Puntabulous

Teach Me Something Tuesday #6

TROODON

For this Teach Me Something Tuesday I wanted to talk about dinosaurs, because I’m all about dinosaurs. Did you know I was a Geology and Biology major in college because I wanted to be a paleontologist? Of course you did. Because you write down everything I tell you about myself in your Craig Journal and study it nightly. At first I was going to talk about one of the popular species like Tyrannosaurus Rex or Velociraptor, but then figured that wouldn’t be much of a new learning experience for you. So I’m going to teach you about Troodons, because seriously, who ever heard of these guys?

The Troodon was discovered in 1855 and was one of the first dinosaurs discovered in North America. Their fossils can be found stretching from Montana, through Alberta and all the way up to Alaska, and they lived 65 million years ago at the very end of the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth. The word “troodon” (pronounced: trow-odon) stems from a Greek word meaning “wounding tooth” because of its tooth’s deep serrations, which suggests an omnivorous (both plants and animals) diet. The Troodon was relatively small, averaging about two meters from head to tail, one meter tall, and weighing about 130 pounds. Just so you know, this is about twice the size of Velociraptors.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “What is Craig smoking? I saw Jurassic Park! Velociraptors are a lot bigger than that! He must mean Troodons were half the size of Velociraptors, not twice the size. Boy, it’s a shame someone so cute could be so stupid.” To which I point out that while Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, used the correct size of Velocirators in his book, Steven Spielberg decided to make them 6 feet tall instead of 1.5 feet tall, because seriously, 1.5 tall dinosaurs aren’t all that threatening. Coincidentally, in 1993 (the year Jurassic Park came out in theaters) the Utahraptor was discovered in (you guessed it!) Connecticut. Just kidding. Utah. And the Utahraptor was 6 feet tall, just like the Jurassic Park raptors! So Steven Spielberg is even cooler than you originally thought.

What’s so special about the Troodon, you ask? Well for one, they have one of the largest brains relative to their body mass than any other dinosaur, and paleontologists theorize that they were the most intelligent dinosaurs in history and had an intelligence comparable to modern day birds. Troodons also have the most forward facing eyes of any other dinosaur, which means that it had slightly binocular vision and depth perception, a trait only found in what are considered “higher” animals (like ~~some of~~ us!). They also had long slender fingers, ideal for grasping prey and giving “over there” directions.

These unique characteristics led paleontologist Dale Russell and others to theorize that if dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out by ~~Noah’s flood~~ the Chicxulub meteorite (the one that hit the YucatÃ¡n Peninsula in Mexico) Troodons would have been readily equipped to evolve into advanced humanoids called Dinosauroids. People are quick to point out that this model is too anthropomorphic and fantastical, and had dinosaurs been allowed to advance, they would have retained their horizontal posture and evolved along similar lines as birds. It’s also pretty conceited, because must all intelligent life have human appearance? Frankly, if I were intelligent I’d want to look like Optimus Prime.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

TEACH ME | Craig | May 6, 2008 5:20 am

20 Comments

By Jordan, May 6, 2008 @ 6:08 am

interesting. I feel like this dinosaur was discussed in a discovery channel show I was watching about the possible connection between birds and dinosaurs. My inner 8 year old just pushed up his glasses and went ‘whoa, that’s cool!’ (I hope you imagined that said like Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story)
By john, May 6, 2008 @ 6:35 am

Dinosaurs, I mean Jebus horses were cool. When I catch “Walking With Dinosaurs” on the Discovery Channel I’m totally mesmerized like a 3 year old watching Elmo.

My contribution to teach me something tuesday: If you were to spell out numbers you’d have to reach one thousand before you found an ‘A’.
By Dave S., May 6, 2008 @ 6:51 am

Fascinating. Great info! I *love* dinosaurs. Unfortunately I find extinction tends to be a relationship barrier.
By polt, May 6, 2008 @ 8:25 am

How did you know about my Craig-Journal????

I dont know anywhere near the amount about dinosaurs that you do, Craiggers. but I do know that an episode of Voyager had a bunch of space-faring humanoid dinosaurs that evolved from the dinosaurs on earth. Long story. But, there, I hope I taught you something.

HUGS…
By Dave S., May 6, 2008 @ 9:08 am

Polt, we *all* know about your Craig Journal…
By -jeff, May 6, 2008 @ 9:44 am

Here’s something you may not know…

I keep looking at that picture of you from eairler this week; hoping that it somehow changes and that you magically lost your pants.

Wait, this isn’t a pornographic blog?

Damn.

-jeff
By Howard, May 6, 2008 @ 9:44 am

Eat enough and you CAN look like a truck.
By FDot, May 6, 2008 @ 10:33 am

I’m happy to let the Troodon give the ‘over there’ directions. I’m always the one singled out in a crowd by a stranger who needs directions.

Here’s my contribution for the day. Not entirely useful, but there is a formula designed to solve for 1 specific thing:

Note: Integer Div!

C = Y/100
G = (y mod 19)
H = (C – [C/4] – [(8C+13)/25] + 19G + 15) mod 30
I = H – (H/28) * (1 – [H/28] * [29/(H+1)] * [(21-
G)/11])
J = (Y + [Y/4] + I + 2 – C + [C/4]) mod 7
L = I – J

Therefore:

M = 3 + [(L+40)/44]
D = L + 28 – 31 * [M/4]

So put it all together for any Y, and you get…..
By joe, May 6, 2008 @ 10:40 am

Apparently they recently found mummfied dinosaur remains. (not mummified by egyptians but by natural elements) I have no idea what it ended up looking like because I got lazy and didn’t search for the pictures, but in my mind the only thing more terrifying than a dinosaur is a dinosaur mummy.
By David, May 6, 2008 @ 10:59 am

Isn’t “dinosauroid” just a fancier name for a Sleestak?

Fdot: You lost me after “Integer Div!”

Today’s lesson: The average person in a state of rest breaths 12 times per minute. A goal of yoga is to slow the breath down to four breaths per minute. This is achieved by extending your inhale and exhale for a count of seven seconds each.
By Ryan, May 6, 2008 @ 1:21 pm

How many dinosaur toys do you have?
By TwoPi, May 6, 2008 @ 2:30 pm

FDot:

Unless I’m very much mistaken, this is something that Evil Bunny might take great interest in….
By Craig, May 6, 2008 @ 2:43 pm

FDot: What are the mods? I don’t know what those mean.
By justin, May 6, 2008 @ 3:05 pm

it means modulo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulo_operation
I don’t know what the rest of the formula accomplishes, but I know that mod = modulo = %
By Polt, May 6, 2008 @ 5:02 pm

Dave S….oh like I’m the ONLY one with a Craig Journal.

Mine may be a bit more elaborate, what with the leather cover and all the sequins, and the occasional lock of hair, or fingernail, and all that, but really, I can’t be the only one to have one!

HUGS…
By Sue, May 6, 2008 @ 5:03 pm

Here you go: The ability to mirror write(writing backwards, so that what is written can be read by holding it up to a mirror) is more common in left-handed people (like Leonardo da Vinci) than right-handed people, and may be related to the condition known as synaesthesia, where people smell colors and see smells, etc. It is supposedly not very common. Even less common (I believe) is the ability to write backwards and upside down at the same time, so that your writing can be read normally by someone across the table from you.
By Îž_Heather, May 6, 2008 @ 8:40 pm

Euouae is the longest English word consisting only of vowels. It’s a mnemonic for the tones in “seculorum Amen” (which makes it a fake word in my book, since it was created by the vowels in that phrase). It’s also (supposedly) the word with the longest string of vowels.

But if you disregard it because it’s not in your copy of the dictionary, you can go with “queueing” for 5 consecutive vowels. That should make Evil Bunny happy.
By Sven, May 7, 2008 @ 5:39 pm

There are thirteen times more sheep than people in New Zealand.
By crunchy carpets, May 8, 2008 @ 4:20 pm

This post made my son very happy and you are now cool in his eyes..