Start in science. Modern birds are close relatives of dinosaurs. Are there dinosaurs today?
Municipal educational institution Ostrolenskaya secondary school Nagaybak district Chelyabinsk regionWHICH MODERN ANIMALS ARE THE CLOSEST RELATIVES OF DINOSAURS?
I've done the work:2nd grade student
Baykin Andrey
Supervisor: Gorbunova N.I. teacher primary classes
Ostrolensky village, 2010
Table of contents:
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………… p. 3
Research………………………………………………………… p. 4-7
Conclusions………………………………………………………………..p.8
List of references………………………………………………………p.9
Introduction
When I was 5 years old and I went to kindergarten, Mom and Dad gave me a coloring book about dinosaurs. It contained bright and colorful pictures of animals that I had never seen. I often looked at the pictures in this book and asked what the names of these amazing animals were. Mom explained that these were dinosaurs and told me that they lived many, many millions of years ago and disappeared long ago. I became interested in dinosaurs. I have a lot of books, toys, I attend the art department of a children's art school and learn to draw dinosaurs. Thanks to books, stories from mom and dad, and watching TV shows, I learned a lot about dinosaurs. I would It was very interesting how dinosaurs lived, what they looked like, why they became extinct, and whether they had relatives in our world? It seems to me that many modern animals are similar to dinosaurs. I read many books and magazines on this topic, but did not receive an answer to all my questions. I decided to get an answer to one of these questions and do this work.
Purpose of the study:
Determine whether relatives of dinosaurs exist in our time; maybe not all dinosaurs became extinct?
Research objectives:
Compare existing animals with various types dinosaurs. Determine whether they have common features in body structure, appearance and behavior. Identify close relatives of dinosaurs.
Hypothesis:
I think that in our time there are animals and birds that are relatives of dinosaurs.
Study
How can one determine whether a particular modern animal is a relative of a dinosaur? It is not easy. Some animals may look like dinosaurs, but that's not enough. The similarity of the skeleton is also necessary, as well as certain general features behavior.
Who are dinosaurs? Millions of years ago, long before the first man appeared on Earth, the ruler of our planet was a dinosaur - one of the most amazing living creatures. Translated from g The word "dinosaur" means"terrible lizard" English scientist Richard Owen found a large number of huge bones. The animals whose skeletons he discovered seemed very scary to him, and he called them “terrible lizards,” or dinosaurs. Since then they have been called that.
Some of the dinosaurs were no taller than a chicken, others were the size of a tower. Some moved quickly on two legs, others on four, but were slow and clumsy. Most dinosaurs were peaceful vegetarians who lived in herds and moved from place to place in search of food. But among the dinosaurs there were also ferocious predators that hunted in packs or attacked individually. All dinosaurs were reptiles with rough, scaly skin and clawed feet. Reptiles are cold-blooded animals. This means that their body temperature is completely dependent on the temperature of the environment. But some scientists believe that among dinosaurs there were also warm-blooded ones, capable of independently regulating their body temperature, like mammals. So what made dinosaurs different from other reptiles? Their paws were under the body, whereas those of other reptiles were spread apart. Thanks to this, it was easier for dinosaurs to move: they did not have to drag their bodies along the ground, like other reptiles. All dinosaurs laid eggs, and many of them cared for their young. Dinosaurs could live for more than a hundred years if they did not die earlier from injury or disease.
Doubles
Let's study, for example, three animals that either look like some dinosaurs or behave in a similar way.
Giraffe thanks to his long neck can eat leaves from the tops of trees, like, for example, diplodocus.
The armadillo is protected by a bony shell, just like an ankylosaur.
The rhinoceros looks about the same as the triceratops. He also has a large, heavy body and a horn on his nose.
Are all these animals related to dinosaurs? No. None of them are related to dinosaurs. The giraffe, the armadillo, and the rhinoceros are mammals. They are warm-blooded and viviparous. They belong to a different group of animals than dinosaurs. After all, dinosaurs were reptiles. They laid eggs and were most likely cold-blooded. Therefore, modern relatives of dinosaurs should be sought among reptiles.
Lonely reptile
Currently, there is the only surviving representative of the group of reptiles that flourished in the era of dinosaurs - New Zealand tuateria. Over the past 130 million years, tuataria have remained virtually unchanged. They are somewhat similar to miniature dinosaurs, but differ from them in body structure. Therefore, it seems to me that tuateria cannot be considered the closest relative of dinosaurs.
Turtles
Turtles are representatives of another group of reptiles. They outlived the dinosaurs and have survived to this day. And they look almost the same now as they looked 150 million years ago. However, they are not closely related to dinosaurs.
