Cold Valentine

good morning jack

2026-10-11T00:03:14.479-04:00

T R A P E Z E

love

dad

coldValentine

Vision

2026-10-10T00:03:21.295-04:00

H U M A N E Y E

The eye senses light and passes along this information

to the brain. The mind's visual cortex receives these

impulses and constructs from them your view of reality.

The mind relies on prior experience to fill in gaps that

may occur in transmission. It also collaborates with the

emotional center of the mind to provide editorial guidance.

Stumbling upon a rotting carcass covered in maggots

provides a splendid opportunity to respond with a

gagging sense of revulsion.

B A L D E A G L E

The eagle's high eye resolution enables it to detect

a rabbit from two miles away. Its eye has five times

the light detecting sensors found in the human eye.

The trade-off is that the eagle's world view is mostly

grey shaded monochromatic. Their eyes are packed

with light and motion sensitive rods, leaving almost

no room for the eye's color-responding cones.

S U M A T R A N T I G E R

The black and white nocturnal vision of the

Sumatran Tiger enables it to ambush wild boar,

deer and monkey in the dim light of the rainforest

as well as the dark of night. You cannot see it

but it definitely has its eyes on you.

W H A L E

The left eye of the whale has an entirely different

watery view of the world from its opposite on the right.

They see most poorly in every direction, except for

in front. They have no view of the direction they are

headed, explaining one reason why whales are known

to run into boats, buoys and fishing nets. This applies

mostly to the plankton eating baleen whales, such as

the blue whale and gray whale.

Predatory toothed whales use bat-like echolocation

to chase down their prey.

C O Y O T E

The eyes of a coyote are best suited for hunting in

the fullest of night and at dusk. But their noses and

their ears play the more important role in the life of

this predator. Their highly sensitive nose is best used

for tracking prey while their directional ears quickly

detect the slightest movement and the precise

direction from which it came.

B A T

Bats are not blind. They have eyes of varying ability.

Eye vision shows a bat its relationship with the horizon

and a heads up on large obstacles. Echolocation

is fine-tuned, providing a detailed map of the space

around it, in which to navigate and to hunt prey.

Fruit bats fly during the day and identify fruit with the

aid of color. Most have no capacity for echolocation.

Life forms generally don't waste scarce resources

on providing traits they don't need.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

Happy Birthday Jackson

2026-10-09T00:03:19.777-04:00

C I T Y O F I N D U S T R Y

Happy Birthday Jackson!

love

dad

coldValentine

good morning jessicca

2026-10-04T00:03:16.609-04:00

S U N D A E

love

dad

coldValentine

Reason

2026-10-03T00:03:11.235-04:00

S E L F A W A R E

Vitruvian Man

da Vinci

Humans don't settle for just being.

We have our own specific identity

and we want it to have purpose.

Why do I exist?

What should I do?

How do I fit in?

These are questions requiring reflection -

objective observation of one's own personal

characteristics as well as one's role in society.

Physical sustenance alone is never enough

to sustain the life of the mind.

A G R I C U L T U R E

Farming. Growing crops for future food.

Provide water and protection for the plants.

You understand time as a string of days.

There is a time to plant, time to nurture and

time to harvest. These seasons repeat as a

group into a year. Tracking the paths of stars

in the night sky enabled ancient farmers to

calculate where they were in the plant's

life cycle. Observation and simple math

enabled humanity to harvest a surplus,

providing enough food to support the

creation of towns.

E N G I N E E R I N G

Ziggurat of Ur

2100 BC

You need a plan.

What will it look like?

How long will it take?

How many builders will be needed ?

What kind of material is best to use?

What about the weather?

Where's the money?

We will need engineers and mathematicians.

Of course, this all has to be recorded so hire

a good number of scribes.

P O L I T I C S

What a clever species we are.

We organize to get things done.

Someone has to be in charge.

Rulers were made King.

Laws are made to govern behavior.

Disputes arise between societies that

sometimes require the lethal use of force.

Politics involves the acquiring of power

and then its efficient use for governing.

