Natural History 9/01

[Danvarner@aol.com]

       Nothing exclusively dinosaur, but the new Natural History magazine has 
two very interesting articles. One is "Freshwater Riches of the Amazon". It's 
about fish diversity in the Amazon and it's built around a very busy painting 
by Ray Troll (who's well-known for many paleo images). There are echos of 
Cretaceous forms in some of these fish. There's one that looks like a 
variation of Enchodus, the Pirandira vampirefish. Wish there was a fish 
expert here to tell me how it uses those fangs. Troll's painting looks like a 
descendant of one of Rudolph Freund's fold-outs in Life's _The World We Live 
In_. There's an unfortunate hoatzin chick that's fallen in the water...
       The other article, "Ghost Stories from the Ice Age", discusses 
possible adaptations of living plants that may be due to extinct mammals. NH 
has been very paleo-friendly in recent years. I subscribed as a kid and would 
wait for years for something prehistoric, let alone something about 
dinosaurs. It seemed like the stories were always about Bushmen or weaving or 
bees. Sometimes the world changes for the better. DV