Great Beauty Past And Present
Think of all the great beauty
still remaining in this world...
on land beaches rivers mountains
at sea beneath the ocean waves
all the species of incredible fishes
uncounted diverse marine life
in the air birds the fliers
insects in their myriads
bats gliders like squirrels
once flying also were pterosaurs
155 million years of powered flight
found on every continent except
Antarctica yet with over sixty genera
discovered and flight skills equal
or exceeding birds (pterosaurs' had
massive flocculi, it occupied 7.5%
of total brain mass, far in excess of
all other vertebrate, birds flocculi 1
and 2% of total brain mass unusually
large flocculi; compared to other
animals, a science marvel, flocculus,
a brain region integrating signals
from skin, muscles, joints and
balance organs, sending out neural
signals to produce small, automatic
movements in eye muscles, to keep
the image on the pterosaurs' retina
steady; pterosaurs may have had
such a large flocculus because of
their large wing size, which would
mean that there was a great deal
more sensory information to
process) their preserved skeletons
must be fossilized in an iced Antarctica
that continent of huge undiscovered
fossilized marvels awaiting discovery
research new fossil discoveries paint
a fuller picture of an ancient lush past
[...] Read more
poem by Terence George Craddock
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