Chapter 5: Evolution of Dinosaurs
June 1, 1991 - Monday
Bright and early on the first day of the new month, Alan decided to begin the day with a topical conversation. Rob had gathered everyone near one of the trailers, allowing Alan to begin talking about his favorite topic of conversation when it came to dinosaurs.
"Anyone have any thoughts about the dinosaur and bird theory? Either for or against it?"
Dave, the twenty-year-old student, raised his hand.
"Look at that. Already, we have a victim!" Rob joked.
Shaking his head at Rob, Alan directed his attention toward the student. He was much shorter than Alan and was exhibiting some nervousness. He didn't want to intimidate the young man, so he leaned against a nearby table that had been set up near the trailer. "Dave, you have some thoughts on the subject?"
"A few, yes. I'm no expert, but from what I've been able to read, I think the idea that dinosaurs evolved into birds is . . . well, kind of silly."
Some of the other students and volunteers agreed, as they nodded and quietly talked amongst themselves for a second. Rob shook his head, as he knew this was one of Alan's favorite disagreements. Almost every summer, he was able to persuade people to join the other side of the debate.
"Well, Dave, it may sound silly, but there is a lot of proof to back it up."
"I wasn't really aware of the proof, Dr. Grant," Dave commented, getting more curious about the subject matter.
Alan smiled and continued, "There are, indeed, incredible similarities between birds and the theropod dinosaurs. Especially the coelurosaurs. And then there's also the work of Dr. J.H. Ostrom from 1969, about the similarities between the Deinonychus antirrhopus and the Archaeopteryx. And then, for a more recent study, Dr. Gauthier's work in the mid-1980's provided the best analytical support for the theory. The list of studies and reports is endless."
Rob took notice of how everyone was quiet and just staring at Alan. There were a few people in the crowd who looked as though they were just given a key to their open-mindedness. He had done it again. He was able to get a few more people on his side.
Ellie wasn't one of them yet. She had her own thoughts and ideas on the subject, mostly influenced by another professor from California. "But there is no convincing evidence that dinosaur skin or scales ever mutated into feathers," she pointed out.
Alan stood up and turned his attention toward her, and then she added something else.
"No example of scales changing into feathers has ever been found, at least to my knowledge. A convincing fossil link between dinosaurs and birds is still missing."
"That is true, but there are many scientists, myself included, that are trying to find evidence to the contrary," he said, as he talked with his hands moving about, "I believe it's just a matter of time, and money, before substantial evidence will be discovered, showing that feathers and scales are more similar than not."
Ellie sort of bought that statement, but she still wasn't convinced. "What about the finger digits of dinosaur forearms and the corresponding bird wing bones of birds? There are putative differences between theropod and bird finger development," she said.
"That argument, and others, such as lung morphology and ankle bone morphology . . . they all stumble on certain fundamentals of research, including the lack of relevant data on extinct theropods, misinterpretations of anatomy, simplifying assumptions about developmental flexibility, and/or speculations about convergence, biomechanics, or selective pressures."
Alan loved debating about this topic. He was behind this theory one hundred percent. He could tell that Ellie was starting to think about what he was saying, which pleased him. He realized she wasn't quite convinced, though, as she offered another counter measure.
"The fossil bird Archaeopteryx. It causes fundamental time conflict for dinosaur-bird evolution. A gap in the fossil record, if you will," she said.
"This overlooks the blatant fact that other maniraptoran coelurosaurs, such as Ornitholestes, Coelurus, and Compsognathus, are known from strata of Late Jurassic age. If other maniraptorans were there, it logically follows that the ancestors of dromaeosaurs were there."
"Dr. Grant," someone said, interrupting the debate.
Alan turned around and saw Dr. Carl Porter looking at him.
"What is it, Carl? Something good for once?"
The students and volunteers chuckled, and so did Porter.
"Actually, yes. Possibly, very good news. I need to talk to you in private, if you don't mind."
"Sure," he said, as he looked at the crowd, "Back to work I guess. The morning debate is over."
