Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Quarantine entry #39 - April 29


Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks and family is annoying, to put it lightly. In addition, there is more new info about our main man Spinosaurus – this dino really was the first truly aquatic dinosaur, (one that is known to human science, anyhow): not even a wading bird, more like a sail-backed crocodile instead.

Pause. Is there anything else than can be said about this prehistoric reptile? By now, Spinosaurus is about as popular as T-Rex is; the two reptiles are often compared and contrasted, and the JP3 film opened a can of worms, at least for a while, when Spinosaurus had killed T-Rex in a dino face-off. The JP fanbase has never been the same again, and the first JW film tried to address this issue – sort of – by having Rexy smash through a Spinosaurus skeleton and then the entire T-Rex vs. I-Rex vs. velociraptor pack fight, but that wasn’t the same, and not just because the I-Rex was a glorified carnosaur instead. (Think Carcharodontosaurus from ‘Planet Dinosaur’ as an example). Spinosaurus was a very different theropod dinosaur from Carcharodontosaurus and the other carnosaurs, that was quite obvious from the start, so it and the I-Rex do not have much in common either. What next?

The JP franchise has become more inconsistent with its’ reboot, and the second JW movie hadn’t had too much in common with the first; it was more of a reboot instead, so there’s that, and no Spinosaurus. It had a Spinosaurus cousin in one of the scenes, a Baryonyx or a Suchomimus, but it was a minor, episodic character, and so it did not play any important role at all, especially in the second half of the film, when the Indoraptor was introduced. I will say it again: the second JW movie was made out of scripts for two films – one about the end of the Dinosaur Island, (it culminated with the Brachiosaurus scene), and the second one about the Evil E’s dino mansion and the Indoraptor, which was too anthropomorphic for my tastes. Ah well, the third JW film is being delayed, as are the rest of the films, we will just have to wait and see what will come of it, so for now, I suppose, we need to return to the real life, and-?

And nothing. Apparently, Trudeau’s mother was hospitalized not because of COVID-19, but because of an apartment fire. That is fair, especially since comrade Kim’s medical troubles have started not because of COVID-19 either, so Ms. Trudeau Sr. may not be out of the woods yet. What next?

…I honestly wanted to talk about antelopes this time, but speaking of being out of the woods? It is very hard to talk about them – there are 91 species of mammals named ‘antelopes’, which live in Africa and Asia; if they live somewhere else, like the pronghorn in North America or the chamois in Europe, then they aren’t ‘true antelopes’ at all, but are their relatives. That said, all of the bovid ruminants that are not cattle, (like the yaks and the zebu that we have discussed earlier), or sheep and goats, (think mountain goats and bighorn sheep, for example), are antelopes instead.

The antelopes are a mixed bunch on their own. There are dwarf species, such as the royal antelope and the duikers. There are gazelles, such as the blackbuck and the springbok. (The impala belongs to its’ own genus and is somewhat unique, even by antelope standards). There are really big species, like the nyalas and the elands, which are animals that are big and strong enough to stand-up to the lion. There are the wildebeests, and the bontebooks, and the Asian species, such as the nilgai and the four-horned antelopes, and there are plenty of unique-looking species too, such as the gerenuk and the saiga. In short, the antelope animal group is varied and confusing, and not even the Wikipedia, who likes to poke around this sort of confusing info, wants to touch them – but then again, true nature is varied, confusing, and unpredictable: just look at how Spinosaurus has turned out to be, or at the coronavirus-19, as examples!

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

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