| This contest is fueled by the following news: |
| | The newly opened Creation Museum in Kentucky has a lot to show to its
visitors. It tries to reconstruct the steps of creation in life size
models of characters from the Bible. One of the gems of this
exhibition is Noah's Ark, which features the famous ship, Noah
himself, animals in pairs, and surprisingly full sized models of
dinosaurs. The creationists believe God created the world in six
days about six thousand years ago, and that dinosaurs were just other
animals which co-existed with humans. While many may argue with
scientific foundations of such claim, the state of the art exhibit is certainly very
popular among Kentucky residents and many out of state tourists.
Since the news of the "dinosaurs in Ark" broke down, the Creation
Museum was featured in many magazines and online news articles,
including numerous blogs. Now, many international visitors come to
Kentucky especially to see dinosaurs in the Noah's Ark. Protestors of
this concept however say that the museum is wrongfully portrays the
evolution process and confuses many children who come to see it.
An airplane flying with banner "Thou Shalt Not Lie" was seen over the
museum on its opening day. Conventional science says the universe is
14 billion years old and there's millions of years separating
dinosaurs and humans in evolution history. People were lucky to find
dinosaur fossils, let alone meet live dinosaurs even in the ancient
times.
Dinosaurs (Latin – Dinosauria) – these are extinct animals, consisting of multiple super orders of reptilian class, lived on the planet during the period from 225 to 65 million years before (in Mesozoic era).
Superorder of Dinosaurs is related to subclass Archosauria and divided into Saurischia and Ornithischia orders.
Apparently, only the findings of the fossil remains of Dinosaurs served as a base for the creation of the Myth on dragons.
Term “Dinosaur”
The word “Dinosaur” is formed from two words: from Greek deinos - terrible, almighty, and strange and saura – “lizard”. The term was coined in 1842 year by an English biologist Richard Owen.
Origin
The appearance of the first Dinosaurs – Archosauria, in the course of nature, was commemorated by massive (but not totally) extinction of therapsid, superior forms of which are according to their organization were very near to single pass mammals and to some assumptions they had mammary glands and fur.
Behavior
Some of the dinosaurs acquired social behavior. At present moment most of the earlier dinosaurs are Psittacosaurus, which lived 130 – 100 million years ago. The discoveries permitted to make a conclusion, that already for dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period existed parental instinct.
Extinction
According to one of the hypothesis, dinosaurs were extinct because of global cataclysm, which possibly was presented itself as falling of huge meteorites.
The latest and more accurate discovery, however, denied the given hypothesis. According to the new statistics, this catastrophe took place already after that, as dinosaurs died, and their death was subjected by high volcanic activity of the planets, as a result of which in those days there was a high content of arsenic in the air.
Probably not any other living beings which lived on The Earth quickened the imagination more than dinosaurs. In the duration of around 150 million years they dominated on the land and were the biggest vertebrates in the ecological niche, developing in a wide range of forms, and inhabited in every continent.
Possibly because of which they frequently had freakish forms possibly because of which they sometimes had grown to such huge sizes, and possibly because of which after long ruling on the Earth they suddenly disappeared, apparently, with out traces, all these added the attraction of scientists as well as public to the group of Dinosauria.
Such as the wonderful dinosaurs, even the facts must be qualified. It’s true that many of the dinosaurs actually had fairly strange forms, but were there among them at least some unidentified according to the exterior whereof, let us say, giraffe or elephant? It’s true that most of them really had grown to extremely big sizes (and even enormous), but there wasn’t even one dinosaur, which could even compete with the size of a small baleen whale. Actually it would not be possible physiologically for an animal on land to be more than 100 tons (Legs should be so massive touching each other with out leaving any space between them for the body!). Mostly dinosaurs were living beings of a medium size, equivalent to the size of a big mammal of the present days. Finally regarding the extinction with out traces, it is again a mistake. According to the believers, some paleontologist small insectivorous or carnivorous dinosaurs really survived big Mesozoic extinction and still all are with us today. They are called as Birds.
In some ecological niche dinosaurs did not invade. They never established in the lower terrestrial and subterranean vertebral niche, which was already engaged by mammals and lizards, but not (contrary to the popular theory) in marine or aquatic habitat. They were not there in the air too; however, if birds are their descendents, then they acclimated to air and to such a success, that its descendents are still the most numerous and various out of all quadruped animals even for today.
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