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quizzicalTopic: "Tweety Pie" (2)
Guillermo Aguirre-Zabiala, a high school student in Argentina, was out for a stroll some time back when he happened upon a fossil stuck in a rock outcropping near his home. Now identified as a previously unknown offshoot of extinct birds known as "phorusrhacids," or "terror birds," it is the largest bird ever known to have existed. It weighed, in its' time, about 400 pounds, and preyed on rodents the size of sheep.
Paleontologists at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, who examined the fossil, believe that the creature, although not able to fly, was quite speedy afoot. The beak was hooked to allow the slashing destruction of prey. The best news about Big Bird is that he disappeared from the Patagonian steppes about 15 million years ago.
Frodo was mildly interested in the discovery, but he was particularly struck by the "life-shaping" impact on the discoveror, Sr. Aguirre-Zabiala. The impressionable young man changed his major studies from psychology to paleontology and earth science as a result of his involvement in the discovery. Frodo thinks it is very noble that the young man should take such an interest in science, but to change his whole life as a result? Frodo supposes it is a good thing that Guillermo did not happen to discover a keg of ancient wine fermented by early European explorers. Imagine what might have happened to a sincere and intelligent young man like this had he otherwise have stumbled upon a cache of buried treasure?
He would probably have become a Republican.
