Space Dinosaurs: Archaeopteryx vs. Pterodactyl
Oh dear. Our preparations are going well, but not everything is sunshine and daisies on the dino paradise of Pluto. An ancient feud between two space dino clans has reared its head anew, concerning which reptile is the most important to the history of flight. Pterodactyl keeps insisting that its pterosaur ancestors were flying properly long before Archaeopteryx, whereas Archaeopteryx proudly claims to have spawned the entire family of birds and that Pterodactyl isn’t a real dinosaur anyway. This conflict had better not distract us from our rescue of Earth, so we’re going to quickly settle this Eyewire-style: in a versus battle, of course.
Your teams:
Team Archaeopteryx
- Genus name is Greek for “ancient wing.”
- A Jurassic dinosaur of the Theropod order, meaning some of its closest relatives included carnivores like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor.
- Covered in rockin’ feathers. While fossil records now show that many other dinosaurs had feathers too, Archaeopteryx is the first one where we figured this out.
- First skeleton discovered in 1861… two years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Nice timing for evolutionary science.
- Genus name is Greek for “winged finger.”
- Also a Jurassic reptile, but not actually related to the reptiles known as dinosaurs; it was a pterosaur, and those species stretch back all the way to the Triassic.
- Wings were probably formed of thinly stretched skin and muscle.
- First skeleton discovered in 1784, which makes it the first pterosaur documented by humankind.
The usual bonuses:
Earn 5,000 points – 2,500 bonus
Earn 15,000 points – 5,000 bonus
Earn 25,000 points – 10,000 bonus
For every 25,000 points above 25,000 – 5,000 bonus
Member of winning team (if you’ve scored at least 2,500 points) – 10,000 bonus
Highest scorer on each team – 5,000 bonus
Player with #1 overall score – 10,000 bonus
Player with #2 overall score – 5,000 bonus
Player with #3 overall score – 2,500 bonus
Swag:
1 box of space loot for the top player on each team
1 sticker for each player on the winning team
You will have only 24 hours to resolve this dispute! The face-off begins at 11:00 AM EDT on 4/26.