Neptune's Dolphins

To answer the question “do dinosaurs have Gods” means venturing into Deep Time (Note 1), beyond the time of humans. In terms of the age of the planet, humans are very young, having emerged about four million years ago (mya). Therefore, going into Deep Time means traveling to alien landscapes of little-known ages.

 

Humans carry the genes of the original mammals, who carry the genes of the original reptiles, back on in time. Hence, our Deep Ancestors are within us. We do receive glimmerings of Them from our subconscious. Moreover, inherited memories do surface from time to time in our dreams. Sometimes when doing very basic activities, such as berry picking, we receive flashes of a “before time” of early humans.

 

For those who believe in reincarnation, Alan Kardec (Note 2), the founder of Spiritism (Note 3) notes that the “souls” of extinct species will enter modern species that are biologically close. As these animals reincarnate, their consciousness increases. Therefore, Mammoths have become elephants, who have memories of prehistory as Mammoths. Hence, elephants will have the knowledge of the Gods of their Ancestors.

 

In his book, “Karma and Reincarnation in the Animal Kingdom,” David Barreto, metaphysicist, explains that each species has an energetic structure. The subtle body of each dying animal will merge with an embryo with a similar energy. These energetic threads connect each species through lifetimes reaching back in prehistory.

 

Exploring this idea further, Barreto says that every animal species has a particular frequency. This frequency of the animal spirit will correlate with the frequencies of Divine Spirits. He asserts that each species will vibrate and mesh with these Beings with similar affinities. Barreto believes that these “Divine Animals” will stabilize the liminal place between the Gods and humans. That is why Odin and the Morrigan have raven companions. Meanwhile, Ratatoskr, the Squirrel Spirit, lives among the Norse Gods.

 

In my meditative journeys into Deep Time, I have received glimpses of various animals and the Gods they worship. The first was Anomalocaris (“odd shrimp”) of the Cambrian Seas (500 mya). This exotic looking animal preyed on Trilobites, cracking their shells open. I sensed Herne the Hunter riding with Anomalocaris. I did see this animal leave offerings to the Hunter.

 

Diplocaulus, the Lepospondyl with the boomerang head, lived in the swamps of the Permian (290 mya). I felt that this amphibian-like animal liked to play, splashing her friends with her strange head. Dionysus, the Greek God of Play and Fertility, looked kindly on her and the other “amphibians.” Diplocaulus did leave offerings of fish to her Gods.

 

The piglike Lystrosaurus survived the Permian extinction (250 mya) to become the most abundant of the large mammals on the Earth at that time. This Therapsid (mammal-like reptile) was the link of continuing life from the Permian to the Triassic. Living like a pig, he rooted in the earth and browsed odd plants. Yahweh adopted Lystrosaurus, leading him and others to the Promised Lands, where they could survive.

 

Dinosaurs, as a rule, do not associate with humans. Therefore, to know their Gods is difficult. However, the Allosaurus, the “lion of the Jurassic,” a large theropod (Note 4) dinosaur and relative of the T.-rex, was willing to talk to me. Known for her scrappiness, Allosaurus had a rough life. As her God, Mars led her and her companions in war and defense.

 

Arsinoitherium (Note 5), a doubled-horned rhino lived in North Africa. Wallowing about, this rhino-like animal enjoyed the mangrove swamps. Living in the Eocene epoch (55 mya), Arsinoitherium regarded the Goddess of the Nile, Anuket as her God, since Anuket provided for her.

 

The Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus) is well-known to people. His coarse hair enabled him to thrive during the Ice Age. In close relations with people, he provided food and shelter for humans. Ullr, the ancient Norse Gods of the hunt, travels with the Woolly Mammoth.

 

What I have discovered is that humans know little of the lives of those who have gone on before. To delve into Deep Time takes patience and a sense of humility. Since these Spirits are the Deep Ancestors of life on earth, the Gods are a part of their lives.