A R T

Venus of Willendorf

About 30,000 years ago someone carved

the woman of their desire. She was

four inches tall, a token of sensual form.

Her compact curves fit comfortably in the

palm of one's hand - just small enough

to take with you wherever your group

chanced to wander.

The head is under a basket. Could be

this prehistoric artist figured carving

facial features too difficult. Could be

that art doesn't always follow logic.

F A I T H

Life ever lasting. Heaven awaits those

of faith. It is a sacred story involving

redemption, as God had his son crucified

for the sake of cleansing humanity of

their sins.

Stories of faith address questions that have

answers science cannot provide. Like matters

of the spirit, sacred events leave no physical

trance for our detection. Undoubtedly,

much remains beyond the ability of our

current scientific instruments to discover.

But it will still need to be physical to detect.

Organizations promoting spiritual values often

validate human feelings of empathy, as well as

setting standards for decency and fairness.

Love thy neighbor.

What a concept.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

good morning jeremy

2026-09-27T00:03:29.739-04:00

G U L L S

love

dad

coldValentine

Recent Life

2026-09-26T00:03:27.788-04:00

H E S P E R O C Y O N / A N C I E N T D O G F A M I L Y

The long muzzled face looks like a dog.

The stance could be shared with a cat.

Long neck. Long tail. Too long for a

modern dog. The long torso allows for

considerable bend - like a greyhound.

The spring of the back adds to the animal's

propulsion. The leg's backward knee is

actually the animal's ankle. Beneath it

are the foot bones that never touch ground.

I C E A G E E L E P H A N T

The Pleistocene extends back over two million years.

It was a time of fluctuating cooling and warming climates.

At its peak the last Ice Age covered 30 percent of the

globe's land area. The fossils of this species of elephant

were uncovered in South America. Elephants populated

the Earth everywhere.

P A L A E O L O X O D O N A N T I Q U U S

Thirteen feet tall at the shoulders.

Just about fifteen tons on the scale.

It's hard to come up with the name

of a four-legged mammal that is larger.

The diverse and widespread family of

elephants is now reduced to a shrinking

pool, mostly domesticated or protected

inhabitants of government lands.

A L L I N T H E F A M I L Y

Flat footed. Every member of this family of species

uses its foot bones for feet, and not a leg extension.

The tree dwellers, Gibbons and Orangutan,

have arms that reach the full length of their body to

touch the ground. The Gorilla's head is larger than the

human's but half of its skull is made up of a massive jaw.

Only the human stance is totally vertical. What truly

stands out, though, is the size of the human cranium,

where the brain resides, holding within its confines

the ability of reason and imagination.

P R I M A T E R E S O R T

This lakeside resort is representative of a Pleistocene

environment that primates of all sorts continue to favor.

It has a healthy forest, access to plenty of water as well

as providing a comfortable, mild climate for lounging.

It's ideal for gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees and

gorillas. Humans would add a Hyatt.

S A B E R T O O T H

11,000 years ago Ice Age saber toothed tigers

inhabited what is now Los Angeles. There were likely

human witnesses to the likes of these Saber Tooths,

Mammoth Elephants and Giant Sloughs.

It is in this arena that human awareness may first

separate these people from the ancients.

It is the isolation of human consciousness.

A new story begins.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

good morning justin

2026-09-20T00:03:21.126-04:00

S U N D A Y I N T H E P A R K

love

dad

coldValentine

Asteroid

2026-09-19T00:03:15.937-04:00

A G E O F D I N O S A U R S

The dinosaurs dominated the landscape for

175 million years.

A S T E R O I D I M P A C T

One day 66 million years ago an asteroid 7 miles across

hit the Earth with the force of a speeding bullet.

The impact liquified rock twenty miles deep.

A mile high tsunami resulted. Clouds of debris blocked

sunlight for years, destroying photosynthesis because

of the widespread plant die offs. 75% of all animal

species were swept from existence as starvation and

toxins took their toll.

T O X I C V O L C A N T I C G A S

A second source of catastrophic death was also

occurring in India as volcanic eruptions belched

toxic gases, rich in sulfur, into the atmosphere.

