Impossibly Huge Dinos: Mystery Solved!
by Hugh Johnson


Every paleontologist is acutely aware of the problem. Even casual science
buffs scratch their heads over it. The question is this: How do you explain
Sauropods too huge to lug their weight around, and Pterosaurs too heavy to
alight for flight?

I believe I have found the answer in higher physics. I began looking to
physics with the idea that density fluctuations of weakly interacting
massive particles (WIMPs), popularly known as 'dark matter', may have slowly
changed the earth's gravitational constant over millions of years, and that
everything may have weighed less eons ago. Unfortunately, this turned out to
be an unworkable hypothesis, since the outward pull of extra-atmospheric
WIMPs would offset the inward pull of WIMPs orbiting the earth's core or
passing through our bodies. However, it was during my perusal of the physics
literature that I stumbled upon this astonishing set of seemingly unrelated
facts:

1) The controversial Pons-Fleischmann cell -- the famous mechanism of cold
fusion power generation -- resembles nothing so much as a large animal's
gizzard; a flask-like container full of spheroids, bathed in a continually
replenishing watery medium.

2) Heavy atomic isotopes were more common on earth when the planet was
young. These isotopes included deuterium, the major constituent of 'heavy
water' and the fuel used in fusion reactions.

3) Helium is a major byproduct of deuterium fusion reactions.

4) Helium is an inert, very lightweight element, which does not combine into
chemical compounds and which cannot be trapped in the earth's gravity well
over long periods of time. A helium atom, left undisturbed, will always find
its way to the outer fringes of the earth's atmosphere, where it will be
blown away by the faint solar wind. Thus, science has never been able to
explain the presence of helium in deposits of natural gas and other fossil
fuels.

5) Sauropods bear a striking resemblance to helium-filled blimps and
dirigibles.

With these facts in mind, I now assert -- contrary to conventional wisdom --
that sauropod dinosaurs were NOT built like absurdly huge "fermentation
vats", designed to digest primitive plants. Rather, they began their
evolutionary odyssey as unremarkable-looking creatures who developed the
trick of producing energy by nuclear fusion. A simple mutation of the
gizzard is all it would take to set them apart from the iguanadons and
hadrosaurs. We can imagine these unremarkable beasts stationed beside a
watering-hole, drinking and urinating a steady stream, drawing energy from
heavy water while fulfilling their modest protein needs with pond scum and
bottom silt. Their necks grew longer to reach deeper water as the heavy
isotopes grew scarce. Eventually, their necks were so long and unwieldy that
they could not walk without lightening the load somehow, and that's when
they began storing helium in their little-used gastrointestinal tracts.

For millions of years, they existed as balloon-like floaters, at the mercy
of the winds. When the weather cooperated, they would hover head-down above
the water, regularly lowering themselves for a drink by expelling helium
from their gas-bag colons. However, the slightest breeze could take them
away, and as desertification spread, with fewer ponds dotting the land, this
became an increasing threat. Obviously, they needed their own propulsion and
control, as sure as balloons evolve into dirigibles. This is where their
symbiotic relationship with pterosaurs comes in.

A one-sided relationship had already developed. The pterosaurs doubtless
began as simple surface-swimmers, diving for fish and jumping up onto the
jutting perch-like sauropod legs when the nose-down sauropods were
half-submerged. The pterosaurs learned that if they stayed on those perches
while the sauropods rose back into the air, they would get a broader aerial
view of the fish, and they could dive with more certainty of making a catch.
Membranes of skin evolved to give them a wider glide-path on their dives.
Eventually, the membranes became wings, and the pterosaurs helped the
sauropods to fight the winds, like propellers on a powered balloon, so the
whole symbiotic rookery could remain safely over water.

The one problem remaining for the pterosaurs was their lack of control over
altitude. They grew too big and heavy themselves to provide lift; their role
was strictly propulsion and directional control. However, the sauropod's
stumpy tail provided a perch for one pterosaur to stopper the gas-bag with
its beak, thus controlling emissions. This solution then brought a problem
of its own: Who wants to be the loser sitting up their with his face buried
in a giant anus, while everyone else is out fishing? Thus, the pterosaurs
began to prefer long-tailed sauropods, so that more than one of them could
perch there and take turns with altitude-control responsibilities.

Over time, the sauropod's lengthening tail balanced the weight of its neck,
and the flight angle changed. The pterosaurs abandoned their perches on the
legs and took up positions only on the neck and tail. Aerodynamics improved
vastly as the whole assemblage began to look more and more like a sleek
powered airship. Huge fleets of sauropod/pterosaur dirigibles became a
common sight far inland, as they searched for new watering holes to exploit.
Watering holes became mere base-camps, as the pterosaurs learned dry-land
hunting skills, and grew increasingly adventurous, and spread a reign of
terror everywhere. But this was their undoing.

Too many times, the pterosaurs pushed their luck, feeling cocky and in
control. They rode their giant flying steeds too far from water. The helium
ran low; the creatures were stranded, all of them too heavy to budge on
their own. And what little helium was left, well, that's what we find in our
fossil fuel deposits -- the graves of those poor misguided aeronauts so long
ago.

And that's exactly how it happened. And you heard it here first.