 

Notes:

Note 1. “Deep Time,” introduced by geologist John McPhee in 1981, is geologic time which is a vast period of the ages of the Earth. Deep Time is divided into eons which are divided into eras, periods, epochs, and ages respectively. Humans live in the Cenozoic Era, 65 mya to present, while the Earth itself is believed to be 5,000 million years old.

 

Note 2. Alan Kardec (pen name of Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail) published “The Spirits Book” (“Le Livre des Espirits”) in 1857. This book became the foundation text of Spiritism.

 

Note 3. Spiritism is not to be confused with Spiritualism, a social religious movement of the 19th century. (Spiritism is also known as Kardecism, since Kardec founded the religion.) In Spiritism, people benefit from the teachings of the Spirits. However, they do not need to believe in the manifestations of these Spirits.

 

Living side by side with Mammoths, Mastodons colonized Eurasia and North America about fifteen million years ago. As browsers, They preferred to live in spruce forests and open woodlands. During the winter, Mastodons had a double coat of fur to prevent Them from freezing in the icy cold. However, they preferred warmer climates to live in.

 

Fossil Mastodons have been found with full stomachs, indicating that They consumed about 500 pounds (1,000 kilos) of food each day. Since their enormous appetites drove Them to seek more and more food, Mastodons roamed the countryside endlessly searching for food. Mastodons tramped through forests to feast on moss and twigs of cedar, larch, pine, and spruce trees. Their hunger drove Them deeper into bogs and swamps in search of food, where They died.

 

Mastodons teach to look closer and think. Do not mistake Them for their cousins, the Mammoths. Examine the differences before making a judgment. If you do not ponder what you see, you may mindlessly end up stuck in a bog. Take care in what you do.

 

Like other Theropods, T. rex walked on two legs, and was a member of the Saurischia Sub-order (also known as “Lizard-hipped dinosaurs”). She was the last in a very successful branch of the Theropods known as the Tyrannosauridae. This is important to know, since T. rex was originally thought to be a close relative of Allosaurus and other Carnosaurs (large Meat-eaters). However later studies proved that She was a member of the Coelurosauria Family, who are related to Birds. In fact, young T. rexes had proto feathers before shedding them for the scales of an adult.

 

A nightmare for other Dinosaurs, T. rex possessed a keen sense of smell to hunt Hadrosaurs and Triceratops. (Unlike popular depictions, T. rex did not hunt Stegosaurus of the Jurassic Period.) Because T. rex was the only major meat eater of her time, scientists think that adolescent T. rex filled an important ecological niche. Studies show that teen-age T. rex had a longer childhood than other Dinosaurs and filled the niche of middle-size predators. Being constantly hungry, teenage T. rex scoured the countryside in search of food (much like human teen-agers).

 

Stouter than other Tyrannosaurs, adult T. rex had more powerful legs to pursue her prey. Meanwhile adolescent T. rexes ran faster than many other Dinosaurs. As the most terrifying of Dinosaurs, T. rex had giant spikes for teeth. With these teeth, She pierced and gripped her prey. Using her powerful jaws, T. rex crushed bones and ripped away large chunks of meat from her unfortunate victim.

 

T. rex is more than an eating machine or icon. She is a complex being who we have yet to discover more about. Every idea that we had about Her we were forced to discard upon learning new knowledge. T. rex challenges us to explore and to give up our intellectual conceits.

 

As adolescent T. rex relentlessly explores her territory, so we can explore to satisfy our intellectual hunger. She teaches us not to be afraid of our intellect but allow it to mature. Embrace her fierceness and let T. rex guide you in your pursuits. With Her by your side, you can become more than you are. However, do not become so domineering that you frighten everyone away.

 

This iconic dinosaur was found in 1876 in Colorado by M.P. Felch. However, Othniel Charles Marsh, the famous dinosaur hunter, named the animal in 1877. He called this dinosaur “Stegosaurus” which means “roof lizard”.

 

One thing that Marsh noticed was the famous plates of the Stegosaurus. He reasoned that these plates overlapped on the dinosaur’s back. Resembling a shingled beast, the Stegosaurus had to be a giant turtle. Thus began the great Stegosaurus plate debate. What were these plates for? How were they placed on the dinosaur? Even today, paleontologists debate the reason for these plates.

