We love dinosaurs especially curried

 

In Asia we regularly find living prehistoric animals and eat them

Filipino fishermen last week caught one of the rarest sea creatures in the world, the megamouth shark, and ate it. The news didn't surprise me at all. I've been to zoos in China where the information board by each animal tells you how they are best cooked.

      Last year, a real, live dinosaur-era fish was caught by a fisherman in

Indonesia.

     He sold it to a restaurant. In Asia, what else would you do with rare and possibly edible creatures, other than eat them with X.O sauce? 

     In the end, no one got to have that particular fish for dinner.

     The coelacanth managed to survive the galactic cataclysm 65 million years ago that destroyed much of life on Earth, but died after just 17 hours of being stared at in an Indonesian noodle-shop fish tank. Who can blame it? I mean, the humiliation. The 50-kilogram corpse was sent to experts who confirmed it was an unknown type of coelacanth, a creature once thought extinct since the Cretaceous era (defined as "before the Rolling Stones’ first tour"). 
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I myself have encountered living dinosaurs in Asia, spotting several on a recent trip to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Horrible, scaly, gray-skinned creatures which lumber around slowly, you wouldn't want to eat them. These living relicts from prehistory can also be found in the halls of power in Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, and so on.

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But setting human dinosaurs aside, let us recognize that it is seriously cool that dinosaurs are alive and well in Asia. It would be cooler still if we could stop eating them. The world may be full of reports of mythical beasts, but the modern-day dinosaurs of Asia-Pacific actually exist, and not just in politics. 

         The easiest to check out is the tuatara. Just fly to New Zealand and ask to be introduced. It’s a scaly creature with the wide-eyed reptilian look of a gecko or an Eastern European politician. The 80 cm beast has spines on its back, three rows of teeth, no ears, no penis, fish-like insides, and a strange, light-detecting lump on its head. Scientists say it is definitely not a lizard. It is either a dinosaur-era relict, or has bizarre, other-worldly origins, coming from outer space, the fifth dimension or some inexplicable, unearthly corner of the world, like Singapore or North Korea.

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But my favourite living dinosaur of Asia is the ropen from Papua New Guinea. If this was a UK tabloid newspaper, I would describe it as “The Last Pterodactyl, With Special Glow in the Dark Feature”. A serious scientific reporter would say it was an unclassified flying creature observed to demonstrate bioluminescence. Which means it is the last pterodactyl and comes with a special glow in the dark feature.

     The ropen has been famous among locals for years, and biologists have recently been camping in the jungles looking for it. Several have videotaped glowing things that flap through the night sky. I can testify that stars, aircraft and meteors don’t flap, unless you’ve tried the local arrack, after which everything flies around, especially the floor.

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Now excuse me while I go off on a dinosaur hunt. I just hope I get to the live food section of the local noodle-shop before the diners do. 

Comments

[Chamin]

Nury,

Are you sure you can safely land or even make a transit in some of these countries you mention? One of them, in 2004, fined a Japanese Engineer for being impolite at the immigration counter (he had grunted picking up his hand luggage).

At the least, I don't want to miss my regular dose of humor :o).

[angela]

tuatara, from the description of what they DO NOT have and the photo, I can positively say that we have lots of that here in Singapore crawling all over the island, in buses and mrts, shopping malls, mostly they like to wear designer brands and hang out in clubs. We call them some other local name which I cannot say because I do not want to be vanished by powers that be.

Sometimes you can also see them in the live food section of the local noodle-shop. I wish they are inside the tank though.

[SJ]

Nury, do let me know if you succeed in finding a live dinosaur because I desperately need a pet. AND I think there are many unclassified ones here in Malaysia so better make your way here fast and you'll be able to find one of its kind.

[Andrew]

Gosh at least the Tuatara lizard thingy has a spine. Most Malaysian politicians don't.

And to top it off, Malaysian politicians can do many neat tricks that many of the named dinosaurs cannot - the most famous trick being the ability to extend its hand (read: handouts) for little printed color rectangle cotton-based paper, normally with numerical printed on it and $ecurity feature$.

[Vince A]

Outside of Asia, people seem to believe that the dinosaurs got extinct because of strange phenomena like a global ice age, or because an asteroid from outer space collided with the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs (and only dinosaurs). Yeah right.

We Asians know they became extinct because they made for great barbecues (and curries). Recent excavations show many of the fossils had traces of char siu sauce.

[sheilajade]

So much to read in so little time.. i am missing alot in what is going on in here..
WOw! Mr. Vittachi, you have all the good looking and beautiful people following you. (i may be the only one who's not ;-)

[fardel]

You promised new pictures of your readers , and the only portrait you send us is a kind of thorny monstruous snaky individual.
From the description I read from some of your worshippers I am wondering who it could be?!

[angela]

Sssssssss...ssssssss....sssssss...

Gosh! I've never heard myself described as a thorny, monstrous, snaky individual before. After all the effort I put into scrubbing my scales and shaving all the facial hair off..plus the photoshop-ping still could not hide the real me.

I think from now on I'd let everything grow naturally and be called Chuck Norris :)

btw, my daughter said Chuck Norris counted to infinity...twice!

Yeah, Nury, Where are all the other pix?

[melinda]

Am I the only one who noticed the tuataros' resemblance to " The Creature From the Black Lagoon"? Coincidence? I think not. It must have been some repressed collective memory expression at work.

[Dinosaurs Singapore]

Dinosaurs Singapore, Dinosaur Singapore

http://www.dinosaurlive.com.sg/

Dinosaurs Singapore Is One Of The Biggest Entertainment Event Which Will Be Held In Singapore. You Will Have An Opportunity To Watch all Dinosaurs Come Live In The Stadium.

[wtAaETH]

im not from Asia

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