THE dinosaurs have gone too far.
Every five minutes now, they tumble out of the dust where they've lang lain deid. The world oohs and ahs. "Oh, look at the size of its heid!" Or: "These teeth could easily eat a roll on square sausage — with a train for dessert."
But the latest one is well out of order. It's half-crocodile, half-duck. On the plus side, it was bigger than the Tyrannosauras Rex, which must be more fed up than Wales for being compared to the size of things.
A top person from the University of Chicago spake thus: "Working on this animal was like studying an alien from ooter space, ken?"
Ain't that the truth? But if it looks like half a duck … what the hell is it? Allow me to introduce Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, whom the impertinent public prints have christened "Croczilla".
He, she or it — I think we'll go with it — was 50ft long, had a crocodilian skull, and seven-foot spines running down its back. Then it opened its mouth and said: "Quack." Only kidding. Almost inevitably, it said, "Ah, dinner", to anyone it met.
As you might expect, it had nostrils on the back of its heid and neurovascular openings on its snout that enabled it, like today's loveable crocodiles, to detect pressure changes — meaning prey — in the water.
Clearly, it had not thought of everything though, as with the rest of them it forgot to wear a helmet when yon meteor came stravaiging in from the sky.
The first specimen was unearthed more than 100 years ago by German fossil hunter, Ernst Freihere Stromer von Reichenbach — Mrs Freihere Stromer von Reichenbach's wee laddie.
However, these bones were destroyed during a bombing raid on Munich and before scientists were as brainy as they are today and could piece things together with glue and computers to recreate them properly.
Which is what they did when they found another specimen more recently, thanks to the agency of a fossil dealer in Morocco, which all sounds very Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park.
That crack above about aliens is the juice, though. What could ooter space throw at us that would be weirder or worse than Eric the half-a-duck (apologies to Monty Python)?
The dinosaurs need to give it a rest. They can't shock us any more, with or without nostrils on the back of their heids.
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