Dinosaur-alien link unearthed

Mathew Du Plessis: I hate queues. It's the spelling. All of those vowels, clumped miserably together. Indecent. Evocative, too, of a time before the convenient distractions of Kindles and smartphones became available to save queuers (urk!) from the vortex of monotony and seemingly endless despair that once defined queueing (argh!).

Now, Quetzalcoatl, however - well, there's a word. It starts off in much the same way, but twists right around with a rare pairing of consonants, daringly divides a perfectly ordinary digraph with a glottal stop, and finishes off by disemvowelling the final syllable. Thrilling!

Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god of the Aztecs. Also, Quetzalcoatl, the planet-sized asteroid floating about somewhere nearby. But never mind that particular incarnation, especially when the word - the name - brings the mysteries of MesoAmerica to mind.

This week, we learned that the mysteries of MesoAmerica are, in fact, still being mined - news came through the various aethers that a hidden tunnel, discovered in 2003 underneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Teotihuacan - that huge archaeological mecca in the Basin of Mexico - was being excavated.

Teotihuacan, the City of Gods founded either by the Olmecs, Toltecs, Totonacs, Zapotecs, Mixtecs and/or Mayans (who knows? I don't!) is also home to the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, and the Avenue of the Dead.

The simple fact that I know next to nothing about these places, names and things is rather exciting. It means there's plenty to find out.

The implication, by geographical if not chronological proximity, that tequila is somehow involved in all of this, goes without saying.

Archaeological work at the site has been going on, uninterrupted, for 100 years, but this latest excavation is perhaps the most significant event there since 2004, when a Walmart store was found to have been opened in the ancient city (mind-boggling, also true).

This tunnel, which has been sealed off for 1800 years, is about 100m long, and peppered with chambers, some of which contain interstellar space ships. Except for the space ship bit, which hasn't exactly been proven yet, as such, but I have faith that once explorers reach those hidden chambers, godlike space chariots will be in clear evidence, and Erich von Daniken will finally be vindicated.

A new Indiana Jones movie will have to be made to celebrate, I think. But that's just me.

Add "us" into the mix, say at the end of Quetzalcoatl, and suddenly we're in dinosaur territory, which is always fun.

Quetzalcoatlus was a pterodactyloid - sort of like a Pterodactyl, only with added awesomeness, possibly brought on by tequila. Pterodacyloids are also a lot of fun to spell, even without alcoholic agave derivatives.

One dinosaur whose name we might not get many more opportunities to spell out in future is the poor old put-upon Torosaurus. A couple of palaeontologists from the Museum of the Rockies in Montana are arguing that the Torosaurus, which looks just like a Triceratops that's lost its horns, is, in fact . wait for it . a Triceratops that's lost its horns!

But wait, there's more. Nanotyrannus, which looks suspiciously like a little Tyrannosaurus rex, pretty much is, while Dracorex and Stygimoloch are going to be reclassified as juvenile incarnations of Pachycephalosaurus.

This is disastrous news. And not just because it means that the entire history of Dino-Riders, the 1980s cartoon series, will have to be revised. Discovery Channel's entire back catalogue of dinosaur documentaries will have to be turfed, too! Dictionaries will have to be rewritten! Wikipedia entries!

That's very inconsiderate, and a much bigger deal than the inconsonant vowel movements brought about by standing idly in line like a conga-line of teetotallers.

So, cue the tequila!

I'll get my coatl.