A Look Ahead, Fun Fact 8/3/2012

First off, check out today's post about the tapir, down below!

Next, I decided to spice our "Looks Ahead" up a little, each week I would add in a fun fact or something similar, that I didn't think I would have enough information to devote an entire post to.  So here is your fun fact!

FUN FACT:  For the first season of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the popular animated TV show in the same franchise of the classic movies, the producers decided to create a new planet for the premiere episode.  They settled on a small moon that was covered in coral, but no water; somehow, the moon had been drained of its oceans.  They decided to call the moon "Rugosa," after an extinct order of coral, commonly called "horn coral." 

This horn-shape, unique among coral, lived a long time ago, but not in a galaxy far, far away: before the dinosaurs, in fact!  They survived for an incredibly long amount of time, though, from the mid-Ordovician Period (~488 MYA) through to the Late Permian Period, thriving through the Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous Periods as well.  Although I couldn't find any official confirmation, I assume that the horn-coral went extinct because of the "Great Dying," or the mysterious Permian Extinction, but I am not positive, so don't quote me on that.


Now here's what we have in store for this week:
(4) Saturday:  Ginger Kathrens, Cloud, and the Wild Horses of the Montana Rockies
(5) Sunday:  Animal Spotlight:  The Okapi
(6) Monday:  The Making of Planet Earth:  The Snow Leopard
(7) Tuesday:  Animal Spotlight:  The Red Panda
(8) Wednesday: What Is It?
(9) Thursday:  Animal Spotlight:  The Coati
(10) Friday:  Forget Biker Gangs: The River Otters of India