Whoops! Between vacationing in Chicago, work, and a whole host of other things, I had lost track of time and before I knew what had happened it had been a month since my last blog post. Well, guess it’s time to rectify that.
When most people think of Chicago, they probably think of Michigan Avenue, or the Chicago Cubs, or Lake Michigan. The Symphony Orchestra. The Navy Pier. Trump Tower. The Bean. A whole host of things. And while I will always be a Cubbie, and will never pass down a visit to the CSO, none of those things are nearly as important to me as the Field Museum. Or, to be more specific, a certain someone named Sue.
Sue, for those who are unaware, is the most complete fossil of the Tyrannosaurus Rex we currently have on record. She is a fossil, and is the first display anyone sees when they enter the Field Museum in Chicago. She is big, she is mean, and she holds a lot of meaning to me.
See, I’ve always been a bit obsessed with dinosaurs. When I was a kid, I bothered my parents to get me just about every book on the subject that was out there, because I was determined I was going to be a paleontologist. Jurassic Park was, and still is, one of my favorite movies. I’ve read Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park so many times that I had to buy another book because I broke the spine of my first copy. While my obsession with them has certainly dwindled, my fascination with them has not. And, until recently, I never really understood why.
Dinosaurs are very humbling.
When you compare the wildlife we have today to that which existed millions of years ago, it is not difficult to realize that even our most fearsome predators today – lions, tigers, or bears (oh my!) – would never stand a chance against the might of the Tyrannosaurus. Even prehistoric herbivores like the Triceratops, or the Ankylosaur, would be viable threats to the survival of our predator species today. Certainly the larger sauropods like the Sauroposeidon (considered the tallest dinosaur), which stood nearly 60 feet tall, would never consider a jaguar a threat, instead just crushing it beneath its massive feet. Our elephants would not stand a chance to the smaller Allosaurus. Put simply, the world today seems rather primitive to the evolutionary giants of the dinosaur eras.
Humans are not to be excluded, either. While we might pride ourselves on our technological advances, there are still quite a few dinos who would prove resilient and threatening. Raptors, for starters.
The point I am getting at is that, looking at the prehistoric behemoths makes me realize just how small we really are. And it is humbling to realize that we are not quite so high and mighty as we may pretend to be. There is one more thing that one comes to understand when exploring dinosaurs: all things must come to an end.
Despite their colossal size, despite their raw power, dinosaurs were quickly extinguished by a cataclysmic event brought about by (most likely) an asteroid. And despite all of our technology, such an event is still not preventable, no matter what Michael Bay tries to show you. Now that is scary, eh?
Okay, so maybe I’m hyperbolizing a bit when it comes to dinosaurs. But nonetheless, dinosaurs keep me humble. They keep me exploring. They keep me…evolving.
Jacob Ryckman 