Friday, October 28, 2011

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures

I am just going to cover two creatures in this one, but in the video I show a few more of the airborne dinosaurs. Not everyone I show could fly, but scientists classify them together much like they classify ostrich and penguins as birds even though they do not fly.

The first one is a creature I have always been curious about. It is one that has been quite controversial as to what it actually is. It is known as Archaeopteryx:Living somewhere between 150-146 million years ago, it is theorized that it primarily used its wings to glide from trees and not fly like we think of modern birds doing. It was one of the first dinosaurs to have feathers.Right of Archaepteryx is the Velociraptor which lived somewhere between 75-65 million years ago. Got to love those claws:The Velociraptor is well known from being portrayed in the movie Jurassic Park. However, one thing they lacked in the movie that they had while they existed was feathers. However, we do know they were fierce fighting creatures like that movie! Check out the link down below for more on that. Here there are in the exhibit side by side with another bird-like dinosaur.

In the video I also show a few others like the popular Pteranodon.

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures (Youtube Version)

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures (Vimeo Version)

Two links:

Archaeopterxy (Wikipedia Article)

Velociraptor (Wikipedia Article)

Velociraptor vs. Protoceratops (Fossils Captured in Combat!)

The title of the music used is called Spacial Winds by Incompetech.com.