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Re: Help with models/reconstructions (fwd)
Sue Medina <achsom01@asnmail.asc.edu> writes:
>This past summer, an issue of Science News showed a reconstruction of
>Anomalocaris on the cover. I seem to remember it was part of an animation
>for a Japanese television documentary. Was it computer-generated?
The _Anomalocaris_ was in fact a life-size (0.75 m), fully functioning
model built by the Japanese broadcaster NHK for a documentary series "the
Planet of Life". That particular episode contains footage of the model
actually swimming (in a suburban Cambridge swimming pool, watched by a
slightly bemused Harry Whittington and the ever cheerful Derek Briggs) and
reproducing the bite-marks seen on some trilobite fossils. There is,
however, some stunning computer graphics of Burgess Shale fauna, especially
_Opabinia_ (the vacuum cleaner). Well worth seeing if it gets shown. there
is an English language version in production for international
distribution, but so far I have only seen a master tape of the Japanese
version. This episode is episode 2. They plan to cover the whole fossil
record in (I think) 8 episodes. However, things get boring after episode 3
. . . they concentrate on vertebratres after that :-)
If you watch episode 2 (The Cambrian Explosion) carefully, right after the
scenic shot of kangaroos, you can briefly see me in the distance. My 15
minutes of fame (more like 15 seconds) :-( whilst we were doing some
filming for the Ediacaran segment.
Chris
cnedin@geology.adelaide.edu.au, nedin@ediacara.org
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Many say it was a mistake to come down from the trees, some say
the move out of the oceans was a bad idea. Me, I say the stiffening
of the notochord in the Cambrian was where it all went wrong,
it was all downhill from there.