by the Way . . .

Remember how fascinating dinosaurs were when you were a kid? And the names, which we all memorized, were great. Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus. And it was pretty easy, as all were sauruses, which means "lizard". The dino was the scary part, unless you were afraid of lizards, like a girl, and means "fearfully great". [Sir Richard Owen, 1842]. Oh sure, there were a few "dons" in there, and the triceratops, but you could tell that from the picture, teeth and so on. And your parents encouraged it all, because you were learning Latin and Greek, and might turn out to be a doctor, or at least a pharmacist. Even worst case, a lawyer.

And that was before dinosaurs had feathers, which is enough to make you take down the bird feeder. Yes, all this stuff that passes for "progress" isn't so great. So now Chinese and American scientists have unearthed what they call the granddaddy of all tyrannosaurs, a primitive crested dinosaur that lived 160 million years ago. There is a lot of speculation about the evolutionary track on down to T. Rex, a 100 million years later.

That is all well and good, and it is nice to see us getting along with the Chinese, but that brings us to the big problem. What do you think this fellow's name is? Granddaddisaurus? No chance. Of course Saurolophus, meaning "crested lizard" was taken already, and would have been hard anyway (lizard in the front), but "Guanlong wucaii"? Come on, how is a kid supposed to handle that? The Guanlong part means "crowned dragon", apparently what they have in China instead of lizards. The "wucaii", the species part, refers, hold on to your hat, to the rich colors of the Junggar Basin, the discovery site. Actually, the discovery was made in 2002, so it took a while to get up the courage to announce it, as they did yesterday in the journal Nature.

There is speculation as to what the crest on this fellow's head is for, which the scientists said was a thin as a tortilla and only 2 1/2 inches high. Shows how long these guys have been out in the wucaii. Everybody knows that sort of thing is to make you sexy. Apparently it should have been higher, as he is extinct, as will be dinosaur fascination if they keep going on like this.

Editors Note: For those of you that believe the world is only 5,000 years old, and that these fossils were just faked for the sake of appearances, note that you still have to have to have something to call this stuff. In fact, naming the fakes is even more important when they are planted as part of a plan rather than just randomly occuring due to some haphazard genetic thing. This wucaii business just flies in the face of planning.