Imagine if you could travel millions of years back in time. Back to a world of towering mountains, lush forests, and incredible dinosaurs. Well, in a way, it’s possible to make this journey. At Big Bend National Park, in Texas, visitors can come face to face with the Cretaceous world.
Don’t expect simple exhibits displayed in museum halls (as wonderful as that can be). Because Big Bend is a place where you can see the skeletons of giant dinosaurs, unearthed from this very land. Where you can stand beneath the enormous, outstretched wing bones of the largest flying creature that ever lived. And then look up into the same skies where such beasts once soared. It’s as close to meeting dinosaurs as we humans will ever come.
Shifting Earth
Today the park is a parched, rocky landscape. What would this place have looked like, back in dinosaur days? “Well, at the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, about 130 million years ago, we would have been underwater!” chuckles park geologist Don Corrick. “In those days, a shallow ocean we call the Western Interior Seaway cut across North America. So sharks and sea turtles would be swimming around here.” They might have swum alongside early marine reptiles called mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. How do we know all this? “We find these marine species in the limestone that formed as mud and silt hardened,” Corrick explains. “We can find seashells and fish fossils on what is dry land today, because this entire region was once the undersea floor.”
Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
