1. Anomalocaris - (anima-loh-karis)
by Jim Peters
Anomalocaris was the largest creature on the planet when it lived 525 million years ago during the Cambrian evolutionary explosion. Fossils in Canada are up to two feet in length, some in China are larger. Anomalocaris was so successful at the top of the food chain that it survived for 20 million years. Anomalocaris shares some of the basic physical characteristics that we think Rods possess with its long body and fins running down the middle of the sides of its body. Today we can see the efficiency of this propulsion method in cuttlefish. Being predators, anomalocaris and cuttlefish are agile and quick.
Nature has experimented with the physical form that Rods exhibit and has had a great deal of success with the design. But anomalocaris was an ocean dwelling creature. What could the possible connection be between them and Rods?
2. Protopterygote - (proto-terry-goat)
by Dave Blackburn
The day after Jose and Jim Peters flew to London in November, I found Stephen Dalton's book "The Miracle of Flight". It was there that I began to learn of the work of Professor Robin J. Wootton of Exeter University. In the book, on page 39, is where I found the strobe flash time-lapse photo of the physical model Protopterygote that was built and photographed by Dalton. Wootton drew a picture of what he deduced the protopterygote must have looked like, and Dalton's constructed a physical model that matched Wootton's paleo-entomological vision. So I synthesized the notions that the Rods that are being filmed and videoed by Jose and his associates around the world are the modern day descendants of the primitive protopterygote. Entomologists, led by Wootton and his colleagues explain that protopterygotes are the extinct missing link that had to exist, emerging sometime during the 70 million year period between the emergence of crawling insects, and the emergence of winged insects.