# Dinosaurs



## Yutyrannus (Jun 18, 2017)

Because I'm a fucking autist and want to sperg with other paleofags around here about new and relatively new dinosaur shit. Or discuss/debate papers and shit. Or whatever.

Starting off with this cool infant bird found in Myanmar. A Cretaceous enantiornithean (If you don't know what that is or don't want to read the articles, it basically looked like modern birds but with teeth, fucky backwards shoulder bones, and clawed digits. They belonged in a different grouping and have no extant relatives.) hatchling fell out of the nest into the amber and its impression was perfectly preserved for the ensuing 100 million or so years.

Also this cool paper that was just published suggesting that _Neovenator _possessed sensory organs on the snout similar to those found on crocodilians. 

If this is too :autism: feel free to delete.


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Jun 18, 2017)

Name your favorite dinosaur, Kiwis.  Mine is the Eustreptospondylus. Daspleteosaurus is a close second.

Don't even fucking bother posting in this thread if you're gonna say T-Rex or Triceratops or some other casual shit.


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 18, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Name your favorite dinosaur, Kiwis.  Mine is the Eustreptospondylus. Daspleteosaurus is a close second.
> 
> Don't even fucking bother posting in this thread if you're gonna say T-Rex or Triceratops or some other casual shit.



_Acrocanthosaurus,  Changyuraptor,_ _Irritator, Therizinosaurus, _and _Herrerasaurus _are a few of my favorites. I'm a sucker for theropods if you can't tell. Bet mine absolute favorite isn't too hard to guess, though.


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## Intelligent Calcium (Jun 18, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Name your favorite dinosaur, Kiwis.  Mine is the Eustreptospondylus. Daspleteosaurus is a close second.


Yi Qi, I just think it's cute and the bat-wings look pretty unique on a feathered dinosaur.

Carnotaurus gets an honorable mention for probably looking like an extremely fast sausage on legs.


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## cumrobbery (Jun 18, 2017)

I like Ceratosaurus. I used to be a pleb who liked Spinosaurus the best until modern paleontology nerfed the fuck out of it


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 18, 2017)

cumrobbery said:


> I like Ceratosaurus. I used to be a pleb who liked Spinosaurus the best until modern paleontology nerfed the fuck out of it



Quadrupedal Spino is cool as shit though. Although I do remember reading there might have been a slight miscalculation in that paper and the back legs wouldn't quite have been so stubby, but how the hell could a giant shambling knuckle-walking water monster not be fuckkin awesome


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## cumrobbery (Jun 18, 2017)

Yutyrannus said:


> Quadrupedal Spino is cool as shit though. Although I do remember reading there might have been a slight miscalculation in that paper and the back legs wouldn't quite have been so stubby, but how the hell could a giant shambling knuckle-walking water monster not be fuckkin awesome


Suchomimus and Baryonyx had normal sized back legs for a theropod right? Its strange that Spinosaurus seems to be the only one who evolved to have shorter back legs


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 18, 2017)

cumrobbery said:


> Suchomimus and Baryonyx had normal sized back legs for a theropod right? Its strange that Spinosaurus seems to be the only one who evolved to have shorter back legs



_Suchomimus_ and _Baryonyx_ were also much more closely related to one another than they were to _Spinosaurus, _which explains a lot of that difference.  Neither were entirely piscivorous nor nearly as huge as _Spinosaurus _either, and were both only semiaquatic to boot. There is some compelling arguments against fully quad Spino (here's that commentary I was talking about) but even in Hartman's revision of the Ibrahim Spino it is still proportioned differently than Baryonychidae with a further forward center of gravity. I would assume is because of Spino's further specialization to a fully or mostly aquatic lifestyle and huge size. As far as I know, there has been no evidence of Spino eating anything that was not an aquatic animal, while Baryonyx was linked to pterosaur predation.

The real question is _Irritator_'s posture imo, considering it is a part of Spinosaurinae. I can't find any info on it.

Gotta love taxonomy being differed only by one fucking letter

Edit: _Oxlaia_ was also probably postured similar to _Spinosaurus, _so Spino wasn't exactly unique. My personal hypothesis is that their sheer size is most of the reason why.


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## Positron (Jun 18, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Name your favorite dinosaur, Kiwis.


Great Spotted Kiwi


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## Kari Kamiya (Jun 18, 2017)

The _Dromaeosauridae_ line's my favorite, but mostly the motherfucking subfamily _Dromaeosaurinae_.

But I'm much more interested in the prehistoric marine life like _Dunkleosteus_, _Basilosaurus_, and the ammonites, though the marine reptiles like _Sarcosuchus_ and the pliosauroids are much more fascinating. Scary to think such creatures once swam the ancient seas, but they're just so cool.


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## beansntoast (Jun 19, 2017)

good thread :powerlevel: I almost went for geology as my major bc dinos (and earth history in general) are cool af

I can't really choose what's my favourite, there are way too many interesting ones


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## Owen Grady (Jun 19, 2017)

I have many favorites I can think of. I like _Concavenator _just because it's so weird looking and that hump on its back makes no sense. I also have a fondness for _Cryolophosaurus_ due to personal ties. I love _Compsognathus_ because it's so smol and vicious, even if it didn't necessarily hunt in groups like it does in the movies. I like hadrosaurs because nobody else does and they are majestic animals that deserve love too.

All that said I hope I don't seem like a normie if I come out now and say that my all time favorite is probably _T. rex_.

And I'm thrilled to hear that it didn't have feathers.


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Jun 19, 2017)

Owen Grady said:


> I like hadrosaurs because nobody else does and they are majestic animals that deserve love too.



Jack Horner, who discovered Maiasaurus, worked as a technical advisor for all the _Jurassic Park _movies, and was a partial inspiration for the character Alan Grant, is an avowed hadrosaur fanboy.


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## Owen Grady (Jun 19, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Jack Horner, who discovered Maiasaurus, worked as a technical advisor for all the _Jurassic Park _movies, and was a partial inspiration for the character Alan Grant, is an avowed hadrosaur fanboy.



Oh, so I've heard. I believe they are his specialty. Supposedly there are fewer hadrosaur experts than there are actual uncovered specimens of hadrosaurs. Bit of a shame Horner has become something of a contrarian nutjob with an honorary Ph.D. and ran off to marry a nineteen-year-old. But I perhaps I am not in a position to judge.


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## beansntoast (Jun 19, 2017)

Owen Grady said:


> And I'm thrilled to hear that it didn't have feathers.







also a link to the paper the misleading pop science articles are based on: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/13/6/20170092

edit: obligatory disclaimer, I'm not a feather fetishist, neither a scaly who throws a tantrum abt "muuh precious childhood monstuuuhs!" (not meant at you Owen, more at those pop journalists and their fanboys), I'm pretty annoyed by "extremists" on both sides, those who make dinos into puffballs and claim it's accurate (sure it can be cute but accurate? we don't know! there's not enough impressions for most species), but tbh those who treat dinosaurs like some sort of fantasy creature invented by a monster designer to look as scary as possible... those annoy me even more, dinosaurs were animals, they're not supposed to look "cool" and us getting more info on them is a good thing, even if it means we have to get rid of old concepts

edit²: lol sorry for the rant, I'm one of those stem spergs who gets deeply offended by the anti-science mindset of the general population and the willful mispresentation of studys in mainstream media


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 19, 2017)

Owen Grady said:


> And I'm thrilled to hear that it didn't have feathers.



Damn. Someone beat me with the Trey the Explainer video before I could wall of text about why _T. rex_ very much likely did. But yeah, it's a good video. Sorry to crush your dreams about scaly tyrannosauroids.

If it's any consolation, there are plenty of theropod groups further distanced from the coelurosaurs (probably Avetheropoda as a whole mostly had some sort of plumage somewhere) that were less likely to have feathers or featherlike structures. I'd say Ceratosauria and Carnosauria are likely candidates for not having many, if any, feathers.

Edit: Found a cool cladogram. This is from 2015 so some things may have been subject to change, but ey!





Edit #2: God, does it piss me off when tyrannosaurs are drawn with pennaceous feathers though. Don't even get me STARTED on when they draw fully plumed arms. Like what the fuck. They wouldn't have the full feather spread like maniraptorans did. Are you stupid.


