You’re welcome, Anzu

NOW JUST back up, you. Stay back! Yes, that’s fire we’re holding. Animals these days have tamed fire. (Well, some of us have.) In the other hand is something even more dangerous, so don’t make us use it.

We just decided to visit a minute, then we’ll be out of your way again. And out of your age. Back!

Just hear us out and we’ll go, marvelous as this time travel app on our iPhone is. But before we leave, this needs to be said:

A few years back, scientists in our time didn’t know what to make of your, uh, remains. Your kind isn’t around these parts, not any more. In fact, the bones we find of your species today are an estimated 66 to 68 million years old. Talk about a window on the past.

When our kind finds bones, however old, we try to figure out what the critter looked like who left them. After piecing one of you together, our scientists didn’t know what to make of a 7-foot-tall flightless bird weighing 500 or so pounds with a 10-gallon beak and huge claws. So they called you, ahem, the Chicken From Hell.

Back! The scientists didn’t tell us you’d be so touchy. Hey, you ought to read some of the stuff we write about some of our own species in these editorial columns. No sense mincing words.

Now you just listen. Sometimes even our paleontologists cut loose now and then, and go to editorializing themselves. They must have thought that crack about you was funny, and it was.

But there is good news for your kind. This past week mankind gave you a real scientific name, finally. They are calling you Anzu wyliei. The last name comes from a friend of the Carnegie museum,and the first name, Anzu, comes from Sumerian and Akkadian mythology-from a half-man, half-bird, uh, feathered demon.

Back!

You’re a new find, Anzu. At least for our kind. We just wanted you to know that you’ve got a real name now. If you don’t mind, we’ll take our leave now.

It’s almost supper time, and it’s our night to drop by KFC to pick up some . . . .

Fish. We eat lots of fish these days. And vegetables. Yes, yes, is that familiar? They say you ate fish and plants, too. So we have something in common, see, good buddy? Seeing you up close reminds us that we sure are glad we didn’t live 66 million years ago. Just an unexpected turkey gobble in mid-April is enough to scare the wits out of some of us. We can only imagine running into you in the Anzu woods.

Hey, what’s that behind you? T-REX! (Quick, while it’s looking the other way, let’s get out of here. Unsettling thing, time travel.)

Bye now, Mr./Mrs./Ms. Anzu. No need to hurry back.