Recent Life

  

H E S P E R O C Y O N    /    A N C I E N T     D O G     F A M I L Y

 The long muzzled face looks like a dog.

The stance could be shared with a cat.

Long neck.  Long tail.  Too long for a

modern dog.  The long torso allows for

considerable bend - like a greyhound.

The spring of the back adds to the animal's

propulsion.  The leg's backward knee is

actually the animal's ankle.  Beneath it

are the foot bones that never touch ground.

I C E     A G E     E L E P H A N T

 The Pleistocene extends back over two million years.

It was a time of fluctuating cooling and warming climates.

At its peak the last Ice Age covered 30 percent of the

globe's land area.  The fossils of this species of elephant

were uncovered in South America.  Elephants populated

the Earth everywhere.

  P A L A E O L O X O D O N     A N T I Q U U S

 Thirteen feet tall at the shoulders.

Just about fifteen tons on the scale.

It's hard to come up with the name

of a four-legged mammal that is larger.

The diverse and widespread family of

elephants is now reduced to a shrinking

pool, mostly domesticated or protected

inhabitants of government lands.

 A L L     I N     T H E     F A M I L Y

 Flat footed.  Every member of this family of species

uses its foot bones for feet, and not a leg extension.

The tree dwellers, Gibbons and Orangutan,

have arms that reach the full length of their body to

touch the ground.  The Gorilla's head is larger than the

human's but half of its skull is made up of a massive jaw. 

Only the human stance is totally vertical.  What truly

stands out, though, is the size of the human cranium,

where the brain resides, holding within its confines

the ability of reason and imagination.  

P R I M A T E     R E S O R T

This lakeside resort is representative of a Pleistocene

environment that primates of all sorts continue to favor.

It has a healthy forest, access to plenty of water as well

as providing a comfortable, mild climate for lounging.

It's ideal for gibbons, orangutangs, chimpanzees and

gorillas.  Humans would add a Hyatt. 

S A B E R     T O O T H

 11,000 years ago Ice Age saber toothed tigers

inhabited what is now Los Angeles.  There were likely

human witnesses to the likes of these Saber Tooths,

Mammoth Elephants and Giant Sloughs.

It is in this arena that human awareness may first

separate these people from the ancients.

It is the isolation of human consciousness.

A new story begins.

*   *   *   *   * 

©  Tom Taylor

 

 OVER   EASY

 

 

coldValentine

good morning justin

  

 

S U N D A Y    I N    T H E    P A R K

 

love 

   dad

 

coldValentine

Asteroid

  

A G E    O F     D I N O S A U R S

The dinosaurs dominated the landscape for 

175 million years.  

 A S T E R O I D       I M P A C T

 One day 66 million years ago an asteroid 7 miles across

hit the Earth with the force of a speeding bullet.

The impact liquified rock twenty miles deep.

A mile high tsunami resulted.  Clouds of debris blocked

sunlight for years, destroying photosynthesis because

of the widespread plant die offs.  75% of all animal

species were swept from existence as starvation and

toxins took their toll.

T O X I C     V O L C A N T I C     G A S

 A second source of catastrophic death was also 

occurring in India as volcanic eruptions belched 

toxic gases, rich in sulfur, into the atmosphere.

The Earth's plants were not only cut off from

their ultimate energy bar, the sun, but the rain

came laced with chemicals only a refinery 

would appreciate.

 A G E     O F     M A M M A L S

The world is an empty place.

The noise and nuisances of life are gone.

Every life strategy you can think of is available

to those able to show up.  Recovery from mass extinction

begins immediately.  

First off, who are our survivors?

Generally speaking, small seed-eating animals

that can survive long periods without food. 

Eventually DNA fills this land of opportunities

with animal improvisations of every sort.

The species best engineered to meet the

circumstance wins out over time.  But

success is not guaranteed.  There are always

new challenges that must first be met.

E L E P H A N T     B I R D

 The large bipedal predator like T. rex was gone.

An ostrich type bird eventually developed enough

to occupy this long empty niche.  The musclebound 

legs say this bird would never get off the ground.

A small head with a bird bill replaces a massive

jaw filled with teeth as in the earlier dinosaur version.

Apparently useless wings replace clawed forearms.

No need for a tail as counterbalance to the weight

 of a heavy head and neck up front because of

its nonexistence.

This bird was a dinosaur with feathers.

P R I M A T E     A N C E S T O R

The oldest known species of primate lineage.

