At the Field

When I was a kid, I thought our city's natural history museum, the Field Museum, was named after that fact that there were fields out in nature, where natural history was naturally occurring.

Wrong. It's named after someone named Stanley. Stanley Field, that is.

I hadn't been there in decades, but I went today, to see their exhibit on ancient Greece, from pre-history to Alexander approximately. Which is quite a show. And they have a spectacular Mammoths and Mastodons exhibit right now too. And I also got to see Sue, the big T-Rex fossil, for the first time.

But for some reason, the thing that most impressed me, which I imagine I have seen before, was a big old pterodactyl, which they had hanging up near the ceiling.


Source of photo is here.

What really struck me was how big this beast's head was in proportion to its body.

Silly flying creature,
Your noggin looks enlarged,
And yet despite this feature,
Across the sky you charged,
Swooping down to slay
Your unsuspecting prey.