Dinosaurs have captured people's imaginations for centuries.
Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, published a novel in 1912 called The Lost World. In this novel, an expedition finds a place in the remote Venezuelan jungle where dinosaurs supposedly survive to this day. Films such as Park Jurassic period" and "Land of the Lost" were clearly inspired by the science fiction of Conan Doyle.
Animated film "Up". The plot of this film also takes place in this lost world where travelers discover an unknown species of colorful dinosaur.
For most of us, living dinosaurs are science fiction. However, some believe that giant dinosaurs still exist today, they just haven't been found yet.
Lake monsters
There are hundreds of lakes harboring prehistoric monsters all over the world. Here are the most famous of them: Loch Ness in Scotland, Lake Okanagan in Canada, Lakes Champlain and Nahuel Huapi in Argentina.
Many believe that the monsters supposedly living in these lakes may be prehistoric reptiles that have survived to this day. For example, such as the plesiosaur (an aquatic reptile with a very long neck up to 12 meters) or the ichthyosaur Shonisaurus (shonisaurus sikanniensis), which were as huge as a submarine.
In the remote jungles of Central Africa, local tribes talk about the existence in these jungles of dinosaurs up to 11 meters long, with brownish-gray skin and long flexible necks. Many believe that they live in caves, scour river banks and feed on elephants, hippos and crocodiles.
Roy Makal, a biologist at the University of Chicago who led two expeditions in search of Mokele-Membe, says the descriptions of the creature resemble a "small sauropod dinosaur."
Despite the fact that last year more than twenty expeditions were carried out to search for a “living dinosaur,” no one has yet been found in the area. Unfortunately, there are no photographs, no videos, not even partial remains of the creatures that were sought, but only oral stories and legends of local residents.
The amazing truth
Of course, the theory that giant dinosaurs are still hiding in dense jungles or cold, deep lakes may be wrong, since all evidence suggests they went extinct around 65.5 million years ago. Many of the lakes where dinosaurs are said to hide were formed only about 10,000 years ago.
If dinosaurs had gone extinct not so long ago—say, during the Nixon administration, or even during Shakespeare's time—the possibility that there were a few lone huge dinosaurs left might be plausible. But 65.5 million years is too long a period of time for long-extinct species to survive.
Found a large number of artifacts that can prove that dinosaurs did not all go extinct as a result of the fatal cataclysm and the subsequent ice age, but were able to survive these cataclysms and lasted much longer than modern science believes.
Although, who knows? As they say: “the ways of the Lord cannot be confessed,” perhaps prehistoric monsters still roam our land or plow the seas and oceans. Scientists can make mistakes too.
However, from a scientific point of view, not all dinosaurs went extinct. Most of us look at dinosaurs every day, and some even live in people's homes. Birds are the modern version of dinosaurs; they are the closest descendants of dinosaurs.
Vyrova Evgenia
"From the early childhood I liked cartoons and films about dinosaurs. This year I visited Dino Park, where I saw a recreated picture of the life of animals that lived long before the advent of humanity. And all the time I wanted to understand how they lived, why they died out, and whether they had relatives in our world. After all, many existing animals are similar to dinosaurs."
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City Scientific Society
Department of Education of the Administration of Novouralsk City District
Municipal autonomous educational institution
"Average comprehensive school № 56
with in-depth study of individual subjects"
DO DINOSAURS EXIST IN OUR TIMES?
Novouralsk city district, 2014
Plan
1.Introduction 3
2. Main part 4
2.1 Historical background 4
2.2 Research part
2.2.1. Comparison of dinosaurs with mammals 5
2.2.2. Comparison of dinosaurs with birds 5
2.2.3. Closest relatives of dinosaurs 6
2.3. Questionnaire 6
3.Conclusion 9
4.Literature 10
5.Appendices 11
1. Introduction
From early childhood I liked cartoons and films about dinosaurs. This year I visited Dino Park, where I saw a recreated picture of the life of animals that lived long before the advent of humanity. And all the time I wanted to understand how they lived, why they died out, and whether they had relatives in our world. After all, many existing animals are similar to dinosaurs.
Purpose of the study: find out if there are relatives of dinosaurs in our time.
Research problem: compare animals and birds with various types dinosaurs, conduct a survey and a class hour.
Methods:
theoretical (familiarity with literature, working with a computer);
practical (research of birds, lizards, questioning, conducting a class hour.)
Hypothesis : I think that in our time there are animals that are relatives of dinosaurs. For example: giraffes, rhinoceroses, ostriches, crocodiles, lizards, hatterias, monitor lizards, agamas, geckos.
Relevance : Interest in dinosaurs does not disappear among children of all generations, so we considered this topic relevant and decided to find out who the relatives of dinosaurs are currently. After all, many modern animals are similar to dinosaurs. This is how this work was born.
Object of study: modern reptiles (lizards).
Subject of study: external signs of modern reptiles.
2. Main part
2.1 Historical background
Dinosaurs (from the Greek “terrible lizards”) are animals belonging to the class of reptiles. They could be the size of a cat or chicken, or they could reach the size of huge whales. Some of them walked on 4 limbs, while others ran on their hind legs. Among them there were dexterous hunters and predators, but there were also harmless herbivores, some of them switched to life in the water. Some of them were slow, while others could move at great speed.
Dinosaurs appeared on our planet approximately 285 million years ago and became extinct 65 million years ago. These are some of the most amazing living creatures on our planet. All dinosaurs were reptiles with scaly skin and claws on their feet. Most of them laid hard-shelled eggs.At that time, a warm, dry climate established on Earth. Only those who could hide from the dry air in the swamps survived, or those who had drier skin, better developed lung sacs, and could lay eggs in a dense shell with a large reserve nutrients. Seymouria is considered the most ancient and primitive reptile (lizard). This animal is 0.5 m long and looks very much like a stegocephalus.
The study of the remains (on the territory of Russia) was carried out by Professor V.P. Amalitsky on the Northern Dvina River in the 20th century. When the climate began to change, smaller reptiles survived. Some of them have survived to this day unchanged, for example, hatteria, monitor lizards. Modern reptiles (reptiles) are divided into the order of squamates (snakes, lizards), the order of turtles and the order of crocodiles. They are very similar to ancient lizards.
