I took up drawing this year. I’m still very much a beginner, but I am getting much better at really looking at something and seeing it at the level necessary to draw it.
One of the things I do is take pictures of things I think would be interesting to draw, so the sketch accompanying this post was made from a photo I took of a crow standing in the street on a sunny day.
My sweetheart and I feed the neighborhood crows, so I’m always looking at them. And, as with drawing, I find that the more I look, the more details I discover.
Years back my sweetheart started carrying some cat kibble in a small pouch so he could try to make friends with the crows. However, this was a hit-or-miss system and it didn’t really take off until during the pandemic, when he joined me on my regular walks around the block. The crows took note of us because the pattern was more regular.
After awhile, I had to start carrying treats, too, because they associated me with my sweetheart. They come to our bedroom window most mornings. We now feed crows within a four-or-five-block radius of our place.
Today, though, when we went for a short walk, none of our crows were nearby. However, there were large numbers of them in the sky, all flying the same general direction.
I’m pretty sure there’s a big crow meet-up somewhere downtown. I know crows have meetings from time to time. Sometimes they have them in a big tree in our neighborhood, but whatever they were doing today involved more crows than that.
Growing quickly helped the earliest dinosaurs and other ancient reptiles flourish in the aftermath of mass extinction
Eoraptor lunensis lived roughly 230 million years ago, at a time when dinosaurs were small and rare. Jordan Harris courtesy of Kristi Curry Rogers, CC BY-SA
It may be hard to imagine, but once upon a time, dinosaurs didn’t dominate their world. When they first originated, they were just small, two-legged carnivores overshadowed by a diverse array of other reptiles.
How did they come to rule?
My colleagues and I recently studied the fossilized bones of the earliest known dinosaurs and their nondinosaur rivals to compare their growth rates. We wanted to find out whether early dinosaurs were somehow special in the way they grew – and if this may have given them a leg up in their rapidly changing world.
But within a blink of geologic time, in a span of about 60,000 years, scientists estimate 95% of all living things went extinct. Known as the Permian extinction or the Great Dying, it is the largest of the five knownmass extinction events on Earth.
In the ecological vacuum after the mass extinction event, on the stage of a healing Earth, the ancestors of dinosaurs first evolved – along with the ancestors of today’s frogs, salamanders, lizards, turtles and mammals. It was the dawn of the Triassic Period, which lasted from 252 million years ago to 201 million years ago.
Collectively, the creatures that survived the Great Dying were not particularly remarkable. One animal group, known as Archosauria, started off with relatively small and simple body plans. They were flexible eaters and could live in a wide variety of environmental conditions.
Archosaurs eventually split into two tribes – one group including modern crocodiles and their ancient relatives and a second including modern birds, along with their dinosaur ancestors.
This second group walked on their tiptoes and had big leg muscles. They also had extra connections between their back bones and hip bones that allowed them to move efficiently in their new world.
Instead of directly competing with other archosaurs, it seems this group of dinosaur ancestors exploited different ecological niches – maybe by eating different foods or living in slightly different geographical areas. But early on, the dinosaurlike archosaurs were far less diverse than the crocodile ancestors they lived alongside.
Slowly, the dinosaur lineage continued to evolve. It took tens of millions of years before dinosaurs became abundant enough for their skeletons to show up in the fossil record.
The Ischigualasto Provincial Park in San Juan Province, Argentina, where the earliest dinosaur fossils have been discovered. Kristi Curry Rogers, CC BY-SA
These early dinosaurs represent only a small fraction of animals found from that time period. In this ancient world, the crocodilelike archosaurs were on top. They had a wider array of body shapes, sizes and lifestyles, easily outpacing early dinosaurs in the diversity race.
It wouldn’t be until closer to the end of the Triassic Period, when another volcanism-induced mass extinction event occurred, that dinosaurs got their lucky break.
Mycollaboratorsfrom the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, Argentina, and I wondered whether the rise of dinosaurs may have been underpinned, in part, by how fast they grew. We know, through microscopic study of fossilized bones, that later dinosaurs had fast growth rates – much faster than that of modern-day reptiles. But we didn’t know whether that was true for the earliest dinosaurs.
