A BAMBIRAPTOR NAMED PRITI
By
John Benjamin Sciarra
A REAL DINOSAUR?
Was there really such a dinosaur as a bambiraptor? The simple answer is yes. However, technically, the bambiraptor is not a dinosaur in the true sense of the word. Although it is doubtful the bambiraptor was capable of flight, its wings, wishbone, and possible feather-like covering separate it from the dinosauria. In fact, some scientists consider the bambiraptor the most bird-like creature ever discovered in the time period in which it lived (approximately 75 million years ago).
Scientists from the University of Kansas, Yale University and the University of New Orleans named the first skeleton ever discovered (there have been two to date), Bambiraptor feinbergi; Bambi, because of its small size (less that three feet tall) and gentle-looking appearance, and feinbergi after the family that donated the skeleton to the Graves Museum of Natural History in Florida.
Wes Linster, in Glacier National Park in Montana, discovered the skeleton. Wes was looking for dinosaur fossils with his parents when he discovered the 95 percent complete skeleton in 1995 when he was only 14 years old.
A DINOSAUR NAMED PRITI
I got the idea for using a bambiraptor when I came across an artist’s rendering of what it might have looked like in a book on dinosaurs in a bookstore one day. I wanted the children in my story to bond with a dinosaur that might have exhibited some friendly or at least curious behavior.
I drew from the references to the bird-like structure of the bambiraptor and its small size for my character in the story. I certainly could not see the children befriending a triceratops or a T-rex, for example, but a small, bird-like animal with no natural fear of humans (since they did not exist yet) seemed like a good choice.
I thought, too, about my own dog Toby, a miniature pinscher, which was a nervous, fidgety little terrier around the same size and weight as a bambiraptor. I often referred to my dog as a chicken dog because of his bird-like disposition and movements. I even added Toby to the story line to be Kyle’s dog, in order to make that connection more apparent.
I strove to make the relationship between the bambiraptor and the children as realistic—at least from a behavioral point of view—as possible. I based this on my decades of working with wild animals in zoos and aquariums. I also wanted the children’s reactions and attachment to be natural and realistic. A close study of animals and children helped me to accomplish this. Would a real dinosaur behave like the ones in Shoestrings? No one has ever seen a living dinosaur, so who can say for sure?
Why did I name the dinosaur Priti? I wanted to create an amusing situation for my main character, Kyle. Conflict in life helps one to grow and learn. Any young boy in his situation would likely be thinking about how great it would be to be the first person ever to find a living dinosaur, if for no other reason than to impress his father. So imagine how he must have felt when confronted with a “cutesy” name like Priti! It would shatter the delicate ego of the child and force him to adjust his thinking and, perhaps, help him to become more humble. Humility is not a trait young boys learn easily.
In addition, the name comes from the Indian character in the book named Sonja. In our culture, people come from all nationalities and unusual names are commonplace. So, having an Indian name added a multicultural element to the story. A friend of mine, a scientist originally from India, has a daughter named Priti and she volunteered to read the manuscript for my book. I am told she loved the story. Her name is Priti and she is a beautiful and precocious young girl. Therefore, I named the bambiraptor after her. An interesting side story is where I got the name Sonja. My wife and I adopted two children from India as babies years ago. My daughter’s name is Anjuli, and I wanted to use her name for the character in my book. However, she objected fiercely. That surprised me, but 16-year-old girls can be somewhat sensitive about themselves, as my daughter truly is. She followed me around the house for days complaining bitterly about how I could not use HER name in my book without her permission. I countered with the fact that it was a name I gave her and, technically, it was MY name, not hers. Finally, she came up with a compromise I thought was acceptable. She said, “Why don’t you use my middle name, Sonja, instead?” To end the impasse and, not wanting to have the wrath of my daughter on me for the rest of my life, I agreed. The name Kyle came from a young friend of mine who was quite bright as a child (and still is as an adult). The name Teresa came from no one in particular. I pulled that one out of the air.
THINKING “OUTSIDE THE BOX”
My description of Priti (the bambiraptor, not the girl) flies in the face of accepted ideas about what dinosaurs may have looked like or eaten. I took the idea that perhaps Priti was more like an ostrich, a flightless bird. I presumed it might have had a gizzard and, therefore, might have eaten bark from certain trees, along with gravel for digestion—just a presumption on my part. Most birds have gizzards, which is an organ situated before the stomach with strong muscles that utilize gravel for grinding course food, so that it can be digested by the stomach. The feathers I described as leather-like since they really would not have been used for flight; they may not have been true feathers in the sense of a flighted bird.
The colors I described present another view of what dinosaurs may have looked like. There is no way for paleontologists to know for sure what color dinosaurs may have been. The ideas are taken from what we see around us today, and that is certainly one possibility. However, when all we see in movies and artist’s renditions are bright colors, we could easily draw the conclusion that that is the way dinosaurs looked. So, to challenge the thinking of the reader, I presented another viewpoint. Kyle learns the truth about how dinosaurs looked and what they ate. Armed with this knowledge, could he convince the adult world that their concepts were wrong?
This idea helps the reader to keep an open mind about the world in which we live. We have to keep an open mind and avoid prejudicial thinking, so we can be prepared to discard wrong ideas as new information is presented to us. We discover new things every day. Once, scientists thought that little green men inhabited Mars and the moon was made of cheese. Those ideas sound silly today, but they were not all that long ago.
As deep space probes and the Hubble telescope look further into the universe with more and more clarity, scientists have had to change many preconceived ideas about space. So, why not challenge the past? Why not push the limits of thinking and come up with other possibilities? The lesson we want to take away from Shoestrings is—keep an open mind about the world around us. Do not discard any idea because of preconceived notions. Stay observant and use creativity to imagine and learn about the world we have inherited. NEVER stop discovering new things—or old ones in a new way. Our minds have the potential for absorbing knowledge no matter how old we get. It is said by scientists that we may use less than 1% of our brains in the course of a lifetime. Use that gift wisely. Maybe you, like Kyle, will someday discover something no one else has ever seen. Maybe you will find a dinosaur skeleton in your backyard and scientists will name it after you. How cool would that be?