Some other non-reptiles may look like dinosaurs, but that's not enough. The skeletons and behavioral features should be similar. This is what I want to prove by making observations and comparisons.
2.2 Research part
2.2.1. Comparison of dinosaurs with mammals.
Let's take a giraffe for comparison.
Diplodocus is a representative of the lizard-hipped dinosaurs - sauropods. Diplodocus was truly gigantic in size and is known as one of the longest dinosaurs. In addition, Diplodocus is one of the herbivorous dinosaurs.
The giraffe is a mammal from the order Artiodactyla. The tallest of modern animals. GIRAFFE: thanks to his long neck can eat leaves from the tops of trees in the same way as diplodocus.
Let's compare the Armadillo and the Ankylosaurus:
The body of the ankylosaur was covered with a shell consisting of fused bony scutes, spines or dorsal girdles, and on the tail there was a bony outgrowth that was used for self-defense. The armadillo is also covered with a bone shell like the ankylosaur.
Let's compare Triceratops with Rhinoceros:
Triceratops was a pretty tough animal. Its forelimbs were bent like those of a lizard, its hind limbs were straightened, like the limbs of a rhinoceros. This meant that the dinosaur was almost impossible to move.
Triceratops has a large bony collar and threehorns on the face.
RHINO looks roughly like a Triceratops. He also has a large, heavy body and a horn on his nose.
All this suggests that the ancestors of mammals were ancient lizards.
2.2.2. Comparison of dinosaurs with birds.
While researching birds, I discovered an amazing thing. The bones of the legs of birds are very similar in structure to the bones of the legs of dinosaurs - predators. Although birds are not reptiles, there are still a few very important features similarities: birds' legs are covered with scales, birds lay eggs in hard shells.
Many scientists believe that birds are the closest relatives of dinosaurs: the ostrich looks very similar to the string mime, and runs just as fast.
2.2.3. The closest relatives of dinosaurs.
The closest relatives of dinosaurs are modern reptiles.
Let's compare dinosaurs with reptiles.
Let's compare a crocodile with dinosaurs.
About 250 million years ago, a group of reptiles appeared - archosaurs. From them came:
pterosaurs - aerial reptiles
dinosaurs - land reptiles
crocodiles are inhabitants of rivers and swamps.
This means that crocodiles are the closest relatives of dinosaurs that have survived to our time. If you watch crocodiles - how they catch and eat prey, how they care for their offspring, you get a rough idea of the lifestyle of dinosaurs.
Thus, modern reptiles, birds and mammals descended from ancient lizards.
My hypothesis about the existence of relatives of dinosaurs in our time was confirmed. Do the guys in my class know about this? I decided to find out at class hour.
2.3 Questionnaire
During class, I talked about my research and what else I learned about lizards.
What sounds did dinosaurs make?
Dinosaurs used sound signals when communicating. Scientists believe that they made trumpet sounds.
Why does a dinosaur have a tail?
Probably, first of all, the tails served to make the animal more stable, because its head is very heavy and its neck is massive. It is also believed that when running and turning, the tail acted as a rudder. Some dinosaurs had a tail adapted to protect the animal; a blow with such a tail caused a noticeable defeat to an opponent. Some scientists believe that the long tails of dinosaurs had a grasping function, and dinosaurs used them in the same way as a modern elephant uses its trunk.
Why did dinosaurs become extinct?
A more convincing and justified point of view is that the extinction of dinosaurs did not occur suddenly, but continued over a fairly long crisis period. Living conditions gradually deteriorated for those animals that were adapted to uniform warm and humid climate, to a rich flora and fauna. Constant movements of continents and seas have led to significant climate change. Warm conditions without any temperature changes gave way to colder nights and harsher winters.
Then I offered to answer a few questions.
QUESTIONNAIRE
- When did the ancient lizards live?
500 million years 100 million years
285 million years 700 million years
- Where did the ancient lizards live?
in dry warm areas in ice
in the mountains
- List of modern relatives of ancient lizards?
60 people answered the survey questions.
The first question was mostly answered correctly.
All the guys answered the second question correctly. Dinosaurs (ancient lizards) lived in warm areas.
To the third question, several people named a crocodile and lizards, but no one knows the exact names of the reptiles that live now.
Conclusion from the questionnaire : The guys need to tell about modern reptiles (lizards and snakes). The guys know more about ancient lizards than about modern ones. This means that my work is relevant and can be used in lessons about the world around us.
3.Conclusion
Thus, While studying the structural features of modern animals, I came to the conclusion that the evolutionary chain could look like this:
Dinosaurs – Archeopteryx – Birds
That is, the pigeons we feed in parks may be among the closest relatives of dinosaurs.
Crocodiles are also relatives of dinosaurs. They developed in parallel with dinosaurs.
Archaeosaurs
Land dinosaurs Flying dinosaurs
Scaly Turtles Crocodiles Archeopteryx
Birds
4.Literature
- Mamontov S.G. Biology. General patterns.-M.: Bustard 2001.-287 p.
- Nikishov A.I. Sharova I.Kh. Biology. Animals.-M.: Education, 2000.-256 p.
- I'm exploring the world. Children's encyclopedia. Animals.-M.: LLC Astrel, LLC AST, 2000.-400 p.
Methods: Theoretical (reading literature, working with a computer) Practical (observations and study of the structure of birds, lizards and other animals)
Hypothesis: Giraffes, rhinoceroses, crocodiles, lizards are very similar to dinosaurs. This means they are relatives of dinosaurs, so we can say that dinosaurs currently live on earth
Relevance Interest in dinosaurs does not disappear among children of all generations, so it is necessary to study modern animals, birds, and reptiles in more detail. Many of them are very similar to lizards
Historical background Dinosaurs (from the Greek “terrible lizards”) - appeared on Earth approximately 285 million years ago. Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. All dinosaurs were reptiles with scaly skin and claws on their paws. Most of them laid eggs.
