i am not a paleontologist and there have been many extremely weird living creatures over the time earth has been around.

and as the sibling comment mentions, i am primed for science articles to be metric.

This is what I told my chemistry teacher in high school when he marked me down for not including units, too.

Common sense also suggests using the SI units that ~95% of the planet uses, but here we are.

Common sense would be using metric units in science-related article.