Talk about the best HEADLINE ever!! Wow.
The above was attached to an article I found on the redOrbit Knowledge Network today (Wednesday, September 22, 2010)
Now, what is a lady to think when confronted with such a provocative headline? Two questions came to my mind first thing:
1. How did they figure out how horny the thing was? Did they find evidence of extraordinary calluses on its knee-bones? Did it have more than one organ of reproduction? Did they find eons-old binoculars around the bones of its neck? Or perhaps was there a stack of stone tablets with chiseled pictures of nude lady dinosaurs found beside the fossil remains?
2. Were they aware, when they wrote that headline of the potentially disturbing visual images their readership was bound to imagine after reading it? I’m sorry but I couldn’t help imagining a big triceratops sort of critter with a huge, thick tongue hanging out of its mouth and a wild look in its eye as it snorts and stomps and hunts in a desperate circle for something on which to visit its unrelenting needs. I think I could’ve gone for another couple of years without that image, thank you.
Can you imagine my disappointment when I discovered that what they actually meant was that the beastie simply had more horns on its head than any previously known dinosaur. Say it with me now… AWWWWWWWW…yeah, we had it figured out all along. A person can hope, though…
Well, okay, so now I’ve discarded my prurient persona and put on my Interested Amateur Paleontologist hat, and discovered that this was a nearly three ton, 16 foot tall proto rhinoceros sort of critter. It’s been named Kosmoceratops and apparently it had FIFTEEN horns sticking out of its six foot long skull! Yeow.
Now, wait a minute – turn around and look at the six foot tall person nearest to you at this moment. Make him stand up if you have to. Okay, if you’re six feet tall and alone, go stand in front of a full length mirror then imagine an animal whose head alone was as big as that guy (or you yourself, as the case may be)! Then, (come along with me now as I do this) picture this – start maybe with what we know a triceratops’s face looked like but instead of those 3 horns and a frill at the top let’s have one horn over its nose, one each over its eyes, one on each cheek, and ten in a row at the top of its head. Good golly. I think you ought to step AWAY from that mirror if I’ve left you there…
That’s some serious ugly going on.
Now, I think this proves that evolution is a harsh and unpitying task master. I’m hoping that this animal was maybe covered in iridescent scales or that frill was multi-colored or something, because if not, Mother Nature created it on the absolutely WRONG day of the month when she was seriously ticked off at Father Time or somebody! I mean, who wants to look at a potential mate and see all those pointy horns sticking out at you? Nuzzling would be downright dangerous, and asking to have your mate scratch an itch for you could be fatal!
If you were a Kosmoceratops, what on earth would you need all that armament for? Facing down another Kosmoceratops when it told you you had a face only a mother could love, and only if it was payday? Showing the local lady Kosmoceratops that you were the biggest and baddest male Kosmoceratops in the neighborhood? Hey, think about it – she’s probably just as ugly as you are, so give it your best shot!
Oh, wait a second – the place the bones were found was Utah – well-known to be Tyrannosaurus territory. Okay, that explains it. Maybe the Tyrannosaurus took one look at that face and just shrugged those tiny shoulders and walked away. Now THAT’S useful evolution where form follows function!
Maybe I should have been a paleontologist. I like digging in the dirt, and besides, it’s far safer to make fun of a creature that’s been dead for 76 million years. None of its relatives are alive to beat you up.
If you’d like to read the original article, here’s its URL:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/
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