Althouse: A baby green heron.

October 7, 2022

A baby green heron.

A baby green heron bridging the gap between birds and dinosaurs. Photo: JJJFrank pic.twitter.com/xVHhPQ9a1m
— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) October 7, 2022

38 comments:

rhhardin said...: All baby birds look like that. Held together with string and rubber bands.; 10/7/22, 11:06 AM
Iman said...: Great photo!; 10/7/22, 11:07 AM
Quaestor said...: What gap?; 10/7/22, 11:10 AM
Owen said...: What a fantastic pic!

That guy is amazing but NOT cute. He could poke your eye out in a trice.; 10/7/22, 11:11 AM
rcocean said...: Heron's are very dumb. So, yes they are link to prehistoric animals. Amazing that they and Parrots are in the same Animal Kingdom and have similar size brains.; 10/7/22, 11:12 AM
Original Mike said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/7/22, 11:16 AM
Jersey Fled said...: Looks like a fake to me.; 10/7/22, 11:25 AM
Saint Croix said...: A baby green heron bridging the gap between birds and dinosaurs.

The first Jurassic World has a title sequence that shows a little baby dinosaur about to be hatched from an egg.

Then it goes to an opening scene, and it's an extreme close-up, and you think you're about to see a massive fucking dinosaur, and it's actually a cute little bird.; 10/7/22, 11:28 AM
Original Mike said...: Imagine that thing 10 feet tall.; 10/7/22, 11:30 AM
Krumhorn said...: I'll say it before rhhardin says it: that must certainly be a female bird destined to be the permanent mate of some poor schlub bird.

- Krumhorn; 10/7/22, 11:36 AM
Martin L. Shoemaker said...: Quaestor said...
“What gap?”

Precisely. Modern paleontology theory says that as a group, dinosaurs never left, only most of them (and all of the large species). The remainder are the birds.

Of course, modern paleontology theory is subject to change.; 10/7/22, 11:43 AM
madAsHell said...: I keep wildlife cameras in a nearby beaver pond.

I see great blue herons, green herons, and sometimes a beaver.

The blue herons appear to hunt at night. Well.....they stride over the pond in the night the same way as do in the day looking for small bass.; 10/7/22, 11:43 AM
L Day said...: I once saw a great blue heron grab a sparrow, quickly drown it and then down the hatch the sparrow went. Dumb they may be, but very efficient predators.; 10/7/22, 12:17 PM
mccullough said...: That hand needs a gauntlet; 10/7/22, 12:28 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: rcocean said...
Heron's are very dumb.

True, but they probably still understand the difference between a plural and a possessive.

:); 10/7/22, 1:10 PM
traditionalguy said...: A gargoyle. So those are real.; 10/7/22, 1:12 PM
traditionalguy said...: OK. If that’s a dinosaur missing link, what did the hummingbirds evolve from?; 10/7/22, 1:14 PM
Gospace said...: Interesting information on the "anti-radiation" drug tht the administration just purchased a crapload of.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/c-and-c-news-friday-october-7-2022

A connection between the purchase and--- The Dreaded Covid.

As I watch people wear masks while walking alone, driving in their cars, ins stores, I wonder just how damaged the national psyche is by the irrational panic stoked by the Democrats.; 10/7/22, 1:27 PM
Josephbleau said...: I wonder if it is a federal crime to possess or harass wild birds like this. I wonder if you get your human stink all over a baby bird that it’s mother will reject it.; 10/7/22, 2:12 PM
Iman said...: “OK. If that’s a dinosaur missing link, what did the hummingbirds evolve from?”

Dinosaur Fleas; 10/7/22, 2:38 PM
Quaestor said...: traditionalguy writes, "OK. If that’s a dinosaur missing link, what did the hummingbirds evolve from?

Hummingbirds are highly derived members of a clade known as the Apodiformes which includes the swifts -- insect-eaters that fly fast and beat their relatively short and broad wings very rapidly. Hummingbirds are believed to have evolved from an ancestral swift that specialized in preying on insect pollinators by hovering near flowers.

Hummingbirds probably split from the swifts fairly recently, about 22 million YBP, since they are entirely confined to the New World. In Africa and Asia, the hummingbird niche is partly occupied by the bee-eaters (family Meropidae) that outwardly resemble hummingbirds quite strikingly. Bee-eaters are small, short-winged birds with long, narrow beaks and brilliant plumage. Though they can't fly backward like a hummer, bee-eaters can hover in still air. They make a living by snatching pollinating insects, such as bees, right from the flowers they have landed on. Ornithologists believe the immediate ancestor of the hummingbirds lived this same way.

Though only distant related (bee-eaters are related to kingfishers) hummers and bee-eaters are excellent examples of parallel evolution, which accounts for their remarkable resemblance to each other. The major difference, other than their phylogeny, is the fact that bee-eaters have not evolved a means to directly exploit the nectar of flowering plants rather than indirectly through the pollinators they eat. Here's where another important aspect of evolution kicks in, co-evolution.