Crocodiles
Where did crocodiles come from? Appeared about 250 million years ago a new group reptiles - archosaurs. From these ancient animals came these extremely important groups of animals: dinosaurs - land reptiles, crocodiles - inhabitants of rivers and swamps, pterosaurs - aerial reptiles. Thus, crocodiles are the closest relatives of dinosaurs that have survived to this day. By observing modern crocodiles - how they keep warm, how they catch and eat prey, how they care for their offspring - we get an approximate idea of what kind of life dinosaurs led in the distant past.
What did dinosaurs become?
While researching modern animals, I discovered something surprising.
The leg bones of a modern pigeon are very similar in structure to the leg bones of predatory dinosaurs such as Deinonychus or Compsognathus. Of course, birds are not at all like reptiles. However, there are several very important features that make these two classes of animals similar. The birds' legs are covered with scales. Birds lay eggs in hard shells, just like reptiles.
Could there really be anything in common between a pigeon and a dinosaur? It's hard to believe - but it's true. Many scientists believe that birds are the closest modern relatives dinosaurs. The oldest bird known to scientists is Archeopteryx. Archeopteryx lived 150 million years ago. It was very reptile-like because it had sharp teeth, claws and a long bony tail. But what is much more important is that the pelvic bones and limbs of Archeopteryx and Compsognathus had almost the same structure.
I want to talk about some dinosaurs that I know.
Brachiosaurus - means "shouldered lizard". This dinosaur was huge size with a very long neck and small head. Brachiosaurs grazed in herds, gnawing the tops of the most tall trees. Every day, one brachiosaurus ate 200 kilograms of food. He had a very subtle sense of smell, which helped to detect enemies from afar.
Comsognathus - The smallest dinosaur, its length did not exceed 70 cm, the height of a dog, was a very dexterous and agile predator.
Ultrasaurus - was a champion in weight, reaching 130 tons. The dimensions of the ultrasaurus reached 40 meters in length and up to 25 meters in height.
Triceratops- translated as “three - horn - muzzles.” It had a wide bone collar above its neck, and three sharp horns on its muzzle. Triceratops ate plants; at the end of its jaws there was a beak for biting leaves, and in its mouth there were many small teeth for grinding food. Teeth often fell out, but new ones immediately grew in their place. Triceratops grazed in herds and defended themselves from predators with their horns.
conclusions
Thus, my assumption that in our time there are animals and birds that are relatives of dinosaurs has been confirmed! Studying the structural features of modern animals, I came to the conclusion that the development chain could look like this:
Dinosaurs Archeopteryx Birds
That is, pigeons may be among the closest relatives of dinosaurs. Birds are the great-grandchildren of dinosaurs.
Crocodiles are also relatives of dinosaurs. They evolved in parallel with dinosaurs and are their cousins.
I really enjoyed working on this project. I was able to find answers to the question that interested me, and provided evidence that there are modern animals that are relatives of dinosaurs. I enjoy reading books, watching films, TV shows about them. I like to draw and sculpt dinosaurs. I think I will certainly have other questions regarding dinosaurs in the future. I'm sure I can find the answers!
Bibliography:
Archeopteryx // Biology. Big encyclopedic Dictionary. – M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia. 1999.
Atlas of Dinosaurs / ed. R. Matthews, Rusich, Minsk: 2003
Large illustrated encyclopedia of dinosaurs. – Moscow: “Makhaon”, 2008
Dinosaurs (Children's inquiry Office) / ed. Naletova O.V., Zatolokina V.L. et al. Astrel, M.: 2002.
Diosaurs-predators. – D. Dixon, M.: AST Publishing House LLC, 2002.
"Children's Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius", on disk.
Prehistoric life - M.: “Planet of Childhood”, 2000.
Animals. 5000 amazing facts / ed. D. Johnson, M. Kay, S. Parker, Rosman, M.: 2005
New schoolchild encyclopedia / ed. Bubnova E., Makhaon, M.: 2003
We think we own heaven. But a group of creatures capable of flight remains the envy of man-made aerial forces. These birds are descendants of dinosaurs. They inhabit all ecosystems globe, including the interior of Antarctica.
Origin of birds for a long time remained the subject of lively debate. Over the foreseeable period of time, several scientific versions of the origin and family ties birds and the emergence of flight in them, and for more than a hundred years they were purely hypothetical.
1. Heron fishing. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
The hypothesis about the origin of birds from dinosaurs was first put forward in 1868 by Thomas Huxley. It was based on a comparison of the structure of Archeopteryx, an animal that lived about 150 million years ago in the Upper Jurassic. It had the characteristics of a typical reptile - special structure pelvis and ribs, teeth, clawed paws and a long, lizard-like tail. At the same time, the fossils had well-preserved imprints of the flight wings, similar to those of modern birds.
