15 : Dinosaurs - Something Old...

Dinosaurs at the Zoo

 

We enjoyed the start to our summer holidays with a visit to the zoo and discovered a dinosaur exhibit.  You don't normally expect to see creatures that roamed the earth 230 million years ago during the Triassic Period at your local zoo!  Instead of the usual bones or fossils that you may have expected, these were large life like robotic dinosaurs complete with movement and sound.  They appeared to be living amongst an established group of trees and shrubs adding to the lifelike exhibit.  Master Four and Master Seven absolutely loved them, although were a little wary none the less.

 

It's hard to imagine that these magnificent creatures that once dominated animal life on earth for so many millions of years are now extinct; with the last dinosaurs roaming the earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period around 65 million years ago.  Here we are, human beings who have only lived for about 2 million of all those years, able to rebuild these magnificent creatures and understand how they would have moved and lived.

 

Unfortunately, we spent so much time convincing Master Four that the dinosaurs weren't real and were only robots, despite the fact they moved and sounded as though they were, that he misunderstood and thought that the rest of the animals at the zoo were also not real and just really good robots.  Oops!  Must be a very confusing world for such a little boy and and having to listen to what everyone else tells you as fact, even though you may not really believe them.  Certainly made me become more aware of what I was saying after that and how it may be interpreted to little ears.

 

When Master Seven was caught exploring a little too closely to the stegosaurus exhibit and trying to read the map of information behind it, he was told by the caretaker to quickly get away from the dinosaur or it would eat him!  He did get out but told the woman 'No it won't, it's not a meat eater!'  Embarrassed the caretaker had to be told by another visitor that he was correct, that the stegosaurus was actually a herbivore and only ate greens!  Don't mess with my dinosaur boy!