The Earth's plants were not only cut off from

their ultimate energy bar, the sun, but the rain

came laced with chemicals only a refinery

would appreciate.

A G E O F M A M M A L S

The world is an empty place.

The noise and nuisances of life are gone.

Every life strategy you can think of is available

to those able to show up. Recovery from mass extinction

begins immediately.

First off, who are our survivors?

Generally speaking, small seed-eating animals

that can survive long periods without food.

Eventually DNA fills this land of opportunities

with animal improvisations of every sort.

The species best engineered to meet the

circumstance wins out over time. But

success is not guaranteed. There are always

new challenges that must first be met.

E L E P H A N T B I R D

The large bipedal predator like T. rex was gone.

An ostrich type bird eventually developed enough

to occupy this long empty niche. The musclebound

legs say this bird would never get off the ground.

A small head with a bird bill replaces a massive

jaw filled with teeth as in the earlier dinosaur version.

Apparently useless wings replace clawed forearms.

No need for a tail as counterbalance to the weight

of a heavy head and neck up front because of

its nonexistence.

This bird was a dinosaur with feathers.

P R I M A T E A N C E S T O R

The oldest known species of primate lineage.

Purgatorius appears in the fossil record about

100,000 years following the Cretaceous - Paleocene

extinction. It probably ate seeds and lived in trees

like a squirrel. The prominent nose makes it

easier to track down buried seeds.

How horrified they might have been

once they found out their distant offspring

would turn out to be apes.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

good morning jacob

2026-09-13T00:09:17.014-04:00

S O N I C

love

dad

coldValentine

Pterosaur

2026-09-12T00:03:09.490-04:00

H A T Z E G O P T E R Y X

They aren't dinosaurs but they grew up

in the same neighborhood along side

T. rex and Triceratops. They were

lightweight and agile, and they had wings.

P T E R A N O D O N

The first vertebrates to fly - true sustained

flight. Genetic roll of the dice stumbled upon

the solution by elongating the fourth finger

of the animal's forearm to enormous length.

Every Pterosaur had this basic wing

arrangement.

L U S O G N A T H U S

Tens of millions of years of uninterrupted tropical bliss

over most of the globe. Life was good.

Everyone knew their place in the grand scheme of

things. Earthly paradise had become the law of nature.

P T E R O S A U R I A

The Crustaceous was a time of behemoths

roaming the land. Even the flying reptiles

the size of a giraffe were able to become

airborne despite packing the weight of 550 pounds.

A R A M B O U R G L A N I A

A number of Pterosaur species had developed

wings that also served as forelegs. This approach

could provide a good living for those prone to

browse among the brush for small animals.

K A R I R I D R A C O

The brain made up in efficiency what it lacked

in size. The area set aside for flight

control had a highly specialized division of labor.

Organization proved superior in performance

when compared with general purpose memory.

This entire class of animals died alongside

dinosaurs when an asteroid the size of

Mount Everest hit the Earth 66 million

years ago.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

good morning jackson

2026-09-06T00:03:28.324-04:00

B A C K A F T E R T H I S

love

dad

coldValentine

Morrison Formation

2026-09-05T00:03:13.949-04:00

S T E G O S A U R U S

Skull of the Stegosaurus, a Jurassic dinosaur with

bony plates lined upright along the crest of its

back and ending with four menacing spikes

at the tip of its tail. Its profile is iconic.

Its fossil remains populate a Jurassic layer

in western North America known as the

Morrison Formation. T. rex and Triceratops

are among the notable fossilized dinosaurs

discovered here.

M O R R I S O N F O R M A T I O N

This red layer over grey near Green River, Utah

shows the boundary between the Jurassic and

Cretaceous Periods. Jurassic is the red layer,

so the more recent Cretaceous would be deposited

above it. The red is the Morrison Formation, a

layer containing the fossils of over seventy species

of dinosaur from the Late Jurassic.

