A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Iguanodon was able to walk on all fours or stand on its hind legs to reach higher plants. It has hooves like horses. Its hands had an opposable digit, like a human thumb, used to grasp branches. This digit had a spike used for fighting other Iguanodons, in defense and feeding, as a tool to open fruits for example.
A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Oviraptor was a small, carnivorous, toothless dinosaur from Mongolia. It had a bony crest on its head and a beak like a bird. Based on its close relatives, it had feathered, wind-like structure on its arms, and a broad, feathered tail. When it was first discovered in 1932 in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, it was found on top of a nest of eggs. Paleontologists initially thought the Oviraptor died feeding upon the eggs and thus named it “egg stealer.” However, a recent discovery revealed these were Oviraptor eggs — it was merely protecting its own nest! Stomach contents show it actually ate lizards.
A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Minmi was a small, quadrupedal, armored, herbivorous dinosaur from Australia. Its head, neck and body were covered by bony armor, very much like today’s armadillos. Although it was slow and small brained, its armor protected it from predators. Only one specimen has been found, but it included stomach contents that show it ate leaves, fruit and seeds, and that it chewed up the plants before it swallowed them. Minmi is the location in Roma, Queensland, Australia where this dinosaur was discovered.
A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Baellynasaura was a small, bipedal, herbivorous dinosaur from Australia. Unlike today’s reptiles, its top and bottom teeth touch when chewing, allowing it to consume plants. It had a remarkably long tail, which contained over 70 vertebrae, as much as 75% of its total bodyt length. It is believed Leaellynasaura’s large eyes were used to see during the long nights that Australia experienced. Recent studies, however, show that these specimens discovered are juveniles; hence, like puppies and kittens, their eyes are large regardless of where they are found in the world.
A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Tyrannosaurus Rex, the most famous of all dinosaurs, was among the largest carnivorous animals ever to walk the planet. Tyrannosaurus Rex had enormous skulls lined with up to sixty, seven-inch long teeth and could generate bite forces as great as 8,000 pounds. This allowed them to easily bite through both flesh and bone. They fed upon duck-billed dinosaurs, horned dinosaurs and even one another. Finds of multiple dinosaur fossils in the same location suggest they formed herds. A recent study showed that they lived to just thirty years of age.
Thank goodness humans never shared the environment with “The Rex.”
A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Neovenator was a very large, predatory dinosaur. Each hand and foot had three very sharp claws. Its teeth were thin, blade-like, and serrated like steak knives for cutting flesh. Short, horn-like projections above its eyes helped to recognize others of the same species. First discovered in 1978 on the Isla of Wight, United Kingdom. The fist and best-known specimen (70% complete) bears numerous injuries showing that these animals had rough and tumble lives. Perhaps such injuries were from trying to catch Iguanodons and other dinosaurs. Neovenator is derived from the latin words for “now” and “hunter.”
A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
One of the earliest dinosaurs, Herrerosaurus was a bipedal predator with a long and stiffened tail, three main fingers, two vestigial fingers, and sharp, serrated teeth. Its flexible lower jaw helped to grasp prey. Its long legs and hollow bones suggest it was a fast runner. Bite marks on skulls of these animals show they often battled one another, presumably over food or mates. The earliest forms were small, about 10-feet long; later ones were up to twice that length. This rare dinosaur was discovered in 1991 in the Ischigualasto Formation of Argentina.
A selection from “Dinosaurs around the world,” McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Amargasaurus was one of the smallest sauropod dinosaurs at just 33 feet (its relatives could reach 140 feet!!). It had a quadrupedal stance. Using its neck, it could feed on plants low to the ground and up in trees. Its most notable features were tall spines along its neck. These spines were for display to fellow Amargasaurus, much like those seen on today’s reptiles. It is unclear if there was skin between the spines; this remains a topic of debate among paleontologists. Like most dinosaurs, Amargasaurus is know from a single specimen discovered in Argentina.
Fertile Land and Saltpeter, spoils of war
This is an answer for those of who responded to my last post Valparaiso Connections VI with “what does that desert in Peru have to do with Valparaiso?” It starts with the Plaza Victoria at the end of Pedro Montt Avenue. Victoria, as in victory not Queen Victoria. At the beginning of the 19thcentury this was a beach, the site of several ship wrecks. It was set aside as a gathering place by the Mayor, named Plaza Nueva (New Plaza), for a bullring until bullfights a law banned bullfighting on September 1823. The plaza became a place of public executions and, after Chile’s victory in the Battle of Yungay, a place of celebration, formally renamed for the victory.
The Central Valley of Chile is an exception to the topology north through Lima where agriculture and population centers follow river valleys watered by the Andes and surrounded by waterless wastes. Yungay, is among one of those watered desert valleys. Located 120 miles north of Lima, Peru at about 8,000 feet just below a summit of the Western Andes, remnants of cultures from 10,000 B.C. are proof of agriculture and human settlement. It was near Yungay, on January 20, 1839 (summer in the southern hemisphere) a force of Chilean and Peruvian dissidents called the United Restorative Army defeated a Peru-Bolivian Confederation Army to end the War of Confederation. The resulting split into different countries of Peru and Bolivia weakened a threat to Chile and Argentina, aimed in large part toward the broad and fertile Central Valley of Chile. The desperation in view in my post Valparaiso Connections VI was in large measure a motivation war, this motivation is still powerful today.
The subsequent prosperity allowed reclamation of the land of Plaza Victoria from the sea. For example, in my post Valparaiso Connections V we learned how French immigrants arrived and developed Central Valley wineries in the 19th century. Around the time of the victory Chacobuco Street was built adjacent to the plaza on reclaimed land, the Plaza Victoria was pulled from the sea.
