Love that net

BBC News Mini-dinosaurs emerge from quarry

Scientists describe a new species of dwarf dinosaur that was unearthed in a quarry in northern Germany.
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I was a bit taken aback when I read this because it seemed they were talking in the present tense. And it reminded me of something I'd read somewhere ages ago about quarry workers - or were they digging a tunner for a railway - and when they cracked open a boulder there was a pterodactyl inside, and it took a breath, flapped its wings, took a step and fell over dead. I've never been able the reference again ... until tonight when I searched for it on the internet!! You just have to love the net. The Talk says:

Pterodactyls, extinct flying reptiles, supposedly existed around one hundred million years ago. According to an article in The Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856, page 166, workmen discovered a living pterodactyl. In the winter of 1856, they were working on a railway tunnel between St. Dizey and the Nancy lines, and they had broken and removed a boulder of Jurassic limestone, when the creature stumbled out of the tunnel toward them. It fluttered its wings, croaked, and collapsed dead at their feet. It had a wingspan of ten feet seven inches, four legs with talons for feet, legs joined by a membrane like a bat, a mouth filled with sharp teeth, and black, leathery, oily skin. An exact mold of the creature's body was found in the limestone from which the creature was released.

Source:

Baugh, Carl E. 1989. Panorama of Creation. Oklahoma City, OK: Hearthstone Publishing, Ltd., pp. 19-21.
Doolan, Robert. 1993. Are dinosaurs alive today? Where Jurassic Park went wrong! Creation 15(4) (Sept.): 12-15. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/dinosaurs.asp

If you go to the Talk site, the suggestion that this actually happened will well and truly be debunked ... but it was good to finally find it again.