Co-evolution is the principle that no species changes without effecting changes in other species. A bird that eats pollinating insects can threaten the reproduction of flowering plants. Plants can counter the threat with various strategies. In the New World, many plants responded by co-oping the birds that lived by eating the pollinators by encouraging them to become pollinators themselves. Consequently, we have hundreds of ornithophilous (bird-loving) flowers that have become wholly dependent on hummers for reproduction.; 10/7/22, 2:49 PM
madAsHell said...: I can't find it on youtube, but I remember the Flintstones opening credits including a "distressed" heron like creature being used as the time-clock whistle, and then Fred sliding down the back of the dinosaur screaming "Yabba Dabba DOOO!!"; 10/7/22, 3:01 PM
tim in vermont said...: I knew I'd seen that image before.

https://twitter.com/xcsci/status/996387693285306369 (2015); 10/7/22, 3:08 PM
donald said...: That’s pretty danged awesome.; 10/7/22, 3:20 PM
Breezy said...: Such a cool photo - love the textures, the grip and the drama!; 10/7/22, 3:52 PM
Free Manure While You Wait! said...: "As I watch people wear masks while walking alone, driving in their cars, ins stores, I wonder just how damaged the national psyche is by the irrational panic stoked by the Democrats."

Bad enough to where the crazies can't help compulsively masturbating to it at the sight of a baby bird. Rule 34 I guess.; 10/7/22, 4:06 PM
BudBrown said...: Not a heron.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Flintstones+opening&view=detail&mid=4C013FAC9BE67ED6B9C84C013FAC9BE67ED6B9C8&FORM=VIRE; 10/7/22, 4:24 PM
rehajm said...: We have green herons by the lagoon in the back yard from time to time. The best ones, IMO…; 10/7/22, 5:49 PM
gilbar said...: so, does that baby heron know what gender xhe is?
The Boston Children's Hospital says children can know they're transgender 'from the womb'
That's right! THE WOMB We're talking fetuses here. The Boston Children's hospital thinks that inanimate hunks of tissue... Things that CERTAINLY ARE NOT ALIVE... Have Genders.
Think about THAT for a little bit
Boston Children's Hospital posted a video on its YouTube channel in August where a psychologist explains that "a good portion" of children she sees at the hospital's Gender MultiSpecialty Service (GeMS) clinic know their gender identity "from the womb,"; 10/7/22, 7:07 PM
Dude1394 said...: No kidding, baby birds are some of the ugliest things in the world. Until they get some feathers.; 10/7/22, 7:54 PM
effinayright said...: In a Djakarta zoo I once once a fierce-looking bird at least six feet tall, with a short neck, eagle-like cruel beak and raptor claws, standing upright.

I was glad he was behind a fence. Ditto the guy I was with on a business trip. (hy later got bit on the ass by a Marabou stork roaming the zoo grounds, to my merriment and his chagrin.)

I've seen pics of moas and and lots of other huge birds with large claws--mostly extinct--- but I've never been able to identify that fearsome creature.

---so what was this scary sumbitch behind that fence?

Anyone know what it might have been?; 10/7/22, 8:34 PM
phantommut said...: Nightmare fuel.; 10/7/22, 9:52 PM
Quaestor said...: "Anyone know what it might have been?"

Raptors native to Africa that may fit you description, though none are six feet tall:

Secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius)

Griphon vulture (Gyps fulvus)

Martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus)

Crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus)

Foot and talons of a Crowned eagle.

There are others, but I'm going to bed.; 10/7/22, 10:16 PM
Aggie said...: effinayright: It might have been a cassowary:

https://youtu.be/mb1bbIyF9OU

Or if it was in Jakarta, it might have been a shoebill:

https://youtu.be/lfUX5dfr3MU

You'd be better off with the shoebill, it makes funny noises

https://youtu.be/lRfWN-0rc1M; 10/7/22, 11:10 PM
Andrew said...: More like "green flash heron," cause I don't see any green.; 10/8/22, 9:00 AM
mikee said...: Down in Port Aransas, TX, in the winter, the adult blue herons like to hang out near surf fishermen in the hope of a nice meal from a charitable soul. They don't beg, but they stare intently, as in, with serious intent, when a fisherman reels in the latest catch.; 10/8/22, 9:32 AM
Art in LA said...: Who else thinks pelicans look like modern pterodactyls?; 10/8/22, 10:28 AM
madAsHell said...: This is exactly the opening credits that I remember. Thank you!!. You are a scholar, and a gentleman.

Funny, years later I worked at Boeing. The union guys were full of Fred Flintstone behaviors.; 10/8/22, 5:44 PM