The concrete Lions and bronze statue captured in the above gallery, were elements of a round of enhancements to Plaza Victoria begun 1870.
Here we see from the Regatta bridge a monument to the Heroes of Iquique. The Battle of Iquique, May 21, 1879, is remembered annually as Naval Glories Day (Dia de las Glorias Navales) .
Click this Link for the Fine Art Photography Gallery.
This monument commemorates the destruction of the Chilean warship Esmeralda. At the monument peak is Arturo Prat Chacón, captain of the Esmeralda who perished with his wooden ship. He and the crew were blockading the then Peruvian port of Iquique along with another ship, the Covadonga.
May 1879 was in the initial phase of the War of the Pacific, fought over rich mineral deposits of the Atacama desert. Today, the Chilean flag is over these barren wastes, seen here flying over a roadside memorial to an automobile accident victim. The desert is the backdrop, there are no animals or plants here, only red dirt. NASA uses the Atacama in simulations of the Martian environment.
There are deposits of the mineral saltpeter, mined by large operations. Here is the entrance of a World Heritate site we visited while docked at Iquique.
The mining operation was literally scraping the deposits lying on the ground and processing it into, among other products, nitrogen
fertilizer. At that time the operation was hugely lucrative, employing thousands in very difficult conditions. That is a different story.
Captain Prat faced two armored Peruvian warships, one the iron clad Huáscar. Over the course of four hours the Esmeralda was overpowered and sunk. The Huascar and the 22,500 mountain peak at Yungay, Huascarán, are named for an Inca chief.
The monument honors the bravery of Captain Prat and his crew, all of whom are named on plaques.
After the Huáscar rammed Esmeralda a third time to sink it, the Huáscar captain, Miguel Grau Seminario, rescued Chilean survivors in danger of drowning. In the meantime, the armored Peruvian warship was lured into the shallows and destroyed. Although the blockage on Iquique was lifted Peru lost one of its most powerful ships at the cost to Chile of an older wooden ship.
The defeat and examples of the Esmerelda crew and captain brought a wave of recruits to the Chilean forces. Chile was the victor of the War of the Pacific, vast tracks of the Atacama desert were taken from Bolivia, including the Saltpeter mines, shutting that country off from the Pacific Ocean. There is a connection between these memories and the Training Ship anchored in the harbor, the sixth ship to carry the name, Esmeralda (BE-43).
See my posting Valparaiso Connections V for the more recent history of the Esmeralda.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Memories of Allende and Italy
Ricardo left a blank between the French Memorial Column of the Parque Italia, seen above. He made of mention of Salvadore Allende Plaza. The above photograph includes a graffiti inscribed corner of the set of steps, a platform and the area in front, a plaza, dedicated to the memory of Allende and named “Plaza del Pueblo Salvador Allende Gossens” on the 100th anniversary of his birth, 2008. The structure was not new, it was called “The People’s Plaza”, the name change was pushed through by Alberto Neumann, communist councilor. So the suppression and torture (see “Valparaiso Connections V”) was not successful in wiping out the ideals, such as they are.
The accomplishments of the Allende Presidency are another matter. The Macroeconomic Populism policies he implemented left the economy in tatters. We have only to look at the current state of Venezuela to see the entirely expected results of this economic model: hyperinflation followed by stagflation and implosion. The reactionary military coup of 1973 was, in the essentials, a rational response and a rescue from economic and social disaster until the reaction itself descended into madness.
The following series of photographs are from a neighboring country, Peru, are an illustration of the pressures the political elites of Chile are negotiating. Taken from the road between the port of Mollendo and the city of Arequipa, on a vast, waterless plain.
Migrants from the Titicaca Region formed a cooperative named “Asociacion Las Caymenos Agro Exportadores”. It is the named scrawled on the small cement brick wall.
Desperate people from rural areas migrate to cities, form associations or regional clubs based on a common origin, and grab land as a group.
In this case, it is property useless for the named purpose, “agricultural export.” What they have is a dream. a dream of the government directing water to the area.
Towards this end, individuals of the group mark out plots using rocks and build structures from concrete brick and metal roofing.
This small patch of water is the basis of their desperate hope.
This is a more consolidate group of migrate squatters on the road called “1S” near the turnoff for Lima and a place named La Reparticion.
Dreams for a better life, offset by desperate circumstances bring us back to Valparaiso and the Parque Italia adjacent to Allende Plaza. The park is a small patch of green, some wonderful trees, with statuary and monuments dedicated to people of Italian heritage.
Beyond the sleeper are statues each on a plinth. The second from the right is a bust of Giovanni Battista Pastene, a gift from the city of Genoa dedicated October 12, 1961. Pastene was the first governor of Valparaiso (the region, not the city) in the 16th century. He came to Honduras in his own ship, enter the service of Pizzaro and, as master of the ship Conception, was a maritime explorer.
The Italian refugee collectivity of Valparaiso presented this column, in 1936, surmounted by a bronze sculpture of the Capitoline Wolf feeding the infant founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. It is a copy of an ancient statue kept on Capitoline Hill, Rome, Italy.
The wife of Allende was of Italian heritage, Hortensia Bussi. The
Fire Brigade Sesta Compagnia di Pompieri Cristoforo Colombo, operates today from Independence Avenue.
Here we have a gathering of friends, sharing the shade and beverages on this Saturday summer morning.
Click this link for the next posting in this series Valparaiso Connections VII.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 