A Fools Experiment

Australia, 50,000 years ago.  55 million years of island isolationism created this graphic landscape. Terrestrial life in the "Great Southern Land" would be at its largest at the end of the Pleistocene.  Image via the world renowned palaeo-artist, Peter Trussler. The sun is intense. There's been no reprieve from the heat for the last few days, as sweat glistens on your forehead and flies land on every inch of your body. You're tired; but something has been preventing you from sleeping. For the last few nights, blood curdling screams from an other-worldy creature have pierced the dead silence.  This dry season has been an exceptionally intense one. You look around. Eucalypts dominate the surrounding parched red plain, with small interspersed shrubs and an assortment of weird animals. A small billabong is attracting the megafauna from all around. You see familiar faces on the far side of the water. A mob of red Kangaroos rest in the shade of small salts bushes...

We are living amongst the time of giants.  The baleen whales are larger than any known dinosaur and ANY animal that has come before them. The Blue whale itself, is capable of weighing 180 metric tonnes (the same weight as 30 African elephants stacked on top of each other) and can be longer than a basketball court… But why is this so?  Many will tell you about how it has something to do with predator avoidance or how the restraints of gravity are significantly less restrictive in the ocean, but the most important reason for the whales’ size has something to do with the icy inhospitable continent of Antarctica...  The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is one of the most productive upwelling’s the world has ever seen. This, and similar upwelling’s found around the globe (and specifically around arctic areas), generate a humungous nutrient glut that creates masses of food for these mighty animals. The ocean has NEVER been quite as productive. But even this isn't enough: it ...

EDIT: I don’t know about you, but I freaking love cryptozoology. It’s a pseudo-science examining the lives of mostly long extinct animals/mythical creatures that are supposedly still alive today. The best-known examples of these are cryptids such as “Bigfoot” or “Nessie”, the Loch Ness Monster. Today, we’re going to examine some of the lesser-known cryptids that I find fascinating and examining some (if any) of the palaeontological/historical evidence that may back up their stories.  First up: Stellers Sea Ape, described by the renowned expedition naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller in 1741. "We shall start our offensive here against the sea cows. Within exactly 27 years, we will have them cornered". Image of Georg Steller via the  University of Tyumen, The Centre of Russian-German Cooperation of Georg Wilhelm Steller.  Georg Wilhelm Steller is one of the most celebrated early naturalists of the mid 1700s. Unlike other naturalists of his time, Steller was meticulou...