This Is This

Millions of years ago, the ornithocheirus flew across the Atlantic Ocean to mate before it died. It was a pterosaur, and a big one, with a wingspan of 12 metres. Heavy, too. Although the ocean was only a few hundred miles across in those days, it was a long way for him - unlike feathered birds today who can flap their wings, this dinosaur sort of glid.

In order for him to make the journey safely, he would wait until the summer and fly low, catching the warm summer thermals just above the waves, just like a glider uses updrafts on a warm and still day. Without this warm air, the ornithocheirus would not have made the journey and they would not have mated or made their way back to the embryonic European continent.

The ornithocheirus knew nothing of updrafts and thermals, they didn’t exactly work out the physics of the best time to set out to mate.

And they didn’t see others fail and drown in the icy winter ocean just over the horizon, so they didn’t learn by observation.

They must have just thought simply, “I don’t like the cold, I’ll fly now because it’s warm” and by coincidence they survived. Natural selection’s good like that. There may have been other flying dinosaurs that loved the cold weather, but every time they set out on the waves they were never seen again.

So by some quirk of behaviour, or a dislike of flying in cold weather, they set out in the summer, made it to the other shore and mated where the climate was mild enough and food was plentiful enough for their offspring to survive. Offspring which, as luck would also have it, found their wings just as it became warm enough for them to make their maiden flight back across the ocean in the following summer.

And so they survived, all because of a quirk.

Vive la difference, literally.

Maybe that’s why lots of people have weird things about them, that they behave in certain different ways and do things without rhyme or reason. Or at least we don’t see a reason until it emerges as their saving grace and then it fits with hindsight.

Of course, I’m still waiting to see what the use is in the things I do or say that don’t make sense, but I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with thermals.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 at 8:45 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or leave a comment yourself.