J U R A S S I C - C R E T A C E O U S F O S S I L S

Each name on this map identifies a proven spot for

good fossil hunting. Arid terrain. Little water for

soil erosion and for encouraging plants to explore

all about with their intrusive roots. The fossils

here have remained unmolested for over 60 million

years. Compare that with an ancient Egyptian mummy,

barely a rookie at ten thousand years.

D I P L O D O C U S

Standing on its hind legs keeps the throat

out of reach of these two attacking allosaurs.

The long whip of its tail delivers a supersonic

papercut to its target. You don't know you're cut

until your top half slides off the half holding your legs.

After all, the Diplodocus did not grow to over a

hundred feet by feeding all the neighborhood

with its flesh.

This is another Jurassic hall of famer found amidst

the Morrison Formation.

A L L O S A U R U S

It looks like the T. rex skeleton. Allosaurus

is an apex predator much like Tyrannosaurus.

They share the same basic design, but Allosaurus

lived 77 million years prior to T. rex. We are

closer to T. rex at 66 million years. Either way,

it is all a stack of infinities in human terms.

After all this time, the apex predator has changed

little in design. T. rex is essentially a scaled up version

of the 70 million year old Allosaurus body plan.

It has upgrades but nothing radically new.

The DNA strategy here:

Don't fix what ain't broke.

T Y R A N N O S A U R U S

T. rex. Nine ton maniac in the forest.

Smells your presence from a thousand feet,

and more. Binocular eyes gives it sharp, 3-D

vision. Its powerful forearms smother your

frantic efforts to break free, drawing you up

to its waiting mouth. Sixty spike-like teeth

cut short your dying words.

There is no empathy shown towards those

we delight in eating.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

Happy Anniversary Karen!

2026-08-31T00:03:29.168-04:00

K A R E N

H A P P Y A N N I V E R S A R Y !

love

tom

coldValentine

good morning jessicca

2026-08-30T00:03:18.431-04:00

S U N S E T

love

dad

coldValentine

Dinosaur

2026-08-29T00:03:14.386-04:00

S A U R O P O D

Long neck dinosaurs. They thrived on the Earth for

130 million years. To have a genetic lineage survive

this long requires numerous course corrections in order

to meet the planet's changing reality.

Land masses and bodies of water move about

the Earth's crust. Ancient mountains erode

while new ranges erupt. Wind streams are diverted

by new obstructions. Deserts blossom with new rain

while tropical swamps evaporate in drought.

Context rules the organism. A species conforms

to its changing challenges or it is lost.

A L A M O S A U R U S

The long neck serves to save energy.

The animal can feed off leaves in a tree's canopy

or consume plant fiber from the surrounding

low lying brush. Food is everywhere in reach

without this sauropod having to move its 70 tons.

The Alamosaurus doesn't chew its food.

Everything is swallowed whole and passed

along to a cavernous gut where all phases

of digestion occur. No chewing means the head

doesn't need a big jaw with massive muscles

for chewing. Small pegs are all the teeth

needed to strip leaves from a branch.

Nature does not suspend big heads on the

end of a thirty foot neck.

T R I C E R A T O P S

Triceratops, along with Stegosaurus, represent

a second branch of Jurassic dinosaurs. This

family of species were notable for its use of

bony armor for defense. The Stegosaurus

is known for having large, bony plates along

its back and three spikes at the end of its tail.

Triceratops had a ten foot armored head

with three fierce horns for protection.

T. rex was its most lethal adversary.

But Triceratops was no slouch.

At 8 tons and 30 feet in length, it was

equal in size to an African elephant.

Getting gored was a very real possibility

for even T. rex, the apex of predators.

S P I N O S A U R U S

Built like a dragon with a crocodile skull and conical

teeth to grip slippery fish. It made its living prowling the

ancient rivers of North Africa. Like the hippo and

modern whale, the Spinosaurus bone's were dense,

providing the animal with ballast - weight needed

to prevent bobbing and roll-over actions that counter

the individual's navigational control.

T H E R O P O D

This third branch of dinosaur development

provided the basis for both T. rex, terror of the

ages, as well as the lineage leading to modern

birds. The animals are all bipedal - they run on

their two hind legs. The front limbs are used for

grasping. Note the claws.