Alan politely excused himself, as the students and volunteers began to break up and scatter.
Dr. Carl Porter walked rather quickly, trying to find somewhere private to talk to Alan.
"Carl, what's this about?"
"I was just speaking to Mr. Hammond's lawyer. Donald Gennaro."
"How incredible," Alan joked.
"He's interested in getting a little more research about specific species of dinosaurs in the infancy stages."
"I'm not writing another paper for him. He's way too pushy."
"He just wants some research, things that you probably already have jotted down somewhere."
Carl Porter was 41 years old with blond hair and a full beard. He had happened upon this job through an advertisement that Rob had placed, three summers ago. Alan had found him extremely beneficial at that time, with the untimely death of Kathryn taking up most of Alan's mind, keeping him from working as he should. Having been married himself at the time, Porter could sympathize with the younger scientist, and was more than willing to take up the slack. He was a serious-minded and dedicated man, leaving little time for a personal life. He was classified as a geologist, but also had some undergraduate work in both paleontology and general science.
"What's he offering?" Alan asked.
"Another ten thousand. Just for some notes that you have shoved in a folder somewhere, Alan. You cannot say no to a request like that."
"Yeah, probably not," Alan said quietly, slowly adjusting to the idea.
"It could help pay for that hauler."
"Good point."
Porter was going to attempt to further talk him into it, when Alan put up a hand.
"Okay, Carl. I'll do it. When does he want the data by?"
"Tomorrow. Tonight, if at all feasible."
"Tonight? That guy is really pushing it."
"That's what lawyers do. Why should this one be any different?"
Alan smiled. "The divorce isn't going all that well, huh?"
Porter rolled his eyes, clearly angry about the so-called divorce. "That is an understatement. It seems she has decided that she cannot do without the furniture, that we had already agreed to letting me have."
"Why don't you just give the furniture to her? Get it over with."
"I would, but then my wonderful and ever-so-knowledgeable lawyer has informed me that she'll just keep insisting on more belongings."
Alan couldn't think of a thing to say to Porter. A divorce was such a stressful process. People once inexplicably in love would suddenly turn against one another, with nasty name calling not very far behind. It was something he had never had to deal with and he didn't know how to help the poor man. He knew one thing, though. The lawyers probably weren't helping very much.
"Maybe, the two of you should get rid of the lawyers and try to resolve it yourselves."
Porter laughed. "If I did that, I'd end up with just the tent that's out here."
Alan laughed with him. "Well, I'm not much help, am I?"
"That's okay. You can redeem yourself by getting that data ready tonight, instead of tomorrow."
"Okay, Carl. I'll get started on it in just a little while."
Porter nodded and smiled, obviously happy with Alan's answer. "Very well, then. I'll be seeing you later, to fax the paperwork over to Gennaro."
Ellie, Allison, Logan and Dave stayed together most of the afternoon. It was a very hot day, and since they weren't able to find something remotely worthwhile, they were getting discouraged fast. Ellie was going to dismiss herself very soon and start heading back to camp. She wanted to get to the research trailer, so that she could see if Alan's book was there. She was sure that it would have to be there, since he was so prominent here.
Allison interrupted her thoughts. "What were you guys planning on doing for dinner tonight?"
"I hadn't really thought about it much," Ellie answered.
"Dinner is usually ready when I get to the ranch," Logan answered.
"Lucky you," Allison said, and then she looked at Ellie, "There's this restaurant about fifteen minutes away. I've heard some of the volunteers talk about how good the food was. Wanna try it?"
"Sure, but I'll have to go to my apartment first. You know, change clothes and get cleaned up," Ellie answered. She looked at Dave, "Are you coming, too?"
"Maybe. I'll let you know, okay?" he answered.
"Sounds good," Allison said. "Oh, before I forget. Are there any openings in that building you live in?" she asked Ellie.
"Why? Are you getting tired of living off the land?" Ellie teased.
Allison laughed. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."