2. A flock of white geese. (Photo by Jim Scalzo):
There are many similarities between birds and dinosaurs. common features in the structure of the skeleton. Avimimus, a small carnivorous dinosaur from the Cretaceous period, is also considered among the possible closest relatives of birds.
3. A pelican feeds its babies. (Photo by Monika Skkolimowska):
The first attempt to systematize animals was made in the 4th century BC. e. Greek scientist Aristotle - in his works “On the Parts of Animals” and “On the Origin of Animals” he identified all the birds known to him into the “highest genus” Ornithes. Despite the obvious imperfection of this system, until the second half of the 17th century, no new attempts were made to classify the animal world. Only to end of the 19th century century, new research laid the foundation for modern ideas about the class system of birds.
4. Heron. (Photo by Biju Boro):
Birds are everywhere, even in Antarctica. For example, the snow petrel nests in the interior of this continent at a distance of up to 440 km from the coast. Along the edges of the Antarctic shield, penguins (emperor, Adelie), giant petrel, and south polar skua nest in places.
5. Sandhill cranes. (Photo by Sam Greenwood):
Birds also inhabit the most waterless deserts and mountains, right up to the border of eternal snow. During migration, flocks of geese and cranes were sometimes observed flying at an altitude of 7000-9000 m. In 1973, an African vulture collided with a civil aircraft over Côte d'Ivoire at an altitude of 11,277 meters.
6. Gray heron fishing. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
Several families of birds have adapted to life at sea. Some species of penguins dive to depths of up to 300 m, and according to other information, emperor penguin can reach a depth of 535 meters.
7. Tricolored heron. Chick. (Photo by Rhona Wise):
It is the ability to fly that determines the characteristics of this class of animals, although there are a relatively small number (about 60 species) that are flightless or almost flightless birds, in the course of evolution, one way or another, they lost the ability to fly that their ancestors had.
8. Pelicans. (Photo by Amir Cohen):
Flight requires a very large expenditure of muscle energy, so the level of metabolism in birds is extremely high and the need for food is great: its daily norm is 12-28% total mass bodies. If we project these data onto a person, then a 70-kilogram character would have to eat up to 20 kg of food per day if he were a bird.
9. The duckling is hiding from the rain. (Photo by David L. Ryan):
All bird species are characterized by the presence of feathers that are not found in other modern animals. Feathers cover the entire body of the bird, with the exception of the beak and the distal parts of the hind limbs. It is believed that feathers originated as a result of evolutionary transformations of reptile scales.
10. Gray Heron. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
How many feathers does a bird have? Total number of feathers large species more than small ones. For example, hummingbirds have about 1,000 feathers, seagulls have up to 6,000, and swans have 25,000.
11. Robins are waiting for their parents in the nest. (Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst):
The pen is an almost perfect mechanism. It provides the ability to fly, forming load-bearing planes(wings, tail), and creates a streamlined body. Feathers protect the skin from mechanical damage. The waterproof and heat-protective functions of the plumage are very effective.
12. Stilt walkers. (Photo by Sam Yeh):
Like any sophisticated mechanism, feathers require careful maintenance, and birds spend about 9% of their time daily cleaning their plumage, bathing and dust bathing.
13. Stork. (Photo by Rhona Wise):
Descendants of dinosaurs do not smell. They do not have sweat glands. Cooling of the body is achieved using highly developed respiratory system. Birds also cool down by being in the shade or in water.
14. Herons. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
No teeth. It is interesting that modern birds lack teeth - they are partly replaced by the sharp edges of the beak, with which birds capture, hold and sometimes crush food. Due to the loss of teeth, the task of grinding food is transferred to the stomach.
15. Canada geese. Struggle. (Photo by David L. Ryan):
The respiratory system of birds is also characterized by signs of adaptation to flight. This organ system in birds is considered one of the most complex among all groups of animals. The more intense the flapping flight, the more intense the breathing process.
16. Godwits. (Photo by Chris Purnell):
The heart rate of birds is also high, and in flight, compared to rest, the heart rate increases noticeably. So, a sparrow’s resting pulse is about 460 beats/min, and in flight it’s about 1000 beats/min!
17. Heron's nest. (Photo by Anupam Nath):
Birds are not stupid animals. A well-developed brain allows birds to develop complex behaviors and adapt to a wide variety of situations. The most striking demonstration mental abilities birds are considered to be the training of songbirds to sing, the repetition of human speech by parrots, methods of obtaining food in a number of species and the ability of corvids to solve complex problems offered to them in special experiments.
18. 3 little swans. (Photo by Matt Campbell):
Eyes are the most powerful avian apparatus. Many birds have good distance vision (the peregrine falcon is able to see a small bird at a distance of more than 1 km). In some species the field of view reaches almost 360°. Vision in birds is noticeably more acute than in other groups of vertebrates - this is explained significantly big amount light-sensitive cells in the retina.