The skeleton above illustrates characteristics

basic to both types of animals - bird and terrestrial

predator. The leg is built for speed, with the bones

of its foot fused to extend the leg, much like that

of a cheetah's. The earliest birds used their powerful

legs to launch themselves into flight.

A R C H A E O P T E R Y X

Around 150 million years ago, late in the Jurassic

period, the first birds appeared in the fossil record.

They were reptiles covered in feathers. Other

reptiles also had feathers, but not ones fastened

to wings and designed for flight. Here was a

crow-sized reptile that could fly.

Archaeopteryx was the point when non-avian

dinosaur transitioned into a bird. It wasn't yet

complete. This bird had a jaw with teeth.

It retained a lizard-like tail. There was no large,

keeled breastbone to anchor robust flight muscles.

This primitive bird was underpowered.

Flight control could be a bit clumsy.

We're talking Kitty Hawk.

It's a beginning.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

Happy Birthday Karen!

2026-08-26T00:03:15.983-04:00

E N C H A N T M E N T

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y !

K A R E N

love

tom

coldValentine

good morning jeremy

2026-08-23T00:03:15.029-04:00

S W A M P D R A G O N

love

dad

coldValentine

Reptile

2026-08-22T00:03:14.309-04:00

A T O P O D E N T A T U S

This is one of those I see it but I don't believe it moments.

What advantage is there in having a hammerhead snout

for a mouth? The mass extinction of life at the end of

the Permian, left entire ecosystems drained of the normal

pushback provided by others. Before, you had to fight

for everything you needed. Just taking up space

required conflict with those around you.

Mass extinction has emptied the streets.

You can stroll into Macy's when you like

and take off with what you want. Every day.

Genetically speaking, animal designs developed

in this type of environment that would not

survive the normal competitive stresses

of just existing. These extraordinary times

brought about both innovators as well as

a healthy batch of quacks.

The process of genetics is driven by blindness.

Its course is set only by trial and error.

T A N Y S T R O P H E U S

Genetic design gives clues to the animal's context -

its environment. In this instance, an advantage

was gained by having a neck more than half the

length of its own body. Is this ungainly length used

to reach vegetation high up or does it make grabbing

fish easier when hovering from above?

How do you keep this animal from falling on its face

when out of water? The bones of the neck are hollow

to save weight. To counterbalance the head and neck

the animal has an enormous pelvis with massive

hind legs and a long tail. These are steps taken to

prop up a fundamentally unstable design.

This line of genetics was doomed once the right

species of predator was introduced into its

environment. Carnivores learned to target

the neck, because decapitation was a relatively

easy way to bring the animal down.

Extravagance comes with built-in vulnerability.

P L E S I O S A U R

Here is a classic marine design from the Triassic period.

The plesiosaur survived tens of millions of years, well

into the Jurassic period that followed. Pictured above

is a spectacular fossil from the time preceding the

Age of Dinosaurs. Look at the enormous fins.

They are limbs strengthened with solid bone.

The flipper becomes an oar, one of four,

paddling the animal swiftly through its

watery realm. The tail serves as the rudder.

making its maneuvers sharp enough to

capture elusive prey.

The fin's skeletal structure starts with a single large

bone that divides into several digits, each having

multiple joints to give the fin nuance in its sweep

through water. This sophisticated design enabled

the plesiosaur to maneuver like a sea lion,

or even a dragonfly as needed.

Here was our apex predator of the seas.

S P I N O S A U R U S

Crocodile jaw. Predator. About the height of a

two story home. Neural spines extend five feet

into the air. Could be used for thermoregulation,

much as the ear of an African elephant is used

to disperse heat into the surrounding air

or to absorb energy from the early morning sun.

The hind legs are longer but the front limbs

are more massive, with large pronounced digits

armed with claws. The large vertical tail propels

the animal when swimming.

It's the Creature from the Triassic Swamps.

S P I N O S A U R I D S

The Spinosaurus family gathered together,

all from the same lineage but each from

a different period in time. The crocodile

grin is iconic to this family of species.