We decided to examine the microscopic patterns preserved in thigh bones from five of the earliest known dinosaur species and compare them with those of six nondinosaur reptiles and one early relative of mammals. All the fossils we studied came from the 2-million-year interval within the Ischigualasto Formation of Argentina.
Eoraptor bone tissue under a polarizing light microscope shows evidence of rapid, continuous growth – common to both the earliest dinosaurs and many of their nondinosaur contemporaries. Kristi Curry Rogers, CC BY-ND
Bones are an archive of growth history because, even in fossils, we can see the spaces where blood vessels and cells perforated the mineralized tissue. When we look at these features under a microscope, we can see how they are organized. The more slowly growth occurs, the more organized microscopic features will be. With quicker growth, the more disorganized the microscopic features of the bone look.
We discovered early dinosaurs grew continuously, not stopping until they reached full size. And they did indeed have elevated growth rates, on par with and, at times, even faster than those of their descendants. But so did many of their nondinosaur contemporaries. It appears most animals living in the Ischigualasto ecosystem grew quickly, at rates that are more like those of living mammals and birds than those of living reptiles.
Our data allowed us to see the subtle differences between closely related animals and those occupying similar ecological niches. But most of all, our data shows that fast growth is a great survival strategy in the aftermath of mass destruction.
Scientist still don’t know exactly what made it possible for dinosaurs and their ancient ancestors to survive two of the most extensive extinctions Earth has ever undergone. We are still studying this important interval, looking at details such as legs and bodies built for efficient, upright locomotion, potential changes in the way the earliest dinosaurs may have breathed and the way they grew. We think it’s probably all these factors, combined with luck, that finally allowed dinosaurs to rise and rule.
Remember the brontosaurus vs apatosaurus debate? Turns out both sides were right…we think…so far.
Here’s the skinny: The skeleton of a long-necked, long-tailed dinosaur was unearthed in Wyoming by paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879, according to the Natural History Museum in London. At the time, scientists dubbed the giant plant eater, which lived during the Jurassic period about 150 million years ago, Brontosaurus excelsus, according to Yale University.
However, in 1903, paleontologist Elmer Riggs found that B. excelsus was very similar to another dinosaur, Apatosaurus ajax, which Marsh discovered in Colorado in 1877, the Natural History Museum noted. The differences between the dinosaurs appeared so minor that scientists decided it was better to place them both in the same genus, or group of species. Because Apatosaurus was named first, the rules of scientific naming kept its name, leading scientists to retire the name Brontosaurus.
More than 100 years later, researchers suggested reviving Brontosaurus as its own genus. A 2015 study of sauropods in the journal PeerJ found that the original Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus fossils may have been different enough to classify them as separate groups.
The nearly 300-page study examined 477 physical features of 81 sauropod specimens. The initial aim of the research was to analyze the relationships between the species making up the family of sauropods known as Diplodocidae, which includes Diplodocus, Apatosaurus and, now, Brontosaurus.
All in all, the scientists found that Brontosaurus’ neck was higher-set, narrower and smaller than Apatosaurus’, study lead author Emanuel Tschopp, a vertebrate paleontologist now at the University of Hamburg in Germany, told Live Science. They suggested three known species of Brontosaurus: B. excelsus, B. parvus and B. yahnahpin.
“They call Brontosaurus ‘resurrected,'” Jacques Gauthier, curator of reptiles at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, who did not participate in this study. “I like the ring of that. ‘Restored’ is a perfectly correct term, but ‘resurrected’ is the official description of what they have done.”
Tschopp noted that they could not have made this discovery 15 or more years before their study; only recently did findings of dinosaurs similar to Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus help reveal what made these groups unique.
It has been nearly a decade since the paper published, and Tschopp noted that “not everybody accepts such proposals immediately. There have been — and still are — researchers who don’t trust the results quite yet and continue to use the name Apatosaurus for what I call Brontosaurus.”
Mike Taylor, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Bristol in England who did not take part in the 2015 study, told Live Science in an email, “you rarely get consensus from paleontologists on these matters, so the answer you get will depend on who you ask. There’s been no pushback in the formal literature, but I’ve heard a bit of grumbling.”
