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All in Esoterica
You’ve probably heard it more than once: “The chicken is the closest living relative to T. rex.” And, sorry, but that is a misleading statement. Birds are the closest living relative to T. rex. All birds. Not just chickens. Birds. How did this crazy half-truth got started in the first place? I tell the whole tale right here.
A few years ago, I wrote an article about the dino/chicken connection. It has proven to be one the most popular posts on my blog. But ever since I took the time to research and write that article, I’ve been sensitized to the continuing drumbeat repetition of the half-truth of that “The chicken is the closest living relative to T. rex.” The time has come, I’ve decided, for me to do what I can to set the record straight. And while I’m at it I’ll delve into how this crazy half-truth got started in the first place.
I get a steady trickle of messages from readers, and that’s great! I love hearing from you! This was a banner week - with a superb question about car-eating chickens and a torrent of messages about the dinosaur/chicken connection from Oklahoma middle-schoolers.
Do you think of chickens as your feathered friends? Or do you consider them to be beady-eyed, sharp-beaked minions of evil? If the second sentence describes you, perhaps you have alektorophobia.
Not only are South American chickens very strange birds, but they’ve been in South America way too long. When the Spanish first arrived in South America they noted the fact that there were already chickens there! People were keeping domestic chickens! Chickens, like cows, pigs, and sheep, are supposedly Old-World animals. So what were they doing in South America before the Old-World explorers/conquerors got there? How did they get there? Flying saucers, anybody?
There’s an ongoing serious Salmonella outbreak occurring among folks who keep backyard chickens, and CDC’s best response is to continue to trot out essentially the same old list of impractical rules. Why is nobody working on eliminating Salmonella from chickens in general and backyard flocks in particular? In this post I suggest a strategy.
We went to beautiful and geologically unique southeastern Minnesota and found CHICKENS! Also, how long chickens live, chicken saddles, and the coolest chicken coop ever!
What innate weirdness dwells in the human psyche that compels us to domesticate an animal just so we can watch it fight?
After our pet chicken dies, then what? We are often loath to talk about it, because too many people just don’t get it. While nearly everybody understands the importance of our cats and dogs in our lives, to most folks, chickens are “just chickens.”
Was Tyrannosaurus rex really just a big chicken? Are chickens are the closest living relative to Tyrannosaurus rex? Are chickens directly descended from T. rex? Are chickens dinosaurs? All your questions answered right here!
