Re: Forelimbs of "Terror Birds" (WWB Mild-Rant Cont)

[Marilyn <mdwegweiser@home.com>]

At 1:09 PM -0800 12/10/01, Jaime A. Headden wrote:
> Art Sippo (ArtSippo@aol.com) wrote:
>
> <The premier of WWPB last night showed a <SNIP>
>
>   The bird in question was *Gastornis* -- <SNIP>
>
>   And did anyone notice the homage to WWD -- part one -- with the 
> "scent-marking" *Smilodon* in
> the South American episode? :)  Of all the animals, I think they 
> could have done those better,

Oh! I agree wholeheartedly!- the cats. WHY didn't they manage to get 
them more realistic? Plenty of modern examples. T'would have almost 
been more fun if they had just merged a Saber Tooth head on to a 
lion's body and done the chase and kill routine off of what has to be 
hundreds of miles of video footage that must be in the documentary 
library somewhere.

The "SLO-MO" as the predators closed in for the kill to make it more 
realistic? Ok. Drama - with the monotonic overtone voice with no head 
and whispering. Yes. Cracked camera lens as it gets kicked and all. 
Errr .......(sigh) Oh well. What do I want - to see a very cool 
depiction of science that will flesh out my world and take me back in 
time without fantasy just once? I must be mad. (don't any of you who 
actually know me answer that!)

> but I felt everything was incredible but for two things ... the 
> knuckle-walking chalicotheres
> (Sorry, not possible ... eeek!) and the too-digital 
> australopithecines ... who kept getting names!


You must mean the genitalia-challenged australopithecines with names?

> The phorusrhacid, for those who missed it, had normal, tiny 
> psilopterid-like wings. All prettied
> up and colored to look like a secretary bird.

I didn't miss that. I was laughing. But thank you for bringing it up 
so I could chuckle again!

>   Sorry for the rant...

Not at all! :)))

Cheers,
MDW


PS: For those many, many of you who worriued about me after SVP but 
to whom I haven't been in touch with  - thank you for all the 
get-well wishes and yes, I am beginning to feel my feet again. :)
--

                        =00=  =00=  =00=  =00=
                        Marilyn D. Wegweiser, Ph.D.
                        CMC Research Associate
                    Adjunct /Vertebrate Paleontology
                        Cincinnati Museum Center
                     Geier Collections and Research Center

"How exceedingly stupid of me not to have thought of that!"
-Thomas Henry Huxley, 1859, after reading
                        Darwin's On the Origin of Species