Elementary's Give Me the Finger: Floppy Disks Dinosaurs Like Grallator

Summary: The bipedal theropod dinosaur Grallator epitomizes the disembodied extinction of eight-inch floppy disks in Elementary's Give Me the Finger June 4, 2018.

hypothetical reconstruction of Grallator dinosaur; Rutgers University Geology Museum, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Tomwsulcer, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The bipedal theropod dinosaur Grallator appears as the likeliest answer to a dinosaur specimen equivalent in dinosaur fossil-poor New York in the Elementary series episode Give Me the Finger June 4, 2018.

Director Jonny Lee Miller and writers Robert Doherty, Jordan Rosenberg and Kelly Wheeler bring dinosaurs into the sixth season's sixth episode, the series' 126th episode overall. Major Joshua Beckham (Maurice Jones) and Lieutenant Colonel Robin Deakins (LisaGay Hamilton) call Ando Azuma (Kyro Wavebourne) to check "a sensitive upgrade" to Air Force technology. Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) determines that "the computers currently running the [missile control] system are dinosaurs from the 1970s that still use eight-inch floppy disks."

The reference expresses symbolic employment of the term as extinction from long ago even as it encourages examining Grallator traces in Blauvelt, Rockland County, New York.

The bipedal (two-legged) theropod ("wild beast") dinosaur Grallator fits into fossils found in Nova Scotia, Canada, and in the United States from Massachusetts into North Carolina.

Australia, China and Europe guard Grallator fossils from the Jurassic through Cretaceous Ages 237 million to 201.3 million and 146 million to 100 million years ago. Geologist Edward Hitchcock (May 24, 1794-Feb. 27, 1864) honed Grallator ("stilt walker") in 1858 from the Latin word grallae ("stilts") for heron-like, long-legged, stork-like wading birds. He initiated the first known investigations in Carl Linnaeus's (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778) taxonomic system of the hollow-boned bipedal theropod dinosaur Grallator with three-toed limbs.

New York's fossilized Grallator joins Australian, Canadian, Chinese and European specimens as part of the northern Newark Supergroup from 237 million to 174.1 million years ago.

Paleontologists know of 1.97- to 5.91-inch (5- to 15-centimeter) lengths for bipedal theropod dinosaur Grallator footprints and the possibility of another two ineffective, stubby outer toes.

Paleontologists list digital formulas as ?-3-4-5-?, from digits II, III and IV with respectively 3, 4 and 5 phalanges (toe-bones), on four- to five-toed Grallator limbs. They move Grallator into trace fossils as burrows, footprints or fossilized excrement in sedimentary layers, not into body fossils as bones, plant parts, shells or teeth. The bipedal theropod dinosaur Grallator thus far needs only an ichnogenus (from the Greek ίχνος [ichnos, "track"] and ταξις [taxis, "ordering"]) as an animal-made, animal-shaped artifact.

Recovering and researching additional fossils and revisiting fossil collections offer opportunities to order bipedal theropod dinosaur Grallator footprints into body fossil-organized genera whose foot proportions overlap.

The bipedal, short-necked, small-winged, square-skulled theropod dinosaur species Caudipteryx ("tail feather") from northeastern China's Yixian Formation, Sihetun area, Liaoning Province 125 million years ago presents possibilities.

Grallator cursorius ("stilt-walker running") qualifies as the first-described, first-named type specimen for the dinosaur genus of hollow-boned, two-legged theropods with high-held, lightweight first and fifth toes. Hitchcock reckoned bipedal theropod dinosaur long-legged wader-like habits from compact small feet with mesarthral pads (underlying phalangal midsections) and without a hind foot's hallux (innermost digit). He and his son, geologist Charles Henry Hitchcock (Aug. 23, 1836-Nov. 5, 1919) respectively studied five (cuneatus, cursorius, formosus and tenuis; gracilis) of 49 Grallator species.

A prosthetic finger's flash drive transferring secrets from floppy disks takes technology along more nefarious tacks than technology teaming disembodied Grallator tracks with Caudipteryx body fossils.

Jonny Lee Miller makes his television directorial debut in CBS Elementary tv series' Give Me the Finger (season 6 episode 6): Elementary Writers @ELEMENTARYStaff via Twitter June 4, 2018

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

hypothetical reconstruction of Grallator dinosaur; Rutgers University Geology Museum, New Brunswick, Middlesex County, north central New Jersey; Feb. 21, 2014: Tomwsulcer, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rutgers_University_Geology_museum_prehistoric_dinosaur_named_grallator.JPG

Jonny Lee Miller makes his television directorial debut in CBS Elementary tv series' Give Me the Finger (season 6 episode 6): Elementary Writers @ELEMENTARYStaff via Twitter June 4, 2018, @ https://twitter.com/ELEMENTARYStaff/status/1003711007510822912

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