When the climate on Earth became dry, dinosaurs began to die out. Studying the remains of lizards, scientists came to the conclusion that there are still lizards on Earth, they are called reptiles. The most ancient and primitive reptile (lizard) is considered to be Seymouria
Research part Looking at the giraffe, we can assume that it is similar to the ancient diplodocus lizard Diplodocus Giraffe
Comparing the armadillo with the ancient lizard ankylosaur, we can say that external signs they are very similar Ankylosaurus Armadillo
The modern rhinoceros is very similar to the Triceratops Triceratops Rhinoceros
Scientists suggest that birds are the closest relatives of dinosaurs. The ostrich is similar in appearance to the Struthiomimus Struthiomimus Ostrich
The paws of birds and the body structure of birds are no different from the paws and body of the flying lizards Pteranodon Seagull
The well-known crocodile is the closest relative of the dinosaur - the archosaur. Archosaur Crocodile.
Hatteria and monitor lizards have survived unchanged since ancient times. Hatteria and monitor lizards live in southern countries and can only be seen in pictures. Hatteria Varan
Conclusions: Lizards still live on Earth. The closest relatives of ancient lizards are modern reptiles and birds
Archaeosaurs Land dinosaurs Flying dinosaurs Scaly turtles Crocodiles Archeopteryx Birds
She told the kids about dinosaurs during class. The students answered the survey questions. 60 people took part in the survey.
Questionnaire 1. When did the ancient lizards live? 500 million years 100 million years. 285 million years. 700 million years. 2. Where did the ancient lizards live? in dry warm areas in ice in the mountains 3. List of modern relatives of ancient lizards?
Conclusions: The kids know more about ancient animals than about modern ones. She told about modern animals during class. This means the work is relevant and can be used in lessons about the environment and biology.
Thank you for your attention!
Ever since dinosaur remains were first discovered in 1864, they have been a part of our imagination. For 200 years now, scientists have been trying to study these creatures that once reigned on Earth. But every few decades, new discoveries are made that completely change our ideas about dinosaurs, and we are forced to Once again rewrite our ideas about them. Despite this, there are many myths that continue to roam among people, despite all the discoveries. Perhaps it's time to dispel all these myths and misconceptions once and for all.
10. Tyrannosaurs had very powerful front legs
Tyrannosaurus is considered the king of the dinosaurs, embodying both savagery and brute strength. However, there are many jokes about his small front legs, which people have always considered weak.
But, according to scientific research, although these legs were no more than a meter long, they were very strong. They could easily lift hundreds of kilograms of weight and would most definitely beat you in an arm wrestling competition. Tyrannosaurs could easily tear off a person's arm and break it like a match over their heads, if only they were given such an opportunity.
9. Not all ancient animals are dinosaurs
Many people use the term "dinosaur" to describe any creatures that lived during the Age of Dinosaurs, which is the entire Mesozoic era, from the Triassic to the Cretaceous periods. But in reality, the term "dinosaur" only applies to a specific group of animals from that era.
Pterodactyls (we'll get to them later) are not in the same class as dinosaurs, and plesiosaurs are not related to either. And this is not to mention the fact that both fish and mammals existed in that era.
8. Dinosaurs didn’t drag their tails along the ground.
Modern animals don't drag their tails along the ground when they walk, so why would dinosaurs do it differently? And yet, such a misconception exists, it is due to the fact that many people imagine dinosaurs as modern lizards, only giant size. That's why directors and artists often depict a dinosaur dragging its tail behind it.
So how do scientists know that dinosaurs didn't drag their tails? Because during the excavations, paleontologists did not find traces of tails among the thousands of discovered dinosaur tracks, and it would have been very difficult not to notice them!
7. Dinosaurs weren't bad parents.
The perception of dinosaurs as simply giant lizards led to the misconception that they were bad parents - like monitor lizards and iguanas, who simply laid eggs and then abandoned them to save their own skins. But new evidence suggests that many dinosaur species continued to care for their young after they hatched. The basis for this assumption was the discovery of the fossilized remains of an adult Philydrosauras surrounded by six cubs. These amphibious dinosaurs existed during the Jurassic period, and are the oldest evidence to date of reptiles caring for their young.
Another piece of evidence concerns a small, lizard-like dinosaur called a pelycosaurus. What appears to be a babysitting colony was found among the fossilized remains, near a nest with one adult the remains of many cubs are found. Given how rare discoveries like these are, it's hard to say how widespread parental care was among dinosaurs. However, it is quite possible that this was much more popular among these prehistoric creatures than among modern reptiles, only 5% of which care for their children.
6. Dinosaurs were not the first reptiles to rule the Earth.
Because dinosaurs ruled the Earth for millions of years before humans arrived, it is generally believed that they were the first (and only) reptiles to rule the Earth. It is even difficult for many to imagine the time before their reign. But scientists have discovered the remains of a group of creatures that are millions of years older than dinosaurs. These creatures are called "the ugliest fossil reptiles."
They are officially known as pareiasaurs, and according to paleontologist Michael Benton of the University of Bristol, "they represent the pinnacle of vertebrate evolution on land before the advent of dinosaurs." Like dinosaurs, these creatures were stocky, bow-legged, and had ossified skin that protected them from predators. Their average length was 2.5 meters. Pareiasaurs roamed the Earth for 10 million years, about 252 million years ago, until a mass extinction event wiped out 90% of these creatures, giving rise to the development of the dinosaurs.
5. Dinosaurs did not terrorize mammals and other non-dinosaurs
Whenever in the movies, mighty dinosaurs walk through swamps and jungles, groups of mammals run and hide from them. Of course, the small size of these animals made them easy targets for an angry dinosaur. But despite what you see on screen, in reality many mammals and other animals hunted dinosaurs themselves, such as Razanandrongobe sakalavae, a nightmarish relative of the crocodile nicknamed the “dinosaur eater.”
As for mammals, they used their small size as an advantage against dinosaurs. They sneaked into their nests and devoured the eggs and young, just as rats now do to huge predators. Some scientists even suggest that it was the destruction of dinosaur eggs by mammals that became main reason their extinction.
