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Sunday, July 11, 2010

Avocado Anachronism

When laurels evolved long ago

Some became an avocado

A berry with a monstrous seed.


Its flesh was poison to most

Of swallowing it whole, few could boast

Only the largest could use it to feed.


Ground sloths of considerable size

And gomphotheres, I would surmise

Would have had the guts to digest.


Too bad, these animals are gone

So sad, their demise at the dawn

Of humans, whose hunting was best.


Ten thousand years in the past

These mammals died out very fast

Although humans spared white-tailed deer.


Still, avocadoes live on today

Helped by those who like to say

Guacamole, but not gomphothere.

Monday, January 18, 2010

PaleoLimerick #21: Bahamian Mania



A hermit crab of Holocene time
Could pivot its shell on a dime
Its tracks on a dune
Made the students all swoon
A trace fossil uncommon, sublime.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

PaleoLimerick #20 - Suspensful Feeding



Inoceramus, a bivalve of yore
Had a hinge, but not like a door
Filter-feeding was fine
With sea water like wine
A life habit that beckoned for more.

PaleoLimerick #19 – Ediacaran Ecstacy



Dickinsonia was a bilateral worm
That possessed a soft body, yet firm
In Precambrian seas
It became quite the tease
Not knowing the first thing about germs.

PaleoLimerick #18 – Mesozoic Misapprehension



An ammonite in the Cretaceous ocean
Was filled with the strongest emotion
Her exquisite suture
Preserved in the future
But of extinctions, she had absolutely no notion.

Friday, November 20, 2009

PaleoHaiku #13: Cruising, and a...



Trilobite trails
A burrow celebration
Shallow but profound.

PaleoHaiku #12: Thanatos in Motion



Molluscan debris
Comingling of bodies
Summer storm, long past.