Following current events? In need of a distraction? OhMyGodYesPleaseWTFSaveMe?
The following is editor E. Kay Robinson’s response, published in the January 1920 issue of Country-side, to a viral report from the previous year of a brontosaurus living in the Congo. I always enjoy reading these pieces for the many treasures they hold. Science of course is always evolving as our base of knowledge and understanding expands. It is therefore interesting to read skeptical interpretations of scientific news based on the scope of understanding at the time the news was reported.
I do love a surprise ending. Mr. Robinson pivots from advocating for the protection of living dinosaurs (should they be proven to exist) in their natural habitat in the Congo to hauling them to London to be displayed in a zoo! (Sterrholophus, by the way, is now considered a synonym for triceratops, a dinosaur I think we all know and love.)
Mr. Robinson’s suggestion that dinosaurs evolved in response to the prevalence of heavy jungles where massive bulk was required to SMASH and went extinct as the landscape transformed over time into open spaces is… different (as all the moms used to say when I was a teen).
But let’s jump ahead to a reader’s response to the article, published in April 1920:
Another gem: Climatic change – that’s dumb. If only Mr. Robinson had gone a step further and posited that climatic change resulting from the impact of a giant asteroid contributing to the extinction of dinosaurs was dumb, he might have been described as a visionary, of sorts. At any rate, shoutout to H. G. Wells for entering the chat.
As for the hoax, “Mr. Le Plage, the explorer” was actually Dave Le Page, an Australian engineer who fabricated the dinosaur encounter and later, the confirmatory “Gapelle” incident. So the entire story, essentially a campfire tale told by one man to another in Africa, was fiction.
Further Reading:
Another contemporaneous response to the 1919 Congo Brontosaurus story
A well researched and highly enjoyable piece titled The Dog and the Dinosaur provides much more context on the story with a focus on an expedition to find the animal undertaken by a British war hero and his dog. I really can’t recommend this enough as a quality time-suck, if you’re in the market. A supplemental article, also worthwhile, can be read here.
YesBiscuit! 