Rep. Tom Sloan of Lawrence really is into Xiphactinus audax (ZY’-fak-tin-us AH’daks). He has been trying for a decade to get the long-dead critter declared the official fossil of Kansas.
But other cooks have started messing with his broth. They want the winged Pteranodon longiceps (tehr-RAHN’-uh-dahn LAWN’-jeye-seps) to get the honor instead.
Now Sloan and his fossil partner, Rep. Don Hineman of Dighton, are worried that too many fossil candidates will provoke their fellow solons into throwing up their hands and abandoning fossils as too old to matter.
Well, maybe. Still, there are other obvious candidates: Take the Moderatus Republicanax, for example, that splendid species went extinct when Nancy Kassebaum left the scene an era ago, and surely deserves commemoration.
Perhaps other Register readers with long memories can add still more to the Kansas fossil roster. Drop us an e-mail.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