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## Owen Grady (Jun 19, 2017)

beansntoast said:


> also a link to the paper the misleading pop science articles are based on: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/13/6/20170092
> 
> edit: obligatory disclaimer, I'm not a feather fetishist, neither a scaly who throws a tantrum abt "muuh precious childhood monstuuuhs!" (not meant at you Owen, more at those pop journalists and their fanboys), I'm pretty annoyed by "extremists" on both sides, those who make dinos into puffballs and claim it's accurate (sure it can be cute but accurate? we don't know! there's not enough impressions for most species), but tbh those who treat dinosaurs like some sort of fantasy creature invented by a monster designer to look as scary as possible... those annoy me even more, dinosaurs were animals, they're not supposed to look "cool" and us getting more info on them is a good thing, even if it means we have to get rid of old concepts
> 
> edit²: lol sorry for the rant, I'm one of those stem spergs who gets deeply offended by the anti-science mindset of the general population and the willful mispresentation of studys in mainstream media





Yutyrannus said:


> Damn. Someone beat me with the Trey the Explainer video before I could wall of text about why _T. rex_ very much likely did. But yeah, it's a good video. Sorry to crush your dreams about scaly tyrannosauroids.
> 
> If it's any consolation, there are plenty of theropod groups further distanced from the coelurosaurs (probably Avetheropoda as a whole mostly had some sort of plumage somewhere) that were less likely to have feathers or featherlike structures. I'd say Ceratosauria and Carnosauria are likely candidates for not having many, if any, feathers.
> 
> ...



This is all very informative, thank you. Ironically I only heard about the discovery by word of mouth from a friend who was riding with me down to an actual dig this last weekend, so I never got to read the full article. But God damn, mainstream science journalism pisses me off with this kind of sensationalist bullshit.

I have never doubted that some dinosaurs had feathers (though I admit I can get nostalgic about scaled dinosaurs sometimes). I just have never found the evidence for feathers to be as undeniable and all-encompassing as most scientists seem to see it.

Like sure, some species we know had feathers because we have found them with obvious impressions near the bone. We even know what color some of these animals were because of how well preserved their feathers were (_Sinosauropteryx_, _Microraptor_, etc.). But some people take this and bring it to ridiculous extremes throwing every single member of that species' family group into the mix and assuming without any further evidence that all of these things looked unashamedly like giant fluffy playthings just because of a single body.

I don't know. I just think we jump to overblown conclusions on feathers sometimes. I have seen images of feathered tyrannosaurs with such obscenely bright and excessive plumage they've made me want to physically retch. Did some of these animals have feathers? Absolutely. But if anything as large as _Tyrannosaurus_ did it almost certainly looked something more like the thumbnail in that YouTube video, not a purple Big Bird on steroids.


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Jun 19, 2017)

Owen Grady said:


> This is all very informative, thank you. Ironically I only heard about the discovery by word of mouth from a friend who was riding with me down to an actual dig this last weekend, so I never got to read the full article. But God damn, mainstream science journalism pisses me off with this kind of sensationalist bullshit.
> 
> I have never doubted that some dinosaurs had feathers (though I admit I can get nostalgic about scaled dinosaurs sometimes). I just have never found the evidence for feathers to be as undeniable and all-encompassing as most scientists seem to see it.
> 
> ...



Personally I think the revelation T-Rex had "lips" was way more jarring.  I'm so used to dramatic portrayals in movies where the Rex's teeth stick out across its lower jaw like a crocodile's.  The new look is a lot more avian.


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## Un Platano (Jun 19, 2017)

It's not my favorite dinousaur, but one of the most interesting is this obscure one that I remember reading about a long time ago. It was an ornithischian with a low sprawling gait like a crocodile that had huge forward facing eyes and giant teeth in front that stuck way out of the mouth. It wasn't a joke, I can't remember what it was called or even what group it belonged to, and I've never been able to find it again.


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Jun 19, 2017)

Un Platano said:


> It's not my favorite dinousaur, but one of the most interesting is this obscure one that I remember reading about a long time ago. It was an ornithischian with a low sprawling gait like a crocodile that had huge forward facing eyes and giant teeth in front that stuck way out of the mouth. It wasn't a joke, I can't remember what it was called or even what group it belonged to, and I've never been able to find it again.



Was it the _Placerias_?





If so, it's technically not a dinosaur.  It's a Dicnyodont: an archaeic reptile which actually predates the arrival of dinosaurs and died out sometime in the Triassic period.


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## Owen Grady (Jun 19, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Personally I think the revelation T-Rex had "lips" was way more jarring.  I'm so used to dramatic portrayals in movies where the Rex's teeth stick out across its lower jaw like a crocodile's.  The new look is a lot more avian.



See, this is news to me because I _always _thought that tyrannosaurs had lips, simply to keep their food in their mouths. I swear I read about it in an article I saw when I was a kid, but now people are talking about it like it's some new revelation. What's the deal?


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Jun 19, 2017)

Owen Grady said:


> See, this is news to me because I _always _thought that tyrannosaurs had lips, simply to keep their food in their mouths. I swear I read about it in an article I saw when I was a kid, but now people are talking about it like it's some new revelation. What's the deal?









The Rex's teeth in _Jurassic Park_ jut out over the lower jaw like so.  The one in _Walking With Dinosaurs_ had a similar look.  Come to think of it, I don't think any mainstream depiction of the T-Rex had its teeth completely covered.


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## Un Platano (Jun 19, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Was it the _Placerias_?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No, I'm certain that it was a dinosaur, something that surprised me based on its appearance. It was an early one too.

I actually find synapsids a lot more interesting than the dinosaurs. It's a bit sad that most people don't care about the paleozoic era at all, and know hardly anything from before the dinosaurs. The paleozoic is way more important in the history of biology than the mesozoic and it's a lot more interesting imo, but content about it is much less accessible and tit isn't represented at all in media, unlike dinosaurs that for whatever reason pervade everyone's conception of ancient animals. Everything between the Cambrian and Permian is so much more diverse than the mesozoic, which only saw 4 significant developments in dinosaurs, birds, mammals somewhat, and flowers. The paleozoic saw so much more.


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## Owen Grady (Jun 19, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> The Rex's teeth in _Jurassic Park_ jut out over the lower jaw like so.  The one in _Walking With Dinosaurs_ had a similar look.  Come to think of it, I don't think any mainstream depiction of the T-Rex had its teeth completely covered.



What gets me though is the implication that this is somehow new in scientific circles, though. Visible teeth have always been present in tyrannosaurs in mainstream media depictions but I was under the impression that the majority of scientists already believed that tyrannosaurs had lips and that this had been the prevalent view within the scientific community for many years.


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## beansntoast (Jun 20, 2017)

Owen Grady said:


> What gets me though is the implication that this is somehow new in scientific circles, though. Visible teeth have always been present in tyrannosaurs in mainstream media depictions but I was under the impression that the majority of scientists already believed that tyrannosaurs had lips and that this had been the prevalent view within the scientific community for many years.



sometimes it takes time until theorys take hold in the general scientific world, most scientists are pretty specialized in one subject and rarely stray from that after all.

fftopic:an example that comes to mind would be the alpha concept in canids, it's still widely believed that canid packs have a very strict hierarchy established by fights and constant aggression. this concept has been coined by Schenkel in 1947, popularized by Mech in 1970, but also pretty much debunked again by Mech in 1999, so almost 20 years ago, yet the general population and even scientists still believe in that outdated theory and treat their pets accordingly (like that nutjob Cesar Milan for example). stiff ike that doesn't really reach people, unless they're ethologists specialized in canid behaviour themselves I guess.


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 20, 2017)

Un Platano said:


> I actually find synapsids a lot more interesting than the dinosaurs. It's a bit sad that most people don't care about the paleozoic era at all, and know hardly anything from before the dinosaurs. The paleozoic is way more important in the history of biology than the mesozoic and it's a lot more interesting imo, but content about it is much less accessible and tit isn't represented at all in media, unlike dinosaurs that for whatever reason pervade everyone's conception of ancient animals. Everything between the Cambrian and Permian is so much more diverse than the mesozoic, which only saw 4 significant developments in dinosaurs, birds, mammals somewhat, and flowers. The paleozoic saw so much more.



OH GOD, I KNOW. I know. I am a fucking slut for Spenacodontia. They're so fucking cool. Throw the entire Permian at me and I'll be happy. I only made this thread exclusive to dinosaurs because I figured that's what people would be most willing to discuss.


You know whats my shit? Gorgonopsids. _Inostrancevia_ was such a badass.



Owen Grady said:


> See, this is news to me because I _always _thought that tyrannosaurs had lips



I know, right?? Even for more "lizardlike" portrayals of Rex I always thought it was weird, because... even lizards have lips.


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## ICametoLurk (Jun 20, 2017)

Ediacaran and Early Cambrian fauna had best diversity.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/36/13122.full


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## Dysnomia (Jun 22, 2017)

That baby bird is amazing.