4. Pterodactyls and archaeoraptors didn’t actually exist (at least not in the form you imagine them to be)
In one of the articles we already said that, strictly speaking, brontosaurs never existed, because in fact they were just young apatosaurs, which by the time the “brontosaurs” were found had already been discovered. As it turns out, such errors occur quite often.
Pterodactyls are a fixture in all dinosaur legends, and they appear in almost every movie and TV show that features dinosaurs. But in fact, these winged reptiles are not dinosaurs at all; Pterodactyls like those in the movies have never existed. The real-life pterodactyls were small flying reptiles from the Jurassic period with a wingspan of about a meter, they had small teeth at the front of their jaws, but they had no beak or crest on their head. What most people call a pterodactyl is actually a pteranodon, a small animal with a wingspan of 6-7 meters, a beak and a crest on the back of its head (at least in males).
However, at least pterodactyl still existed, unlike Archaeoraptor, which became one of the most notorious hoaxes among prehistoric animals and tarnished the reputation of National Geographic magazine. The discovery of Archaeoraptor started the debate about feathered dinosaurs, but it was actually more than one find because the fossil was assembled from several different (three to five) specimens.
Initially, the fossilized remains were discovered by a farmer, but he did not immediately announce his discovery, but decided to glue the scattered bones together into a single solid specimen. The collected fossil was then smuggled into the United States and sold to an amateur collector named Steven Cherkas for $80,000. Cherkas believed that he had become the owner of a unique specimen, so he invited several experts to look at the find, hoping that information about it would be published in the journals Nature and Natural Geographic. But one of the experts, Phil Curry, quickly determined that the tail and legs did not match the rest of the body.
The dinosaur collector somehow kept Kerry silent about his findings, and one of the other experts prepared an article for the journal Nature. However, the article was rejected because the journal decided that more thorough peer review was needed. The paper was then submitted to the journal Science and also rejected because the copy was brought into the country illegally and had apparently been modified. Somehow, information about these failures did not reach National Geographic magazine, and it decided to publish an article about the discovery, assuming that the discovery would eventually be published in a peer-reviewed scientific study.
It was only two months later that one of the experts came forward with definitive proof that the fossil was a fake. To this day, this story remains the most inconvenient example of fraud in paleontology.
3. Dinosaurs didn’t die because they couldn’t evolve successfully.
In search of a simple answer to the question of why dinosaurs went extinct, some scientists have decided to focus on the idea that it was due to dinosaurs' inability to evolve. Therefore, they, unlike evolved mammals, could not survive in harsh conditions. climatic conditions after the meteorite fell. However, this theory is largely untenable. It does not take into account that both dinosaurs and mammals existed at that time. Many dinosaurs were able to adapt and survive the mass extinction, and many mammals you've probably never heard of, such as eutriconodonts, volaticotheres, spalacotheroids, and polytuberculates, went extinct. While there aren't as many giant dinosaurs left in modern times, there are many birds (three times as many as mammals, to be more specific) that are descendants of dinosaurs.
Moreover, even if dinosaurs went extinct completely, this does not mean that they did not evolve at all. In fact, dinosaurs were the dominant life form on land for 135 million years, more than twice as long as mammals. The reason they survived for so long was precisely their ability to evolve from creatures the size of pigeons to 70-ton herbivores, which remain the largest animals that have ever walked the earth. Dinosaurs filled every niche and thrived on every continent. There were so many species of dinosaurs that modern scientists are discovering the new kind every 1.5 weeks.
The point is that dinosaurs were masters of evolution, and just because they died in greater numbers than mammals does not mean it was due to inability to adapt. Many dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, and scientists still don't understand all the factors that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Research on this topic is very difficult given that most dinosaur fossils are found in North America, where the extinction was likely much faster and more dramatic than in other areas of the Earth because that is where the famous asteroid hit.
2. Dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid impact
As we already mentioned in previous paragraph Probably, the process of the beginning of the extinction of dinosaurs was launched by the fall of a giant asteroid. But this was not the only factor - and perhaps not even the most important.
It is assumed that the impact of the asteroid, which left behind the 180-kilometer Chicxulub crater, was the trigger for the mass extinction process, but its main cause was not the explosion itself. In the end, although the fall released 10 billion times more energy than the explosion atomic bomb in Hiroshima, nevertheless, a significant part of the Earth’s surface was not damaged by the explosion. The explosion in the southern Gulf of Mexico also caused a giant tsunami that reached Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. It is possible that it also caused massive earthquakes around the world.
But what happened over the next few years really doomed the entire world ecosystem. Scientific modeling showed that such a huge amount of soot and dust rose into the air during such a fall that the Earth was deprived of sunlight for two years. This caused two serious problems. Plants that lived off photosynthesis died, and other plants and animals that could survive without the sun experienced a sharp drop in global temperatures. average temperature dropped by 28 °C, although in some areas, such as the equatorial part Pacific Ocean, the cooling was even more significant.
Then, when the skies cleared again, the increased carbon content in the atmosphere must have led to global warming- and suddenly a breakdown began in ecosystems such as Antarctica, which fared well during the global darkness.
But it is possible that the asteroid was not involved in the death of the dinosaurs at all. There is a possibility that the cause of the extinction began 250,000 years before the asteroid impact and existed for another 500,000 years after it. Not long ago, scientists began to consider the possibility that the culprit of the mass extinction, which resulted in the disappearance of 3/4 of living beings on our planet, could have been the eruption of a supervolcano in India (which at that time was a land mass near Madagascar).
The volcano erupted so frequently and with such intensity that a total of more than 1.25 million cubic kilometers of molten rock erupted, and even more gases. In fact, scientists who studied the effects of the volcanic eruption believe that the sheer amount of carbon dioxide released must have made ocean water too acidic for most creatures to survive. Excess carbon dioxide has also led to global warming, by about 8 degrees Celsius.