"Well, I'm not sure. But if you want to stop by and talk to the manager, Mr. LaVoight, I'm sure he'll be able to let you know."
"I think I'll do that, then," Allison said, nodding.
"Okay. I'll write the directions down for you."
"Thanks, Ellie."
"So, are we going to start heading back? We've got about an hour walk I think," Logan said.
Ellie looked at her watch. "Yeah, we should start back. Good idea, Logan."
"I can't believe how far we've walked in this heat," Allison said, as she looked at her map.
"And to find nothing," Logan said.
"Yeah, what a let down," Dave added.
Ellie laughed. "Well, it's not every day when you can find a rare fossil, get a student kicked out of the program, and sit in on Dr. Harper's research."
"True, true," Allison agreed, "I think we may have become somewhat spoiled by that first discovery."
"Definitely," Ellie said.
"Yeah, and I missed that one, too," Logan complained.
"Cheer up, Logan. I'm sure you'll be able to find something."
Logan smirked. "Thanks."
They continued their trek back to base camp.
After arriving back at camp, Ellie said her goodbyes and then walked around, trying to find the research trailer. She wanted to ask someone where the trailer was, but there wasn't a soul in the vicinity. She continued to scan the area and found Alan walking quite a distance away from where she was. She watched him go into a trailer on the other side of the camp. Smiling, she moved in that direction. There were teepee's set up everywhere with one lone trailer in the middle. When she was close to the trailer, she could see the words "Research" stamped on the front door. She began to feel a sense of urgency steadily growing inside, as she slowly approached the trailer door. The wind was strong that afternoon. The screen door drifted open, and then quickly slammed shut again, several times. She was about to grab the screen door after a gust of wind, when she was startled from behind.
"Ellie?" Allison asked.
She turned around quickly grasping her chest in surprise. "Allison. You scared the hell out of me!" she whispered in an excited voice.
Allison laughed. "Sorry about that. What are you doing? Whatever it is, it seems secretive since I scared you so easily just now."
"I . . . just need to ask Dr. Grant a question. He just went in here."
Ellie tried to throw her off the trail. She really didn't want to explain everything going through her mind at the moment. Now that she thought about it, she didn't think she could explain it since she had no clue what she was doing either.
Allison decided to buy the story . . . for now. "Okay, I'm going to go find Dave. He decided to go eat with us."
Ellie grabbed hold of the swinging door. She made it up to the fourth and final step, and put a hand on the door knob of the real door. "Okay, okay."
"I'm starving, Ellie, so hurry up," Allison said, trying to get her to realize that she was serious.
Ellie threw a look of annoyance her way. "I know. Just give me a second."
Allison nodded, but it was obvious that she knew something out of the ordinary was going on. She would try and get it out of her later in private. She turned and walked away, looking for Dave and leaving Ellie to her secretive mission.
Ellie was watching Allison disappear from view before she went inside. She still had her hand on the door knob, when it was suddenly pulled in the opposite direction. She was yanked forward, running directly into the person on the other side of the door. Alan Grant. He was looking down at a folder in his hand as he walked out, stopping him from seeing her. They gently collided with each other on the small wooden landing.
"Oh, excuse me," he said, looking up.
When he realized who he had run into, a smile crept upon his face.
Ellie noticed and returned the smile. "That's okay. My fault really. I'm the one that's not where she belongs."
She turned and began to walk down the four stairs. She had made it all the way to the dirt.
"Did you need something?" Alan asked, his voice stopping her movement.
With her back to him, she took a giant breath of fresh air and then turned around. "Well, uh . . . I wanted to ask you a question actually."
This was the same thing she had told Allison. It was no truer now than it had been a few minutes ago, but it was all she could think of on such short notice.
Alan walked all the way out of the trailer, holding the screen door so that it wouldn't flap in the wind. Ellie was backing up and was already off the steps, while Alan stared at her. Her mind was blank. She couldn't come up with a single intelligent thing to say. The wind picked up even stronger, causing the screen door to rip from his hand and begin flapping again. The papers in the folder he was holding threatened to blow violently away in the wind.