 

After deciding that the plates were not “roof shingles”, various naturalists then placed them down the dinosaur’s back in a single row. Later, scientists decided that the plates went down in two rows next to each other. However, after a fossil find of a nearly complete skeleton, paleontologists realized that these plates alternated down the Stegosaurus’ back in two rows.

 

What were the plates used for? First everyone thought that the plates deterred dinosaurs from jumping onto the animal’s back. However, the major fallacy of this theory was that the plates were too delicate to withstand such an attack. Moreover, the Stegosaurus was vulnerable to attack from the sides.

 

Then blood vessels were discovered running through the plates. After that, new theories came to the fore. These plates could be infused with blood to frighten off attackers. They could be used in mating – the brightest male won the attentions of the females. The plates could tell the individual dinosaurs apart much like a zebra’s stripes.

 

The prevailing theory is that the plates were temperature controls. Like the sail on the Dimetrodon’s back, these plates would warm up or cool down the Stegosaurus. However, no one really knows what the plates are for. Personally, I think that the plates exist to baffle scientists, and to prod them to keep on asking questions.

 

Marsh made other errors about the Stegosaurus that still plague paleontologists today. He named various species of the Stegosaurus family based on incomplete fossils or mixed-up ones. Several species that he named were juveniles of a single species. Meanwhile, other early naturalists mistook some fossils from other species for Stegosaurus’ ones. Today, scientists are sorting out the various species, and have placed the taxonomy of the Stegosaurus family under extensive review.

 

Another fallacy that Marsh made was to claim that the Stegosaurus had a second brain in His butt. Two reasons for this were the large size of the animal, and the cavity found in His spinal region. Because the Stegosaurus had a large body to small brain ratio, people reasoned that the dinosaur must have had something to control His legs and tail. The second brain theory would fit for a dinosaur with a walnut-sized brain. However, the cavity in the hip area is something common to sauropods in general.

 

Moreover, the small size of the brain of the Stegosaurus became something applied to other dinosaurs. Since this dinosaur was one of the earliest to be found, people reasoned that the other dinosaurs must have had small brains as well. The conclusion became that all dinosaurs were stupid and went extinct as a result. The truth of the matter was that the Stegosaurus had a very narrow head with a beak, while the other dinosaurs had bigger brains.

 

Apatosaurus changed people’s notions of how Dinosaurs moved. Before her discovery, early paleontologists believed that Dinosaurs walked like modern Lizards. They supposedly spread their legs from side to side, and walked with their bellies close to the ground. Robust Apatosaurus demonstrated that Dinosaurs stood upright on flat-soled feet and walked like Elephants.

 

Although Apatosaurus cleared up one Dinosaur mystery, She caused more confusion in other areas of paleontology. When She was first discovered, her fossils were mixed-up with a Mosasaurus, an aquatic Reptile. This created an odd looking Dinosaur. After that was sorted out, paleontologists were still unsure about what She looked like. Skulls of Sauropods, the Family that Apatosaurus belonged to, were lightweight and therefore rarely preserved. When her skeleton was found next to a Camarasaurus, who had an intact skull, scientists thought that his skull was hers. Although the two Dinosaurs were Sauropods, Camarasaurus was a Big-nosed Sauropod, whilst Apatosaurus belonged to the Whip-tailed sub-Family. Only recently did scientists recognize that the skull was not hers.

 

During the “Bone Wars” (1877-95), Othniel C. Marsh competed with Edward D. Cope over who discovered and named the most Dinosaurs. In 1877, Marsh found and named Apatosaurus. Two years later, Marsh found bones of what he thought was another Sauropod. He named this new “species,” “Brontosaurus.” In 1905, the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven (US) displayed a copy of “Brontosaurus,” thereby cementing this Dinosaur in the public’s mind. However two years before, another paleontologist Elmer Rigs had proved that the two Dinosaurs were the same. But Apatosaurus continued to be referred to as “Brontosaurus.” In 1989, the U.S. Post Office issued stamps of Dinosaurs featuring “Brontosaurus,” explaining that that is what people called Apatosaurus.

