So I watched the recent BBC documentary "Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster" (also called "Attenborough and the Jurassic Sea Monster"). It´s about a *very* complex and dangerous excavation in Dorset, where a team of scientists (or perhaps daredevils) have found fossils of pliosaurs, mega-sized reptiles which dominated the marine ecosystem during the Jurassic period about 150 million years ago. Attenborough also interviews a stringe of rather curious characters who turn out to be paleontologists, analyzing the fossils with various top notch scanning technology.
The pliosaurs had the strongest bite of any animal known, a bite so strong that they could easily have bitten through a modern car. They had one extra eye at the top of the head and four large flippers (apparently a unique feature). These monstrous predators hunted their plesiosaur cousins and ichtyosaurs. One of the scientists interviewed says that a pliosaur was probably more formidable than a T-Rex!
As usual, I waxed philosophical when watching this, thinking of how it confirms the Buddha´s first noble truth: Everything is suffering. Eat or be eaten was the norm in the shallow, warm Jurassic seas 150 million years ago. It still is.
When will this shit ever stop?
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