RE: Dragons on Animal Planet March 20

[paul w sparks <pws@psparks.us>]

Hi All
perhaps this is just a warm up for Harry Potter IV.
paul sparks

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Dragons on Animal Planet March 20
> From: "Martin Baeker" <martin.baeker@tu-bs.de>
> Date: Wed, February 09, 2005 1:51 am
> To: "Ralph Miller" <ralph.miller@alumni.usc.edu>
> Cc: "dinousc" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> > Of course this is not quite on-topic, but the creators of "Walking With
> > Dinosaurs" are taking on dragons in a program which will be called (what
> > else?) "Dragons."
> > 
> > Of interest to our list is the take that bipedal dragons inhabited the
> > Cretaceous and evolved into flying dragons by the Late Cretaceous.  I 
> > suppose
> > you'll have to watch the show to learn how we got four legged dragons with
> > wings, requiring the addition of two appendages to the traditional tetrapod
> > model.  Do dragons constitute a monophyletic taxon? See the show to find 
> > out.
> > http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/dragons/dragons.html
> > 
> > It looks like a fun show, but paleontologists and docents should brace
> > themselves, as spectators of this material may require debriefings to set 
> > them
> > straight on certain aspects of the fossil record.
> This show was already shown here in Germany in December.
> 
> The dragons are nice (indeed, very nice, sometimes), and they tried to
> adapt them to the region (chinese woodragons look like those in chinese
> culture, etc.) but prepare to have everything you ever knew about how
> paleontologists work being upset - the science part, although they tried
> (you even get to see a cladogram of dragons if you look close enough -
> yes, they are monophyletic), was terrible.  (And they can fly because of
> being filled with - well, you can guess, and guess how they spit fire.)
> 
> So switch of most of your scientific minds, concentrate on the imagery and 
> you are in for a lot of fun.
> 
> Martin.
> 
>                    Priv.-Doz. Dr. Martin Bäker
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