Not all the attractions at the Brookfield Zoo are alive.
For those of us who enjoy ruminating about the march of history, the forty life-like animatronic dinosaurs are a welcome distraction and a thought-provoking treat.
Brushing up on the trajectory of Earth’s inhabitants, I reflected that during my own school years I would have turned to a bookshelf populated by the formidable tomes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, or the more easily understood World Book encyclopedias. In our computerized age, consulting books may be dismissed as an ancient approach. This measure of time, however, pales when compared with the fact that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago after roaming the Earth for about 145 million years.
Dinosaurs may be divided into three groups according to what they ate: Herbivores, Carnivores, and Omnivores. Since the eruption of teeth and the joy of food are of interest to the stroller set, these rudimentary classifications sufficed as a framework for examining the specimens beside our zoo path.
I also use them to discuss our backyard descendants of dinosaurs: birds.
Our small group had arrived by appointment. We enjoyed the lower human density, and found new outdoor places to explore, since buildings are closed. I read signs, and discovered that Stegosaurus was long gone by the time Tyrannosaurus came on the scene.
Model dinosaur sets, the source of much that I know about Dinosauria, are not sorted by location and era, I mused – but maybe they should be.
As we walked, three generations on a visit through millennia, I pointed out a Brontosaurus ahead, but no, it was labeled Apatosaurus!
Was I “slipping” somehow, becoming a dinosaur of the human variety?
This bothered me for a bit, but my concerns were allayed when later research revealed my old favorite had been renamed.
Merging the old and the new in the soup we call time, we emerged from our zoo visit, refreshed and invigorated.
We will return soon. (c)
