Tea at Trianon: Two-Million-Year-Old Pangolin Fossil Found in Romania

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, February 18, 2022

Two-Million-Year-Old Pangolin Fossil Found in Romania

From SciNews:

Pangolins are mammals of the order Pholidota known from Asia and Africa. The one living family of pangolins, the Manidae, has three genera: Manis, Phataginus, and Smutsia. Often referred to as scaly anteaters, they look somewhat like the armadillos that roam the southern United States. Pangolins are also among the most illegally trafficked animals in the world. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the eight species of living pangolins range from Vulnerable to Critically Endangered. The newly-discovered pangolin fossil belongs a previously unknown species of the genus Smutsia, which is currently found only in Africa.
“Smutsia has previously been thought to be an African genus, with the oldest specimen from South Africa at 5 million years ago and living species found across Africa,” said Dr. Claire Terhune, a researcher at the University of Arkansas, and her colleagues. “This specimen now demonstrates that Smutsia previously had a far larger biogeographic range.” (Read more.)