An Argentine farmer found this 20,000-year-old family of Giant Armadillos (Glyptodon) buried near a river.
They were all looking in the same direction, as if they were walking towards something, the largest being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. It is estimated that they weighed around 2 tons. #Armadillos #Argentine
@histories_arch
@globalmuseum Nice find. Of course American media has to dumb it down - as usual- and measure in VW Beetles. I guess using elephants or giraffes, buses or football fields wasn't applicable. How about using actual measurements, to teach people some basic math?
The big Glyptodons reached up to 2 meters (6.60 feet) and weighed on the order of 400 kilograms (880 pounds). Check Wikipedia. They id not weigh 2 tons.
@alexf24 @globalmuseum Snobbery aside, it does no harm to help people visualize it easily in terms of a familiar frame of reference.
@alexf24 @pieist @globalmuseum It's very easy to just do both, IMO. Then people will learn not only to use actual measurements, but will get an assist in developing an intuitive understanding of their scale.
@pieist @globalmuseum We'll have to disagree here. It is not snobbery. Media has been dumbing down (US) at least since the Reagan era. Every time you read or hear a news story, they measure in buses or football fields. No wonder Chinese, Korean, and Japanese kids beat us in STEM.
Telling people in units of measurement should be the norm. Imperial is ok, metric would be even better, but again, the same complaint. Dumbing down the public serves its political and commercial purpose.