Still, to Taylor, the call to “resurrect” Brontosaurus “just feels like a reasonable thing to do.” He noted that the 2015 study “made a solid argument that most specialists found pretty persuasive and not especially surprising.” Taylor and his colleagues have mentioned B. excelsus and B. parvus in their own studies a number of times.
Once my science classes progressed beyond “the parts of the cell,” I loved them. So much so that my college degree is in Biology, which entailed many classes in Physics and General and Organic Chemistry. Fast forward many decades, I had the joy to attend Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, about which I have previously blogged. But I’ve never given up my love of Things Prehistoric. Here are two wonderful new stories:
Theropod dinosaurs — a group of bipedal, mostly meat-eating dinosaurs that included T. rex, Velociraptor and Spinosaurus — may instead have concealed their deadly chompers behind thin lips that kept their teeth hydrated and tough enough to crush bones.
Paleontologists had already suggested that T. rex may have had lips, and there has been debate whether carnivorous dinosaurs looked more like present-day crocodiles, which don’t have lips and have protruding teeth, or if they more likely resembled monitor lizards, whose large teeth are covered by scaly lips.
This time, it was the mammals that blew up. Rhino-like horse relatives that had lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs became gigantic “thunder beasts” as suddenly as an evolutionary lightning strike, new research, published Thursday (May 11) in the journal Science(opens in new tab), shows.
“Even though other mammalian groups attained large sizes before [they did], brontotheres were the first animals to consistently reach large sizes,” study first author Oscar Sanisidro(opens in new tab), a researcher with the Global Change Ecology and Evolution Research Group at the University of Alcalá in Spain. “Not only that, they reached maximum weights of 4-5 tons [3.6 to 4.5 metric tons] in just 16 million years, a short period of time from a geological perspective.”
Last year, weird “bramble snout” fossils were documented at the site called “Castle Bank,” but new research published May 1 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution(opens in new tab) describes the whole fossil deposit.
Hosting a myriad of soft-bodied marine creatures nd their organs, which are scarcely preserved in the fossil record, the site resembles the world-renowned Cambrian deposits of Burgess Shale in Canada and Qingjiang biota in China. The rocks of Castle Bank, however, are 50 million years younger and give researchers a unique window into how soft-bodied life diversified in the Ordovician Period (485.4 million to 443.8 million years ago), according to a statement released by Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales.
Researchers believe they’ve recovered more than 170 species from the site, most of which are new to science. These include what appear to be late examples of Cambrian groups, including the weirdest wonders of evolution, the nozzle-nosed opabiniids, and early examples of animals that evolved later, including barnacles, shrimp and an unidentified six-legged insect-like creature. The rocks are also home to the fossilized digestive systems of trilobites and the eyes and brain of an unidentified arthropod, as well as preserved worms and sponges.
In the chaos of deadlines and New Book Planning, I’ve forgotten many things. But this, I did not forget. Today is Max’s second birthday.
While her “present” will be a long hike this weekend, tonight a small gathering will be raising a glass (and handing out a new Hedgie) to celebrate. Over on Twitter, I asked if I should get her a pupcake, or if that was gilding the already-spoiled puppy.
The overwhelming response was “yes, get her a pupcake!”
For those of you unfamiliar with this trend, a pupcake is…exactly what it sounds like.A dog-tummy-safe cupcake, made with things like bananas, pumpkin, and peanut butter flour. You can make them at home (there are mixes!) or you can go to a hoity-toity pet shop or specialty baker. Yes, there are actual dog-treat bakeries.
Dog people, we need a reality check.Dogs eat dirt.They eat raw carcasses they find by the side of the trail. They will eat shit, some of them. They are not impressed by a fancy pupcakes with dog-safe frosting and a candle.Admit it, you’re doing it for the insta.
(Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
But this is a milestone birthday. We did it, we got through her puppyhood and her adolescence mostly intact, if a lot poorer (most recent expense: $80 for meds to get her through another bout of Giardia, ouch).She’s reached her adult size and weight, and her personality is, if not set, then firmly established.85% sugar, 10% vinegar, and 5% hellion.I love her to bits, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.Although I might downsize her just a bit.
Are there things I’d do differently over the past two years, given the chance?Absolutely. “No dogs on the bed” would have been a hard rule from the start, for one.Getting her better-socialized with under-ten humans. Figured out her particular quirks and needs faster than I did.It’s probably impossible to raise any living creature and not have regrets along the way.
There are some things I just have to accept were always going to be, raising a pandemic puppy.But I think we did okay.
People tell me she will start to settle down, energy-wise, around three.Or four.Or maybe five.
Please god, by five.Momma’s tired, and the cat needs a break.
And this brings us to the end of my regular dogblogging.I hope you enjoyed growing up with us.
Then,
and now.
…and did I get her a pupcake?You’ll have to check my instagram to find out.
When last we left our intrepid heroine and her faithful, hopeful human, we had unboxed the FluentPet kit, and read all the instructions, ready to teach Max How To Speak – or at least, use buttons to tell me what she wanted what she really really wanted.
The first part of Operation Button Speak went according to plan. I chose two words to start with – “toy” and “out.” Max knows both in context, so the trick would be teaching her that she could create the context (ask for the thing). Basically, this was going to involve a lot of association, repetition, and rewarding.
It went well.
The next step was to introduce Max to the buttons.
Um. Yeah.
Me holding the button, pressing it to hear the recording of the word, and then associating an act with the action? No problem. Max knew exactly what was going on.
Max pressing the button?
*record scratch*
Houston, we have a problem. Max Does Not Like The Clicky Thing.
And I don’t mean, “she was suspicious of it” or “it scared her a little” and she’ll get over it the same way she did puppy gates and garbage trucks. I mean, she would see it on the floor, and detour the long way around the apartment to avoid it. Immediate, unequivocal Do. Not. Like. Not with her paw, not with her nose – and this is a dog who will happily “touch” anything I point her at, while we’re on walks. Not even her beloved trainer, S., could get her to go near the button except under mild duress. And we worked too long and hard to ease her stress reactivity, to intentionally add any to her life.
Okay, Max. Okay.
I’m not giving up, though. The buttons remain on the floor. We’re ignoring them for now. Maybe, eventually, she will decide they’re harmless. Or maybe she will never trust them enough to use, and we’ll pass them along to someone else. Am I disappointed? Yeah, a little. But the thing about dogs, as with all living things we let into our lives, is that you need to love them for who they are, not who you wanted them to be. And Max? Is not a button-pusher.
But she’s definitely a word-learner. She may not “say” them, but her comprehension library is growing – and she’s understanding complex commands. I’ve already learned more about her than I knew before, how she thinks and reacts, so in that sense this was a successful experiment. So we’re going to lean into her strengths, and see where it goes. Updates as they happen, I guess.
Meanwhile, it was suggested that I try the buttons with Castiel. Um, er, no. My cat already speaks his mind He doesn’t need any help.
Back with Max was a pup, I got a doorbell (actually a strand of fabric with several bells on it) with the idea that when Max wanted to go out, she would go and ring the bell. In theory, it’s an excellent plan. And it even worked… For a while. Then Max realized that she could get my attention anytime she wanted it by ringing the bell, and did so. Repeatedly. All the time.
We got rid of the bells.
Flash forward the year, and I’ve been watching my friend Mary Robinette Kowal document how she is teaching her cat how to use “speaking” buttons to communicate. And I think to myself, that might actually be fun to try with Max. And then I remembered the bells incident, and I thought, maybe not.
But with Max’s board and train in the rearview mirror, I’m aware of the fact that S., Max’s trainer, is right: I have a very smart dog. And smart dogs need things to occupy their brains, otherwise they find things to occupy their brains. And those things are never pleasing to the human in the household. So I said the hell with it, and ordered their basic button kit. If it doesn’t work out, I figure I can hand it on to somebody else who wants to give it a try.
The kit is two buttons, which I can record a word or phrase on, and foam placemats to set the buttons in, to make them easier to use. So the first decision I had to make was, what two words were they going to use? It wasn’t a question of what I said to Max, but what I wanted her to say to me. After a few days of thinking, I settled on “toy,” and “out.” Toy, because I will tell her to “get the toy,“ or “fetch the toy,“ and she knows what I mean. So I’m hoping that she will associate the word toy with a desire to play. “Out” is kind of self-explanatory.
The plan is to start with these two, and eventually work her (our) way up to more abstract but useful concepts like “hungry,” “sleepy,” “mad” and “scared.” Part of me is thinking like a dog owner – being able to know more specifically what’s going on in her doggy brain will help us interact better. But part of me is also thinking like a writer, fascinated to see how an “alien” brain learns, using human tools and concepts…
Is this gonna work? Or is Max going to decide it’s a stupid game and she doesn’t want to play? I have no idea.
When the day came, I packed her into the car and drive about half an hour north, to S., the trainer’s home. S. met us outside, and we talked for a bit – and I admitted that I was about 3 seconds away from grabbing my dog and going home.Apparently this is entirely normal drop-off emotion?Parents of kindergartners may relate.
Eventually, when I couldn’t stall any longer,I handed Max’s leash over to S.
Max wanted nothing to do with that, going flat on the ground like a toddler about to have a tantrum.And I had to take a step back and let someone else – a relative stranger I’d only met once before –handle it.
S. was calm but firm, and eventually Max went into the house with them, and I got back in the car and went home, thinking, “what the fuck have I just done?”
The first week, I was at Rainforest Writers’ Retreat, and Max would have been in boarding anyway, so it wasn’t too hard.Max was decompressing, so not much happened those first few days for her, either.
The second week, it was…kinda nice?I missed her, but I was also remembering how much time and energy she was eating.I was getting regular updates, meanwhile – photos of her looking energetic and pleased, and video of her working on her skills, focused and happy. So… it was okay. We were all doing okay.The cat, in fact, was doing GREAT.He started sleeping on my pillow again, now that he didn’t have to worry about Max trying to stick her nose in his bidness.
Oh no.This is bad.Am I a bad person for enjoying my dog-free life?
(Parents of summer camp-age children are laughing sympathetically right now, possibly)
The third week… was hard.Even the cat started to look around like, “hey, wait, isn’t someone else supposed to be coming back already?”S. and I had a Zoom meeting to go over the progress Max had made, and… Max was in the background, resting on her cot, not even lifting an ear when she heard my voice.
Shit.My girl had transferred her loyalties.She didn’t miss me!
Then S. pointed out that every time I spoke, Max’s tail thumped. She totally knew it was me, she was excited to hear me – but she had been told to “place” on her cot, and that’s what she was doing.
Oh.Okay.I guess?But then I got handed my own homework: to think about the past two weeks, and what I’d want to do differently when Max came back, if there would be a change in the House Rules.
The main change I decided to make was that Max would sleep in her kennel all the time, not the bed.I know a lot of people are okay with sharing bed space, but Max is ~45 pounds of long, lean canine, and also, she kicks. Other than that… it was going to be a lot of wait-and-see.Her behavior was hopefully going to be different, so I’d work off that.
And then the day came… S. brought Max home.And… she didn’t seem glad to see me?
But the thing was, I’d been used to judging her happiness by her jumping up to greet me.She’s been told not to do that.So I had to look closer.She went straight to her new cot when told to, and settled down… but she was wiggling.And whining.She wanted so badly to get up and greet me with wild abandon, but she was being a Good Girl and staying put.
Even when the cat came in the room.Max perked up and watched the cat intently, but when reminded, she sank back down on her cot and did not do her usual up-in-the-cat’s-bidness greeting.
Holy shit.My Slightly Wild Child had embraced discipline.
And then I was introduced to the discipline I’d have to embrace, for the next few weeks.
Max did her part.And it’s a lot. Ten (10) pages of typewritten instruction, lot.Most of which I already knew, but it’s laid out in black and white now: this is my job. And I’m not saying that as a metaphor; it’s a job.
The next month or so is 100% on me, to maintain her training, to dial up the structure, and dial down the affection, be firm with the rules and consistent with both praise and rebuke, until she accepts that yes, this is how life is, even when her trainer isn’t around It’s been 24 hours as I type this, and I’m already seeing a steady stream of micro-challenges from her as I test what she knows, and she tests what I know.
This week is far too full of crises. Every time there’s a crisis, people raise money to help everyone deal. When the Australian bushfires dominated my life (aeons ago: 2109-2020 – the fires were out just after the pandemic hit Australia) books were a good fundraiser. I often contribute to such books, because they give more than I can give, personally. The anthology I was in that helped save wildlife during that particular crisis was called Oz is Burning. It contains some remarkable stories, and I’m very pleased I could contribute and be in such company.
There was one fundraising book that stood head and shoulders above all the others. Jackie French lives in rural Australia and she’s currently dealing with floods. Her part of rural Australia was very badly hit by the fires, and she handled it in a very Jackie-ish fashion. During the crisis she reported to the rest of us what was happening in her local town. She was cut off for what felt like months (I don’t know what it felt like to her, but I was worried about her for over a year) and she compiled observations and reports and made sure the rest of the world knew what was going on.
She reported on wildlife as part of this. Also, as someone who knows wombats particularly well.
One of the wombats she helped had a particular story. She talked about this wombat on social media and we all wanted a happy outcome… but we weren’t sure that the wombat would survive.
Later in 2020, she turned the wombat’s experience into a book for children. The Fire Wombat became an instant classic (though not as classic as her earlier book, The Diary of a Wombat ) and raised money to help wombats. It talks children through the crisis and how those rare animals who survived were helped. It gave children a path to understanding the impossible and, at the same time, raised money to help wombats.
I have my copy in front of me now and have re-read it. The floods in Australia right now are hurting the same regions as the fires did just over two years ago. Jackie’s work reminds me that wombats need help, too.
When we’re both allowed to travel again, and when it’s safe (fire and pandemic and now floods) I’m going to feed her dinner and ask her to sign her book. Her work has helped me remember how to get through crises and how to look outside my small environment and see what I can do. I may not be able to do much, but if Jackie can write this amazing book when she’s confined to a very small piece of land for over two years then that opens the door for me. I just need to consider what I’m capable of. Step One is to not let the fear developed by over 30 months of sequential crises decide my actions.
PS Jackie writes about so much more than wombats. She’s one of Australia’s best writers. I wrote this piece because wombats bring me comfort.
It’s been a stressful week (month), even by the standards of the 2020’s. And in four days, I’m going to do something I swore I never would.I am going to hand my dog over to a trainer, and walk away.For three weeks.
Three. Weeks.
They call it “board and train.”We’ve been referring to it as “puppy boot camp.”
I’m stressing out about it, hard.
I know that I’ve taken Max a long way in 20 months.She’s a sweet, loving, playful girl with excellent leash manners, she knows all her commands (even if she still has trouble with her recall), she’s a great car-ride companion, and is A+ at letting me know when she has to go out (and holding it, if I can’t get to her right that second).And she hasn’t destroyed a single thing other than her own toys since she finished teething. She’s practically perfect, and the not-perfect….well, that’s just a matter of fine-tuning.
But she still reacts with fear-aggression under certain circumstances, and while I can handle it, that’s beyond my current paygrade to fix.
Part of me feels like I’ve failed, that I wasn’t “good enough” or attentive enough to be and do everything Max needs.That somehow it’s my fault she has that particular quirk.
It’s not.I’ve had trainers reassure me on that fact: dog brains are mysterious things, same as human brains, and sometimes they just… get wired a certain way.
Part of me believes if I’d put in a little more time, studied a little more, done more exercises, I could have done the rewiring myself.
And maybe I could have. Probably I could have. I know the basics, it would just require, well, a lot of time. Constant, dedicated time. And I have a job (several, in fact) and a real need for sleep.
I’m reminding myself that just as writers need editors and copyeditors, sometimes puppies need a little extra help, too. Nobody’s good at everything, and we don’t have to be.
And Max isn’t going to love me any less for it.
So she will go to Puppy Boot Camp, spending three weeks with S., who will give her the 24-hour professional care and training needed to erase old habits and build new ones.And when we are reunited, S. will teach me how to maintain and build on those.
It’s a good thing. It’s also a bloody expensive thing, but it’s a good thing.
And maybe, rather than boot camp, it will turn out to have been Officer Training School.
I’m going to miss her, a lot. But I also suspect the time will be well-spent, reconnecting with (spoiling) Castiel the Kitten of Thursday, and also writing a LOT in the time not spent exercising and training.Which is good, becauseI’m supposed to be writing the follow-up to SOMETHING PERFECT next month….
But until then, Max and I are keeping each other chill.
I took up drawing this year. I’m still very much a beginner, but I am getting much better at really looking at something and seeing it at the level necessary to draw it.
