After waking up to greet the new day, you walk into your kitchen excited to eat breakfast. You open that fridge up with excitement and grab anything that looks good to you. In order to put your meal together, you need a plate to hold the goods, which are in the cabinet directly next to the sink.
As you make your way over, humming with glee, you suddenly stop dead in your tracks and all the happiness is drained from you instantly. On the side of the sink rests a big (actually small) eight-legged creature. A spider. The menace just sits there – as if to mock you from grabbing that plate.
How does a spider get into your home and then decide to plant itself right on your sink? The answer lies with the very fact that any living creature on Earth has survival needs. Even that spider that is getting in between you and that breakfast meal.
One could say that biology or zoology are perfect practices to understanding life on Earth. The problem is that those professions only help with the current species of animals today. The biggest profession of science to help us understand our natural world lies within paleontology.
Paleontology is, in fact, the study of prehistoric life on Earth. This ranges from the time mankind took their first steps all the way to the beginning of Earth’s start. The study of paleontology is a crucial study for everybody to understand and grasp even when you know nothing about prehistoric life.
That spider in your kitchen is there for a reason, unbeknownst to you of the reason, all you really care about is getting rid of the menace. But you must understand that spiders have been around for millions of years. In fact, according to the YouTube video 5 Shocking Giant Prehistoric Spiders by BlueGum, mongolarachne is an ancient mega spider that lived in the Jurassic time period of the Mesozoic era.
The living creatures that exist today stem their survival methods from the prehistoric habits that their ancestors achieved. In other words, that spider is behaving similarly to the way a mongolarachne would, only in smaller form. Why is this important to know? Because we can assume that your house has a natural survival checklist this spider reviewed before entering.
According to the YouTube video Why Paleontology? by Earth Encompassed, paleontology is important because life on Earth echoes from the past. The aquatic life that swims in the oceans and lakes, foliage that continues to seek sunlight, and even us humans are all something brought up from the past. There is always something that ties our current and future habitat to the past.
However, even if we understand that life today is echoing prehistoric behaviors, what is the biggest reason paleontology matters to you? Just because we know something as minor or significant as a behavior does not mean we are affected by every paleontological discovery.
The best answer to that question is the warning quote from Walking With Prehistoric Beasts in the YouTube video presented by Unmonetized Vids For Fun or Education, “… no species lasts forever.” As described by the scene within the video, we have constructed museums to study the past, but all that has ever showcased for paleontology side of things is that living creatures on Earth eventually cease to exist.
If nothing else, you should thank time for miniaturizing a mongolarachne into that “somewhat” small spider you see before you now. Paleontology is a crucial study for everybody because the past truly can teach us many things we can expect to see going forward. Already, our natural habitat changes and refines itself to be better each and every day. Even if you cannot fully see the bigger picture.
The name “Pondersaur” means “words with a roar” alluding to the creature’s distinct communication.