I like ankylosaurs and nodosaurs. Big armored tanks. But I find their faces cute. It's like a turtle and a armadillo got together and made babies.





I want to pet his head and call him a good boy. I'd probably get freight trained though. But it would be worth it.

I remember reading in Jurassic Park that the baby t-rex's had some feathers and begged to be fed like baby birds. That might have been Michael Crichton's compromise for the feather debate at the time. His descriptions were based on the latest knowledge available. I think when people criticize it too much they forget or are unaware of that fact. Not sure about the dilophosaur neck frill/poison spray thing. Was that in the book or just the movie? There's no evidence that it had a neck frill or spit poison. But unfortunately it's been cemented in many depictions now. I'm not sure if we'd even be able to tell if a dinosaur was even poisonous anyway.

I got into reading about dinosaurs as a kid. This was back before anything was usually depicted with feathers. The whole feather thing annoys me in the sense that people are acting like reality is ruining their childhoods and somehow dinosaurs are wussy with feathers. They forget that the Americas had an age of terrifying giant birds that would have eaten you alive. Feathers don't make a huge carnivorous beast any less scary or cool. I think it's more cool having better and more accurate depictions thanks to more advanced science and more detailed fossil finds.


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## AnOminous (Jun 22, 2017)

Diplodocus was pretty cool.  It wasn't particularly ferocious and was herbivorous.  It was just too damn big to eat.



Spoiler: Big Ass Image





 [/spoiler


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Jun 22, 2017)

Dysnomia said:


> That baby bird is amazing.
> I remember reading in Jurassic Park that the baby t-rex's had some feathers and begged to be fed like baby birds. That might have been Michael Crichton's compromise for the feather debate at the time. His descriptions were based on the latest knowledge available. I think when people criticize it too much they forget or are unaware of that fact. Not sure about the dilophosaur neck frill/poison spray thing. Was that in the book or just the movie? There's no evidence that it had a neck frill or spit poison. But unfortunately it's been cemented in many depictions now. I'm not sure if we'd even be able to tell if a dinosaur was even poisonous anyway.



The dilophosaurs in the book don't have frills but they did spit poison.  The scientists mention this caught everyone off guard when the first ones hatched and developed.  Basically Crichton's way of furthering the book's theme of "we really have no idea what we're doing".

As for the accuracy of how the dinosaurs are portrayed, it's important to remember Crichton spends a good deal of time in both books stressing how the dinosaurs aren't true dinosaurs.  In universe they're genetically-engineered movie monsters made in approximation of dinosaurs.  Crichton knew very well his dinosaurs weren't accurate and that was intentional.  Despite being a brilliant scientist, it honestly seems like he just kind of hated science and thought humanity would really fuck itself over with it.


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## cumrobbery (Jun 26, 2017)

I'm just going to say that I think the idea that any significantly large theropod had feathers is pretty illogical. Why would a 20 foot tall beast that does not A. Fly or B. Live in a cold climate need feathers? Unless they directly evolved into birds (Which the large carnivores obviously didn't) they probably didn't have feathers or at least grew out of them as they matured. I've yet to see any logical reasoning or convincing evidence that shows that any large carnivores sported feathers when fully grown.


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## Woodcutting bot (Jun 26, 2017)

Quetzalcoatlus. The biggest flyer with a minimum wingspan of around 11 metres. It would have been amazing to see such a large animal fly around. 

I wonder how much extra weight it could carry while maintaining flight




Spoiler


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## Overcast (Jun 26, 2017)

I've read somewhere stating that T-Rex's are theorized to be scavengers rather than full on predators. Can anyone confirm that?

Anyway, I don't really get the whole Feather debate. So what if what dinosaurs actually look like probably don't match what we envisioned them previously? 

I can understand being nostalgic about the older designs. (As a little kid, dinosaurs were to me what trains are to Autists) But the entire point of archaeology and science on dinosaurs is to figure out and understand the creatures that ruled the Earth before we did.


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Jun 26, 2017)

scorptatious said:


> I've read somewhere stating that T-Rex's are theorized to be scavengers rather than full on predators. Can anyone confirm that?



That's one of the longest-standing controversies in paleontology.  At this point though, most paleontologists state T-Rex was a mix of both: it hunted when it had to, and scavenged when it could.


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## Overcast (Jun 26, 2017)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> That's one of the longest-standing controversies in paleontology.  At this point though, most paleontologists state T-Rex was a mix of both: it hunted when it had to, and scavenged when it could.



Makes sense. I mean even modern day predators have to take into account how big or healthy their potential food source is. They'd wind up severely injured or dead otherwise.


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## beansntoast (Jun 26, 2017)

scorptatious said:


> I've read somewhere stating that T-Rex's are theorized to be scavengers rather than full on predators. Can anyone confirm that?



that theory never made much sense to me, all carnivores big and small we have today are neither scavengers only nor predators only. most predators prefer to scavenge as it requires much less energy and is less dangerous and animals we typically see as scavengers, like vultures for example, also hunt small game from time to time. scavenging alone can't sustain a carnivore, the natural death rate of their prey just isn't high enough, so if this model doesn't even work with our "tiny" modern today carnivores, I highly doubt it would've applied to a huge warm blooded dinosaur. (being warm blooded takes a lot of enrgy after all)

the only true scavengers I know of are detrivores, like carcass eating insects and worms and stuff, they're tiny so they don't need much, but most also eat rotting plant matter.

also hasn't there been evidence that tyrannosaurs killed triceratopses by biting their frill and ripping their head off? I remember reading that this was theorized bc they found quite a few decapitated triceratopes with tyranossaur bite marks on their frills.

edit: oh I already posted this in the podcast thread but might as well post it here too: http://www.pasttime.org/
do any of you guys listen to this? I used to but didn't have time for it recently so i have to catch up a bit. I find their new layout a bit hard to navigate though


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## Syaoran Li (Jun 26, 2017)

My favorite dinosaurs are Tyrannosaurus Rex (yes, casual, I know) and Utahraptor.

Utahraptor was like a Velociraptor on steroids. Unlike Jurassic Park, the real life Velociraptor was approximately the size of a turkey or large pheasant.

Can we also use this thread to discuss other extinct prehistoric creatures such as Pleistocene Megafauna or the reptiles of the Permian era? And where do prehistoric hominids fit in this thread? If it's cool with the OP, why not discuss the whole shebang of prehistoric life?

I've loved dinosaurs ever since I was a kid. While I do prefer envisioning them with scales and not feathers (as that's what I sort of grew up with), I can accept that in reality, most carnivorous dinosaurs did have feathers. I also was a fan of the concept of the caveman archetype back then, so I'm wondering if we can also discuss hominids (excluding modern Homo Sapiens, of course).


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## DumbCWCQuote (Jun 26, 2017)

Microraptors I know it's genus but the three species we know of are so similar that some studies speculate they may be a single species, I like them because I find them kind of cute in a weird way.


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## Vocaloid Ruby (Jun 27, 2017)

I'm not interested in dinosaurs as much as I am ancient animals. I don't know Dinosaurs just LOOK unappealing too me maybe because it's more of a guy thing?

But what I do know is that hatzegopteryx scare the crap out of me.


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## Save Goober (Jun 28, 2017)

scorptatious said:


> Anyway, I don't really get the whole Feather debate. So what if what dinosaurs actually look like probably don't match what we envisioned them previously?


It's probably the same spergs who complain about Pluto

I'd like to see some pictures of whats considered accurate dinosaur depiction with feathers. I'm a complete pleb but this thread is p interesting & informative.


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## StealthBoy (Jun 28, 2017)

If Noah had built a bigger fucking boat, we would still have Dinosaurs. God hates Dinosaurs. Boycott God!!!!!!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I was Noah's lumberjack.


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 29, 2017)

StealthBoy said:


> If Noah had built a bigger fucking boat, we would still have Dinosaurs. God hates Dinosaurs. Boycott God!!!!!!
> 
> FULL DISCLOSURE: I was Noah's lumberjack.





Spoiler: God didn't do a good job














cumrobbery said:


> I'm just going to say that I think the idea that any significantly large theropod had feathers is pretty illogical. Why would a 20 foot tall beast that does not A. Fly or B. Live in a cold climate need feathers? Unless they directly evolved into birds (Which the large carnivores obviously didn't) they probably didn't have feathers or at least grew out of them as they matured. I've yet to see any logical reasoning or convincing evidence that shows that any large carnivores sported feathers when fully grown.



