Fossil Friday: Archeopteryx
Sep. 16th, 2016 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
One of my dinosaur books rather dubiously claims that Archeopteryx is "perhaps the most famous extinct organism in the world". I find this doubtful - surely Tyrannosaurus Rex holds that distinction?
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Still, the discovery of the first Archeopteryx fossil in 1861 is a hugely important point in the history of our understanding of dinosaurs, bird evolution and evolution in general. B. has occasionally bombarded Archeopteryx specimens with fundamental particles.
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Still, the discovery of the first Archeopteryx fossil in 1861 is a hugely important point in the history of our understanding of dinosaurs, bird evolution and evolution in general. B. has occasionally bombarded Archeopteryx specimens with fundamental particles.
Wither the Brontosaurus?
Date: 2016-09-23 06:25 am (UTC)I wonder if the author of your book wasn't an ornithologist in their second career; certainly a good case can be made that Archeopteryx should be the world's most famous, er, extinct organism. (But that wording ...!)
Re: Wither the Brontosaurus?
Date: 2016-09-23 09:49 am (UTC)TBH, I think all the dinosaurs us 1970s kids had models of (T. Rex, Brachiosaurus (Brontosaurus), Triceratops, Stegosaurus) are probably better known than the Archeopteryx and, thanks to Jurassic Park, you can probably add Velociraptors to that list as well.
Re: Wither the Brontosaurus?
Date: 2016-09-25 05:19 pm (UTC)Re: Wither the Brontosaurus?
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Date: 2016-10-02 07:19 pm (UTC)Alright, I have done some research using the resident members of the younger generation, 8 and 10. Slightly to my surprise (though I probably should have known better, especially as one has a special interest in all areas of biology) both did enthusiastically agree to having heard of a dodo, and could prove they knew what was meant ("An extinct flightless bird", "with a big beak!"); only one had heard of archeopteryx ("flying dinosaur with a long neck", good enough.) When asked to rank the three contenders in order of most to least famous, both firmly agreed that it was T. Rex first, then the dodo, with archeopteryx a long way behind :-)
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Date: 2016-10-03 09:20 am (UTC)We probably need to start some kind of internet meme "How many of these extinct species can you identify?" and then collate the research.
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Date: 2016-09-17 06:57 am (UTC)Some people juggle geese... :-)
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Date: 2016-09-17 03:38 pm (UTC)What about brontosaurus;p
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Date: 2016-09-18 03:34 pm (UTC)The archeopteryx thus bombarded was a fossil - though I think there was some concern that someone might drop it, which would have been bad.