"not much larger than a common sparrow"

when we think of dinosaurs, we usually envision ginormous creatures lumbering (gentle giants) or crashing (colby) through life with their big bods. we do not think of feathered beings. well, once again, science has bitch-slapped us - this time with the knowledge that most dinosaurs had feathers. and although we have been hearing about this for years now, we still don't reallllllly picture it, do we?

make way for this new awesome thing, folks! it's called a dinosaur tail and it's real and it's stuck in amber* and it's feathered and it's perfect.

This beauty was found in an amber mine in myanmar in 2016. you can read the entire Economist article here.

what i love about this photograph is that challenges what we think we know and reminds us that we don't know shit. also, that this tail was once attached to a tiny, mini dino "not much larger than a common sparrow". take that, us.




* whenever i hear about things trapped forever in amber, i always think of  the book Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins. here's a sweet quote from it:

“Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.”

a gentle reminder that most dinosaurs walked on their tip toes...

imagine the ultimate damage one could do wearing THESE BAD BOYS:

alberta - 1; the rest of canada - 0

effective immediately, all alberta driver's licences will have an albertosaurus on them!

one time thing

PBF #257

i've had my head in the sand. on purpose. because i didn't want to rename my blog.

i can't fight it anymore. i've been called out by science... and... cap'n funpants.

so, here it is:

in 2015, scientific american printed an article titled, The Brontosaurus Is Back. this article probably got its' historical brontosaurus details by amalgamating my first few blog posts from 2009 & 2010 (but removed all of my wit). a 300-page study was conducted on my fave family of sauropods - the diplodocids - and what they found (or think they found) was that a certain type of brontosaurus actually did exist! and it's called the brontosaurus excelsus!

now, the jury is still out on just how many hairs were split to come up with this but i feel like it's my duty to tell the world about it.

a pause...

“Nature was quick to pass the sponge of her deluges over these awkward sketches (dinosaurs), these first nightmares of Life.” 
― Villiers de L'Isle-Adam

how to plant a cactus

thank you to Kate-Lynn Flanagan for properly demonstrating how to get your cactus on.