In runs on two legs, using its tail for balance.

The shorter forearms are designed for grasping.

Among this group is the Spinosaurus with

the five foot neural crest, splashed with color

imaged by the artist. The use of vibrant color

usually means one of two things: either it is

meant to lure a mate or to be identified as a

member of a particular species.

It's a tribal thing.

T A W A H A L L A E

It's Late Triassic, 215 million years ago,

the first dinosaurs to show up in the

fossil record. The Tawa, Hopi language

for Sun God, was discovered in New Mexico,

Land of Enchantment.

The specimen illustrated here is about the

size of a large dog, thirty-five pounds,

and walks on two legs. Its reptilian head

could well be the basis for the skull of a

modern day raptor, like that of a hawk.

The Tawa had a highly efficient respiratory system

much like the one used by the birds we see daily.

It is possible this early dinosaur had already

come to use feathers for insulation.

These factors don't make this animal a bird

but it is evidence of bird characteristics

found in the earliest known species of dinosaurs.

* * * * *

OVER EASY

coldValentine

good morning justin

2026-08-16T00:03:32.312-04:00

B A C K S T O R Y

love

dad

coldValentine

Triassic

2026-08-15T00:03:13.712-04:00

S A U R I C H T H Y S

The Triassic Period began roughly 250 million years ago,

amidst the ruin left by the mass extinction that occurred

at the end of the Permian. Most of this planet's species

gone forever. Others survived. Their offspring, born into

a chaos that lasted the next few million years, the time

it took for life on Earth to recover.

M A S T O D O N T O S A U R U S

The world's biggest amphibian of all time.

A two ton salamander just crawled out of your lake.

The animal was aquatic, living its life mostly submerged.

What's the tip off? We've got a four thousand pound

pickled piece of luggage being paddled up an incline,

on four puny legs. It's a squirmy snail's pace, at best.

Nonetheless, the animal was a hall of famer of its day.

Our mastodon had a fishlike lateral line system,

sensitive to vibration and water pressure changes.

This enabled the animal to stalk its prey even in

the murkiest of waters.

T R I A D O B A T R A C H U S

Madagascar, 250 million years ago.

Here is our ancestor to the frog.

A diamond in the rough.

It has that flat, broad frog head.

The hind legs have that unique frog stance.

The forearms are ready to buffer a hard landing.

But you're not going to get an explosive spring

from these sadly undersized legs.

And the torso is too big. It's a salamander

with fourteen vertebrae versus as few as

four in the modern, compact frog.

The Triassic frog is still a generic.

Its simple philosophy:

stay hydrated.

L Y S T R O S A U R U S

Plant eater. Mammal-like reptile. Resilient.

Survivor of the Permian mass extinction.

The legs sprawl like most any primitive vertebrate.

The Triassic climate can be both extreme and

volatile. This animal burrows to escape the heat.

It has barrel-chested lung capacity in order

to survive low oxygen situations.

The environment was high mortality.

The favored biological response to this

adversity is to grow up fast and breed early.

There are no individual star performances here.

It's a numbers game with this population.

Make sure you've punched your ticket before

you leave.

C Y N O G N A T H U S

The Middle Triassic apex predator. Wolf size.

Does that skull not remind you of a mammal?

Here is our first look at a future dog or lion's head.

Get a load of those legs. Nearly directly under

the body. Built for speed and power.

Fossil hunters have found this animal's identical

remains in both South Africa and South America.

They were the identical terrestrial species and

yet they were separated by three thousand miles

of the Atlantic. Continental drift supplied the

explanation.

The Earth's crust is not static.

The continents sit atop large plates that collide,

reform and intermingle over the hundreds of

millions of years, a process normally too slow

for us to take notice. Mount Everest grows

about an inch higher every year because

India is slowly colliding into Asia.

Come on. Who would believe that?

D I A D E M O D O N

This guy is about our oldest ancestral mammal,

the stepping stone separating reptiles from mammals.

