Quetzalcoatlus

If you think the name looks a lot like the name of the Aztec feathered god, you are right. the fossils of this winged reptile were named after that god. This type of pterosaur is the largest known example of flying animal. The artist’s rendition that was intended to give some clue as to size showed a standing quetzalcoatlus just as tall as a giraffe (with a neck just as long), and a wing span of about 36 feet (11 m). The human man in the picture was not quite as tall as the back legs were long.

As I read the article, I was reminded again and again of the ‘airplanes’ in the Flintstones cartoons, where a small cabin sat atop a huge flying reptile. Not very feasible, as even this huge creature would probably be able to carry only 2-3 humans on its back. And I don’t know if it could fly with that much extra weight.

The skeleton pictures showed a skull that was mostly beak, with a bony crest on the forehead, between the large eyes. It doesn’t have any teeth, and its wings are depicted as looking quite a bit like a bat’s wing. It is also depicted as folding its wings in half and possibly using its wings as support when standing or walking. Most of the known fossils of this creature were found in Texas.

Several feeding patterns have been suggested for the Quetzalcoatlus, but the most recent one is that they stalked small vertebrates while on the ground, similar to the modern stork.

There has been much argument among scientists about Quetzelcoatlus’ ability to fly. The latest thought is that they would use powered flight to get to a point where they could use thermal gliding. The wing muscles were found to be quite robust, which they would not be if the animal were purely a terrestrial animal.

There are potentially 2 species of Quetzelcoatlus. Measurements I’ve given are for the larger specie, there is possibly another specie that is about half as large.

So, if this extinct species comes back to life, that could make life difficult for the human population. While adults might be too large for the smaller Quetzelcoatlus to attack, children would probably be seen as ‘fair game’. And even adults might have to watch out if the larger variety is around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus

Eye of Newt

Quick, what do you know about newts?

About the only thing I knew was that witchly recipes always seem to call for an “eye of newt”. But what are they? Why are they so treasured by witches and sorcerers? Well, their eyes, anyway. What could possibly be so ‘magical’ about their eyes?

Whenever a newt is depicted in a movie or ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ tv episode, I always think they look like a lizard. But research says they are not lizards, they are a type of salamander, which makes them amphibians. They have 3 distinct life stages; aquatic larvae, terrestrial juvenile and semi-aquatic adult. The adults return to the water to breed, then back to their homes on land. But they do have a ‘lizard-like’ body, so there!

Newts are found all across the northern hemisphere.

Newts have the ability to regenerate limbs, eyes, spinal cords, hearts, intestines, and upper and lower jaws. This certainly must have seemed pretty magical to humans in earlier time periods, since humans can’t do any of that. Once you have a live newt in your supplies, you are pretty well set for newt parts for whatever ‘recipe’ you want to use.

In addition, many newts have a toxicity in their skin, which they have developed to protect them against predators. Some have a strong enough toxicity to kill a human. Although this is only in their skin, if it was thought to be throughout their entire body, an eyeball might be considered a fairly easy method of measurement and transportation of that toxic substance. Hence a potion meant to cause harm to someone might well call for the toxic properties of a piece of newt.

I really didn’t expect to find any particular reasons why a newt might be prized by witches and sorcerers, but there you have it. The ability to regrow some pretty important parts of themselves and the ability to poison other creatures would have seemed pretty remarkable to man, some of whom may have tried to harness one or both of those abilities through magic.

These days, newts are often kept as pets, so don’t get out your pitchforks and torches just because your neighbor keeps a newt in their aquarium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt

Hadean Eon

Unless you have a degree in geology or paleontology or something similar, you are probably as confused by the various Ages, Eons and Periods that get named when you look anything up about the History of Earth. I decided to take a look at one of them, and see if I could get it figured out as to when it happened, what major events happened during it... that sort of thing.

So, I had a list of these names, and I picked one at random: the Hadean Eon.

Turns out, I had picked the very first of Earth’s Eons; it started with the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago and ended approximately 4 billion years ago. Other names for it are the Priscoan Period and the Pre-Archean Eon.

Obviously, since we are looking at the very first half billion years of the world, we won’t be talking about dinosaurs or super continents. What could there possibly be to discuss? Well, let’s dig in and see what turns up.

First, there’s the name, which gives us a clue about what was going on. ‘Hadean’ comes from Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. And that describes the conditions of what Earth was going through: The planet had just formed and it was very hot due to a number of factors, including frequent collisions with other Solar System bodies.

One important collision happened about 4.5 billion years ago, when a Mars-sized planetoid smashed into the infant Earth. The collision sent quite a lot of material into orbit around Earth, while the planetoid and the rest of Earth merged and tried to settle down. The orbiting material probably took less than a century to form the moon.

The big collision didn’t melt all of the Earth, but a fair fraction of material was vaporized, which created a rock vapor atmosphere around the young planet. But that rock vapor would have condensed out within 2,000 years, and left behind an atmosphere heavy in CO2 with some hydrogen and water vapor.

Apparently, there was a sizable quantity of water in the material that formed the Earth. After the moon was formed, the surface temperature was about 230C (446F), but even so, oceans of liquid water existed. That’s because the atmospheric pressure was over 27 times what it is today, because of the heavy CO2 atmosphere. As cooling continued, most of the CO2 was removed from the atmosphere by subduction and dissolving in ocean water, but the levels oscillated wildly.

One theory posits that between 4.4 and 4.1 billion years ago, the Earth’s climate was relatively cool, allowing for liquid water to be present at least that long. It was even suggested that the Earth may have been pretty much like it is today, except for the absence of flora and fauna.

One of the articles implied that life may have been getting started by the end of the Hadean Eon. But that was almost like a throw-away at the end of the last paragraph, so I’m thinking , one celled organisms? Maybe?

So as far as stories go, what if a spaceship gets too close to a forming star system and gets clobbered by tiny planetoids until it is forced to crash land on the nearest planet, which just happens to be vaguely Earth-like, but the only life it has are some quasi-amoebas swimming in the oceans. Maybe they have plants or seeds aboard, so they can grow some food. What about the stuff they don’t realize they’re carrying? Cockroaches, mice, fungal spores... What would those things evolve into, once there was enough food on the planet for them to successfully venture off the ship? There would be a whole lot of niches in the food chain for them to fill!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadean