Terror birds!

[Gurdur]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/10/26/wfossil26.gif This all just came up only as a result of talking about that new film 10 000 B.C. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0443649/) (which reminds me of that terrible film One Million Years B.C. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0060782/) , with Raquel Welch in leather bikini, posing with dinosaurs).


These are some of the "terror birds" (the phorusrhacid family, Phorusrhacidae, which included several different species) that existed in prehistoric times. There's the phorusrhacid at left, a real monster; here is a newspaper report about that one. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/26/wfossil26.xml)




http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Phororhacos.jpg/250px-Phororhacos.jpg And a reconstruction at right of how another member of that family may have looked. And here's Wikipedia on that whole Phorusrhacidae family. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae)

And I suppose to finish, below is a poster for One Million Years B.C., the 1966 film.


http://www.creaturescape.com/unimonster/harryhausen/1million.jpg

[homo hirsutus]

The other one that blows my mind is the Meganeura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura) (a dragonfly with a 75 cm wingspan). You'd need quite a fly-swater to kill that one. Sorry, I couldn't find any decent artist's misconceptions of what it looked like. I wonder if they were tasty? I bet their wings would have made great roofing shingles (think pre-historic sky-light). Thanks for the mini-paleontology lesson Grudur

edit-
Megatherium Americanus (gigantisloth) is pretty awesome too. They must have been tasty because they died off within a few years of humans reaching the Americas. Yes!! Native Americans were plenty distructive to the environment too, they weren't perfect.

http://www.todomardeajo.com.ar/mardeajofosil/megatherium.jpg

[Gurdur]

The other one that blows my mind is the Meganeura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura) (a dragonfly with a 75 cm wingspan). You'd need quite a fly-swater to kill that one. Sorry, I couldn't find any decent artist's misconceptions of what it looked like.

Leave it to Gurdur!

http://www.dinosoria.com/cinema/meganeurid_bbc.jpg



http://www.windsofkansas.com/meganeuropsiskraus.jpg

I wonder if they were tasty?

Possibly, when roasted or fried. I've eaten roasted flying ants.

[homo hirsutus]

Holy crap! I'm so glad those things died millions of years ago. As scared as people are of bees I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to get stung by one of those. Thanks for the nightmare inducing pics.

[grumpy]

Megatherium Americanus (gigantisloth) is pretty awesome too. They must have been tasty because they died off within a few years of humans reaching the Americas. Yes!! Native Americans were plenty distructive to the environment too, they weren't perfect.

In one of Jarod Diamond's books he describes how giant megafauna were hunted to extinction over and over again as homo sapiens reached isolated land masses. I think it's in Collapse.

[homo hirsutus]

I think it's in Collapse.

That's where I heard of them. Great book, a bit depressing. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great book too. I like Diamond's writing style, he is also a homo hirsutus.

[Quath]

When I was young (around 6-ish), my parents took me to see a movie that had cave-men in it. I remember a scene where a woman in animal skins bends over to get some water from a river. A cave man suddenly gets a surprised look in his eye. He rushes up to the woman and starts to hump her. I remember asking my mother, "Mommy, why is that man fighting her? Why is no one stopping them? Why is he fighting her like that?" People around me were laughing. My mother whispered, "I will tell you later." Four years later, she finally told me.

So I wondered if that movie was One Million Years BC? Does that scene sound familiar?

[Kim o the Concrete Jungle]

Australia's got some giant extinct animals too. For example, Procoptodon, a three metre tall kangaroo.

http://www.filefreak.com/pfiles/49678/My%20Documents/procoptodon.jpg

[Gurdur]

.... I remember a scene where a woman in animal skins bends over to get some water from a river. A cave man suddenly gets a surprised look in his eye. He rushes up to the woman and starts to hump her. .... So I wondered if that movie was One Million Years BC? Does that scene sound familiar?

Sounds more like Quest For Fire to me (in which there is such a scene near the beginning of the film; can you remember if you saw ape-men attacking the cliff dwellers and surprising the humpers nastily?), not One Million Years B.C., which being made for general audiences back in 1966 certainly would have no such scenes in it.

[Little One-Eyed Wench]

When I was young (around 6-ish), my parents took me to see a movie that had cave-men in it. I remember a scene where a woman in animal skins bends over to get some water from a river. A cave man suddenly gets a surprised look in his eye. He rushes up to the woman and starts to hump her. I remember asking my mother, "Mommy, why is that man fighting her? Why is no one stopping them? Why is he fighting her like that?" People around me were laughing. My mother whispered, "I will tell you later." Four years later, she finally told me.

So I wondered if that movie was One Million Years BC? Does that scene sound familiar?



Sounds like the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr

http://www.amazon.com/Caveman-Ringo-Starr/dp/B000063JDF

[Ana H]

my son has thourghly enjoyed this thread. Yes, I let him read this one.

[Quath]

I looked up both movies, and I think it was Quest for Fire. The ape-man attack sounds very familiar. What is trippy to me is the movie came out in 1981 (when I was 10), yet I thought I was younger. Go figure.

I did see 10,000 BC. I thought it was ok. It reminded me a little of Beastmaster. There was a little too much magic for my taste as well. (Too much magic reduces the drama because anything can be fixed with magic.) But overall, it was enjoyable.

[grumpy]

I looked up both movies, and I think it was Quest for Fire. The ape-man attack sounds very familiar. What is trippy to me is the movie came out in 1981 (when I was 10), yet I thought I was younger. Go figure.

I did see 10,000 BC. I thought it was ok. It reminded me a little of Beastmaster. There was a little too much magic for my taste as well. (Too much magic reduces the drama because anything can be fixed with magic.) But overall, it was enjoyable.

That's how I feel about books, too. But the Heathens keep encouraging me to read the Discworld series. I'm going to try one or two.

[homo hirsutus]

I did see 10,000 BC....(Too much magic reduces the drama because anything can be fixed with magic.) But overall, it was enjoyable.

The one thing I liked about it was that in the end the "woman in distress" saved her self. No man needed, she stabbed the vilan took him down on her own. That is until he rose up again and shot her. Anyway, I was impressed that we're not filling movies with helpless women anymore, that's something to be glad about.

[Quath]

That's how I feel about books, too. But the Heathens keep encouraging me to read the Discworld series. I'm going to try one or two.
I don't have a problem with magic in a fantasy story, but I like for the magic to have limits so it is not a deus ex machina. If the limits are unknown, then you know at any point the author can fix the situation with magic.

The one thing I liked about it was that in the end
Yeah, I like that kind of stuff also. Sigourney Weaver in Alien(s) is a good example of that.