Re: Dragons on Animal Planet March 20

[Dora Smith <villandra@austin.rr.com>]

Huh?

Are these imaginary dragons, birds, or what?

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra@austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Baeker" <martin.baeker@tu-bs.de>
To: "Ralph Miller" <ralph.miller@alumni.usc.edu>
Cc: "dinousc" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 2:51 AM
Subject: Dragons on Animal Planet March 20


> 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 BÃker
>                    Institut fÃr Werkstoffe
>                    Langer Kamp 8
>                    38106 Braunschweig
>                    Germany
>                    Tel.: 00-49-531-391-3073
>                    Fax   00-49-531-391-3058
>                    e-mail <martin.baeker@tu-bs.de>