B.C. by Mastroianni and Hart for June 14, 2020

POINT: Ant.

Clearly the apteryx never read anything about extinction.

What does “reticulating mandible” even mean? A look at many definitions of “reticulate” in my favorite dictionary and several Google searches gave no joy. And “hexagonal” for a mandible?

Not criticizing the comic, which follows its own rules. Maybe this is a giant two-legged cave ant. But as a technical challenge, I wonder if it would be possible to draw the relative sizes of the bird and ant more realistically, and still have it be intelligible.

Don’t you just love it when somebody answers your question with another question?

lol

The apteryx was with us for a brief instant in archeological time. The ant has been around for almost 500 million years. However, some single-celled critters have probably been with us for about 3 billion years. Humans of our kind, on the other hand, are thought to have shown up about 200,000 years ago.

Kind of puts it all in perspective.

’nuff said! :D

@Troglodyte. I’m with you. Just trying to understand some of the comments on this one makes me want to go back to bed and wait until Monday.

TMI, TMI, TMI. . .

I think that is the second biggest ant I have ever seen. That or the smallest Apteryx(Kiwi) I have never seen. -Fun fact: The symbol of the New Zealand Air Force is the flightless Kiwi. Gotta love irony)

That is one big ant,or a very small bird ;~|

My eldest son did a 4th grade science fair project in 1993 on how Apteryx is the proof that birds are, indeed, living dinosaurs. He read the research of Bill Bakker and other Paleontologists to defend his thesis…. He (my son) was 8 years old at the time, and had been saying he was going to be a Paleontologist since he was 3. He is now a field biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife, saving endangered species. He realized that there were more important issues in the world when he was in middle school.

Actually, arthropods are NOT “insects”.

Well we had all these panels we had to use up.

Who callin’ a freak, Freak?

If the ant is as big as that bird, I’d say he is NOT the start of the food chain!

Location has a lot to do with the food chain. Unarmed Human in the forest, Grizzly in the forest guess who is at the top.

Hey! Give the Apteryx a little love! We haven’t seen him in ages.

That’s a big and, or a little bird. (Or is it a perspective trick?)

Millenia later, we get the retroencabulator. Same concept.

Duh! Everyone knows what those things mean.

I think Mason got a bit carried away.

The apteryx still exists in modern times. Now it’s called a kiwi.