Amazing footage of a duck-billed dinosaur attacking someone!
I am also a survivor of an attack by one of these dinosaurs at a state park in West Virginia. It happened when I was a young child.
It made me scared of them for a very long time.
And then I wound up having two of them as pets.
So I got over it.
Yes, I had two pet dinosaurs.
Can you believe it?
***
I should note that this species has the dumbest name in English.
We call it a Muscovy duck. It’s not from Moscow, Russia, or anywhere in the Old World.
It’s actually Pre-Columbian domestication of an indigenous American duck. The species is found from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas through to Mexico, Central America, and much of South America.
Its scientific name isn’t much better either.
That name is Cairina moschata. The “Cairina” genus name is in reference to their supposed origin in Cairo. That name was given to it by the sixteenth century Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, who called it the “anas cairina” or the “Cairo duck.” He also called it the Indian duck (“anas indica”) and the Libyan duck (“anas libyca”).
The “moschata” species name is in reference to the musky smell that they produce.. The initial name in English was probably “musk duck,” but somehow that word became Muscovy.
And yes, all living birds are dinosaurs.
This species particularly looks the part!
They are quite easy to breed naturally. One of the few species domesticated in the New World.
There are only two species of bird that were domesticated in the New World before Columbus.
Of course, we’ve now domesticated lots of other species, especially the little partridge-like birds we call quail. The bobwhite comes in so many different domestic variants now.
Pffft – that duck is a featherweight. As for the misleading species name, pity the poor bombay duck. *badoom toosh*
Well done for conquering you fear of vicious therapod descendants. I once got spurred in the thigh by a relentless and overly territorial Rhode Island Red cockerel that my friend owned. I forgot to take the brush down the paddock with me to fend him off and I ended up in some 10 minute long rooster movie fight scene as I inched my way backwards kicking like chorus line girl to reach a gate or something to batter him off with. I had to knock him unconscious with a rake to make him stop. But it didn’t stop him coming at me again about an hour later, nor spurring my friend the month after. As an adult, it took me a year after he got “rehomed” to not feel slightly panicked when the friendly hens came running at me in a pack for food. Sadly, this harmless little flock of gallusaurs met their doom in the jaws of a wily vulpes vulpes.
My nemesis was a White Leghorn named Vernon. I still have a scar on the back of my leg from where he got me while I was cleaning the chicken yard. When he attacked, I immediately kicked out and then regretted it as he lay there in an apparently lifeless heap of feathers (he was my daughter’s rooster.) Fortunately, he recovered before she came home from school.
I phoned my friend in a fit of remorse to tell her that I thought I’d murdered her rooster. Her succinct answer was “GOOD!” I doubt your daughter would have been so understanding/gleeful. In the end, she couldn’t face wringing his neck, so the night after he spurred her bundled him in a sack, drove to a smallholding that had lots of hens and threw him over the fence. I shudder to think what the poor chicken owner endured the morning after when he had a feathered red ball of fury come charging at him from nowhere.
Since he was obviously geographically challenged, Aldrovandi could have saved us all a lot of time and trouble–killing two birds w/ one stone so to speak–by naming it Peking Duck. (I know, groannnn.)
Had a White Leghorn rooster fly over 3 fences to get to my kids – I met him at the last fence with a pipe. We had him for supper. Son asked “Is this that ol’mean rooster?” Yes..”Oh good! Gimme anoder piece..”
BTW.. Reach down,grab the attacking rooster by the saddle and hackle feathers,shake hard.. Get the wirecutters and trim the spurs.. Shake very hard again,pulling out feathers… Throw down.
Funny thing, ol’ Vern never bothered me again.