19. Dove. (Photo by Dominique Faget):
Sound signals are extremely important in the life of birds. They ensure the protection of feeding and nesting territories from the invasion of strangers, attracting females for breeding, and warning relatives and chicks about impending danger. There are dozens of sound signals in the language of birds (distress, warning, food, courtship, mating, aggressive, flocking, nesting, and so on).
Some birds, for example, lyrebirds, have a phenomenal ability to imitate all kinds of sounds, ranging from the voices of birds, animals, humans, and ending with various man-made sounds, including playing the flute and even the sounds of car alarms and chainsaws.
20. Goose family. (Photo by Tom Dorsey):
Flight! The flight of birds is usually divided into two main types: active (flapping) and passive (soaring). Birds usually use more than one type of flight, but combine them. The flapping of the wings is followed by phases when the wing does not move: this is gliding flight, or soaring. This flight is typical mainly for birds of medium and large sizes, with sufficient body weight. Hovering in place relative to the surrounding air is a challenging task for birds. In fact, hummingbirds are the only group of birds adapted to do this.
Birds move along branches, ground and water using their hind legs. And also, any bird does not drown in water and swims when necessary.
21. Gray heron catches fish. (Photo by Attila Kovacs):
The migration routes of some birds consist of many segments, between which the birds rest and look for food. The reasons for bird migration are seasonal changes environment. The Arctic tern is considered the absolute champion in terms of migration distance, migrating seasonally from the Arctic to the Antarctic, covering a distance of up to 70-90 thousand km per year! Also, one of the longest migrations in the world, lasting up to 26 thousand km, is performed by the round-nosed phalarope.
Watching birds fly prompted people to invent the first aircraft, and its further study continues to influence the development of modern aviation.
22. White stork nest on a cell tower. (Photo by Paul Hanna):
Everyone loved dinosaurs as a child, and almost everyone simply adored Jurassic Park. But not many people know that almost everything that popular culture tells us about dinosaurs is not true. In this collection we have collected the most popular misconceptions about dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs were the most big creatures that has ever existed on earth 
First: not all dinosaurs were big. Of course, some of them reached quite serious sizes. But these were isolated species. In addition to them, there were many less impressive dinosaurs, the size of a sheep, a dog or a chicken, for example. The smallest dinosaur known to science weighed about 200 grams. Secondly: you will be surprised, but the largest animal that has ever existed on Earth is our contemporary - the blue whale. So if you were upset that you'd never be able to see a live Megaladon, there's a good chance you'll see a much larger giant alive.
All dinosaurs lived in the tropics 
This myth is due to the fact that the climate used to be much warmer than it is now. And based on this, some seriously believe that almost all the land was then covered with thick rainforests. In reality this is, of course, not the case. During the existence of dinosaurs, as well as now, the Earth already had deserts, plains, ordinary forests, and jungles, of course. Moreover, over the millions of years that dinosaurs walked on our planet, the landscape, like the climate, invariably changed. And dinosaurs successfully mastered the entire range of ecosystems.
Dinosaurs were dumb creatures with tiny brains. 
Judging the intelligence of creatures that lived 100 million years ago, of which only fossilized remains have survived, is an extremely thankless task. The only thing we can know more or less accurately is the size of their brains. And, naturally, it was different for all dinosaurs, both in absolute value and relative to body size. The same Stegosaurus, often ridiculed for its tiny brain, actually had a brain the size of Walnut and weighing about 70 grams. On the other hand, our favorite four-legged friends, dogs, have brains that are about the same size. But dogs weigh a maximum of 100 kilograms, which is 20 times less than the weight of the stegosaurus. But the brain of a tyrannosaurus, for example, was three times larger than the brain of a dolphin. But relative to body size, it roughly corresponds to the brain of modern reptiles.
The Jurassic period is the "golden age" of dinosaurs 
Well, first of all: the greatest diversification of dinosaur species, according to statistical research, was not in the Jurassic, but in the late Cretaceous period. And secondly: even this obvious diversity is nothing more than an illusion, since it is the rocks of the Late Cretaceous period that are today more studied than the rocks of other periods Mesozoic era. So it is still impossible to say with complete certainty when there were more dinosaurs.
Tyrannosaurus is the largest predator ever to walk the earth 
Once again, a myth to which we are entirely indebted to popular culture. Tyrannosaurus turned out to be so often mentioned that it practically became the personification of the brand for all dinosaurs in general. It’s just that when most people hear the word “dinosaur,” they think of either a Tyrannosaurus rex or a Triceratops. So it is the tyrannosaurus that is often called the largest and most dangerous of all known to science terrestrial predators. We will return to its danger later, but for now let’s talk about its size. Today it is absolutely known that the Tyrannosaurus was not the largest land predator in history. The largest skeleton found is 12.3 meters long. While the spinosaurus reached 16 meters in length. But these two giants have never met, since the tyrannosaurus is “younger” than its competitor by more than 30 million years. And, naturally, evolution has not stood still all these years, so in many respects the tyrannosaurus looks like a much more advanced “killing machine” than its more ancient brother.