*points fucking furiously at _Yutyrannus_*
*points even more fucking furiously at a flightless bird and every bird that still has feathers even though it lives somewhere hot*

Through phylogenetic bracketing, because we know that large coelurosaurs were related to the smaller coelurosaurs (i.e maniraptorans) we can infer because of close relation that tyrannosauroids had feathers. Being even more specific, we know for SURE that some tyrannosaurs had feathers (cough cough_ Yutyrannus_) which makes it likely that other directly related tyrannosaurs had feathers. The closer related to something that had confirmed feathers, the more likely it is that the animal had feathers.

Think of it this way. Even elephants have hair because they are mammals and ALL mammals have hair as a shared trait. If you had never seen an elephant in your life, but know that an elephant is a mammal, and that the mammals you have seen have hair, you can infer that an elephant indeed does have some sort of hairy covering somewhere and you're probably right.

Also, the type of feathers that large theropods would have had are PLUMACEOUS feathers. These are not the type of feathers present on flying birds that you seem to be thinking of (pennaceous feathers).  They look like scraggly hairs, not fully veined feathers like you see on the wings of a bird.






It doesn't get any more logical than phylogenetic bracketing... It's literally A is related to B and A had Z trait so B may have Z trait.

I'd go as far to say that theres no logical evidence completely barring large coelurosaurs from having feathers.


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## cumrobbery (Jun 29, 2017)

Yutyrannus said:


> *points fucking furiously at _Yutyrannus_*


Yutyrannus was likely different because we know it lived in a colder climate (for the time)
We know that later Tyrannosaurids were scaled on most if not all of their bodies because we have found scale impression in places that we know for a fact were feathered on Yutyrannus. I'm not denying that Yutyrannus was feathered. I am denying that all large theropods had feathers.


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 29, 2017)

cumrobbery said:


> Yutyrannus was likely different because we know it lived in a colder climate (for the time)
> We know that later Tyrannosaurids were scaled on most if not all of their bodies because we have found scale impression in places that we know for a fact were feathered on Yutyrannus. I'm not denying that Yutyrannus was feathered. I am denying that all large theropods had feathers.



An Emperor penguin lives in a cold climate. An African penguin does not. They are both penguins and closely related. Does this mean that an African penguin does not have feathers? An arctic wolf lives in a cold climate. A Mexican wolf does not. Does this mean the Mexican wolf does not have fur? No. However, a Mexican wolf's fur and an African penguin's feathers and body composition are adapted to their climate. The climate argument doesn't add up when you look at literally every other animal on the planet. Also, the late Cretaceous in _Tyrannosaurus_' range was not absolutely sweltering anyways. Subtropical, yes, but relatively mild. Think Florida, or Louisiana.

The scale impressions were found in isolated places of a 40 foot animal. That portion of the neck, underside of the tail, and feet have scales. A section on the side of the animal had skin. All of these places fell sorely short of even more of a square foot in diameter. Pretty much the rest of the 90% of _Tyrannosaurus_ integument is unknown. If you looked at the scaled feet and bare undersides of an ostrich, you would see much of the same thing. This does not mean an ostrich is completely covered in bare skin and scales.

Also, as far as "it didn't directly evolve into birds so no feathers", there are ornithiscians with feathers (and protofeathers in the case of _Tianylong_) like _Kulindadromeus _which defies that argument.

I am not saying that _all_ large theropods had feathers. I am saying that all _coelurosaurs _probably had plumage of some sort somewhere on their bodies. Not full pennaceous wing spreads, not entire body covering on most members of Tyrannosauroidea, but logic points that there has to be some somewhere.

It's fine if you don't agree or whatever, I'm just explaining what makes it quite plausible and presenting the facts that line up with it.


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## beansntoast (Jun 30, 2017)

melty said:


> It's probably the same spergs who complain about Pluto
> 
> I'd like to see some pictures of whats considered accurate dinosaur depiction with feathers. I'm a complete pleb but this thread is p interesting & informative.


some of my fav paleoartists on deviantart:
I think her stuff is pretty accurate http://ewilloughby.deviantart.com/gallery/ if not it's still stunning
also this dude did some of the concept art for Saurian http://arvalis.deviantart.com/gallery/55828060/Dinosaurs
this dude also draws some pretty decent dinosaurs http://hyrotrioskjan.deviantart.com/gallery/26535146/Paleoart-mainly-Dinosaurs
Scott Hartmann seems to be THE ultimate reconstruction guy, at least I see other people use his work as references a lot, though he usually does bone reconstrutions only http://scotthartman.deviantart.com/gallery/
also nice paleoart http://eurwentala.deviantart.com/gallery/

I'd check out their favs if you want to see more, the dinosaur spergs on dA tend to follow each other

my absolute faves have to be Doug Henderson and John Conway, though I own a book with their art so I don't know if they have some online presence, but you can find some of their work via google

edit: looking through the book again it's hard to pick the best artists, thoug Doug Henderson is def my personal fave. I'd check out the artists from "dinosaur art: the world's greatest paleoart" in general.


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## Yutyrannus (Jun 30, 2017)

beansntoast said:


> some of my fav paleoartists on deviantart:
> I think her stuff is pretty accurate http://ewilloughby.deviantart.com/gallery/ if not it's still stunning
> also this dude did some of the concept art for Saurian http://arvalis.deviantart.com/gallery/55828060/Dinosaurs
> this dude also draws some pretty decent dinosaurs http://hyrotrioskjan.deviantart.com/gallery/26535146/Paleoart-mainly-Dinosaurs
> ...




Maybe PL but this guy named Stephen Burchette went to the same school I did.  He's a fucking amazing sculptor. He does both retrosaurs/movie as well as accurate dinosaurs and I adore his work.

His instagram is sbpaleo_artist if you wanna check him out. Amazing guy and SUPER nice. Met him at an art show when I was 14 and sperged to him for hours. Totally deserves more recognition.


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## Morose_Obesity (Jun 30, 2017)

Not the mama!


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## beansntoast (Jun 30, 2017)

seeing those cool sculpts I remembered there seems to be quite the big dinosaur plushie community as well. this person with a background in palaentology prides themselves in making accurate plushies (as accurate as a plushie can be I guess)
http://palaeoplushies.tumblr.com/post/161017012905/some-kickstarter-updates-the-funds-have-cleared

edit:
these peoples' sculpts also seem pretty good
http://bookrat.tumblr.com/post/157081183299/microraptor-everyones-favorite-4-winged
http://vara-art.tumblr.com/post/153999460978/a-good-boy-and-a-friend-the-old-rex-enjoys


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## DumbCWCQuote (Jul 1, 2017)

So maybe off topic as it's not a Dinosaur but how about that recent news on Eusaurosphargis being more in line with land reptiles?


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## Yutyrannus (Jul 2, 2017)

I'll also supply with some paleo news to get the fuck away from integument debates

Evidence suggesting oviraptorosaurs incubated their eggs like modern birds (no suprise, but it's good to have some solid proof behind it.) 
Oldest precedent of the caecilian family of amphibians found
Brazilian cynodont might actually be the first of a species found outside Africa instead of separate species as previously thought
Possible new mastodon species or ancestor found in Tennessee (I haven't seen any other articles about this, if you have some do show me.)

Also, while Dinosaurs was a general title because I assumed not many really gave a shit about prehistoric critters other than dinos, feel free to post about other stuff (as long as you aren't misidentifying it as a dinosaur lol).


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## Un Platano (Jul 3, 2017)

In the hideously underepresented field of paleomycology, the world's oldest mushroom has recently been found. Along with pushing back the gilled mushroom division to at least the early Cretaceous, it's interesting that it's a mineralized mushroom, which has never been found before.


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## ICametoLurk (Jul 3, 2017)

Un Platano said:


> In the hideously underepresented field of paleomycology, the world's oldest mushroom has recently been found. Along with pushing back the gilled mushroom division to at least the early Cretaceous, it's interesting that it's a mineralized mushroom, which has never been found before.



Prototaxites > Mushrooms


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## Philosophy Zombie (Jul 15, 2017)

Un Platano said:


> No, I'm certain that it was a dinosaur, something that surprised me based on its appearance. It was an early one too.
> 
> I actually find synapsids a lot more interesting than the dinosaurs. It's a bit sad that most people don't care about the paleozoic era at all, and know hardly anything from before the dinosaurs. The paleozoic is way more important in the history of biology than the mesozoic and it's a lot more interesting imo, but content about it is much less accessible and tit isn't represented at all in media, unlike dinosaurs that for whatever reason pervade everyone's conception of ancient animals. Everything between the Cambrian and Permian is so much more diverse than the mesozoic, which only saw 4 significant developments in dinosaurs, birds, mammals somewhat, and flowers. The paleozoic saw so much more.