Some scientists believe that the volcano and the asteroid are equally to blame, based on the fact that earthquakes resulting from the asteroid impact intensified volcanic eruptions. Add to this the dramatic changes in global temperatures, which first rose, then fell, then rose again - even higher than they were before the asteroid hit; giant tsunamis, acidic oceans, earthquakes, complete darkness for two years, and so on. It is not difficult to understand why many plants and animals disappeared from the face of the Earth in such a short period of time.
1. Not all dinosaurs existed at the same time
There is a group of dinosaurs that are always collected together - these are the tyrannosaurs, stegosaurs, pterosaurs, brontosaurs, triceratops and apatosaurs. This group accompanies anyone who watches movies and TV shows with dinosaurs from birth. However, such a company is pure fantasy, because they all existed in different time, and some of them are not even considered dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurs existed during the Cretaceous period and coexisted with Triceratops, Apatosaurus and Allosaurus, but stegosaurs existed millions of years earlier. Pterodactyls also lived before tyrannosaurs, and, as we mentioned earlier, they are not even considered dinosaurs.
The Mesozoic Era consists of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and it should not be surprising that most species of dinosaurs did not live during all of them. The Triassic period began immediately after the mass extinction, which resulted in the disappearance of more than 65% of all land animals and 95% of all sea life, so the creatures that lived during that period were the surviving remnants of a previous era. Then less global catastrophes occurred that separated the Triassic period from the Jurassic, so many creatures from the previous era no longer lived to see the Jurassic period. It wasn't until the Cretaceous that dinosaur diversity reached its peak, so most of the most famous and beloved dinosaurs (such as Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops) actually come from this period.
We think we own heaven. But a group of creatures capable of flight remains the envy of man-made aerial forces. These birds are descendants of dinosaurs. They inhabit all ecosystems of the globe, including the interior of Antarctica.
Origin of birds for a long time remained the subject of lively debate. Over the foreseeable period of time, several scientific versions of the origin and kinship of birds and the emergence of flight in them have been put forward, and for more than a hundred years they were purely hypothetical.
1. Heron fishing. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
The hypothesis about the origin of birds from dinosaurs was first put forward in 1868 by Thomas Huxley. It was based on a comparison of the structure of Archeopteryx, an animal that lived about 150 million years ago in the Upper Jurassic. It had the characteristics of a typical reptile - a special structure of the pelvis and ribs, teeth, clawed paws and a long tail, like a lizard. At the same time, the fossils had well-preserved imprints of the flight wings, similar to those of modern birds.
2. A flock of white geese. (Photo by Jim Scalzo):
There are many similarities between birds and dinosaurs. common features in the structure of the skeleton. Among the possible closest relatives of birds, avimim is also considered - small predatory dinosaur from the Cretaceous period.
3. A pelican feeds its babies. (Photo by Monika Skkolimowska):
The first attempt to systematize animals was made in the 4th century BC. e. Greek scientist Aristotle - in his works “On the Parts of Animals” and “On the Origin of Animals” he identified all the birds known to him into the “highest genus” Ornithes. Despite the obvious imperfection of this system, until the second half of the 17th century, no new attempts were made to classify the animal world. Only to end of the 19th century century, new research has laid the foundation for modern ideas about the bird class system.
4. Heron. (Photo by Biju Boro):
Birds are everywhere, even in Antarctica. For example, the snow petrel nests in the interior of this continent at a distance of up to 440 km from the coast. Along the edges of the Antarctic shield, penguins (emperor, Adelie), giant petrel, and south polar skua nest in places.
5. Sandhill cranes. (Photo by Sam Greenwood):
Birds also inhabit the most waterless deserts and mountains, right up to the border of eternal snow. During migration, flocks of geese and cranes were sometimes observed flying at an altitude of 7000-9000 m. In 1973, an African vulture collided with a civil aircraft over Côte d'Ivoire at an altitude of 11,277 meters.
6. Gray heron fishing. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
Several families of birds have adapted to life at sea. Some species of penguins dive to depths of up to 300 m, and according to other information, emperor penguin can reach a depth of 535 meters.
7. Tricolored heron. Chick. (Photo by Rhona Wise):
It is the ability to fly that determines the characteristics of this class of animals, although there are a relatively small number (about 60 species) of flightless or almost flightless birds, which in the course of evolution have somehow lost the ability to fly that their ancestors had.
8. Pelicans. (Photo by Amir Cohen):
Flight requires a very large expenditure of muscle energy, so the level of metabolism in birds is extremely high and the need for food is great: its daily requirement is 12-28% of the total body weight. If we project these data onto a person, then a 70-kilogram character would have to eat up to 20 kg of food per day if he were a bird.
9. The duckling is hiding from the rain. (Photo by David L. Ryan):
All bird species are characterized by the presence of feathers that are not found in other modern animals. Feathers cover the entire body of the bird, with the exception of the beak and the distal parts of the hind limbs. It is believed that feathers originated as a result of evolutionary transformations of reptile scales.
10. Gray Heron. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
How many feathers does a bird have? The total number of feathers in large species is greater than in small ones. For example, hummingbirds have about 1,000 feathers, seagulls have up to 6,000, and swans have 25,000.
11. Robins are waiting for their parents in the nest. (Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst):
The pen is an almost perfect mechanism. It provides the possibility of flight, forming load-bearing planes (wings, tail), and creates a streamlined body. Feathers protect the skin from mechanical damage. The waterproof and heat-protective functions of the plumage are very effective.
12. Stilt walkers. (Photo by Sam Yeh):
Like any sophisticated mechanism, feathers require careful maintenance, and birds spend about 9% of their time daily cleaning their plumage, bathing and dust bathing.
13. Stork. (Photo by Rhona Wise):
Descendants of dinosaurs do not smell. They do not have sweat glands. Cooling of the body is achieved using highly developed respiratory system. Birds also cool down by being in the shade or in water.
14. Herons. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
No teeth. It is interesting that modern birds lack teeth - they are partly replaced by the sharp edges of the beak, with which birds capture, hold and sometimes crush food. Due to the loss of teeth, the task of grinding food is transferred to the stomach.
