Thursday, January 07, 2010

Primeval Puzzler

A primeval scene out of time?

Maybe not.

What's the earliest year in which this scenario might have existed?

19 comments:

cinbad122 said...

I didn't know you took video of that!

Brickman said...

Well, that depends on how specific you need to be. The first members of the genus Alligator show up in North America in the Eocene and we definitely had Alligator olsoni in Florida around 20 Ma. However, if you are content to just have alligator-like critters, you could go much father back than that, and if you don't even mind that they are amphibians that look like alligators you can go very far back in to the Paleozoic. The birds are more of a limiting factor, they are far away so you wouldn't be able to tell if they had teeth or such so that could be back in the Jurassic. But even more so, the plants are going to restrict this scene to after the spread of angiosperms, about 130 Ma, and specifically after the evolution of grasses in the very latest part of the Cretaceous, about 65 Ma.

So, pick your date.

h said...

Are those cows in the background? If so, I'm chopping many years off of Brick's estimate.

lisa said...

Hmmm, very interesting video;)

Brickman said...

Oh man, totally missed the megafauna in the background. I was a bit blurry eyed this morning... Those are the bison on Paynes Prairie, aren't they? So, bison showed up in North America about 300,000 years ago or so, but the modern species only appeared about 10,000 years ago. Of course, the Paynes Prairie bison aren't the original eastern subspecies but western bison brought in from Oklahoma, so strictly their presence dates it post mid-1970's.

Pablo said...

everything Brickman just said!

R.Powers said...

Hint: Objects in the rear are closer and therefore smaller than they appear.

threecollie said...

Extensive research leads me to believe that small brown things surrounded by big flappy birds showed up in Florida in the mid-1890's, but were exterminated in the wild during the Roaring Twenties. They have been reintroduced in limited numbers on private small brown thing preserves, but can only be possessed by the public under permit from Florida Fish and Wildlife...or really, I dunno.

Brickman said...

So, those are feral hogs in the background? They could have been introduced into the wild anytime between the early 1500's and this morning around 6:45 am. But if you want to expand your definition of "hog" we have fossils of peccaries in North America from the late Eocene :)

h said...

Well, you asked for a specific YEAR and I'm not sure that can be done with precision. But I'll pick 1521 and De Leon rather than 1539 and De Soto.

However, Eurasian Wild Hogs were introduced and hybridized with existing (smaller) Florida Wild Hogs in 1914. Can't really tell how big those brutes are. If they have Eurasian Wild Hog DNA the earliest would be 1915.

Anonymous said...

Golly gee darn. You people are just way too smart for lil' ole me.

I don't even SEE what you are seeing. Except for the birds.

Patti

Anonymous said...

Video cameras weren't invented until the 1930s ... so I'm saying 1936.

Because really, what serious answer could I give that's better than what you already have?

jojo said...

that PIG looks like it has a collar around its neck... but can't be dogs, as the ground was aflutter. florida feral hogs. ha 1886. i stole that number off the edis.ifas.ufl.edu site.

Aunty Belle said...

where wuz ya when ya shot this ?

I'se happy to give all them critters WIDE berth.

Nice "pure florida" scene

R.Powers said...

Cindy,
I am very, very sneaky.

Brickman,
Great input! Not the longest or clearest video so don't fret missIDing the feral hogs in the background. I appreciate the interest in solving this puzzler, and of course your final answer is essentially on target.

Troll,
Not cows, but your post hint response is spot on. Juan Ponce's last voyage to La Florida was meant to be a colony and carried horses and other domestics ... surely there were pigs, so I had chosen 1521 as the best answer.


Pablo,
Why you follower you!

ThreeCollie,
Whatever critter could you mean? LOL!

Patti,
Two hogs rooting in the muck! LOL!

Wren,
Clever angle on that question!

JOJO,
A collar? You must have super vision!

Aunty,
That was Paynes Prairie just out from the Alachua Sinks.

Caroline said...

My guess would have been in the 1560s, given that you labeled this "primeval puzzler", "primeval" seems to have come into common usage about mid 16th century. Now, if you had called it a "primordial puzzler", I'd have backed it off to 14th century...never mind trying to figure out geological eras based on fauna :o)

R.Powers said...

Caroline,
Clever. Another angle at the puzzler.

Haiku Master said...

Master knew answer.
He was there in spirit when
gator first ate hog.

R.Powers said...

Haiku Master,
We bask in your glory,
even if that's one tall story.



See, the thing is, real poems rhyme.