The P-T _Great Dying _excites me in a Fallout or Apocalypse Now kind of way 

the only thing that thrived in the Triassic wasteland for millions of years was this fucking mole rat lizard thing


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## Owen Grady (May 6, 2019)

Gonna resurrect this thread and see how it goes. I'm a little excited about this discovery because I have some small personal connections to it and was actually able to be present at the naming conference/reveal for the animal this morning.

https://sneed.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/8WtPsJn2kGkdbw82JcZn_g--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAw/http://media.zenfs.com/de-DE/homerun/dpa_665/a97c5129946ac6964530ce8ef1f110ad
_Suskityrannus hazelae_

Basically this discovery is important because it rewrites a lot of what we know about the history of tyrannosaurs and when they first showed up in North America. The study and recent naming of this dinosaur are 21 years in the making and it is great to finally have the data on this creature presented to the public.

If you've been a paleofag for a long time you may have watched the documentary _When Dinosaurs Roamed America_ as a kid. If you remember seeing the scene with those red, feathered raptor-looking things running away from a forest fire, that was _Suskityrannus_. At the time however, the thing didn't have a name yet and was thought to be a dromaeosaur due to lack of information.


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## Syaoran Li (May 6, 2019)

My favorite dinosaurs are Utahraptor, Giganotosaurus, and T. Rex

But I want to see some more discussion of the megafauna from the Cenozoic Era

Mammoths, Saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, cave bears, giant eagles, terror birds, plus whatever the fuck kind of animal _Andrewsarchus_ was.

The Pleistocene has the majority of media representation and academic research in this field (second only to the Mesozoic Era), partly because of how recent it was, meaning more stuff got preserved and human prehistory as we now it essentially started in the Pleistocene, although hominid evolution began well before it.

Of course, I welcome discussion of Cenozoic prehistory of any epoch, from the Paleocene to the Pleistocene


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## That Chris Guy (May 6, 2019)

Owen Grady said:


> Gonna resurrect this thread and see how it goes. I'm a little excited about this discovery because I have some small personal connections to it and was actually able to be present at the naming conference/reveal for the animal this morning.
> 
> https://sneed.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/8WtPsJn2kGkdbw82JcZn_g--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAw/http://media.zenfs.com/de-DE/homerun/dpa_665/a97c5129946ac6964530ce8ef1f110ad
> _Suskityrannus hazelae_
> ...



Is that the dinosaur where they only had the large forearms discovered and could only guess as to what they belonged to?

My favourite dinosaurs are _Tyrannosaurus Rex_ (because fuck you, I like 'em), _Deinonychus  _for being the true Jurassic Park raptor that casuals have never heard of, _Megalosaurus, Coelophysis _and _Iguanodon_.


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## CheezzyMach (May 6, 2019)

I gotta be honest it does disappoint me that most Dinos apparently looked less like badass dragons and more like roided up turkeys.

Please let T-Rex at least stay a reptile God.


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## An Account (May 6, 2019)

I know it wouldn't be much more scientifcally accurate than Jurassic Park style dinos, but I'd love to see some piece of media portray dinosaurs as giant birds.


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## Sinner's Sandwich (May 6, 2019)

As a child I there was a phase where I was obsessed with dinosaurs. Good times. They are still fucking awesome.


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## Guts Gets Some (May 6, 2019)

With current knowledge, I'm pretty sure at least some branch of them still exist.

Ever see a chicken, roadrunner or other type of avian? Those are essentially mini-dinosaurs.


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## Marissa Moira (May 6, 2019)

CheezzyMach said:


> I gotta be honest it does disappoint me that most Dinos apparently looked less like badass dragons and more like roided up turkeys.
> 
> Please let T-Rex at least stay a reptile God.


Oh you didn't know? this was resolved awhile ago, T-Rex did not have feathers and neither did any of the other North American dinosaurs of that size and type. Carnotaurus, Albertosaurus, Allosaurus, etc. they all had leathery or reptile like skin

Only a single gay chinese dinosaur did, and you know what? Fuck china it could be a fake because they have a history of faking shit and erasing/destroying stuff (they hid caucasian mummies that were found in China because the government thought that having white people appear in china thousands of years ago would destroy their modern day heritage).

Also i want to mention that Ostriches and their relatives like Cassowaries used to be smaller flighted birds before they evolved into what they are today. Their ancestors were feathered small birds and the lineage lost the ability of flight around the world multiple times. They were not Gallimimuses or Troodons. Birds(or Reverse Birds/Opposite Birds named for their switched shoulder structure) appeared towards the end of the cretacious peroid alonside dinosaurs, they didn't come after the great extinction.


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## CheezzyMach (May 6, 2019)

Marissa Moira said:


> Oh you didn't know? this was resolved awhile ago, T-Rex did not have feathers and neither did any of the other North American dinosaurs of that size and type. Carnotaurus, Albertosaurus, Allosaurus, etc. they all had leathery or reptile like skin
> 
> Only a single gay chinese dinosaur did, and you know what? Fuck china it could be a fake because they have a history of faking shit and erasing/destroying stuff (they hid caucasian mummies that were found in China because the government thought that having white people appear in china thousands of years ago would destroy their modern day heritage).
> 
> Also i want to mention that Ostriches and their relatives like Cassowaries used to be smaller flighted birds before they evolved into what they are today. Their ancestors were feathered small birds and the lineage lost the ability of flight around the world multiple times. They were not Gallimimuses or Troodons. Birds(or Reverse Birds/Opposite Birds named for their switched shoulder structure) appeared towards the end of the cretacious peroid alonside dinosaurs, they didn't come after the great extinction.


...This, this is good.

Velociraptor might've turned out to be an overgrown chicken but at least the king still gets to be cool.


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## Neet Tokusatsu (May 6, 2019)

cumrobbery said:


> I like Ceratosaurus. *I used to be a pleb who liked Spinosaurus the best until modern paleontology nerfed the fuck out of it*



Man... i know that feel, somehow, we went from this







To this






I want to believe a full Spinosaurus skeleton will be discovered one day, hopefully it will prove it was a bipedal creature, because i just can't get used to this new interpretation


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## Marissa Moira (May 6, 2019)

it should be noted that the people pushing EVERYTHING HAS FEATHERS bullshit are either furries or gay or both.

They want to emasculate dinosaurs. So if you see concept art of a BRAND NEW LARGE DINOSAUR and it has feathers, it's drawn by one of those people.

There will be other renditions drawn by other artists, it's looking like that most of these "feathers" were just quills or spikes since having avian flight feathers on dinosaurs is flat out wrong since they couldn't fly and flight feathers evolved much later. The quills wouldn't be downy fluff either in young dinosaurs they would be bumps or kinda like skin tabs.

There's also seemingly a cutoff point for when these types of quills appear on dinosaurs and it seems to be any dinosaur that's larger than a manlet.

Which means manlet dinosaurs were probably raging closeted homosexual gay just like modern human manlets, which is why this feather bullshit is being pushed by homo gay furries.


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## FukuMuku (May 8, 2019)

Replicant Sasquatch said:
			
		

> Name your favorite dinosaur, Kiwis.



barney the dinosaur.


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## Marissa Moira (May 8, 2019)

Medafag said:


> Man... i know that feel, somehow, we went from this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't see why the new spinosaurus upsets people, it's an actual real life Drake or Wyrm.


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## CheezzyMach (May 9, 2019)

Marissa Moira said:


> I don't see why the new spinosaurus upsets people, it's an actual real life Drake or Wyrm.


Maybe because for a long while it was considered a rival of T Rex? Or maybe people just prefer bipedal Dinosaurs IDK.


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## ICametoLurk (May 10, 2019)

Earth needs to die for what it did to the dinosaurs. We are their instrument of vengeance from beyond the grave.


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## Biek Fowler (Aug 6, 2020)

I know I'm super late to this thread but I'm glad to find some fans of paleontology on the Farm.


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## Ciscoipphone (Aug 6, 2020)

i remember supercroc was all the rage as a kid


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## A Grey Cat (Aug 6, 2020)

The utahtaptor is probably the coolest of the raptors. And possibly the biggest. The big fella gets almost no love in dinosaur media not even the king of it Jurassic Park only acknowledged him twice in the toy line by Kenner in 1994 and then again in 1997 but never again.


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## Biek Fowler (Aug 6, 2020)

Utahraptor is super cool and I wish it got more media attention... It's easily the biggest dromaeosaur but gets shelved because of Velociraptor.