It eats most anything edible. Your dental work

comes with incisors, two pair of canines, and now with

premolars for slicing and crushing. And they fit

perfectly when you close your mouth. With

the needle teeth of reptiles it is sometimes

hit or miss whether you can close your mouth,

at all. Imagine. Now you can chew the toughest

plants or crunch the biggest bone, thanks to your

massive, powerful jaws and state of the art dentures.

The Diademodon comes complete with an opposing

first digit for better grasping, a highly sensitized nose

and a sophisticated middle ear for excellent hearing.

The animal is the first step in moving from primitive

reptile into the path towards becoming a mammal.

Still, the success of this mammalian progress

was pushed from center stage by an even

bigger story - the dramatic rise of the reptile.

The Triassic would launch entire new branches

of animals into extravagant variations.

It would be a time of behemoths and powered

flight. Cunning would become a predator's tool.

Here would be the introduction into the

Age of Dinosaurs.

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good morning jacob

2026-08-09T00:03:14.413-04:00

B E Y O N D H A P P Y !

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Permian

2026-08-08T00:03:10.865-04:00

D I M E T R O D E N

The creature with the vertebrate sail is a

reptilian ancestor to modern day mammals and

preceded the dinosaurs by about 40 million years.

Ancient mammals came to dominate the Permian,

a fifty million year stretch that would lead into

the Triassic era and the Age of Dinosaurs.

E R Y O P S

Every bit a reptile except it doesn't lay shelled eggs.

Its legs extended from the side of the body, its belly

nearly dragging the ground, much like the modern

day crocodile does when walking across the land.

This large, ungainly amphibian was also a poor swimmer.

Unable to run down its prey on both land or water

the animal relied upon ambush to capture its meal,

as does the crocodile. They each sport a snout

long enough to contain a very large mouth,

lined with teeth - the better to grab you with

from out of nowhere.

G O R G O N O P S I A N

Here was the apex predator of the middle to

late Permian. This was the Sabertoothed Tiger

of its time, able to run down its prey using

powerful legs that dropped nearly straight

down from its body. Finally, an animal built

to run.

The Gorgonopsian, (Gorgon - a dreaded monster

from Greek mythology) had a mammalian mouth

with various teeth for specific tasks - incisors for

cutting, canines for piercing and molar-like teeth

for crushing. Despite this sophisticated dental work,

the animal was forced to swallow its food whole

because it lacked a secondary palette, a boney

structure that separated the breathing passages

from the mouth. The animal could not breath

while chewing or even just holding its food

in its mouth.

P A N G E A

The various landmasses of the Earth collected into

one supercontinent that stretched from the pole

in the north to the one in the south. The planet was

now divided into one land, surrounded by one ocean.

The interior of this enormous landmass baked

under constant sun, as it was outside the reach

of rains coming off the ocean.

The supercontinent Pangea began breaking

apart during the latter part of the Permian.

This period ended with countless volcanic

eruptions that resulted in a cataclysmic

global impact.

Lava covered the land for thousands of miles.

Volcanic ash and toxic gases filled the Earth's

atmosphere, spawning a global warming.

Acid rain poisoned the water. Marine life

suffocated as oceans lost oxygen.

Of the planet's five mass extinctions, this one,

the Great Dying, was the worst.

Ninety percent of the ocean's species gone.

Seventy percent of terrestrial life disappeared.

Ancient mammals no longer dominated the land.

The way was clear for the Age of Dinosaurs.

G Y M N O S P E R M

The facts of life... birds, bees and the telling

of plant sex. The male plant generates

pollen grains that are distributed by wind

to the flowers of female plants.

Egg and pollen merge, forming an embryo

containing the genetic instructions supplied

by its two parent plants. A new edition of life

is developing within its protective shell.

We have a seed.

S U M I N I A

That looks like fur growing from this animal.

Now it's beginning to look like a mammal.

What about hearing? Terrestrial animals

retain their fish style of hearing. No ears.

Not yet a priority.

The animal above looks like a beginner at tree climbing.

Its claws lack the length needed to dig into bark.

The feet have digits long like fingers but they show

little evidence of having the power to grip.

