Charmkins--75 Million Years Later

T. rex next to his offspring. Art by Caleb Schaber

I have a strange fascination with chickens. Perhaps it was the sad story of Charmkins, a good friend we all lost at Burning Man in 2001. Now, Charmkins, a dead, festering chicken we burned at the event, is "flying 747s in the sky."

I read this week that paleontologists have discovered fossil remains of carnivorous chicken sized dinosaurs that resemble velociraptors from "Jurassic Park" fame.

That would be a cool pet to have I think. Chickens are T Rex's closest living relative, believe it or not.

My fascination with chickens lead me to acquire a rubber chicken that I carry with me pretty much everywhere I go. Charmkins, jr. was very popular in Iraq. Here is a video of him flying over Mosul. We were doing dives, trying to get him to fly with those little wings.

Even more terrifying than a T. Rex, or a chicken sized T. Rex, is the "Predator X," a creature with teeth a foot in length and ten times the jaw power than the T. rex. The 50 foot leviathan had a ten foot skull that would make jaws look like a minnow.

Sadly, as much as I like chickens and idealize the carnivorous world of dinosaurs past, I recently heard that they have the same problems as humans do, teenagers. Like today's Darwin Award winners, dinosaurs that died before reproduction sometimes left fossils. A find in Mongolia's Gobi desert reveals that young dinosaurs hung out together, and in places they shouldn't have. And they died through youthful carelessness.

When you take a bite of chicken, don't forget the history behind that tasty meal!

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