15. Canada geese. Struggle. (Photo by David L. Ryan):
The respiratory system of birds is also characterized by signs of adaptation to flight. This organ system in birds is considered one of the most complex among all groups of animals. The more intense the flapping flight, the more intense the breathing process.
16. Godwits. (Photo by Chris Purnell):
The heart rate of birds is also high, and in flight, compared to rest, the heart rate increases noticeably. So, a sparrow’s resting pulse is about 460 beats/min, and in flight it’s about 1000 beats/min!
17. Heron's nest. (Photo by Anupam Nath):
Birds are not stupid animals. A well-developed brain allows birds to produce complex shapes behavior and adapt to a variety of situations. The most striking demonstration of the mental abilities of birds is considered to be teaching songbirds to sing, repeating human speech parrots, methods of obtaining food in a number of species and the ability of corvids to solve complex problems proposed to them in special experiments.
18. 3 little swans. (Photo by Matt Campbell):
Eyes are the most powerful avian apparatus. Many birds have good distance vision (the peregrine falcon is able to see a small bird at a distance of more than 1 km). In some species the field of view reaches almost 360°. Vision in birds is noticeably more acute than in other groups of vertebrates - this is explained by the significantly larger number of light-sensitive cells in the retina.
19. Dove. (Photo by Dominique Faget):
Sound signals have an exclusive role in the life of birds. important. They ensure the protection of feeding and nesting territories from the invasion of strangers, attracting females for breeding, and warning relatives and chicks about impending danger. There are dozens of bird languages sound signals(disasters, warnings, food, courtship, mating, aggressive, gregarious, nesting, and so on).
Some birds, for example, lyrebirds, have a phenomenal ability to imitate all kinds of sounds, ranging from the voices of birds, animals, humans, and ending with various man-made sounds, including playing the flute and even the sounds of car alarms and chainsaws.
20. Goose family. (Photo by Tom Dorsey):
Flight! The flight of birds is usually divided into two main types: active (flapping) and passive (soaring). Birds usually use more than one type of flight, but combine them. The flapping of the wings is followed by phases when the wing does not move: this is gliding flight, or soaring. This flight is typical mainly for birds of medium and large sizes, with sufficient body weight. Hovering in place relative to the surrounding air is a challenging task for birds. In fact, hummingbirds are the only group of birds adapted to do this.
Birds move along branches, ground and water using their hind legs. And also, any bird does not drown in water and swims when necessary.
21. Gray heron catches fish. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
The migration routes of some birds consist of many segments, between which the birds rest and look for food. The reasons for bird migration are seasonal changes. environment. The Arctic tern is considered the absolute champion in terms of migration distance, migrating seasonally from the Arctic to the Antarctic, covering a distance of up to 70-90 thousand km per year! Also, one of the longest migrations in the world, lasting up to 26 thousand km, is performed by the round-nosed phalarope.
Observation of the flight of birds prompted people to invent the first aircraft, and its further study continues to influence the development of modern aviation.
22. Nest white stork on a cell tower. (Photo by Paul Hanna):
We know well to what extent we are human. animal world of our planet? This question will surprise most people. In reality: there are many scientific works, which can fully satisfy curiosity in this area. It seems that in the 21st century there are and cannot be secrets in the animal world. But it is not so. And these days, from time to time there are reports saying that the animal world has not been studied as well as we might think.
In the 20th century, various kinds of studies of mysterious animals similar to dragons, or, in scientific terms, dinosaurs that lived on Earth in prehistoric times, were very popular.
You shouldn't think that modern man, tired of everyday affairs and worries, suddenly suddenly believed in fairy tales, myths and legends that mention dragons and others mythical creatures. In fact, reports, for example, about plesiosaurs look quite convincing and are within the scope of scientific interests of a number of zoologists.
Are all dinosaurs extinct?
Any modern person knows that prehistoric animals disappeared from the face of the Earth a long time ago, millions of years ago. The question of why this happened is very interesting. After all, dinosaurs became extinct in a very short period, although they lived on Earth for more than 150 million years. Over such a long period of time, the climate on the planet has repeatedly changed and there have been many other changes to which animals have been able to adapt quite successfully.
The dinosaurs disappeared in about 5 million years, that is, very quickly. There are many hypotheses trying to explain this disappearance. One of the scientists, American geophysicist U. Alvarez, proposed a very original version. In the second half of the 20th century, he studied an underwater canyon in Italy and discovered in a layer of clay that belonged to the end Mesozoic era(it was during that era that dinosaurs disappeared), the increased content of iridium is 30 times more than is usually found in the earth’s crust.
The fact is that there is not so much iridium in the bowels of the Earth; it is more often found in other cosmic bodies. The scientist suggested that at the end of the Mesozoic era, our planet collided with a large asteroid, the diameter of which was more than 10 km. An asteroid crashed into the Earth at high speed. As a result, the iridium content in the earth's crust increased, which in itself, however, was not dangerous for dinosaurs.
But when the asteroid collided, a huge amount of dust rose into the air. The surface of the planet was covered with a dust curtain from the Sun. Due to shortage sun rays plants began to die. Many dinosaurs were herbivores and ate about 2 quintals of plants per day. They began to die of hunger, which meant that the predators, in turn, began to lack food. As a result, all dinosaurs became extinct. Of course, this is just one hypothesis.
Prehistoric creatures - guests from the Mesozoic era
Meanwhile, cryptozoology assures us that many prehistoric animals have not disappeared, but live in our time. Or, at least, they lived relatively not so long ago.
16th century – S. Herberstein, diplomat, traveler and writer, served as the Austrian ambassador in Russia. In his diary he described people who lived in the forests and kept them as pets big snakes, lizard-like, with four legs and pointed bodies of black color.
In Russian chronicles of the 16th century there is a record of how “crocodiles” came out of a river near Novgorod and ate many people. This entry is dated 1582. Of course, it is possible to suspect ancient chronicler in a hoax, but at that distant time the chroniclers were precisely chroniclers, and not science fiction writers. And maybe everything was exactly as it was said in the chronicle.