Since she was just standing there, saying nothing, he spoke up. "Let's go back inside . . . where the weather is a bit nicer."
"Okay," she said as she quickly walked up the steps and went inside.
He held the door open for her. When she was inside, he closed the main door, leaving the screen door to fight the wind alone.
The room was fairly quiet, as Ellie looked around. This trailer held nothing but research materials; shelves and shelves of books and various scientific journals, as well as instructor notes and things. Alan noticed she was curiously looking around.
"This is the research trailer."
Ellie looked in his direction and nodded, "Yeah, I know." Then after a short silence, "I don't really have a question," she quietly confessed.
He chuckled at her honesty. He was sort of hoping that she came here for something else anyway. He decided that he would let her make the first move. He wasn't going to say another word unless she did.
She began to have the urge to kiss him and that was the only thing allowed into her mind. She cleared her throat and looked away from him.
"How strange this whole thing is," she commented.
He nodded. "Yes. It is a little awkward."
After another short silence, Ellie changed the subject. "So, you live here at the dig site?"
The only thing she wanted out of the question was to know where his bed was.
"Yeah," he paused, "Well, not in this trailer. But the larger trailer over near the South entrance."
"That's convenient."
They stood there staring at each other. Alan was thinking about how beautiful she was. Ellie was dreaming of kissing his lips. They walked a bit closer to each other and Alan put a hand on one of the chairs in the room. The chair was the only thing between them now and he rolled it out of the way. Ellie took a step closer, taking up the space the chair had occupied. He wanted to lean in and kiss her. She wanted to do the same. They were about to get caught up in the moment, when the door suddenly opened.
Alan took a step back and directed his attention away from the beautiful woman in front of him. "Hello, Dr. Porter," he said.
Carl Porter was probably the instructor with the most knowledge at the dig site, but with the least common sense. He hadn't even noticed how close his fellow professor was to the young beautiful student.
"Dr. Grant, I was wondering if you might have seen the field journals from two months ago."
Alan glanced at Ellie. He really wanted to continue what they were about to do, but he tried to place that thought far back in his mind. "They're not in the file cabinet in Trailer A?" he asked.
"No. I already looked there."
"Okay, well, I haven't seen them," he said. And then sighing, he added, "But I'd be happy to help you find them."
"Thanks Alan. That would be a grand help."
Alan nodded to Dr. Porter and then looked at Ellie again.
"Anything else you need, Ms. Sattler?" he asked, hoping that it sounded convincing.
Ellie wanted something else, but didn't see that this was the appropriate time or place for divulging her feelings. She began to envision throwing Dr. Porter out of the trailer and it made her slightly smile. She was about to answer is question, when she noticed Alan's book laying out on one of the tables.
"Actually, I'll just grab this and I'll be on my way," she said, picking up the book.
She excused herself from the trailer, walked to the door and took one more look inside. Alan was looking back at her, while Dr. Porter was searching the room. She smiled, as she was certain they both wanted the same thing now. She could wait. She had no choice really. She walked down the path to find Allison and Dave.
Allison pulled up to the apartment complex and double-checked the directions that were scribbled on a piece of paper. When she was satisfied that she was in the right place, she parked her car. Ellie had gotten out of going to eat, leaving Allison to eat with Dave by herself. After dinner, Allison was supposed to go to her apartment to meet the manager.
Ellie was sitting on the couch in her small living room, reading the book that she had borrowed from the research trailer. She had taken several minutes, just thumbing through the fully illustrated book, before she actually got down to reading. It was a very quiet time of day and she was deep in thought, as she read to herself.
The dinosaur-bird connection was first popularized by evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley as early as 1870. Supporters point to the theropods, small meat-eating dinosaurs. Most of these animals were ten feet or less in length, moved about on two legs, and had small forearms. The theropods had a superficial ostrich type skeletal appearance, which led to the idea that these dinosaurs eventually changed into birds.
