Daily Note
Every day, a photograph, a poem.
During a sad trip to North Dakota when my brother passed away, I snapped this photo of the ceiling of the Bismarck Airport where replicas of the fossils Pteranodon [pterosaurs] flew below the clouds painted there.
The toothless Pteranodon are flying reptiles, not dinosaurs [though related], and lived like the albatross— soaring on thermals searching for fish above the ocean. Albatross have ten foot wing spans and the Pteranodon had twenty foot wingspans. The creatures lived by the ocean that covered eastern North Dakota sixty-six million years ago in the Cretaceous period.
Matt Martyniuk, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
These flying reptile fossils were found in the Hell Creek Formation and the replicas were funded by the USDA Forest Service-Dakota Prairie Grasslands. For more information about the display, download the brochure by John W. Hoganson from the Department of Mineral Resources, North Dakota.
And so, a poem…
Poetry
Flying Reptiles
If you were alive
Sheri Edwards
millions of years ago near
the seashore, look up
when the huge shadow passes
to watch the toothless flying reptile,
pteranodon, soar above you:
luckily it only eats fish.
04.04.24 095.365.24
Poetry/Photography
Photo: April 4, 2019
I wonder, if I draw a line... 