Dinosaurs were a dead-end branch of evolution 
The fact that they did not build cities and did not organize wars for resources does not mean that they were a dead-end branch of evolution. Dinosaurs were perfectly integrated into the then environment. They were the dominant species on the planet and essentially masters of not only the land, but also the air and the sea. Although objectively speaking, neither marine reptiles nor flying lizards can be called dinosaurs, they were still much more related than us and dolphins, for example. And yet. Humans have been evolving for only two million years and are already close to global crises and the threat of total destruction of themselves. While dinosaurs evolved absolutely beautifully over 135 million years, and if not for global cataclysms beyond their control, they might have continued to live to this day.
When dinosaurs lived, all mammals were the size of mice 
No, even then they were much more major representatives order of mammals. Here, however, it is worth immediately making a reservation: it depends on what is considered large size. Of course, if we talk about the size of a mammoth, then, of course, there were no such mammals during the time of dinosaurs. At all, the average size mammals then did not exceed the size modern cat. However, even then, namely about 125-122 million years ago, there were already mammals such as Repenomamus, for example. It was about 1 meter long, weighed 12-14 kg, and judging by the remains found, it even ate some small dinosaurs.
All dinosaurs lived only in the equatorial region of the earth, and the finds of their remains in temperate latitudes explained by the movement of continents 
And again no. Yes, over the millions of years of dinosaurs’ existence, not only the climate, but also the landscape of the earth changed. But many modern finds prove that dinosaurs lived even in Antarctica. To be fair, it is worth noting that in those days Australia and New Zealand were connected to Antarctica, forming one polar continent. The climate in those days was naturally much warmer than it is today, but the dinosaurs who lived there still had to adapt to harsh weather conditions. In summer, the sun shone on this continent around the clock, and for five months of the year, polar night. It is quite possible that predators and herbivorous dinosaurs were in these areas in the summer, and in winter they migrated to warmer regions to the north.
Dinosaurs became extinct as a result of a meteorite impact 
Contrary to the assurances of many people that this is exactly what happened, this is only one version of what happened. Scientific debate about what caused the death of dinosaurs, whether their extinction was sudden or gradual, continues to this day; there is no single point of view. It is known for certain that the extinction of dinosaurs was only part of the so-called “great extinction” that took place at the same time. Along with the dinosaurs, marine reptiles, flying dinosaurs, many mollusks and a huge amount of small algae became extinct. In total, 16% of marine animal families and 18% of land vertebrate families died. According to one of the widespread theories, the death of dinosaurs could have occurred due to a planet relatively close to ours. solar system supernova explosion. Such an event could unleash a deadly shower of gamma rays on the Earth, and the X-rays emitted by the explosion could sweep away some earth's atmosphere, forming a hot layer at an altitude of 20-80 km above the surface of the planet.
Velociraptors could reach speeds of up to 100 km/h 
In general, the real image of the Velociraptor, which scientists managed to reconstruct, is extremely far from what was shown to us in the “Park” franchise Jurassic period" This is largely due to the fact that when working on the film, the basis was the reconstruction of another dinosaur - Deinonychus, which was previously classified as a genus of Velociraptor. But even the Deinonychus in the film are enlarged to twice their actual size. As for real velociraptors, evolutionarily they were closer to birds, had plumage, were warm-blooded animals, reached a height of 60-70 cm and weighed about 20 kg. IN this moment There is no scientific basis to think that velociraptors could run very fast, hunted in packs (all their found remains are individual individuals), and even more so, possessed some kind of super-developed intelligence. All this is nothing more than fiction.
To what extent do we humans know the animal world of our planet well? This question will surprise most people. In reality: there are many scientific works, which can fully satisfy curiosity in this area. It seems that in the 21st century there are and cannot be secrets in the animal world. But it is not so. And these days, from time to time there are reports saying that the animal world has not been studied as well as we might think.
In the 20th century, various kinds of studies of mysterious animals similar to dragons, or, in scientific terms, dinosaurs that lived on Earth in prehistoric times.
You shouldn't think that modern man, tired of everyday affairs and worries, suddenly suddenly believed in fairy tales, myths and legends that mention dragons and others mythical creatures. In fact, reports of, for example, plesiosaurs are quite convincing and fall within the realm of scientific interests a number of zoological scientists.
Are all dinosaurs extinct?