Her reading was interrupted by a buzzing noise, coming from the call box. She quickly got up, placed the book on the coffee table, and went to the call box.
She pushed a button and leaned forward. "Allison? That you?"
A few seconds went by and then she heard Allison's voice. "Yep."
Ellie pushed another button, allowing the door downstairs to be unlocked. She opened her apartment door and looked for Allison. Allison gained entrance and walked up a flight of stairs, meeting her in the hallway.
"Did you find it okay?" Ellie asked.
"Oh, yeah. No problems."
They went inside the apartment and Ellie shut the door. Allison took in the surroundings. The apartment had three rooms. The main living area with accompanying kitchen, one bedroom, and a bathroom.
"Small, but nice, Ellie."
"Thanks. I like it."
Allison went to go sit on a chair and noticed the book Ellie was reading.
She laughed. "Evolution of Dinosaurs, by Dr. Alan Grant, PhD?"
Ellie hurried to the coffee table and picked up the book. "I thought some of his points were very well thought out. I just wanted to research the topic a bit more."
"He really struck a chord, huh?"
"What do you mean?" Ellie asked, defensively.
Allison shook her head. "It's just you were against his viewpoint. And now you're changing your tune."
"Oh, well, I hadn't had the opportunity to hear someone explain it the way he does. That's all. A student's viewpoint is always influenced by the instructors around her."
"Yes, that is true," Allison said.
"His theories sound feasible and he has quite a bit of research to back them up," Ellie added.
The way Ellie was holding the book, Allison could see the back cover. There was a picture of Alan, taken at the dig site. He was wearing his hat and looking very handsome in the Montana sun.
"Plus, he's good looking," she said, gesturing to the back cover.
Ellie turned it around and looked at it. He was very handsome, that was obvious. She had already noticed the picture, but suddenly she felt like Allison might see right through her feelings for Alan if she admitted that.
"Yeah, it is a very nice picture. I hadn't noticed," she said, placing the book on the couch next to her.
Allison picked it up and quickly scanned a few pages. She opened it up to a list of the similar characteristics between birds and dinosaurs.
The first birds shared the following major skeletal characteristics with many coelurosaurian dinosaurs (especially those of their own clade, the Maniraptora, which includes Velociraptor):
1. Pubis (one of the three bones making up the vertebrate pelvis) shifted from an anterior to a more posterior orientation (see Saurischia), and bearing a small distal "boot".
2. Elongated arms and forelimbs and clawed manus (hands).
3. Large orbits (eye openings in the skull).
4. Flexible wrist with a semi-lunate carpal (wrist bone).
5. Hollow, thin-walled bones.
6. 3-fingered opposable grasping manus (hand), 4-toed pes (foot); but supported by 3 main toes.
7. Reduced, posteriorly stiffened tail.
8. Elongated metatarsals (bones of the feet between the ankle and toes).
9. S-shaped curved neck.
10. Erect, digitgrade (ankle held well off the ground) stance with feet postitioned directly below the body.
11. Similar eggshell micro structure.
12. Teeth with a constriction between the root and the crown.
13. Functional basis for wing power stroke present in arms and pectoral girdle (during motion, the arms were swung down and forward, then up and backwards, describing a "figure-eight" when viewed laterally).
14. Expanded pneumatic sinuses in the skull.
15. Five or more vertebrae incorporated into the sacrum (hip).
16. Strap-like scapula (shoulder blade).
17. Clavicles (collarbone) fused to form a furcula (wishbone).
18. Hinge-like ankle joint, with movement mostly restricted to the fore-aft plane.
19. Secondary bony palate (nostrils open posteriorly in throat).
After reading through the first ten characteristics, Allison nodded in agreement with them all.
She looked at Ellie. "Could I borrow this book when you're finished?"
Ellie smiled. "Sure."
Allison placed the book back on the coffee table and clapped her hands together. "Okay, let's go meet with the apartment manager," she said.
Ellie nodded and they left the apartment, in search of Mr. LaVoight.