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## Syaoran Li (Aug 7, 2020)

Biek Fowler said:


> Utahraptor is super cool and I wish it got more media attention... It's easily the biggest dromaeosaur but gets shelved because of Velociraptor.



Velociraptor mainly got big because of Jurassic Park, which came out the same year Utahraptor was discovered. 

Before 1993, the dromaeosaur that was most common in media was Deinonychus and it's sort of telling that the velociraptors in Jurassic Park have more in common with Deinonychus than the actual velociraptor (which was the size of a turkey or large pheasant)


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## MoffAlbert (Aug 7, 2020)

Deinonychus is my absolute favorite dino. As the 10 year old in me never really died, Dinosaurs with sharp teeth and slashing claws are just too cool to me.

I also have a soft spot for marine creatures, so Spinosaurus is a very close second for me. I find the recent fossil discoveries for Spinosaurus interesting rather than a letdown like a lot of people do.


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## Biek Fowler (Aug 7, 2020)

I think my personal favorite has to be between Ceratosaurus and Carnotaurus. Have a weird love for Nasutoceratops too for some reason, I think it's the bull-like horns.


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## Mao Hao Hao (Aug 9, 2020)

I like pretty much any of the hadrosaurs. A lot of them may have been absolute idiots, but I think they would have been fun to watch and they would sound like gigantic ducks. My absolute favourite dinosaur would have to be stegosaurus though, I think child me saw the cool plates and killer tailspikes and thought it looked cool, despite its tiny brain (that and Spike was my favourite character from the Land Before Time).


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## Kari Kamiya (Aug 9, 2020)

Syaoran Li said:


> Before 1993, the dromaeosaur that was most common in media was Deinonychus and it's sort of telling that the velociraptors in Jurassic Park have more in common with Deinonychus than the actual velociraptor (which was the size of a turkey or large pheasant)



Yup, it was by purposeful design the dinosaurs were described as _Deinonychus_, but then were called _Velociraptor_ by everyone else because it's cooler-sounding and easier to pronounce. Probably is no surprise they turned out to be bloodthirsty beasts in the original series, outside of scientists fucking with their DNA, they're angry they were being mislabeled. 

With that said, I've decided ages ago that I want to befriend a _Deinonychus_ in the afterlife and then we'll go explore space together. Hey, anything is possible when you're dead, and I want to take a dinosaur out on a quasar ride.


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## Mister Qwerty (Aug 9, 2020)

Kari Kamiya said:


> Yup, it was by purposeful design the dinosaurs were described as _Deinonychus_, but then were called _Velociraptor_ by everyone else because it's cooler-sounding and easier to pronounce. Probably is no surprise they turned out to be bloodthirsty beasts in the original series, outside of scientists fucking with their DNA, they're angry they were being mislabeled.
> 
> With that said, I've decided ages ago that I want to befriend a _Deinonychus_ in the afterlife and then we'll go explore space together. Hey, anything is possible when you're dead, and I want to take a dinosaur out on a quasar ride.



I always prefered Robert Bakker's drawing of Deinonychus.


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## UntimelyDhelmise (Sep 10, 2020)

idk about anyone else, but I've gotten REALLY annoyed at the constant insistence with people calling birds dinosaurs. Like not even simply that they evolved from them, just straight up calling them dinosaurs, to the point where some lunatics want to categorize birds as fucking _reptiles _now.

Do we call amphibans "fish" or mammal "reptiles" because one came from the other? Fuck no. Let birds be their own separate thing dammit.


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## Honka Honka Burning Love (Sep 10, 2020)

4 Pages and this wasn't linked?



			https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K40SsKe0d8
		


ABSURD.


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## Kari Kamiya (Sep 10, 2020)

UntimelyDhelmise said:


> idk about anyone else, but I've gotten REALLY annoyed at the constant insistence with people calling birds dinosaurs. Like not even simply that they evolved from them, just straight up calling them dinosaurs, to the point where some lunatics want to categorize birds as fucking _reptiles _now.
> 
> Do we call amphibans "fish" or mammal "reptiles" because one came from the other? Fuck no. Let birds be their own separate thing dammit.



The constant insistance that the dinosaurs never "truly" died out because they became birds I think has caused some gullible folks to literally believe birds _are_ dinosaurs all along. They're not modern-day fossils like the "living fossils" which are called as such because they evolved so little or not at all since when they first showed up in the fossil record and some species still exhibit primitive features like being lobe-finned or being a jawless fish like the lamprey and hagfish. Then there's the monotremes (platypus and the echidna) exhibiting the primitive method of laying eggs as mammals although the species themselves did evolve at some point.

A few birds _are_ considered living fossils, such as the pelican and the hoatzin whose chicks are born with two-clawed wings to climb trees, but that still doesn't make them dinosaurs. Oh, and much like the horseshoe crab and the coelacanth, mantis shrimps occupied the same waters as other prehistoric marine reptiles, first branching off in the middle of the _Carboniferous_ and remained relatively unchanged since. They're fucking badasses, I bet there was actual claw-to-claw combat between them and the eurypterids.

But uh, yeah, "living fossils" =/= dinosaurs.


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## UntimelyDhelmise (Sep 10, 2020)

Kari Kamiya said:


> The constant insistance that the dinosaurs never "truly" died out because they became birds I think has caused some gullible folks to literally believe birds _are_ dinosaurs all along. They're not modern-day fossils like the "living fossils" which are called as such because they evolved so little or not at all since when they first showed up in the fossil record and some species still exhibit primitive features like being lobe-finned or being a jawless fish like the lamprey and hagfish. Then there's the monotremes (platypus and the echidna) exhibiting the primitive method of laying eggs as mammals although the species themselves did evolve at some point.
> 
> A few birds _are_ considered living fossils, such as the pelican and the hoatzin whose chicks are born with two-clawed wings to climb trees, but that still doesn't make them dinosaurs. Oh, and much like the horseshoe crab and the coelacanth, mantis shrimps occupied the same waters as other prehistoric marine reptiles, first branching off in the middle of the _Carboniferous_ and remained relatively unchanged since. They're fucking badasses, I bet there was actual claw-to-claw combat between them and the eurypterids.
> 
> But uh, yeah, "living fossils" =/= dinosaurs.


That's probably why. People have latched on to the "birds = dinosaurs" thing so strongly because there are no modern equivalents otherwise so to speak. For example there are no ammonites but the chambered nautilus is a close relative, mammoths/mastodons are gone but we still have elephants, and so on.

It's almost like some kind of bizarre coping mechanism. Pop culture has ingrained dinosaurs into the public conscious so intensely (far more than any other group of extinct organisms) that it's as if it's difficult to accept that none exist today, so people have turned to birds in some sort of strange fashion of pretending that they're still around.


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## Calandrino (Sep 10, 2020)

UntimelyDhelmise said:


> idk about anyone else, but I've gotten REALLY annoyed at the constant insistence with people calling birds dinosaurs. Like not even simply that they evolved from them, just straight up calling them dinosaurs, to the point where some lunatics want to categorize birds as fucking _reptiles _now.





Kari Kamiya said:


> The constant insistance that the dinosaurs never "truly" died out because they became birds I think has caused some gullible folks to literally believe birds _are_ dinosaurs all along.


But... why would Wikipedia lie?


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## RockPaper (Sep 10, 2020)

UntimelyDhelmise said:


> idk about anyone else, but I've gotten REALLY annoyed at the constant insistence with people calling birds dinosaurs. Like not even simply that they evolved from them, just straight up calling them dinosaurs, to the point where some lunatics want to categorize birds as fucking _reptiles _now.
> 
> Do we call amphibans "fish" or mammal "reptiles" because one came from the other? Fuck no. Let birds be their own separate thing dammit.



The problem here is classification is messy, and trying to place extinct groups into little boxes isn't always neat and clean. _Are_ dinosaurs "reptiles"? Are they really? What if they were actually homeothermic? Reptiles like lizards and snakes are cold-blooded. If a number of smaller predatory species did have feathers, then that isn't "reptilian", either. I honestly don't think it's crazy to think of dinosaurs as almost their own Class, different enough from what we think of as "reptiles" to merit their own group, with Birds (_Aves_) as a Sub-Class.

But we tend to classify things in relation to what's alive now, so people feel the need to force Dinosauria into either the Reptile Box or the Bird Box. Maybe they're another, separate box?


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## UntimelyDhelmise (Sep 10, 2020)

RockPaper said:


> The problem here is classification is messy, and trying to place extinct groups into little boxes isn't always neat and clean. _Are_ dinosaurs "reptiles"? Are they really? What if they were actually homeothermic? Reptiles like lizards and snakes are cold-blooded. If a number of smaller predatory species did have feathers, then that isn't "reptilian", either. I honestly don't think it's crazy to think of dinosaurs as almost their own Class, different enough from what we think of as "reptiles" to merit their own group, with Birds (_Aves_) as a Sub-Class.
> 
> But we tend to classify things in relation to what's alive now, so people feel the need to force Dinosauria into either the Reptile Box or the Bird Box. Maybe they're another, separate box?


I'm positive if there were any living species left today they would be in a class all their own, if not at bare minimum in a _very _specialized branch of reptile. Most certainly looked reptilian in appearance (we know they had scaly skin for one thing) but as studies have shown they are a far cry from your everyday lizard too. At the same time idk how you can look at all but a select number of raptors and go "Oh yeah that's totally like a bird" either. And let's not even begin with the marine and flying reptiles...

It's like the bizarre Permian dicynodonts and gorgonopsids (so-called mammal-like reptiles) where it doesn't seem like they properly fit in with any other group, extant or extinct.


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## BullDogsLipBrandClamjuice (Mar 19, 2021)

Heres when I sound retarded:
The k2 extinction event killed all the dinosaurs, at least thats what I was told when I was a kid( I know 20 year old information is out dated). Any thing under 100 pounds died off through starvation or weather or what ever. 
I never understood how cold blooded turtles or croc ancestors survived the sun being blotted out after the space rock hit


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## Parasaurolophus (Mar 19, 2021)

Clarence said:


> Heres when I sound retarded:
> The k2 extinction event killed all the dinosaurs, at least thats what I was told when I was a kid( I know 20 year old information is out dated). Any thing under 100 pounds died off through starvation or weather or what ever.
> I never understood how cold blooded turtles or croc ancestors survived the sun being blotted out after the space rock hit


That's not retarded at all! You'd assume that crocodilians being big, heavy reptiles related to dinosaurs they'd go a similar route, though, from what I could gather, they were just different enough for that particular situation.

It sounds a bit weird, but being cold blooded might actually have given them a bit of an advantage. Dinosaurs and pterosaurs both led more active lifestyles (fast growth, (probably) warm blooded), requiring more energy and thus: food. That being scarce though, they didn't have the best chances.

Crocodilians, on the other hand, can go for long periods of time without having to eat, which might  have made it possible for them to simply wait it out until nature recovers. At the same time, freshwater systems, the primary living spaces for them, had it easier with colder temperatures as well, being used to freeze, living with less oxygen and some creatures even going in stasis when it's too rough. Plus, the water that feeds into these systems may also provide a bit of warmth.

Would the nuclear winter conditions have gone on for longer it's unlikely they would have survived so well either, but as it is, I guess they were pretty lucky. Or, as lucky as you can be. What was it again? 20 different species of crocodilians left today?

I'm not quite sure how it was for turtles, but I can imagine the same reasons probably also played in their favour.

Oh, not that anyone mistakes me for a smart person though. I just like prehistoric animals and just quickly read up on it too, here on the freshwater stuff and here to get an overall idea


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## Brahma (Mar 19, 2021)

Any dinophiles want to recommend me a book on prehistoric animals generally?

Jest finished the rise and fall off the dinosaurs by brusatte and tbh I enjoyed it but it was really a biography of the people who have discovered and worked on dinosaurs over the last couple hundred years and it's quite narrow in scope only talking about dinosaurs

Ideally I'd like a good overview from the start of animals getting big so I don't know devonian onward?

 There's a bit in a short history of nearly everything that talks about the big stuff from before the dinosaurs like dimetrodon and stuff about how they had different holes in their head etc. That kind of thing, how they're told apart etc


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## Godbert Manderville (Mar 21, 2021)

Replicant Sasquatch said:


> Name your favorite dinosaur, Kiwis.  Mine is the Eustreptospondylus. Daspleteosaurus is a close second.
> 
> Don't even fucking bother posting in this thread if you're gonna say T-Rex or Triceratops or some other casual shit.



My favourite dinosaur is also not an actual dinosaur : Dimetrodon. Lived in the early Permian, a few tens of millions of years before dinosaurs became a thing, and had a gansta fin on its back.


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## Penis Drager (Mar 21, 2021)

RockPaper said:


> The problem here is classification is messy, and trying to place extinct groups into little boxes isn't always neat and clean. _Are_ dinosaurs "reptiles"? Are they really? What if they were actually homeothermic? Reptiles like lizards and snakes are cold-blooded. If a number of smaller predatory species did have feathers, then that isn't "reptilian", either. I honestly don't think it's crazy to think of dinosaurs as almost their own Class, different enough from what we think of as "reptiles" to merit their own group, with Birds (_Aves_) as a Sub-Class.
> 
> But we tend to classify things in relation to what's alive now, so people feel the need to force Dinosauria into either the Reptile Box or the Bird Box. Maybe they're another, separate box?


One of the biggest issues here is people conflate different classification methods. Cladistic classification is largely based on ancestry. A dinosaur is ostensibly a reptile because their ancestors are reptiles. But this same logic applies to mammals and birds. They ARE in the reptile clade. This gets confusing though so we use cladistic hierarchy until it stops being convenient and then go on to the more simplistic "this kind of animal is this thing" classification so stupid kids don't ask stupid questions.


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## Fatrick Hamlinson (Apr 14, 2021)

RockPaper said:


> The problem here is classification is messy, and trying to place extinct groups into little boxes isn't always neat and clean. _Are_ dinosaurs "reptiles"? Are they really? What if they were actually homeothermic? Reptiles like lizards and snakes are cold-blooded. If a number of smaller predatory species did have feathers, then that isn't "reptilian", either. I honestly don't think it's crazy to think of dinosaurs as almost their own Class, different enough from what we think of as "reptiles" to merit their own group, with Birds (_Aves_) as a Sub-Class.
> 
> But we tend to classify things in relation to what's alive now, so people feel the need to force Dinosauria into either the Reptile Box or the Bird Box. Maybe they're another, separate box?


The classification of dinosaurs with existing animals becomes interesting when you consider sauropods.  They breathed like birds, according to the scientists at the Museum of the Rockies.  They had air sacs which functioned like bellows to push air through their bodies, just like birds.

One of my favorite extinct species from the time of the dinosaurs was the archaeopteryx.  I was lucky enough to see two archaeopteryx specimens at the museum at Thermopolis, WY.

Edit:

I'm also interested in Cambrian and Ordovician fossils.  One of the more interesting places for Cambrian trace fossils is a spot in Wisconsin called Blackberry Hill.  The Krukowski quarry is located right on this fossil hotspot.



			http://www.fossilmall.com/Cambrian_Shadows/Krukowski_Quarry.htm
		






						Blackberry Hill
					

Blackberry Hill Cambrian jellyfish, Climactichnites and arthropod tracks in Wisconsin



					www.fossilmuseum.net
				





			http://paleoportal.org/index.php?globalnav=flora_fauna&sectionnav=assemblage&submission_id=1697
		


Second edit:



Brahma said:


> Any dinophiles want to recommend me a book on prehistoric animals generally?
> 
> Jest finished the rise and fall off the dinosaurs by brusatte and tbh I enjoyed it but it was really a biography of the people who have discovered and worked on dinosaurs over the last couple hundred years and it's quite narrow in scope only talking about dinosaurs
> 
> ...



If you're interested in extinction events: _When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time_ by Michael Benton.


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## furūtsu (Apr 14, 2021)

Godbert Manderville said:


> My favourite dinosaur is also not an actual dinosaur : Dimetrodon. Lived in the early Permian, a few tens of millions of years before dinosaurs became a thing, and had a gansta fin on its back.



This was the second result when I DuckDuckGo'd this mf. I approve.


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## Android raptor (Apr 14, 2021)

UntimelyDhelmise said:


> idk about anyone else, but I've gotten REALLY annoyed at the constant insistence with people calling birds dinosaurs. Like not even simply that they evolved from them, just straight up calling them dinosaurs, to the point where some lunatics want to categorize birds as fucking _reptiles _now.
> 
> Do we call amphibans "fish" or mammal "reptiles" because one came from the other? Fuck no. Let birds be their own separate thing dammit.


Because birds literally are dinosaurs. Taxonomy is weird like that. 

It's basically like if a mass extinction killed all mammals except bats. Bats would still be mammals even without any other kinds of mammals around. 

Not all non-avian dinosaurs had feathers but I don't get the butthurt over those that do. Birds will fuck your shit up, only ppl that haven't spent much time around them think they suck

Also the Permian extinction and paleozooic critters are the shit. Also anyone else a dinosaur toy autist?


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## jje100010001 (Apr 14, 2021)

Kari Kamiya said:


> The constant insistance that the dinosaurs never "truly" died out because they became birds I think has caused some gullible folks to literally believe birds _are_ dinosaurs all along. They're not modern-day fossils like the "living fossils" which are called as such because they evolved so little or not at all since when they first showed up in the fossil record and some species still exhibit primitive features like being lobe-finned or being a jawless fish like the lamprey and hagfish. Then there's the monotremes (platypus and the echidna) exhibiting the primitive method of laying eggs as mammals although the species themselves did evolve at some point.
> 
> A few birds _are_ considered living fossils, such as the pelican and the hoatzin whose chicks are born with two-clawed wings to climb trees, but that still doesn't make them dinosaurs. Oh, and much like the horseshoe crab and the coelacanth, mantis shrimps occupied the same waters as other prehistoric marine reptiles, first branching off in the middle of the _Carboniferous_ and remained relatively unchanged since. They're fucking badasses, I bet there was actual claw-to-claw combat between them and the eurypterids.
> 
> But uh, yeah, "living fossils" =/= dinosaurs.


You're right, but a part of me always wishes that some more species with primitive features would have survived, like maybe a non-mammalian cynodont or an extremely primitive bird species with teeth & claws.

From this, I guess there is a grasping of straws when looking at species for features that say "Hey this is something from the past that's survived! Look at how dino-like this broody hen is!"



Parasaurolophus said:


> That's not retarded at all! You'd assume that crocodilians being big, heavy reptiles related to dinosaurs they'd go a similar route, though, from what I could gather, they were just different enough for that particular situation.
> 
> It sounds a bit weird, but being cold blooded might actually have given them a bit of an advantage. Dinosaurs and pterosaurs both led more active lifestyles (fast growth, (probably) warm blooded), requiring more energy and thus: food. That being scarce though, they didn't have the best chances.
> 
> Crocodilians, on the other hand, can go for long periods of time without having to eat, which might  have made it possible for them to simply wait it out until nature recovers. At the same time, freshwater systems, the primary living spaces for them, had it easier with colder temperatures as well, being used to freeze, living with less oxygen and some creatures even going in stasis when it's too rough. Plus, the water that feeds into these systems may also provide a bit of warmth.


Didn't many considerably more divergent crocodillian forms also go extinct during the K2 extinction? As such, it could be that just this body plan & type of crocodilian was particularly well suited (not to mention extremely lucky) to waiting out the extinction event, and formed the stem species for the modern crocodilians today.

Now, I do sort of also always wonder if any actual small dinosaur species would have made it into the early Paleogene era, same as how some synapsids survived past the end-Permian extinction, and only faded out during the Triassic.


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## Positron (Apr 15, 2021)

RockPaper said:


> The problem here is classification is messy, and trying to place extinct groups into little boxes isn't always neat and clean. _Are_ dinosaurs "reptiles"? Are they really? What if they were actually homeothermic? Reptiles like lizards and snakes are cold-blooded. If a number of smaller predatory species did have feathers, then that isn't "reptilian", either. I honestly don't think it's crazy to think of dinosaurs as almost their own Class, different enough from what we think of as "reptiles" to merit their own group, with Birds (_Aves_) as a Sub-Class.



The modern phylogenic classification (that lead to the conclusion that birds are dinosaurs, and many, many groupings that are baffling to laypeople) is not based on common characteristics (or similarities), but on common _ancestorship_.  Each clade, or level of grouping (genus, family, class, order, phylum and their sub- and super- groupings) must include every descendant of an ancestor, and only those descendants and no others.  Under such rule, there are only very few ways you can group extant and extinct reptiles.  To illustrate, here is a simplified phylogenetic tree that include reptiles, birds, and mammals.





Ignore turtles (whose phylogenetic position is still under dispute).  You can see Mammals (and their Synapsid ancestors such as the Dimetrodon) are a group of their own.  No problem here.  The problem is in the grab-bag of diverse Diapsids (the term refers to the number of "holes" behind the eyeball.  Mammals have one on each side; in human it is the space bridged by the zygomatic arch).  One way to do it is to let all the Diapsids be their own group (called Sauropsida) and live with the fact that it must include the Birds (Aves).  Or else you can preserve the old Class Aves, but for the sake of consistency, you must then assign Crocodiles, Lizards+Snakes+Tuataras, Plesiosaurs, Ichythyosaurs, Ornithischians, Saurischians, and Pterosaurs, each to a class of their own.

If, as you propose, we are to give Dinosauria a Class status and Aves as its subclass (or rather, an infraclass under Saurischia), then we shall need to set up Class Crocodila, Class Plasiosaura, etc.  So it isn't that much simpifying.


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## Kyururu-kun (Apr 15, 2021)

5 pages and nobody said this? Shameful!



This dinosaur has 500 teeth! And the name, well... Google it, I dare you.


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## Lemmingwise (Apr 15, 2021)

Honka Honka Burning Love said:


> 4 Pages and this wasn't linked?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And nobody mentioned the best dinosaur:









						Nigersaurus - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Cr1ms0n_&_C10v3r (Apr 15, 2021)

Brahma said:


> Any dinophiles want to recommend me a book on prehistoric animals generally?
> 
> Jest finished the rise and fall off the dinosaurs by brusatte and tbh I enjoyed it but it was really a biography of the people who have discovered and worked on dinosaurs over the last couple hundred years and it's quite narrow in scope only talking about dinosaurs
> 
> ...


I would recommend searching for a book specifically about life in the Palaeozoic Era, that should cover it. Most books about the Mesozoic will only briefly mention it because the focus is on dinosaurs. The Dorling Kindersley Dinosaur Atlas does mention these animals but it only takes up a page or two.


Android raptor said:


> Because birds literally are dinosaurs. Taxonomy is weird like that.
> 
> It's basically like if a mass extinction killed all mammals except bats. Bats would still be mammals even without any other kinds of mammals around.
> 
> ...


Best toy to receive if you were a dinosaur autist child.


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## Mnutu (Apr 15, 2021)

Kyururu-kun said:


> 5 pages and nobody said this? Shameful!
> View attachment 2089455
> This dinosaur has 500 teeth! And the name, well... Google it, I dare you.


It’s shit like this that makes me wonder if all paleontology is just a massive joke meant to fuck with us. A creature that retarded couldn’t possibly exist.


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## Kyururu-kun (Apr 15, 2021)

Mnutu said:


> It’s shit like this that makes me wonder if all paleontology is just a massive joke meant to fuck with us. A creature that retarded couldn’t possibly exist.


They do, but they can't sneed.


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## Reshiram Battle.mp3 (Apr 15, 2021)

I like _Deinonychus,_ not because it's the closest thing to the ""velociraptors"" in Jurassic Park irl, but because I played Fossil Fighters as a child and the pokemon-ified fire type version of it is fucking hot pink. Even though they probably just looked like murderturkeys when they were alive I can't _not_ imagine some flaming hot pink bitch named breakfast.


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## A Rastafarian Skeleton (Apr 15, 2021)

You guys like that movie Carnosaur?


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## TFT-A9 (Apr 15, 2021)




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## Android raptor (Apr 15, 2021)

Reshiram Battle.mp3 said:


> I like _Deinonychus,_ not because it's the closest thing to the ""velociraptors"" in Jurassic Park irl, but because I played Fossil Fighters as a child and the pokemon-ified fire type version of it is fucking hot pink. Even though they probably just looked like murderturkeys when they were alive I can't _not_ imagine some flaming hot pink bitch named breakfast.
> View attachment 2089848


Considering how colorful modern birds are I'm sure many non-avian dinosaurs were pretty colorful. 

One of the coolest things about extremely well preserved Dino fossils with feathers is we can even sometime tell what color they were like microraptor and anchiornis.


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## jje100010001 (Apr 16, 2021)

Android raptor said:


> Considering how colorful modern birds are I'm sure many non-avian dinosaurs were pretty colorful.
> 
> One of the coolest things about extremely well preserved Dino fossils with feathers is we can even sometime tell what color they were like microraptor and anchiornis.


I like _All your Yesterdays_'s crazier takes on dinosaurs- which tries to reimagine dinosaurs outside of monster territory and closer to animals today:



			https://www.dropbox.com/s/lb2hoz1cac4d1bp/All%20Your%20Yesterdays.pdf?dl=0
		



			https://darrennaish.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/kosemen-2017-updated-edition-of-book-all-your-yesterdays.pdf


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