Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Love that net

BBC News Mini-dinosaurs emerge from quarry

Scientists describe a new species of dwarf dinosaur that was unearthed in a quarry in northern Germany.
............................................................

I was a bit taken aback when I read this because it seemed they were talking in the present tense. And it reminded me of something I'd read somewhere ages ago about quarry workers - or were they digging a tunner for a railway - and when they cracked open a boulder there was a pterodactyl inside, and it took a breath, flapped its wings, took a step and fell over dead. I've never been able the reference again ... until tonight when I searched for it on the internet!! You just have to love the net. The Talk says:

Pterodactyls, extinct flying reptiles, supposedly existed around one hundred million years ago. According to an article in The Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856, page 166, workmen discovered a living pterodactyl. In the winter of 1856, they were working on a railway tunnel between St. Dizey and the Nancy lines, and they had broken and removed a boulder of Jurassic limestone, when the creature stumbled out of the tunnel toward them. It fluttered its wings, croaked, and collapsed dead at their feet. It had a wingspan of ten feet seven inches, four legs with talons for feet, legs joined by a membrane like a bat, a mouth filled with sharp teeth, and black, leathery, oily skin. An exact mold of the creature's body was found in the limestone from which the creature was released.

Source:

Baugh, Carl E. 1989. Panorama of Creation. Oklahoma City, OK: Hearthstone Publishing, Ltd., pp. 19-21.
Doolan, Robert. 1993. Are dinosaurs alive today? Where Jurassic Park went wrong! Creation 15(4) (Sept.): 12-15. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/dinosaurs.asp
If you go to the Talk site, the suggestion that this actually happened will well and truly be debunked ... but it was good to finally find it again.

No comments: