Scientist Searches for 'Hand Animal'
Skilled Indian scouts are reported to be able to deduce many things from a set of footprints or tracks, but a modern expert is needed—when the trail is some 200 million years old.
That is figuratively the amazing task undertaken by Dr. Frank E. Peabody, assistant professor of zoology, as recounted in an article, "The Case of the Mysterious 'Hand Animal,'" by Andrew Hamilton in the September issue of Natural History magazine.
It all began with the discovery by a scientist of fossilized tracks, resembling the imprint of a human hand, in sandstone being used to build a friend's fireplace in northern Arizona in December, 1935.
These disturbing tracks of "hand animals" were first unearthed in England 128 years ago, but these were the first noticed on the North American continent. After numerous findings in a Germany quarry in 1835, a German scientist gave the name Chirtherium to the ancient creature that left these scuffling imprints.
But because no fossil bone remains have ever been discovered
Los Angeles—(U.P.)—A University of California at Los Angeles senior was stripped of all extra-curricular student privileges today because he attached signs reading "UCLA for Eisenhower" to sides of a bus.
Student Punished For Political Signs
The faculty-administration committee on student conduct placed Frank Underwood, 21, under "full censure" for his sign posting.
Underwood, a member of the Westwood Young Republicans, said he headed an off-campus group which left the UCLA campus Oct. 9 in a bus to attend a Republican rally in Los Angeles at which Dwight Eisenhower spoke.
Underwood said "UCLA for Eisenhower" signs were attached to the sides of the bus.
UCLA officials said the signs viated sections of the state education code which bans use of the university's name or its abbreviations for "partisan political or religious purposes."
speculation on the nature of the hand animal created one of the most heated scientific squabbles of the 19th century.
Scientists could not decide by the tracks alone, which ranged from the size of a chicken's to an elephant's foot, whether the creature had resembled a baboon, kangaroo-like animal, or a type of dinosaur. And were they the ancestors of man, dinosaurs, or birds?
Most confusing was the fact that the "thumb" of the "hand" was on the outside of the track—just the reverse of a human hand. This led some scientists to believe that the hand animal crossed its legs while walking, which would account for the peculiar position of the thumb.
Dr. Peabody entered the picture in 1938 when the University of California, where he was a graduate student, sent an expedition to the sandstone cliffs of northern Arizona to explore the source of the material used in the fireplace.
Dr. Peabody accompanied them, became engrossed in the problem, and has since become a top authority on the mystery.
Since paleontologists can sometimes identify a prehistoric animal from a single vertebra, Dr. Peabody speculated: "Maybe tracks alone—properly studied and evaluated—can yield important clues about the animal that made them."
He first acquired a background by studying the paw marks of wild animals in northern California. Later he found, after months of research, that he could identify in his laboratory most living salamanders on the basis of footprints alone.
Next he found that this was just as true for fossilized tracks of animals from other eras. Then he was ready to tackle the sets or "trackways" of Chirotherium tracks which the five expeditions from 1938 to 1949 searched for.
impressions of the tracks were preserved.
When the tracks were made 200 million years ago, northern Arizona now a 5,000' foot plateau, was a delta land near sea level. The hand animals left imprints in the soft mud which hardened and were filled with sand. Eventually the sand solidified and perfect relief
The only trouble is that they are thus on the under-side of the sand-stone strata. To pry up the layers requires not only picks, shovel, and muscle—but sometimes a two-ton truck and crane.
By analyzing the length of pace and stride of the trackways, the relative deviation of the feet from the midline, angulation, and other characteristics, Dr. Peabody obtained a fairly comprehensive description of the "hand animal." In 1948 he published a six-year study of the creature.
"It's like ripping up a 50-foot stretch of city sidewalk and carting it to a museum 800 miles away, all the time taking care not to scuff the hop-scotch marks chalked on its surface," Dr. Peabody said.
Results? Scientists now consider the "thumb" to be an overgrown little toe used for support and balance. And Dr. Peabody has concluded with "reasonable scientific assurance" that they were reptiles.
With long tails and four scaly feet, they may have resembled but were not dinosaurs. They varied in size from cats to elephants. Eight distinct species, including six new ones, were pinned down as a result of Dr. Peabody's methods used on the expeditions.
However, the role of this scientists' nightmare in the evolutionary scale is still not certain, and will not be until a skeleton—or a bit of one—is dug up by someone, somewhere.
Bird Society to Meet Sunday
Thursday, Oct. 23, 1952 University Daily Kansan Page.
The Kansas Ornithological society, holding its annual fall meeting in Baldwin Sunday, invites the public to go on several field trips to see various birds of the vicinity, according to Dr. Rollin Baker, assistant professor of zoology and chairman of the society. The first group will leave Baker university at 8 a.m. Sunday.
Washington — (U.P.) - American battle casualties in Korea now total 122,117, an increase of 963 over last week's report, the Defense department announced today.
Korean Casualties Up 963
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