Care of Magical Creatures begins!
((I apologize for getting this up super early, but I've been asked to come into work on my day off, and I thought I would get this up sooner rather than later.))
Finding a classroom in Hogwarts was not particularly difficult. The trick was finding one that hadn't already been re-purposed into larger living quarters, unofficial offices, or secret love shacks. In the end, though, a suitable one had been found for the class that was usually held outside.
Dr. Alan Grant, renowned dinosaur chew-toy, had no desire to hold the class outside. Holding it outside meant using live animals. In this case, live animals meant danger, destruction, and all of the other messy things associated with mayhem. Instead, the classroom was decorated with illustrations and diagrams of dragons, and bones. Lots, and lots of bones.
A stack of bones and skulls was arranged on a table in front of the room, and Grant stood behind it, waiting for the students to fill the desks. With two to a table, it should work out nicely. He drummed his fingers on the table impatiently, eager to give a lecture on something he had been studying for quite a while. When the room filled up, he began.
"Dinosaurs and dragons. Two animals that are very much alike, but both, as you can imagine, are very hard to study. However, there seems to be enough evidence that dragons are the descendants of dinosaurs, and quite possibly the cousins of birds that nobody knew about."
"Dragons and dinosaurs share two characteristics: skeleton structure and metabolism. Birds, dragons, and dinosaurs all share a similar neck, for example. The neck is elongated and mobile, and the vertebrae form an S-shaped curve. All three of them have a tridactyl foot with digitigrade posture." He paused. "It means they stood on their toes, like a cat or a dog, instead of their full foot, like humans do." For further demonstration, he grabbed his wrist with one hand, with the index and middle finger in the front, and the thumb in the back. "The tridactyl foot is like this, with two toes in the front and one in the back. In dragons and birds, it's used to hold on to things."
"The most interesting part, though, is the hollow, pneumatic skeleton. With gaps and air spaces, it makes the bone much lighter than, say, a mammal's bone of the same size would be." Two femurs were on the desk. One was bleached white, and the other was brown, with a jagged break at one end. "One of these bones is from a human skeleton, and one from a juvenile dragon. Pass those around and see if you can feel the difference." He handed them out. "With much less mass to carry around, it makes flight much easier. Which brings up my next point: how do they generate the energy to fly?"
Grant pointed to one of the diagrams on the walls. "I shouldn't have to point out the obvious, which is that dragons and some dinosaurs are very, very large," he said dryly. "The advantage to that, though, is that once you get a large body heated, it's much easier to keep it warm. Dinosaurs have always been seen as cold-blooded, sluggish animals. However, the metabolism of dinosaurs is better described as gigantothermy. Simply put, with a large mass, the internal body heat maintained has very little difference between endotherms, or warm-blooded animals, or ectotherms, which are cold-blooded."
"The debate about endothermy and ectothermy in dinosaurs is still going strong, and anyone who's interested about it can ask me after class. The point is, if a cold-blooded animal can generate enough heat to pass as warm-blooded simply because of its size, then a warm-blooded animal that's quite large has some energy to spare. In birds and mammals you see it in increased activity. Dragons seem to have the same activity levels as their reptilian counterparts, though. So where does it go? Into flight, a very energy-intensive form of locomotion, and the chemical processes required to generate controlled combustion, or fire."
He picked up one of the skulls sitting on the table. "Clearly, it's impossible to tell if dinosaurs had any fire-breathing skills." The ones in Jurassic Park hadn't, at least. Thank God for small favors. "And that's only one area where dinosaurs and dragons differ. First off, one big difference is in the skull. Dinosaurs, crocodiles, birds, lizards, liopleurodons, and snakes all have what is called a diapsid skull." He pointed out a large opening in the back of the skull, and another on the top. "These are called fenestras, and some of you might recognize that the word means 'window.' Now, most of us -- " he paused to take a quick look around the room. " -- most of us are human, which means we have synapsid skulls, with only one opening, or fenestra. The same goes for all mammals, and also dragons. They fall under the group called therapisids, or technically, 'nonmammalian therapsids.'"
"Coming back to flight, in dragons you find a wing structure that's quite similar to what you would find in Pterosauria, another close relative to the dinosaurs. It's a mistaken belief that pterodactyls and phytosaurs, or a type of swimming reptile, were dinosaurs, but they weren't. A simple rule of thumb is that there were no flying or swimming dinosaurs. However, you see the same wing morphology in both Pterosauria and dragons, with an elongated fourth digit and a membrane that extends from the tip to the body."
Now it was time for the group activity. "If you've been paying attention, and not doodling away or asleep by now, then hopefully you've picked up some ways to tell dragon and dinosaur bones apart. Please poke your deskmate awake and pick a set of bones from the table. Your project is to tell me what kind of bones you've picked up. If you have any questions, please raise your hands and I'll get to you."
((I'll have comment notification off, so please put a note in the subject line if you need Dr. Grant to come over. There is no right or wrong, but acceptable answers are "This is a dragon bone because it has one opening," or, "This is a dinosaurs bone because the Voices told me so." "This is a dinosaur bone," will get you a dirty look.
ETA: Since this was posted early, just drop me a line through e-mail or this post if you want to add a character last-minute.))
The pairs:
Chance and Stephanie with this
Maia and Lady Heather with this
Toki and Ian with this
George and Jack with this
KOS-MOS and Sarah with this
Brice and Jaime with this
Zoidberg and SB with this
and Ofdensen and Bart with this.
