longer than his front legs, makes sense. Animals that have short front legs get up on their hind legs to eat. Otherwise you have equal length legs.

Anyway, why on Earth would you have a long neck if not to go high? The exhibit claims it was to reach over into water and eat stuff. But there is only so much shoreline. You can't make a living at the shoreline unless you're small. And an Apatasaur wouldn't want to get too close to the water -- the ground gets muddy and he might sink in. And why be so big at all if you're doing is eating stuff that a wading dino can eat without all the cantilevering? Better to be a hippo. Doesn't make sense.

And sure, T. rex may be heavy like the elephant, and elephants don't move fast. But elephants don't chase their food down, last I checked. I doubt he was much slower than a lion. He certainly had to be faster than whatever he ate, for short sprints anyway.

It feels like a lot of kneejerk backlash. They told us dinos were coldblooded and sluggish and dragged their tails, and then they said they were scary and hotblooded. Now they're back to a middle ground. They've even got computer models of dinos dragging their tails -- never mind that you never see tail marks in trackways. What's up with that, Natural History Museum?

The many new pre-Archeopteryx birds and non-avian flying dinos are way cool, though. And they've got a teeny little shrew that probably knew our ancestors.

6:56 PM

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