huntingwithdaughters
Inactive
December 27, 2010. I am now in my 4th week, laid up with a broken leg. With bird hunting season shot to hell, and my Lab lying next to me on the bed dreaming of her next meal, my mind runs in many directions. A piece in the New York Times of a pre-historic chicken is enough to set me off. Those of you who have been afflicted by runners in a cornfield will rise and take notice. Your dog gets birdy, and starts making that peculiar sound that is a cross between biting and sneezing, as if the dog were eating corn on the cob and taking snuff at the same time. Then, following a scent trail, the dog begins to inscribe the wildest possible calligraphic fantasies across the landscape. You get to the end of the field and often as not, the trail is dead. How did the pheasant learn this skullduggery and subterfuge, you may well ask? From the dinosaurs. The pheasant is an import from China and a direct descendent of Caudipteryx.
Caudipteryx, which means tail feather in Latin, was first dug up in the Liaoning Province, northeastern China in 1997. They are a sub order of the theropods which means beast feet. Anyone familiar with the evil mindedness of pheasants will achieve immediate satori when they learn that these ancestors were mainly nasty meat eaters. Theropods first appeared during the Carnian age of the late Triassic period about 230 million years ago.
Caudipteryx, like many other maniraptorans (hand snatchers), is a sneaky mix of reptile- and bird. Caudipteryx has a short tail stiffened toward the tip, with few vertebrae, like in birds and other oviraptorosaurs (egg thief lizzards.) It has a hand skeleton with a reduced third finger, used then as now for giving the finger to its pursuers.
Because Caudipteryx has the contour feathers of modern birds, and because several scientific studies have determined it to be a flightless dinosaur, it gives the strongest proof that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Prof. Lawrence Witmer stated: “The presence of unambiguous feathers in an unambiguously nonavian theropod has the rhetorical impact of an atomic bomb, rendering any doubt about the theropod relationships of birds ludicrous.”
Lest these sneaky chickens regain their pre-historic strength, rise to a height of fifty feet and take over the earth, you are advised to shoot the miscreants on sight, without hesitation. Recipies to remove the bitterness you may have felt during their pursuit can be found on subsequent pages.
Caudipteryx, which means tail feather in Latin, was first dug up in the Liaoning Province, northeastern China in 1997. They are a sub order of the theropods which means beast feet. Anyone familiar with the evil mindedness of pheasants will achieve immediate satori when they learn that these ancestors were mainly nasty meat eaters. Theropods first appeared during the Carnian age of the late Triassic period about 230 million years ago.
Caudipteryx, like many other maniraptorans (hand snatchers), is a sneaky mix of reptile- and bird. Caudipteryx has a short tail stiffened toward the tip, with few vertebrae, like in birds and other oviraptorosaurs (egg thief lizzards.) It has a hand skeleton with a reduced third finger, used then as now for giving the finger to its pursuers.
Because Caudipteryx has the contour feathers of modern birds, and because several scientific studies have determined it to be a flightless dinosaur, it gives the strongest proof that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Prof. Lawrence Witmer stated: “The presence of unambiguous feathers in an unambiguously nonavian theropod has the rhetorical impact of an atomic bomb, rendering any doubt about the theropod relationships of birds ludicrous.”
Lest these sneaky chickens regain their pre-historic strength, rise to a height of fifty feet and take over the earth, you are advised to shoot the miscreants on sight, without hesitation. Recipies to remove the bitterness you may have felt during their pursuit can be found on subsequent pages.