Any modern person knows that prehistoric animals disappeared from the face of the Earth a long time ago, millions of years ago. The question of why this happened is very interesting. After all, dinosaurs became extinct a very long time ago. short period, although they lived on Earth for more than 150 million years. Over such a long period of time, the climate on the planet has repeatedly changed and there have been many other changes to which animals have been able to adapt quite successfully.
The dinosaurs disappeared in about 5 million years, that is, very quickly. There are many hypotheses trying to explain this disappearance. One of the scientists, American geophysicist W. Alvarez, suggested very original version. In the second half of the 20th century, he studied an underwater canyon in Italy and discovered in a layer of clay, which belonged to the end of the Mesozoic era (it was during that era that dinosaurs disappeared), an increased content of iridium - 30 times more than is usually found in earth's crust.
The fact is that there is not so much iridium in the bowels of the Earth; it is more often found in other cosmic bodies. The scientist suggested that at the end of the Mesozoic era, our planet collided with a large asteroid, the diameter of which was more than 10 km. An asteroid crashed into the Earth at high speed. As a result, the iridium content in the earth's crust increased, which in itself, however, was not dangerous for dinosaurs.
But when the asteroid collided, a huge amount of dust rose into the air. The surface of the planet was covered with a dust curtain from the Sun. Due to shortage sun rays plants began to die. Many dinosaurs were herbivores and ate about 2 quintals of plants per day. They began to die of hunger, which meant that the predators, in turn, began to lack food. As a result, all dinosaurs became extinct. Of course, this is just one hypothesis.
Prehistoric creatures— guests from the Mesozoic era
Meanwhile, cryptozoology assures us that many prehistoric animals have not disappeared, but live in our time. Or, at least, they lived relatively not so long ago.
16th century - S. Herberstein, diplomat, traveler and writer, served as the Austrian ambassador in Russia. In his diary he described people who lived in the forests and kept them as pets big snakes, lizard-like, with four legs and pointed bodies of black color.
In Russian chronicles of the 16th century there is a record of how “crocodiles” came out of a river near Novgorod and ate many people. This entry is dated 1582. Of course, it is possible to suspect the ancient chronicler of a hoax, but at that distant time the chroniclers were precisely chroniclers, and not science fiction writers. And maybe everything was exactly as it was said in the chronicle.
A few years later, in 1589, the Englishman J. Garsey, while in Russia, saw on the shore rivers of the dead crocodile From point of view official science, V Eastern Europe Crocodiles weren't supposed to live. But we are talking about the 16th century. It can be assumed that these reptiles were found in Russian reservoirs at that time. In the future, they could die both from natural causes and as a result of aggression from people. Now it is no longer possible to find out whether those “crocodiles” were prehistoric lizards.
Scotland has one thing enough deep lake- Loch Morar. According to eyewitnesses, this lake is home to a creature unknown to science. In the 1970s, scientists conducted special research on this lake, after which they stated that they personally saw a large animal with a head similar to a snake. The size of the strange creature exceeded 13 meters. One of the researchers, Professor G. Vakhrushev, is convinced that the mysterious creatures that are talked about so much are in fact lake plesiosaurs; today they may well live in lakes that originated from freshwater reservoirs of the Mesozoic era.
Unknown monsters can exist not only in water, but also on land. It is very interesting that the Irish mysterious beasts appearance similar to mythological creatures"Kelpies" about which there are many legends in Western Scotland. Ireland and Scotland are very close, so it is not surprising that the legends and myths of these countries are similar.
Meanwhile, there is information about mysterious creatures that have been observed in Russia. For example, they say that Nessie’s “relatives” live in the lakes of Yakutia, namely prehistoric animals that should have disappeared from the face of the earth a long time ago.
So, in the middle of the 20th century, some people were lucky enough to see a strange creature whose description was very similar to a plesiosaur. One of the eyewitnesses (who also managed to sketch a hitherto unseen beast) was an employee biological order Yakut branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The fish lizard was also seen by geologists working in Yakutia.
It is curious that the Yakuts have long been sure: monsters live in their lakes, feeding on fish and even birds that settle on the shores of reservoirs. The monsters did not disdain people who went to the lakes to fish. Of course, local legends did not at all pretend to be “scientific”. People only wanted to warn each other about the terrible danger and in no case were chasing sensations.
The stories are quite interesting. Aristotle and Euripides also wrote about them. There is a legend that in the 8th century BC. e. King Sargon II saw a huge sea snake off the coast of Cyprus. An image of this creature was found during archaeological excavations in Assyria on the walls of the Korsadad palace.
Modern scientists do not deny the possibility that prehistoric animals can survive today. Some accounts from witnesses who personally saw strange creatures, cites the famous popularizer of science V. Mezentsev in one of his books.
