They don't look like birds to me.
The Strelitzia species are natives of South Africa. They were first introduced to Europeans in 1773, when they were imported to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. They're called Birds of Paradise after the pointy, beak-like spathe from which the flowers emerge. Strelitzia reginae, also called the Crane Flower, is the official flower of the City of Los Angeles.
They're durable, drought tolerant and almost impossible to kill. To me they don't look like birds, they look more like....velociraptors.....
What do you think?
5 comments:
weeeelllll, you have a point there..especially since birds & dinos are connected!feathered dinosaurs etc etc...
Laura beat me to it...birds = velociraptors.
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Related:
Sinosauropteryx was a bipedal, carnivorous dinosaur that lived around 125m years ago in the Early Cretaceous epoch - 20m years or so after the earliest known bird (Archaeopteryx). It grew up to a metre or so in length with a long tail, was covered in primitive feathers, and is an evolutionary cousin of Velociraptor, which lived 50m years later at the end of the Late Cretaceous epoch.
The biology of Sinosauropteryx was more bird- than reptile-like, and it is probable that its behaviour was more closely related to birds, too, in terms of display and parental care.
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Well, a dinosaur is supposedly a predecessor of birds... but you are right, I have always had trouble seeing the bird in this fantastical flower.
I didn't know they were so hardy. I guess you are just that much closer to the tropics!
How funny - I even used the coloration for a painting I did with a velociraptor in it. Takes a second to load but you can see it here: http://www.rawfunction.com/john-brosio
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