The day after the big game, we met up with the friends from school Roo was hoping to spot at the game. Our chosen venue, The Arizona Museum of Natural History. The boys were elated to see one another as us parents spent our time chatting and following them through the many exhibits and back again once, twice or more. Captivated less by the dinosaur bones, it was the real old fashioned jail and the mining cave that monopolized their attentions. We did sit for the movie and learned of a very interesting hypothesis formulated by paleontologist Jack Horner. His findings have led him to conclude that the feared T-Rex was likely NOT a predator as previously suspected. More likely, he was a scavenger, not killing, but scaring predators away from their kill with his odoriferous, ugly, loud self. The T-Rex had small front arms that were probably useless, especially if he fell to the ground chasing prey. This observation and his leg bone ratios (femur & tibia) suggests he was a walker, not a runner. Apparently it's a tough sell since society along with the scientific community is leery to picture the T-Rex as anything but a tyrant. Maybe years from now when our grandchildren are reading this post (I keep a printed copy of everything instead of a journal or scrap book) they'll say, "how silly, people thought the T-Rex was a predator".
No comments:
Post a Comment