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ENOUGH TO TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY
After plotting the flight patterns of a
water fowl known as the ruddy shelduck and tracking it to altitudes of
up to 6,800 m ( 22,000 ft), researchers say it’s the world’s highest-flying
duck. This duck ranges in size
from about 1 to 1.4 kg ( 2 to 3 lb)
and migrates from sea level on the
Indian subcontinent north to its
breeding grounds on the other side
of the Himalayas. To traverse that mountain range
and avoid flying over the really high peaks like Everest ( 8,800 m)
means having to cross terrain at least 4,000 m high. It climbs to those great
heights at an impressive rate of about 0.74 m ( 2 ft 4 in) per second. That equates to about 45 m (145 ft) every minute
on a journey where oxygen levels get increasingly lower.
A researcher observed: “This species has probably evolved a range of adaptations to be able to cope with flying so high,
where oxygen levels are half those at sea level. We don’t yet know the nature of these adaptations.”
But which is the more plausible explanation of the ruddy shelduck’s high-flying capabilities? That they developed spon-
taneously over millions of years? Or that the information for such capabilities, allowing them to cope with the much higher
mountains after the Flood, was present from the first day flying creatures were created about 6,000 years ago? For more on
the incredible feats of our feathered friends, see creation.com/wings.
Parr, N., et al., High altitude flights by ruddy shelduck Tadorna ferruginea during trans-Himalayan migrations, J. Avian Biol 48(10):1310–1315, October
2017 | doi:10.1111/jav.01443.
High-flying ducks cross Himalayas, phys.org, September 2017.
FLOOD-RUNNER COULDN’T OUTRUN THE FLOOD
The fossilized tail and foot bones of a turkey-sized dinosaur were discovered in 2005 in coastal Victoria, Australia.
It has been given a new species name, Diluvicursor picker-ingi, meaning Pickering’s flood-running dinosaur.
The ‘flood-runner’ aspect of the name derives from
the fossil having been found in rock layers evidently
deposited by fast-flowing water. The “high-energy”
floodwater entombed not only Diluvicursor but a host
of other vertebrates too, all entangled in a mass of plant
debris, including huge logs—one exposed fossil log
measured five metres long. And the amount of sediment
deposited was huge, as evidenced e.g. by a now-coalified
tree stump and its root ball being completely buried, in
an upright position.
Sadly, evolutionists ignore this “ancient log-jam”,
similar to burial patterns seen in fossil sites around
the world, as evidence consistent with a single, global
event—the worldwide Flood of Genesis 6–9. In that
event, the only refuge for the likes of Diluvicursor was
to be on the Ark with Noah, for no ‘flood-runner’ could
outrun that Deluge. And this latest fossil news is a
reminder also that not all dinosaurs were huge—a key
point as to how the various dino kinds could fit aboard
the Ark. (Mega-dinosaurs could have been taken aboard
as juveniles/adolescents—see creation.com/dinogrowth.)
Herne, M., et al., A new small-bodied ornithopod (Dinosauria,
Ornithischia) from a deep, high-energy Early Cretaceous river of the
Australian–Antarctic rift system, PeerJ 5:e4113, 2018 | https://doi.
org/10.7717/peerj.4113
Turkey-sized dinosaur discovered in ancient log-jam, University of
Queensland News, uq.edu.au, 11 January 2018.
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