What I learned at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology near Drumheller, Alberta:
- If you are annoyed by mosquitoes today,
know that even in late Cretaceous Alberta,
they annoyed dinosaurs as well; - When palaeontologists name new species,
they follow the rules of taxonomy,
which means using a genus and a species name,
and it needs to be in Latin.
Thus, Alberta’s first known alligator,
named after landowner, Ron Stanger,
and Jim McCabe, who retired from the museum,
was called Stangerochampsa mccabei.
(I want a mosquito species to be named after me –
Insectannoyis davidus) - The first fish appeared during the Devonian period,
about 418 million years ago
(and the first fishing pole? 417.998 million years later) - A meteorite hit the Earth 65 million years ago,
changing the environment so drastically
that all of the dinosaurs became extinct,
as well as many other animals and plants.
This explosion created sediment that can be seen
in the rock layers all around the planet –
it’s called the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary
(short form is “K/T” Boundary – don’t ask me why). - Mammals were the success story of the K/T extinction.
Even frogs, salamanders, sharks, and turtles
seemed to survive unscathed.
But there were no dinosaur survivors.
(Darn, the mosquitos survived too) - Early humans appeared about two million years ago.
- The meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs
only increased the speed of their extinction –
dinosaurs were already on their way out
because of an inability to continue
to adapt to the changing environment. - Dinosaurs lived on Earth for 160 million years;
humans have been here for 1.2% of that time. - I can become so wrapped up in learning about dinosaurs
that I can forget to use the washroom or to eat
for eight hours straight.