 

 

Living in the Late Jurassic in North America, Apatosaurus was a sturdy Sauropod, with a medium-sized head and neck. Using her pegged teeth, She stripped off leaves from conifers for food. Since She had no good chewing teeth, Apatosaurus swallowed small stones to ground up the leaves for digestion. Unlike early erroneous depictions of Her, Apatosaurus was actually an elegant slender Dinosaur, with spikes on her neck and tail, who held her slim tail out as She walked.

 

Apatosaurus lives at the intersection of reality and imagination. The reality is a refined Sauropod who roamed the countryside searching for conifers to eat. The imagination is “Brontosaurus,” the Thunder Lizard,” a stout Dinosaur who shook the ground as He walked. The Nexus holds both, who co-exist in our lives and minds. Each Dinosaur gives us insight into our reality and thoughts, and guides us through the multiple dimensions of our lives. Follow both into the inner and outer reaches of the Universe, and discover more.

 

Human-Dinosaur relations reflect the worst excesses of the western intellectual tradition. Since the discovery of dinosaur bones, humans have defined themselves in terms of dinosaurs. Noted paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has said that humans are fascinated by dinosaurs because “they are big, fierce, and extinct.” The narrative that western intellectual tradition has bequeathed to us is the one of how man became the “master of the universe,” while these “beasts” went extinct.

 

According to this cultural account, dinosaurs were slow, unwitting beasts who were no match for the quick, and agile humans. Since dinosaurs could not adapt to their changing environment, they died out. Humans, on the other hand, are smarter and more intelligent, and therefore would continue to reign supreme. (This is the retelling of the Bible story of the Christian God granting Adam and his descendants, dominion over all the earth, for rational intellectuals.)

 

Cultural historian W.J.T. Mitchell explores how humans used dinosaurs to advance their own agendas, in his book “The Last Dinosaur Book.” According to Professor Mitchell, the dinosaur became the “totem animal of modernity.” As American culture changes, the scientific view of the dinosaur is then reconstructed. From the 1900s to 1930s, the active, edgy paintings of Charles Knight displayed in the American Museum of Natural History (New York City) reflected the instability and volatility of the United States, at the time. The staid and stolid dinosaurs of the 1950s were more about cultural reinterpretations rather than current advancements in paleontological discoveries. The dinosaur narrative in America, Mitchell notes reflects American exceptionalism and the peculiar focus of Americans on “the pursuit of happiness.”

 

To work with Dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex told me to ask Iguanodon, who has always been patient with humans ever since they found her tooth in 1820. (Humans had originally thought that Iguanodon was an ancient iguana.) From Her, I learned Dinosaur etiquette, and why They disliked humans. The big purple dinosaur who entertained tots was just the tip of the iceberg in Dinosaur grievances against humans. Iguanodon also told me that the Dinosaurs were the ones who had me study paleontology, since They wanted their stories to be told as precisely as They dictated.

 

Since the discovery of the Iguanodon tooth, dinosaur bones have been dug up, stolen, sold, bargained for, and destroyed by humans purporting to increase scientific knowledge. The “Bone Wars” between American paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Coper lasted from the 1870s to the 1890s. Throughout the fossil rich American West, these two men deliberately destroyed dinosaur bones and the sites where they found them, in order to keep each other from using these bones in their work. The egos of Marsh and Cope fueled their feud, not their passion for scientific discovery and the advancement of knowledge.

 

Given that their Dead receive so little respect, even today, Dinosaurs usually want nothing to do with humans. Their bones are displayed, in various contortions in open halls, where screaming children pay Them little notice. Before humans can have any discourse with Dinosaurs, reparations have to be made. Therefore, to approach Dinosaurs is to first learn the human history of Them. Then, learn about Dinosaurs properly. And finally, remember that Dinosaurs prize etiquette and manners above all else, especially from humans.