From Voyageurs National Park on FB: Called “Catamaran” by locals, Bert Upton is among the strangest of historical characters on area waters. He lived in a hut built over a dug-out at Squirrel Narrows. Found frozen to death in the 1930s by Kettle Falls pioneer Oliver Knox; Upton was perched lifeless in the snow just a half-mile from his home. Shunning civilization, Upton defined the word hermit. First spotted rowing his crude log raft on Namakan, no one knows how he got there. Upton’s accent implied an English heritage but any personal inquiries brought a stony silence. Some suspected him a man fleeing the law; others saw a bizarre outcast; everyone knew he was peculiar. Just five feet tall and wildly unkempt, Catamaran wore hacked-off pants and walked barefoot with a stick. Winter demanded shoes but no socks, a cast-off Mackinaw, and a trailing cap made from the leg of old underwear. He was oddly religious, and suspicious of being poisoned. Surviving on snared rabbits and fish, he ofte...
I'll just tag Paul V. right away.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff. I wonder how much longer people are going to be able to kid themselves that all of these bird traits just happened to reoccur in maniraptoran dinosaurs through convergent evolution. If it wasn't difficult enough to swallow before, the presence of medullary bone is another nail in that coffin. To me, that's potentially even more exciting than being able to sex-type dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this pretty much confirms that tyrannosaurs were definitely maniraptorans, not carnosaurs.
Yeah, T-rex is looking pretty fuzzy these days. Let's all look to acrocanthosaurus for our go-to giant scaly beast.
ReplyDeleteCeratosauria has lots of big, badass, probably scaly guys.
ReplyDeleteI have a bias against giganatosaurus and carcharodontosaurus. Where do they get off being slightly bigger than T-Rex? They still aren't as cool. Acros are fine because they're slightly smaller and have the neural spines.
ReplyDeleteCasey G. I like those guys because I always like to see cocky, complacent bastards get taken down a peg.
ReplyDeletePlus Carcharodontosaurus is an awesome name. Giganotosaurus, not so much.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me as amazing in the context of how much we're learning about dinosaurs, and how fast we're learning it, is just how little we actually do know so far.
ReplyDeleteI think "Sex-Type Dinosaurs" is a great band name.
ReplyDelete