A few years later, in 1589, the Englishman J. Garsey, while in Russia, saw on the shore rivers of the dead crocodile From the point of view of official science, in Eastern Europe Crocodiles weren't supposed to live. But we're talking about about the 16th century. It can be assumed that these reptiles were found in Russian reservoirs at that time. In the future, they could die both from natural causes and as a result of aggression from people. Now it is no longer possible to find out whether those “crocodiles” were prehistoric lizards.
In Scotland there is one fairly deep lake - Loch Morar. According to eyewitnesses, this lake is home to a creature unknown to science. In the 1970s, scientists conducted special research on this lake, after which they stated that they personally saw a large animal with a head similar to a snake. The size of the strange creature exceeded 13 meters. One of the researchers, Professor G. Vakhrushev, is convinced that the mysterious creatures that are talked about so much are in fact lake plesiosaurs; today they may well live in lakes that originated from freshwater reservoirs of the Mesozoic era.
Unknown monsters can exist not only in water, but also on land. It is very interesting that the Irish mysterious beasts appearance similar to the mythological creatures "kelpies", about which there are many legends in Western Scotland. Ireland and Scotland are very close, so it is not surprising that the legends and myths of these countries are similar.
Meanwhile, there is information about mysterious creatures that have been observed in Russia. For example, they say that Nessie’s “relatives” live in the lakes of Yakutia, namely prehistoric animals that should have disappeared from the face of the earth a long time ago.
So, in the middle of the 20th century, some people were lucky enough to see a strange creature whose description was very similar to a plesiosaur. One of the eyewitnesses (who also managed to sketch a hitherto unprecedented animal) was an employee of the biological detachment of the Yakut branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The fish lizard was also seen by geologists working in Yakutia.
It is curious that the Yakuts have long been sure: monsters live in their lakes, feeding on fish and even birds that settle on the shores of reservoirs. The monsters did not disdain people who went to the lakes to fish. Of course, local legends did not at all pretend to be “scientific”. People only wanted to warn each other about the terrible danger and in no case were chasing sensations.
The stories are quite interesting. Aristotle and Euripides also wrote about them. There is a legend that in the 8th century BC. e. King Sargon II saw a huge sea snake off the coast of Cyprus. An image of this creature was found during archaeological excavations in Assyria on the walls of the Korsadad Palace.
Modern scientists do not deny the possibility that prehistoric animals can survive today. Some accounts from witnesses who personally saw strange creatures, cites the famous popularizer of science V. Mezentsev in one of his books.
1734 - the Danish missionary P. Egende sailed on a ship along the coast of Greenland, and this is what he wrote in the logbook: “We saw a terrible animal, unlike anything we had seen before. It raised its head so high above the waves that it seemed to tower above the tops of our ship. The monster breathed weaker than the whale; his head was narrower than his body, which seemed short and wrinkled. The animal moved with the help of huge fins located under its belly. After some time we saw his tail. The total length of the monster exceeded the length of our ship."
1848 - the captain of the English warship Daedalus wrote in the logbook: “When our attention was attracted by an object that appeared on the surface of the sea, we decided that it was huge snake. We did not notice any limbs that served the animal for movement in the water, and no signs of horizontal movement. It passed quickly at such a close distance that it could be seen with the naked eye. It was moving at a speed of 12-15 miles per hour...
Behind the head, the diameter of the animal’s body was 40–50 centimeters. During the 20 minutes of observation, the snake's head was constantly above the surface of the water. It was brown on top and light yellow underneath. The animal had no fins, but on its back it had something like a mane or a tuft of algae.”
From this description it doesn't look particularly mysterious. There is nothing mystical about it. But science has not described such a creature. Or rather, sea snakes themselves are well known. They live in tropical seas and are dangerous to people because they are very poisonous. But sea snakes are small, the largest individuals are no more than 2 meters. Eyewitnesses report real giants, which, according to descriptions, are similar to prehistoric animals.
Mezentsev cites an extract from the log of the ship “Osborne” for 1877: “The movement of the animal’s flat fins was like that of a turtle, and it looked like a huge seal... The ship was located at the latitude of the island of Sicily, and this is the only observation made in the Mediterranean Sea. Some believed that this animal was an ichthyosaur, others were inclined to see it as a giant turtle.”
1904 - The French Academy of Sciences drew attention to the following message, which was discussed at a special scientific meeting: “On the afternoon of February 25, 1904, heading towards the exit from the bay, the Decide met a mysterious animal at the height of the cliffs of Nua... I saw all parts of the animal , successively plunging into the water with vertical wave-like movements. It looked like a flattened snake and, according to my estimate, reached a length of up to 30 meters with a maximum thickness of 4-5 meters.”
20th century - the Belgian scientist B. Euvelmans studied sea monsters, which are similar in description to prehistoric animals.
He is sure that eyewitness accounts are not fiction and such creatures actually live in sea depths. The scientist wrote: “It seems to me that the legend of the sea serpent arose because people had to meet with various (it is not yet known what) very large snake-shaped animals belonging to different classes: fish, reptiles, mammals."
1915, July 30 - off the coast of Ireland, the British steamer Iberion was blown up by the German submarine I-28. The captain of the German submarine noticed that after the explosion of the steamer, a huge animal floated to the surface of the water. The length of its body was about 20 meters, in appearance it resembled a crocodile with four flippers instead of paws. After about a quarter of a minute, the monster disappeared under the water.
1932 - An earthquake occurred in the Newfoundland area. Many corpses were washed ashore sea creatures. Among them was a sea serpent, a huge creature with a pointed head.
1947 - fisherman D. Zegers near Vancouver Island off the western coast of North America saw an unknown creature. He described the meeting this way: “Suddenly I felt very strange. A shiver ran down my spine, and I began to feel like someone was watching me. I looked around. To the left, about 45 meters from the boat, a head and neck more than a meter long rose above the water, two pitch-black eyes looked intently. They protruded from the head like two buns. I have never seen anything like this before.
The head was 40 centimeters in diameter. Looking at me, the animal turned away, and I saw its back. She had something like a dark brown mane, which consisted more of tufts of warts than hair.”