Finding a classroom in Hogwarts was not particularly difficult. The trick was finding one that hadn't already been re-purposed into larger living quarters, unofficial offices, or secret love shacks. In the end, though, a suitable one had been found for the class that was usually held outside.
Dr. Alan Grant, renowned dinosaur chew-toy, had no desire to hold the class outside. Holding it outside meant using live animals. In this case, live animals meant danger, destruction, and all of the other messy things associated with mayhem. Instead, the classroom was decorated with illustrations and diagrams of dragons, and bones. Lots, and lots of bones.
A stack of bones and skulls was arranged on a table in front of the room, and Grant stood behind it, waiting for the students to fill the desks. With two to a table, it should work out nicely. He drummed his fingers on the table impatiently, eager to give a lecture on something he had been studying for quite a while. When the room filled up, he began.
"Dinosaurs and dragons. Two animals that are very much alike, but both, as you can imagine, are very hard to study. However, there seems to be enough evidence that dragons are the descendants of dinosaurs, and quite possibly the cousins of birds that nobody knew about."
"Dragons and dinosaurs share two characteristics: skeleton structure and metabolism. Birds, dragons, and dinosaurs all share a similar neck, for example. The neck is elongated and mobile, and the vertebrae form an S-shaped curve. All three of them have a tridactyl foot with digitigrade posture." He paused. "It means they stood on their toes, like a cat or a dog, instead of their full foot, like humans do." For further demonstration, he grabbed his wrist with one hand, with the index and middle finger in the front, and the thumb in the back. "The tridactyl foot is like this, with two toes in the front and one in the back. In dragons and birds, it's used to hold on to things."
"The most interesting part, though, is the hollow, pneumatic skeleton. With gaps and air spaces, it makes the bone much lighter than, say, a mammal's bone of the same size would be." Two femurs were on the desk. One was bleached white, and the other was brown, with a jagged break at one end. "One of these bones is from a human skeleton, and one from a juvenile dragon. Pass those around and see if you can feel the difference." He handed them out. "With much less mass to carry around, it makes flight much easier. Which brings up my next point: how do they generate the energy to fly?"
Grant pointed to one of the diagrams on the walls. "I shouldn't have to point out the obvious, which is that dragons and some dinosaurs are very, very large," he said dryly. "The advantage to that, though, is that once you get a large body heated, it's much easier to keep it warm. Dinosaurs have always been seen as cold-blooded, sluggish animals. However, the metabolism of dinosaurs is better described as gigantothermy. Simply put, with a large mass, the internal body heat maintained has very little difference between endotherms, or warm-blooded animals, or ectotherms, which are cold-blooded."
"The debate about endothermy and ectothermy in dinosaurs is still going strong, and anyone who's interested about it can ask me after class. The point is, if a cold-blooded animal can generate enough heat to pass as warm-blooded simply because of its size, then a warm-blooded animal that's quite large has some energy to spare. In birds and mammals you see it in increased activity. Dragons seem to have the same activity levels as their reptilian counterparts, though. So where does it go? Into flight, a very energy-intensive form of locomotion, and the chemical processes required to generate controlled combustion, or fire."
He picked up one of the skulls sitting on the table. "Clearly, it's impossible to tell if dinosaurs had any fire-breathing skills." The ones in Jurassic Park hadn't, at least. Thank God for small favors. "And that's only one area where dinosaurs and dragons differ. First off, one big difference is in the skull. Dinosaurs, crocodiles, birds, lizards, liopleurodons, and snakes all have what is called a diapsid skull." He pointed out a large opening in the back of the skull, and another on the top. "These are called fenestras, and some of you might recognize that the word means 'window.' Now, most of us -- " he paused to take a quick look around the room. " -- most of us are human, which means we have synapsid skulls, with only one opening, or fenestra. The same goes for all mammals, and also dragons. They fall under the group called therapisids, or technically, 'nonmammalian therapsids.'"
"Coming back to flight, in dragons you find a wing structure that's quite similar to what you would find in Pterosauria, another close relative to the dinosaurs. It's a mistaken belief that pterodactyls and phytosaurs, or a type of swimming reptile, were dinosaurs, but they weren't. A simple rule of thumb is that there were no flying or swimming dinosaurs. However, you see the same wing morphology in both Pterosauria and dragons, with an elongated fourth digit and a membrane that extends from the tip to the body."
Now it was time for the group activity. "If you've been paying attention, and not doodling away or asleep by now, then hopefully you've picked up some ways to tell dragon and dinosaur bones apart. Please poke your deskmate awake and pick a set of bones from the table. Your project is to tell me what kind of bones you've picked up. If you have any questions, please raise your hands and I'll get to you."
((I'll have comment notification off, so please put a note in the subject line if you need Dr. Grant to come over. There is no right or wrong, but acceptable answers are "This is a dragon bone because it has one opening," or, "This is a dinosaurs bone because the Voices told me so." "This is a dinosaur bone," will get you a dirty look.
ETA: Since this was posted early, just drop me a line through e-mail or this post if you want to add a character last-minute.))
The pairs:
Chance and Stephanie with this
Maia and Lady Heather with this
Toki and Ian with this
George and Jack with this
KOS-MOS and Sarah with this
Brice and Jaime with this
Zoidberg and SB with this
and Ofdensen and Bart with this.