Wonderchicken

As individual states begin implementing phased lifting of quarantine, we wonder if, in the shifting attention of many Americans, folks will soon begin to forget much of what we’ve collectively experienced for the past two months.

Will they forget about social distancing and toilet paper hoarding? Will they forget about masks and zoom meetings interrupted by children and spouses in underwear? Will all this fade happily into memory? Doubtful. No. More likely we won’t quickly forget much of this. But no matter the short attention spans of some of us or the desire to go back to our old ways of doing things, there is one thing we know none of us could possibly forget: the Wonderchicken.

What? Don’t tell me that you never even heard of a wonderchicken!

Are you saying that when the news of wonderchicken broke – at the same time the COVID-19 pandemic was truly heating up here in the US – you weren’t paying attention to the discovery of the 67-million-year old ancestor of our beloved fowl? Well, sit back. Let’s get you caught up.

During the Cretaceous period, wonderchicken would have been wandering around with the likes of triceratops, parasaurolophus, stegosaurus, and the maiasaurs. Maybe running around the legs of the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex. Perhaps little wonderchicken stared up into blue skies at a flying pterosaur, or was caught stargazing when a large asteroid headed her way.  Perhaps that’s why she was named Asteriornis maastrichtensis, after Asteria, the Greek goddess of falling stars who could transform herself into a quail.

This quail looks like it's wearing a hat, or a crown, depending on your point of view...

Wonderchicken made her debut on this planet just two million years before the great asteroid strike is theorized to have wiped out the giant dinosaurs, and may provide scientists some much needed information to fill in the gaps of how our modern day birds descended from their dinoancestors.
Dr. Daniel Field of the University of Cambridge, provided details of this unique specimen of the only nearly complete skull of an ancestrally modern bird from the age of dinosaurs discovered thus far.

Dr. Daniel Field of the University of Cambridge with the 3-D printed skull
of Asteriornis maastrichensis, aka Wonderchicken. Photo credit: D.J. Field/Univ of Cambridge

Found in a quarry on the Netherlands-Belgium border, and weighing less than a pound, wonderchicken appears to be the tiny great grandmother of modern chickens, ducks and other poultry. Perhaps she was the original Turducken, despite being close the size of a Cornish Hen?

We also know that wonderchicken had long, slender legs, well-adapted to living on a tropical beach.

Wait, I thought he said wonderchicken lived in the Netherlands-Belgium area….not Hawaii. Well, climate change happens. It is also possible, paleo-ornithologists tell us, that wonderchicken could even fly. Winging her little way around the Belgium Bahamas, looking for dinner….avoiding becoming dinner.

This newly discovered fossilized bird could be the earliest ancestor of every feathered fowl on our planet.
Photo credit: Phillip Krzeminski/BBC

This news originally broke March 18th in Nature and Science News and was immediately picked up by National Geographic and others. California was on whatever euphemism we are using for COVID-19 lockdown and most of the nation was headed that way as well. As we start to lift our heads cautiously up and out, peaking around at our surroundings, let us remember brave little Wonderchicken. The survivor. She braved the great T-Rex and her children survive to this day. We can do it, too. The sky is not falling.

Long Live Wonderchicken!

Easter During a Pandemic

These are strange times for the United States; no, strike that - for the entire globe. This Coronavirus, COVID-19, has changed how each and everyone conducts daily business. Nothing is quite the same any longer.

If it is, then you're not following the guidelines. Wash your hands constantly. Sneeze into your elbow. Don't shake hands. Don't hug anyone. Stand six feet apart from any other human. Stay indoors whenever possible. Wear a mask covering your mouth and nose if you dare step outside - some counties in the country have made it a misdemeanor not to follow that last guideline.

How we got here as a world population can be discussed or argued about at a later date. That conversation will surely take up volumes of new books, countless documentaries, and enough politicians blowing hot air at each other to inflate every balloon in the world.

But what about Easter? One of the holiest and important religious days on the calendar for Christians. It's right around the corner - how do we celebrate such a momentous holy day when we are stuck indoors - alone or with a few family members?

During the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1918, people worshiped indoors and actually maintained social physical distancing from each other. As we are hunkering down now, so did our ancestors during that time period.

The toll of that pandemic, lasting from 1918 to 1919, caused an estimated 50 million deaths world wide, the United States saw at least 675,000 fatalities.

It was a horrific time to be alive, wondering if you would be the following day. But, the human spirit was strong and endured. People stayed home as best they could, didn't gather in large groups, wore masks, and began to practice better sanitation. It all worked.

They celebrated Easter, as well as the other holy days and holidays, avoiding each other but they still celebrated.

Why celebrate when things are going so badly? Because it is the human spirit. There are good times and there are bad times.

Good times are easy to get through. Stock market nearing thirty thousand on the DOW, that is easy to deal with. A promotion at work, really easy to deal with.

But people getting ill and dying from an invisible virus, not so easy. Sadness and despair wreaks havoc in homes and towns. Uncertainty fills the air, but again, the human DNA will kick in and we will move forward, knowing things will get better.

Lives may never really return to normal, but what does that mean in the large scale of things anyway?

When passengers gave up boarding trains in lieu of airplanes, life wasn't really the same. When the horse was given up for the automobile, life wasn't really the same.

So, perhaps, in the future, when this monster of a virus is laid to rest, life will return to something approximating normal but it probably won't be quite the same. It will be a new normal.

And that's okay. It will become the norm in the very near future and the normal we once recognized will be written about in the history books.

So, celebrate Easter at home this year - watch a church service on the television or internet. Worship with those in your own home. Read an uplifting piece of writing - religious or not. Our opinion only, going to church does not require a building or specific denomination - no, worshiping comes from within - no matter what religion. Depending on what source, the word church, actually means where people gather for a common purpose. So, have that church at home.

These are strange times for everyone - but we will get through this and hopefully be better for the trials and tribulations thrown upon all of us.

In the meantime though, the new normal will be fine and we will adjust.

From us to you - Happy Easter