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The Natural Selection Issue

editorial

Michael Rae-Grant

I now call this meeting of the League of Dinosaurs to order.

Alright. First, it’s great to see that most of us could make it. I know many of you have busy schedules, and I appreciate your taking time off from striding majestically across the lush Cretaceous plain to be here. Thank you.

Well then, let’s get down to business. I know we’ve had a great time triumphantly ruling the planet for the past hundred million years, but I think we can all agree when I say: “We knew it couldn’t go on forever.” I might as well just tell you: as those of you who have looked skyward recently already know, there’s a meteor coming, and it’s going to wipe out over seventy percent of the Earth’s biodiversity.

Dinosaurs! Dinosaurs! Quiet down! QUIET!

In light of the impending collision, there’s going to be little opportunity for massive, inefficient eating machines like us. We will all have to deal with a lot of change, and, as with all change, there comes some uncertainty. However, I’m happy to say, we’ve got a plan. The future is no longer up in the air.

Or should I say, “The future is up in the air?” Get excited: we’re trading in our bulk and muscular strength for brilliant plumage; our vicious claws and teeth for mellifluous, lilting song; and our total dominion over the Earth’s reaches for cozy nests and perches. That’s right—it’s time to become free as birds…as birds!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down! Order! Order! ORDER!

Look, I know this is a lot to take in at once, but any way you chew it we really don’t have much of a choice. Let me explain. The League of Elders considered other options. We thought about crustaceans: too ugly. We thought about rodents: too pestilent. We even thought about primates: too upright.

But we can’t stay gargantuan reptiles any longer. We’re simply not going to be able to consume several metric tons of fibrous vegetation on a daily basis anymore. There aren’t going to be any lethargic, fleshy herbivores wandering around for us to gorge our unquenchable lust for raw meat upon. Ultimately, it was really the feathers that sold us. They’re just so soft, so downy, so...moltable.

Excuse me? No, Ankylosaurus, I am not a homosaur. And no one, I mean no one, is going to make you a nice little cage with newspaper and teach you to say ‘Polly want a cracker’ if you don’t watch your language.

You know what? Fine. If you’re all going to be fossils about this, you can just take that prehistoric attitude of yours and go extinct. I’m going to go evolve a beak. I’ll talk to you guys in twenty million years—and we’ll see who’s trilling merrily and who’s trapped in sedimentary rock.

This page was last updated October 23 2010!

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