Projects
Dinosaurs made out of chicken bones
While I was living in Switzerland a few years ago (circa 1999) my biology teacher talked about some strange theory that was going around that said that today's birds are the descendants of dinosaurs.
Curious by nature and interested in, well, plenty of things including biology, evolution, dinosaurs, ... I investigated the matter further and found out that the guy wasn't kidding: it is believed that today's birds are the descendants of a particular group of dinosaurs called Theropods.
The Book
Talking to my teacher about the subject, he told me that he had seen or read about a book somewhere of someone who was actually building dinosaur skeletons from chicken bones. This was possible because of the anatomical similarities.
That was all I needed to hear. The same afternoon, I warmed up my 56K modem and went on Altavista to find that book.
Christopher Mcgowan's Make Your Own Dinosaur out of Chicken Bones: Foolproof Instructions for Budding Paleontologists explains step by step how to build a beautiful (if you're skilled enough :P) apatosaurus skeleton using little more than chicken bones.
The Pictures
You'll have to excuse the quality of the pictures, but we are talking 1999 here, so digital cameras (at least the one I could afford) were not that great then...
But you cheated!
You're right, we did... If you look up our friend the apatosaurus, you'll notice that it's not a theropod but rather a sauropod, which is not at all related to today's birds. But T-Rex is:
I unfortunately never had time to complete the dinosaur from Mcgowan's second book T-Rex to Go, but I did manage to at least complete the dinosaur's head:
Once again, you'll have to excuse the quality of the pictures. I'll try to get better ones when I go back to Costa Rica, where I keep both of the dinosaurs.