1734 - the Danish missionary P. Egende sailed on a ship along the coast of Greenland, and this is what he wrote in the logbook: “We saw a terrible animal, unlike anything we had seen before. It raised its head so high above the waves that it seemed to tower above the tops of our ship. The monster breathed weaker than the whale; his head was narrower than his body, which seemed short and wrinkled. The animal moved with the help of huge fins located under its belly. After some time we saw his tail. The total length of the monster exceeded the length of our ship."
1848 - the captain of the English warship Daedalus wrote in the logbook: “When our attention was attracted by an object that appeared on the surface of the sea, we decided that it was a huge snake. We did not notice any limbs that served the animal for movement in the water, and no signs of horizontal movement. It passed quickly on such close range that it could be seen with the naked eye. It was moving at a speed of 12-15 miles per hour...
Behind the head, the diameter of the animal’s body was 40–50 centimeters. During the 20 minutes of observation, the snake's head was constantly above the surface of the water. It was brown on top and light yellow underneath. The animal had no fins, but on its back it had something like a mane or a tuft of algae.”
From this description it doesn't look particularly mysterious. There is nothing mystical about it. But science has not described such a creature. Or rather, sea snakes themselves are well known. They live in tropical seas and are dangerous to people because they are very poisonous. But sea snakes are small, the largest individuals are no more than 2 meters. Eyewitnesses report real giants, which, according to descriptions, are similar to prehistoric animals.
Mezentsev cites an extract from the ship's log of the ship "Osborne" for 1877: "Movement flat fins the animal was like a turtle, and it looked like a huge seal... The ship was located at the latitude of the island of Sicily, and this is the only sighting made in the Mediterranean Sea. Some believed that this animal was an ichthyosaur, others were inclined to see it as a giant turtle.”
1904 - The French Academy of Sciences drew attention to the following message, which was discussed at a special scientific meeting: “On the afternoon of February 25, 1904, heading towards the exit from the bay, the Decide met a mysterious animal at the height of the Nua cliffs... I saw all parts of the animal , successively plunging into the water with vertical wave-like movements. It looked like a flattened snake and, according to my estimate, reached a length of up to 30 meters with a maximum thickness of 4-5 meters.”
20th century - the Belgian scientist B. Euwelmans studied sea monsters, which are similar in description to prehistoric animals.
He is sure that eyewitness accounts are not fiction and such creatures actually live in sea depths. The scientist wrote: “It seems to me that the legend of the sea serpent arose because people had to meet with various (it is not yet known which) very large snake-shaped animals belonging to different classes: fish, reptiles, mammals.”
1915, July 30 - off the coast of Ireland, the British steamer Iberion was blown up by the German submarine I-28. The captain of the German submarine noticed that after the explosion of the steamer, a huge animal floated to the surface of the water. The length of its body was about 20 meters, in appearance it resembled a crocodile with four flippers instead of paws. After about a quarter of a minute, the monster disappeared under the water.
1932 - An earthquake occurred in the Newfoundland area. Many corpses were washed ashore sea creatures. Among them was a sea serpent, a huge creature with a pointed head.
1947 - fisherman D. Zegers near Vancouver Island off the western shores North America I saw an unknown creature. He described the meeting this way: “Suddenly I felt very strange. A shiver ran down my spine, and I began to feel like someone was watching me. I looked around. To the left, about 45 meters from the boat, a head and neck as long as more than a meter, two pitch-black eyes looked intently. They protruded from the head like two buns. I have never seen anything like this before.
The head was 40 centimeters in diameter. Looking at me, the animal turned away, and I saw its back. She had something like a dark brown mane, which consisted more of tufts of warts than hair.”
In the same 1947, in North Carolina, near Cape Lookout, the crew of a Greek ship saw amazing creature with a cylindrical body of dark brown color and a snake head. The creature was wounded, and the water around it was stained with blood. And in the late 40s, a skeleton was discovered off the western coast of North America. Scientists decided that this skeleton belongs to a sea serpent. The length of the creature's spine was 12 meters.
1959 - fishermen in the city of Durban saw a whole herd of sea monsters. There were at least 20 of them, the length of each creature seemed to be about 10 meters.
1963 - also seen off the coast of Iceland. A year later, in Massachusetts Bay, the crew of a fishing boat spotted a sea serpent 15 meters long. Soon we managed to take several photographs of the sea monster. Its length, according to eyewitnesses, was about 25 meters. The snake's head was massive and round, the width and length of the head were more than two meters. The animal had uneven skin, without scales. Body color is black with brown rings. But some of the scientists decided that the pictures were either a hoax, or captured, for example, a giant conger eel. Scientists' skepticism is understandable. But it makes no sense to dismiss the numerous evidence of the existence of sea monsters.
