Primeval Marine Reptiles

A joint narration by Cornflower and Mariel, after a reading from _Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day_ by Jeannie Fulbright. This narration illustrates the back and forth conversation that sometimes takes place when more than one child is involved in reading and narration.

Cornflower: We made a plesiosaur head in the front in our driveway and we made some teeth like miniature-sized bananas. And I think it wasn't a plesiosaur head. Plisiosaur? [She means pliosaur.]

Mariel: The pliosaur head we made was the size of a real pliosaur head and the teeth were the size of small bananas, but the teeth in real life were the size of bananas, not miniature bananas, or small bananas, but just bananas. Since you can see how long the head was, if the body was thirty feet long, we ought to draw it on the sidewalk to just see how big it would be. I would like to do that.

The plesiosaur itself was ovoviviparous and had a short neck and four flippers, and a lot of teeth. I would not like to run into any of these dinosaurs we are reading about while I was swimming

Cornflower: I kind of would. Not for the danger. So I could take a picture of them.

Mariel: What if you took a picture and your camera had no film and you were in danger? Why would you want to take that danger just for a picture?

Cornflower: I could be attached to a boat.

Mariel: Maybe you could go fossil hunting under the water and I might find some of those [pointing to a picture of gastroliths].

Cornflower: I wouldn't want to touch those.

Mariel: The gastroliths are probably clean by now.

Cornflower: Have you ever wondered if primeval monsters were really monsters?

Mariel: Well, they looked like monsters because the medieval sailors had never seen them.

Cornflower: Sometimes sailors are annoying.

Mariel: Let's go out later and make the body-- twenty-two feet long. We can turn his body onto the sidewalk, and make him running after little fishes.

Cornflower: And we'll make mermaids. And we'll each make a group of school fish, and a dolphin. You can make a shark.

Mariel: I don't want to make a shark.

Cornflower: Okay.

Mariel: It's only an hour until lunch break.

Cornflower: Let's make a great blue whale.

Mariel: How big are great blue whales again?