Timeline for Is there any explanation for why Arthur Conan Doyle thought pterodactyls would be so horrifying?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 11, 2022 at 16:56 | comment | added | user11683 | Such pterodactyls are gigantic, reptilian, carnivorous bats. Bats are spooky, carnivores are dangerous, reptiles are sinister, and giants are frightening. An avian predator with a 20' wingspan would probably be viewed as frighteningly monstrous. Unplumed wings and an 'angular' body plan seem 'alien' (similar fear comes from tentacled sea monsters even if an octopus may seem harmless to one with modest familiarity). | |
| Mar 11, 2022 at 2:01 | answer | added | bob1 | timeline score: 7 | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 16:09 | comment | added | Clint Eastwood | All the swans in Britain are property of the crown. Anyone who harms one, even in self defense, could find his head on a pike overlooking the Thames. This lead to a supercilious attitude among the swans, leading to aggression. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 14:22 | comment | added | OrangeDog | Have you seen Jurassic World? | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 14:16 | comment | added | tbrookside | @ClintEastwood Ah, yes. Murderous swans were once the bane of England. I had momentarily forgotten. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 8:40 | comment | added | Valorum | Giant flappy murder-birds aren't terrifying to you? | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 5:01 | comment | added | Invisible Trihedron | Conan Doyle believed in wingety fairies. Pterodactyls are to fairies as Orcs are to Elves. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 4:19 | comment | added | Rogue Jedi | Maybe he was picturing one of these guys: archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/… | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 3:52 | comment | added | releseabe | @bob1: i think on the continent wolves, don't know about bears, remained a problem even in ww1 and he would have heard of wolf attacks. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 3:03 | comment | added | Clint Eastwood | When Arthur Conan Doyle was a small child, his family was pecked apart by swans. Perhaps this trauma involving large birds influenced is emphasis on pterodactyls. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 3:03 | comment | added | bob1 | @releseabe - bears were gone by the mid 1300's I think, and wolves almost certainly late 1600's/early 1700's (18th century), so unlikely given that Conan-Doyle was born 1859. I guess predators in other countries is a possibility, but not in the UK. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 2:30 | comment | added | releseabe | @tbrookside: when Doyle was a kid, some living people remembered when gunpowder weapons were not nearly as effective against predators as they are today: single shot, less reliable, etc. Bears and wolves no doubt knew this and did not avoid humans as they do today. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 1:43 | history | edited | Buzz | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 9, 2022 at 1:29 | comment | added | tbrookside | You grew up in an era where large animals are (mostly) endangered, and where extinction is lamented as a tragedy. Nature, to moderns, is something to be pitied and protected. Doyle lived in a time where nature, and particularly the unknown or unfamiliar in nature, was still something men feared. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 1:17 | comment | added | Sam Azon | Clearly, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories was not a very deep thinker. | |
| Mar 9, 2022 at 0:40 | history | asked | Buzz | CC BY-SA 4.0 |