1977 - in the area of New Zealand, the Japanese trawler Tsuyomaru lifted from enormous depth(about 300 meters) the corpse of an unknown creature. The animal had a tail up to 2 m long, a small head, a long neck, the total length of its body was 13 m, and it weighed about 2 tons. Scientists did not fully examine the body of the sea monster because it was already decomposing and the crew did not dare to take on board the rotting carcass. He was thrown into the sea, having previously been photographed and the corresponding entries made in the ship's log. One piece of fin was left and put in the refrigerator. Scientists became interested in the find.
Some Japanese experts said that the creature was a plesiosaur, others believed that it was a corpse huge shark or a small whale. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the carcass was half-decomposed, so identifying it was not easy. But after carefully studying the fin, scientists found a protein in it that whales do not have. Sharks have such a protein, and it was also once in the tissues of prehistoric animals, which included plesiosaurs. The fact that the body was a prehistoric lizard is also supported by the fact that its head did not look like a shark (it was too small). But the mystery was never solved.
1998 - A sea monster with a long neck was seen in the sea off the coast of British Columbia. Canadian newspapers wrote about this. The riddle was never solved. In Zambia, local residents are sure that in one of the reservoirs there lives a monster of enormous size that feeds on large animals, in particular hippopotamuses. According to evidence, a dinosaur-like monster also lives in the jungles of the Congo.
In the 1980s, University of Chicago professor R. McKell specially went to this country, who had been studying loch ness monster. He tried to find out more about the animal that lives in the Congo. The professor collected many eyewitness accounts; their descriptions of the animal coincided. It reached 12 meters in length, had a huge tail and a long neck. The creature's skin was gray-brown, its tracks resembled those of an elephant, but differed in the presence of claws. The description of the creature perfectly matches the characteristics of a dinosaur.
The professor suggested that the dinosaur could well have lived in the local jungle, especially since the climate there has not changed over the past few tens of millions of years. Soon Makell organized another expedition into the jungles of the Congo. He was primarily interested in the little-explored area of Lake Tele.
The lake is located among impenetrable forests. It has long attracted the attention of scientists. So, in 1913 a German expedition visited there. Researchers were able to find traces of an unknown creature in the lake. But the war began, and the expedition was curtailed.
Makkel was also unlucky. His second expedition was prevented by a conflict with local residents. A few years later, in 1983, one of the participants in this expedition, a graduate of the University of Havana M. Añanya, decided to go on a search again. He was from the Congo, so he knew the local beliefs well. The researcher interviewed local residents and wrote down a variety of stories about the monster.
One day he himself saw a dinosaur head on a long neck in Lake Tele. The animal noticed the people and began to dive under water. Using binoculars, the researcher was able to examine the creature in sufficient detail and concluded that it was a prehistoric animal. It was not possible to photograph the monster.
There is evidence that similar creatures live in Zambia and Mozambique. Dinosaurs could well have survived African continent, where the climate is so favorable for reptiles. There is a lot of unexplored territory here and in our time.
In prehistoric times, animals, which we can rightfully call “monsters,” lived everywhere - in the depths of the sea and on land. They swam, ran, flew. By the way, our contemporaries also saw such flying monsters. True, flying prehistoric lizards were found much less frequently than sea monsters. This is quite understandable. We humans have been very weak in exploring undersea world, especially deep-sea. But with land the situation is different.
Here humanity has developed vast territories. And yet, the winged monsters remained in some places. Perhaps these are pterodactyls?
1932 - the famous American zoologist A. Sanderson was on an expedition in Cameroon. One day he saw a small dragon flying through the air (at least the creature looked like a dragon). The scientist looked at it carefully and could swear that the “dragon” did not belong to a species known to science. After some time, Sanderson saw the dragon again. The lizard flew so fast that it knocked down one of the expedition members, made several circles, and then flew away.
The expedition had a local guide. He became very agitated at the sight of the little dragon and declared that the monster was a harbinger of death and whoever saw it would soon die. But Sanderson was not so pessimistic. He decided that the flying creature was a prehistoric pterodactyl.
This is not the only “ancient” lizard that supposedly lives in Africa. There is a belief that on the border of Zaire and Angola there is a huge - up to two meters in length - flying lizard with sharp teeth. There it is also believed that seeing her is a bad omen.
In the 1970s, in the USA, in the state of South Carolina, incredible monsters were repeatedly seen in the swamps. They were covered with green scales, their height reached 2 meters. The creatures walked on their hind legs. According to the description, they also resembled prehistoric animals.
1976, June - a 16-year-old teenager saw a lizard running across the field straight towards him. The boy barely escaped in the car. Then the police received several more reports of this mysterious animal. But it was not possible to catch him, although traces were found.
Of course, this kind of message can be perceived as a kind of hoax. But we must remember that scientists to this day have not refuted the existence of prehistoric animals. It's really a mystery " modern dinosaurs"has not yet been solved. And it may well be that in the future we will learn a lot of new and interesting things about this.
O. Larina