Purgatorius appears in the fossil record about

100,000 years following the Cretaceous - Paleocene

extinction.  It probably ate seeds and lived in trees

like a squirrel.  The prominent nose makes it

easier to track down buried seeds.

How horrified they might have been 

once they found out their distant offspring

would turn out to be apes.

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

 

OVER   EASY

 

 

coldValentine

good morning jacob

  

S  O  N  I  C

love 

   dad

coldValentine

-

Pterosaur

  

H A T Z E G O P T E R Y X

They aren't dinosaurs but they grew up 

in the same neighborhood along side 

T. rex and Triceratops.  They were

lightweight and agile, and they had wings.

P T E R A N O D O N

 The first vertebrates to fly -  true sustained

flight.  Genetic roll of the dice stumbled upon

the solution by elongating the fourth finger

of the animal's forearm to enormous length.

Every Pterosaur had this basic wing 

arrangement.

L U S O G N A T H U S

 Tens of millions of years of uninterrupted tropical bliss

over most of the globe.  Life was good.

Everyone knew their place in the grand scheme of 

things.  Earthly paradise had become the law of nature.

P T E R O S A U R I A

The Crustaceous was a time of behemoths 

roaming the land.  Even the flying reptiles

the size of a giraffe were able to become

airborne despite packing the weight of 550 pounds.

 A R A M B O U R G L A N I A

 A number of Pterosaur species had developed

wings that also served as forelegs.  This approach

could provide a good living for those prone to 

browse among the brush for small animals.

 

K A R I R I D R A C O

 The brain made up in efficiency what it lacked

  in size.  The area set aside for flight

control had a highly specialized division of labor.

Organization proved superior in performance

when compared with general purpose memory.

This entire class of animals died alongside 

dinosaurs when an asteroid the size of 

Mount Everest hit the Earth 66 million

years ago.

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

coldValentine

good morning jackson

  

 

B A C K     A F T E R     T H I S

 

love 

   dad

  

coldValentine

Morrison Formation

  

  

S T E G O S A U R U S

Skull of the Stegosaurus, a Jurassic dinosaur with 

bony plates lined upright along the crest of its

back and ending with four menacing spikes

at the tip of its tail.  Its profile is iconic.

Its fossil remains populate a Jurassic layer

in western North America known as the 

Morrison Formation.  T. rex and Triceratops

are among the notable fossilized dinosaurs

discovered here.

 

M O R R I S O N       F O R M A T I O N

 This red layer over grey near Green River, Utah

shows the boundary between the Jurassic and 

Cretaceous Periods.  Jurassic is the red layer,

so the more recent Cretaceous would be deposited

above it.  The red is the Morrison Formation, a 

layer containing the fossils of over seventy species

of dinosaur from the Late Jurassic. 

J U R A S S I C - C R E T A C E O U S     F O S S I L S

 Each name on this map identifies a proven spot for

good fossil hunting.  Arid terrain.  Little water for

soil erosion and for encouraging plants to explore

all about with their intrusive roots.  The fossils

here have remained unmolested for over 60 million

years.  Compare that with an ancient Egyptian mummy,

barely a rookie at ten thousand years.

 

 

D I P L O D O C U S

 Standing on its hind legs keeps the throat

out of reach of these two attacking allosaurs.

The long whip of its tail delivers a supersonic

papercut to its target.  You don't know you're cut

until your top half slides off the half holding your legs.

After all, the Diplodocus did not grow to over a 

hundred feet by feeding all the neighborhood

with its flesh.

This is another Jurassic hall of famer found amidst

the Morrison Formation.

A L L O S A U R U S

 It looks like the T. rex skeleton.  Allosaurus

is an apex predator much like Tyrannosaurus.

They share the same basic design, but Allosaurus

lived 77 million years prior to T. rex.  We are 

closer to T. rex at 66 million years.  Either way,

it is all a stack of infinities in human terms. 

After all this time, the apex predator has changed

little in design.  T. rex is essentially a scaled up version

of the 70 million year old Allosaurus body plan.

It has upgrades but nothing radically new.

The DNA strategy here:

Don't fix what ain't broke.

T Y R A N N O S A U R U S

T. rex.  Nine ton maniac in the forest.

Smells your presence from a thousand feet,

and more.  Binocular eyes gives it sharp, 3-D

vision.  Its powerful forearms smother your

frantic efforts to break free, drawing you up

to its waiting mouth.  Sixty spike-like teeth

cut short your dying words.

 There is no empathy shown towards those

we delight in eating.

*   *   *   *   * 

©  Tom Taylor 

 

OVER   EASY

coldValentine