In the same 1947, in North Carolina, near Cape Lookout, the crew of a Greek ship saw an amazing creature with a cylindrical dark brown body and a snake head. The creature was wounded, and the water around it was stained with blood. And in the late 40s, a skeleton was discovered off the western coast of North America. Scientists decided that this skeleton belongs to a sea serpent. The length of the creature's spine was 12 meters.
1959 - fishermen in the city of Durban saw a whole herd of sea monsters. There were at least 20 of them, the length of each creature seemed to be about 10 meters.
1963 - also seen off the coast of Iceland. A year later, in Massachusetts Bay, the crew of a fishing boat spotted sea serpent 15 meters long. Soon we managed to take several photographs of the sea monster. Its length, according to eyewitnesses, was about 25 meters. The snake's head was massive and round, the width and length of the head were more than two meters. The animal had uneven skin, without scales. Body color is black with brown rings. But some of the scientists decided that the pictures were either a hoax, or that they captured, for example, a giant sea eel. Scientists' skepticism is understandable. But it makes no sense to dismiss the numerous evidence of the existence of sea monsters.
1977 - in the area of New Zealand, the Japanese trawler Tsuyomaru picked up the corpse of an unknown creature from great depths (about 300 meters). The animal had a tail up to 2 m long, a small head, a long neck, the total length of its body was 13 m, and it weighed about 2 tons. Scientists did not fully examine the body of the sea monster because it was already decomposing and the crew did not dare to take on board the rotting carcass. He was thrown into the sea, having previously been photographed and the corresponding entries made in the ship's log. One piece of fin was left and put in the refrigerator. Scientists became interested in the find.
Some Japanese experts said that the creature was a plesiosaur, others believed that it was the corpse of a huge shark or a small whale. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the carcass was half-decomposed, so identifying it was not easy. But after carefully studying the fin, scientists found a protein in it that whales do not have. Sharks have such a protein, and it was also once in the tissues of prehistoric animals, which included plesiosaurs. The fact that the body was a prehistoric lizard is also supported by the fact that its head did not look like a shark (it was too small). But the mystery was never solved.
1998 - a sea monster with a long neck was seen in the sea off the coast of British Columbia. Canadian newspapers wrote about this. The riddle was never solved. In Zambia, local residents are sure that in one of the reservoirs there lives a monster of enormous size that feeds on large animals, in particular hippopotamuses. According to evidence, a dinosaur-like monster also lives in the jungles of the Congo.
In the 1980s, University of Chicago professor R. McKell, who had been studying the Loch Ness monster for a long time, made a special trip to this country. He tried to find out more about the animal that lives in the Congo. The professor collected many eyewitness accounts; their descriptions of the animal coincided. It reached 12 meters in length, had a huge tail and a long neck. The creature's skin was gray-brown, its tracks resembled those of an elephant, but differed in the presence of claws. The description of the creature perfectly matches the characteristics of a dinosaur.
The professor suggested that the dinosaur could well have lived in the local jungle, especially since the climate there has not changed over the past few tens of millions of years. Soon Makell organized another expedition into the jungles of the Congo. He was primarily interested in the little-explored area of Lake Tele.
The lake is located among impenetrable forests. It has long attracted the attention of scientists. So, in 1913 a German expedition visited there. Researchers were able to find traces of an unknown creature in the lake. But the war began, and the expedition was curtailed.
Makkel was also unlucky. His second expedition was prevented by a conflict with local residents. A few years later, in 1983, one of the participants in this expedition, a graduate of the University of Havana M. Añanya, decided to go on a search again. He was from the Congo, so he knew the local beliefs well. The researcher interviewed local residents and wrote down a variety of stories about the monster.
One day he himself saw a dinosaur head on a long neck in Lake Tele. The animal noticed the people and began to dive under water. Using binoculars, the researcher was able to examine the creature in sufficient detail and concluded that it was a prehistoric animal. It was not possible to photograph the monster.
There is evidence that similar creatures live in Zambia and Mozambique. Dinosaurs could well have survived on the African continent, where the climate is so favorable for reptiles. There is a lot of unexplored territory here and in our time.
In prehistoric times, animals, which we can rightfully call “monsters,” lived everywhere - in the depths of the sea and on land. They swam, ran, flew. By the way, our contemporaries also saw such flying monsters. True, flying prehistoric lizards were found much less frequently than sea monsters. This is quite understandable. We humans have been very weak in exploring undersea world, especially deep-sea. But with land the situation is different.
Here humanity has developed vast territories. And yet, the winged monsters remained in some places. Perhaps these are pterodactyls?
1932 - the famous American zoologist A. Sanderson was on an expedition in Cameroon. One day he saw a small dragon flying through the air (at least the creature looked like a dragon). The scientist looked at it carefully and could swear that the “dragon” did not belong to a species known to science. After some time, Sanderson saw the dragon again. The lizard flew so fast that it knocked down one of the expedition members, made several circles, and then flew away.
The expedition had a local guide. He became very agitated at the sight of the little dragon and declared that the monster was a harbinger of death and whoever saw it would soon die. But Sanderson was not so pessimistic. He decided that the flying creature was a prehistoric pterodactyl.
This is not the only “ancient” lizard that supposedly lives in Africa. There is a belief that on the border of Zaire and Angola there is a huge - up to two meters in length - flying lizard with sharp teeth. There it is also believed that seeing her is a bad omen.
In the 1970s, in the USA, in the state of South Carolina, incredible monsters were repeatedly seen in the swamps. They were covered with green scales, their height reached 2 meters. The creatures walked on their hind legs. According to the description, they also resembled prehistoric animals.
1976, June - a 16-year-old teenager saw a lizard running across the field straight towards him. The boy barely escaped in the car. Then the police received several more reports of this mysterious animal. But it was not possible to catch him, although traces were found.
Of course, this kind of message can be perceived as a kind of hoax. But we must remember that scientists to this day have not refuted the existence of prehistoric animals. It's really a mystery " modern dinosaurs"has not yet been solved. And it may well be that in the future we will learn a lot of new and interesting things about this.
O. Larina