Dinosaur Empire! (Earth Before Us #1): Journey through the Mesozoic Era
if I manage to somehow learn everything about dinosaurs in the next 24 hours Who even needs to learn about dinosaurs anyway They've been dead for more than a million years probably Dinosaurs eh And some things that aren't dinosaurs I guess like pterosaurs and marine reptiles Everybody thinks those are dinosaurs because they lived at the same time but guess what They aren't What are you doing sitting in your recycling bin Miss Lernin That's not important What is important is your education Yes Did you say you had a chance to redo this quiz tomorrow and secure your future in academia if you somehow learned everything about dinosaurs and other ancient beasts in the next 24 hours Then you're in luck because I happen to know quite a bit about the subject from my days as a paleontologist
And I think you'll find my teaching methods to be quite immersive Come along learning awaits What You want to get a good grade right Climb in we have much to see Huh it's bigger than expected Whoa a LOT bigger than expected
How is this possible Welcome to the Time Tunnel which transports us through time and space Let's just call it Science Magic Nope we are now in THE LEARNING CENTER a nice relaxing spot perfect for learning I thought I was supposed to learn about dinosaurs Are we still in the recycling bin Don't worry we'll come back to that I brought you here to learn the all important BASICS OF EVOLUTION EVOLUTION is COOL
As for evolution it's what happens when a group of organisms changes to better survive in the environment around it and the ecological niche it occupies Sorry maybe we should define some terms first Where it lives what it eats An ecological niche is the place a creature has in an environment Another important term is common ancestor which is the creature from which multiple other kinds of creatures evolved and what eats it The ancestor they have in common And as for evolution it's a process that usually happens very very slowly over millions of years and is happening all the time It doesn't happen in animals that are already born It happens through small changes in the DNA of an organism's babies These changes are called mutations ULTIMATE IT IS I YOUR BEAUTIFUL CHILD DANG THAT'S LONG LONG LONGER GOOD BOY 1 MILLION YEARS A dog can't suddenly evolve wings if it wants to Sometimes a mutation helps an organism survive longer than its relatives Which means it can have more babies than the nonmutated organisms MY BABIES ARE THE BEST AT BEING ALIVE THE STRIPES CONFUSE PREDATORS and pass down its mutation to those babies
