Ginger Kathrens and the Morrison Museum

So last night my friend Masaki Kleinkopf and I were hoping to see Ginger Kathrens, a woman who is big on horses, and presented three fantastic episodes for the PBS show "Nature" about a specific horse named Cloud (as well as other wild horses in Montana), speak at the Colorado Horse Rescue.  However, despite the fact that we were told that it was going to be free, it was not.  There was a ten dollar entrance fee.  We decided not to go but, since, Ginger Kathrens lives and often works in Colorado, I will probably get another chance to meet her eventually. 

However, at my volunteer job thingy at the Morrison Natural History Museum, I got the opportunity to work with Dr. Robert Bakker again, as well as a few other really cool people, like Matt Mossbrucker, Guy, and John, as well as a few other volunteers.  I also had the pleasure of meeting a few really nice folks from Florida who come up to this area of Colorado for the summer.  All in all, it was a pretty fun day!

Both Bakker and the Florida Folks were able to confirm what I had as a porpoise rib.  I guess "confirm" is not really the right word, as I thought that it was a giant ground sloth tooth. 

OK, again, I would just like to point out how awesome it is that I get to work with Dr. Bakker.  Although by no means the only source, or the only place that would say this, but this list of the top ten most influential paleontologists lists Dr. Bakker as number two.  That's kind of a big deal!  Some very, very exciting stuff!

 http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurdiscovery/tp/tenpaleontologists.htm
 
I am a little too tired to do an actual, legitimate post, but we will be back tomorrow with "ANIMAL SPOTLIGHT:  THE OKAPI."

Golden on Dwellable

What Is It? The Weekly Challenge #2 Answer

 Hello again!  Thank you to our guessers for this week: surprisingly, one of you got it exactly right!  Congratulations to Kristie C., who guessed this weeks mystery animal 100% correct!  The correct animal was Pakicetus, an ancient ancestor of the cetaceans, or the whales, dolphins and porpoises.  Around 53 MYA, Pakicetus lived in a world that was gradually becoming what we see today.  At this time, what we now know as India was its own special island continent, moving steadily northwards until, eventually, India crashed into Asia.  This crash resulted in the largest mountains we have today, the Himalayas. 

However, 53 MYA, during the Eocene Epoch, India hadn't quite reached Asia, a small sea separating the two, the remains of the vast Tethys Ocean.  The Tethys Sea was high in saline, which is incredibly good for life.  Microscopic organisms like plankton flourished, sending reverberations up the food chain, all of the way to the fish, which exploded in numbers as well.  And on the shore of this Tethys Sea, in what today is Pakistan, stood Pakicetus. 

As Pakicetus watched the gread abundnace of fish in the waters, he began to take short fishing trips into the water.  Over millennia, as Pakicetus took more and more fishing trips, of longer and longer duration, adaptations that proved beneficial for hunting fish in the water occurred, like a more streamlined shape, most likely webbed feet, and nostrils placed further back on the head.  Over a few million years, Pakicetus evolved into another ancient whale, called Ambulocetus.

Check back in a few hours for your next "What Is It?" challenge?  I promise you, after the last two, this one should seem like a piece of cake!  See you all then!