Balance may be the one climbing characteristic

it has already reasonably accomplished.

It has the teeth of a predator but how capable

is it for hunting prey out on a limb?

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OVER EASY

coldValentine

good morning jackson

2026-08-02T00:03:14.720-04:00

P I L G R I M ' S P R O G R E S S

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dad

coldValentine

Carboniferous

2026-08-01T00:03:13.220-04:00

M A S S I V E I N S E C T S

The Carboniferous Period transformed the Earth

into a planet somewhat resembling the world

we live in today. Except, of course, for the insects

which sometimes grew as big as the household cat.

Everything about this age had a bigger than life

quality as new organisms flooded the scene with

spectacular innovations that would change the

course of nature.

R A C E F O R S U N L I G H T

The land of the globe's two supercontinents

would soon be covered in vegetation

wherever a plant could sink its roots.

Trees towering more than a hundred feet

made forests of the vast tropical wetlands.

Plants created wood before microorganisms had

developed the ability to break the wood down.

No termite microbes existed to aid digestion.

Trees died but they wouldn't rot.

The wood accumulated over the eons,

slowly transforming themselves into

a dense peat.

Millions of years of pressure and intense heat

cooked this layered peat into coal beds

that became thousands of feet thick.

Coal was a readily available source of energy,

compressed and easily transported.

It provided the inexpensive fuel necessary

to power the Industrial Revolution.

E I G H T F O O T M I L L I P E D E

Dragonflies that can barely fit through your

bedroom door. A millipede the length of a

hallway throw rug. Turn on the kitchen light

and, suddenly, you are confronted by a

two foot long scorpion.

Today's atmosphere contains about half

the oxygen ancient insects inhaled when

they breathed the Carboniferous air.

Insect respiration relies on surface pores

to provide oxygen where needed.

This method of diffusion does not supply

an animal's deep tissue, such as organs

centered in the body. The animal's size

was severely limited by this absence

of an internal circulatory system.

Oxygen-enriched air overcame this size

limitation to some degree. However

insects, spiders and scorpions will

never reach anything approaching

horror movie size.

E V E R Y H A B I T A T C O V E R E D W I T H L I F E

Life above the water's surface. Organisms

breathing air and naked to the sun. Brave new

world. The promise of opportunity everywhere

one looks.

Life takes on all challenges, even the most

foolhardy. Every organism alive is based

upon the dispassionate probe of possibilities.

We look under the rock because it is there

for the finding.

It is in our DNA.

F O U R L E G G E D V E R T E B R A T E

Land animals begin taking on recognizable forms.

There is a skull at the front end of the animal

with eyes, mouth and a brain. A trailing flat tail

provides both propulsion and steering in water.

Jointed legs provide mobility on land.

Five digits for grasping at legs' end.

What makes five the optimal number?

A more robust method of creation came about

during the Carboniferous period and it changed

the course of both plant and animal development.

The amniotic egg suspended the embryo in a

nourishing fluid that was contained in a protective shell.

The animal's eggs no longer needed a watery nursery

to survive. From this the reptile was born.

For plants the seed replaced the spore.

The advantages enjoyed by egg laying reptiles

were shared with plants encasing their embryos

within a seed. This innovation improved the

odds of reproductive success, with it soon

becoming the dominant method for reproduction

in both plant and animal.

C O N T I N E N T S C O L L I D E

Nearing the end of the Carboniferous Period,

the Earth's two supercontinents collided, creating

the new continent of Pangea.

The crushing force of this collision pushed

ancient coal beds upward into a range of mountains

known today as the Appalachians.

The above map shows the state of West Virginia

to be near the Atlas Mountains of North Africa

when this earth-crumpling event occurred.

Pangea disrupted the flow of equatorial ocean currents.

The repercussions were severe. The globe became

cooler, dryer. The Earth's southern pole experienced

endless cycles of glaciation. Drought dried up

tropical swamps. There was a collapse of rainforests.

Many amphibians and numerous other water dependent

organisms disappeared from the gene pool.

Drought resistant reptiles took center stage

and were crowned undisputed masters of the land.

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