Dinosaur Sighting: Bookzilla

What’s big, green, and loves books? Bookzilla, of course: the mascot of Decatur, Georgia’s annual book festival, which was held last weekend.

According to the Bookzilla’s Facebook page, the monster got its start as a science experiment that escaped to Decatur and eventually grew to prodigious size on a steady diet of books. Technically, though, I am not sure if Bookzilla qualifies for a Dinosaur Sighting. The monster’s biography states that the beast was originally a “tiny green lizard,” and lizards are very distantly related to dinosaurs. (The closest living relatives of dinosaurs are birds—the direct descendants of small, feathered dinosaurs—and crocodiles. Dinosaurs and lizards last shared a common ancestor more than 245 million years ago.) Godzilla counts—everyone’s favorite radioactive dinosaur got its start as a Godzillasaurus—but despite the uncertain family tree of the Decatur monster, we’ll give Bookzilla an honorary place among the many dinosaurs that have been spotted around the country.

Have you seen a dinosaur or other prehistoric creature in an unusual place? Please send your photo to [email protected].

Riley Black | | READ MORE

Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications.