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Dinosaurs, Because Dinosaurs, That's Why.

Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Location
Michigan
Ok folks. First time out of the Zelda-related pen. Because I want to talk about dinosaurs. I love them as much as I love the Zelda games but I don't get the chance to talk about them as much in normal conversation. So I'm going to try to incite you to do it.

I guess we can start this off by going around and getting some favorites out of people. I have a couple species that I'm fond of for different reasons.

Tyrannosaurus Rex: I'll get him out of the way first because he's just that gorram awesome. He's one of my favorites and always has been. 'Ryannosaurus Rex' is the second oldest nickname I have, and it's only second to 'Ry-guy', which I practically got from birth so it's not even a fair contest. There is nothing to hate about it, and I staunchly disagree with the "T-Rex as scavenger only" theories.

Acrocanthosaurus: This guy doesn't seem to be well known outside of people who've read Raptor Red, but it's a shame because he's got a marvelous adaptation that has some paleontologists debating. The elongated dorsal vertebrae from which it derives its name may well have worked to support weight like a suspension bridge, allowing Acro to wholly lift carcasses that even many other massive theropods may not have been able to lift. It could have stowed kills in trees, much like a leopard, as a means of saving them or keeping it out of the reach of other thieves, or at least been able to drag a kill away so other animals couldn't contend for it as easily. Hot debate for a cool adaptation.

Allosaurus: There's tons of skeletons for these guys lying about, so we've got a lot of information on them. This is a recent favorite, to be sure, but these guys were like the Apache knife-fighters of the dinosaur world… but they knife-fight with their faces. Boom! Total badass. Seriously, thanks to the structure of their jaws they likely didn't have much actual biting power (modern crocs, other theropods, and even lions and leopards outdid them handily in the 'bite force' department), but popular theories with lots of evidence to back them suggest a very interesting method of attack. They were likely ambushers, who were able to open their mouths extremely wide in order to use their upper row of teeth as a slashing weapon instead of a piercing weapon. It's also suggested that they may have been 'flesh grazers' capable of only eating chunks off of prey without having to waste lots of energy killing it, thereby leaving it for later. It's like meat farming.

So yeah there's my introduction to the thread. Talk about dinosaurs and whatnot.
 

CrimsonCavalier

Fuzzy Pickles
Joined
Mar 27, 2015
Location
United States
Gender
XY
I think dinosaurs are cool. But I think that paleontology is, unfortunately, just too much guesswork. I would be awesome if we could know more things for certain, instead of just guessing (educated, scientific guessing, but guessing nonetheless).

I haven't kept up with dinos for a long time, but in my day I really enjoyed reading about deinonychus ... I know they've been absorbed into the raptor family, but I still like those specifically.
I also enjoy archaeopterix, just because the name is cool.
Finally, dimetrodon because they look pretty cool. I'm pretty sure they were really early dinos, so I'm not even sure if they classify as true dinos, since the whole dinosaur field of study has changed dramatically since I was following it closely.
 
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
I ****in LOVED dinosaurs when I was younger (and still do, really). Loved the OP - keep em coming! Personally I always liked triceratops, pentaceratops, deinonychus, and several of the therapods including T-rex and allosaurus
 

DarkLink7

I make my own fate!
Joined
Oct 7, 2012
Location
Valla
My faves are the T-Rex and dilophosaurs. The Dilophs are just so cute!
126981_Dilophosaurus_Pose_1_007.jpgdabaa394-064a-4eeb-b987-c5068658f9dcOriginal.jpg


Rexs I like because they are so strong and powerful and they have their own charms (wook at the widdle arms!)

Oh I also love velociraptors. They're so cool! They are also super deadly so that makes them better.

Ps what you wrote, AP is cool too.
 
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Location
Michigan
I think dinosaurs are cool. But I think that paleontology is, unfortunately, just too much guesswork. I would be awesome if we could know more things for certain, instead of just guessing (educated, scientific guessing, but guessing nonetheless).

I haven't kept up with dinos for a long time, but in my day I really enjoyed reading about deinonychus ... I know they've been absorbed into the raptor family, but I still like those specifically.
I also enjoy archaeopterix, just because the name is cool.
Finally, dimetrodon because they look pretty cool. I'm pretty sure they were really early dinos, so I'm not even sure if they classify as true dinos, since the whole dinosaur field of study has changed dramatically since I was following it closely.
No, unfortunately dimotrodon is not a true dinosaur, as it is not saurischian (as in, it's hips aren't the right shape). Their legs pointed away from the body like many modern crocodilians or lizards.

Actually, it's the guesswork that I love most. I love reading about all these things, and all the ways different people find to test them, and there's more to it than just guesses. For example, a group of engineers reconstructed the arms of an Acrocanthosaur in order to figure out its range of motion. Their findings were amazing, leading to a theory on just how their arms would be used in predation. (they aren't what most people might expect!) They did the same with a deinonychus leg, and found that it's highly unlikely they would have used the slashing motions with their large claw like we initially thought, since slashing wasn't able to deal much damage. Instead it's more likely the claw was used to create multiple stab wounds, or to aid the animal in latching onto or climbing onto the hide of an animal and delivering repeated attacks with their jaws and foreclaws.

One thing I've always been interested in was the debate surrounding Tyrannosaurus' feeding habits: active predation or passive scavenger? Personally, I ascribe to the predatory theories. Opponents of the theory cite studies that show Rex may not have been a fast runner, and that many prey animals would have been able to outpace it (key prey items would be hadrosaurs and ceratopsians). However, It's not clear how fast T-Rex would need to be in order to catch them in a short chase. Also, something I've recently thought about but haven't found any active debate anywhere, has been not aimed at predator speed but prey habit. Who says that prey animals ran? We have loads of evidence to support hadrosaur and ceratopsian social behavior as herd behavior. Additionally, many of the wounds we can find on both animals from T-Rex teeth that show evidence of healing have been in the same places: Near the head for ceratopsians, and near the tail or hips for hadrosaurs: both areas that would be exposed in a circled defensive formation for each respective animal. What if predation/survival came down to individual contests, the prey circling the wagons and the predators trying to find a weak spot? If prey was killed before the herd could circle, (and therefor its wounds might not be in the "defending" area of the dinosaur's anatomy) then it would make sense that all the healed ones end up in the same spots.


And DarkLink7, thank you for posting a non-frilled picture of Dilophosaurus! But, you do know that Velociraptor wasn't very big, right? The animals shown in popular fiction like the Jurassic Park movies are actually Utahraptor. And CrimsonCavalier, technically Deinonychus is not in the 'raptor family', because the family that contains them is not dictated by raptors. They belong in the Dromeosauridae family, whose type genus is Dromeosaurus (that means Dromeosaurus is the one other animals are compared to, to see if they fit into the family).
 

DarkLink7

I make my own fate!
Joined
Oct 7, 2012
Location
Valla
Ap I know, but the idea of what they could do, how the hunted, and their claw us just so cool. I know they were tiny, but idrc.
 
Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
California
Some of my favorites;

T-rex is a favorite of mine, I don't care what cooler, bigger, meaner predators are discovered, this guy is still king to me.

Troodon-One of the first not as popular dinos I learned about. This little guy is so very cool. Wish Schleich or Safari Ltd. would make a toy outta them.

Corthyosaurus-These duck bill dinos always captivated me for some reason.

Brontosaurus-ok so sometimes I still call it brontosaurus instead of apatosaurus. I like the name better.


Non Dino Favorites

Dunkleosteos-Wow! Not a beasty I'd ever wanna meet swimming around but its menacing appearance

Koolasuchus-ginormous, meat eating salamanders are awesome mmkay

Shovel Tusker-I think these animals are cooler then saber tooths and wooly mammoths.
 

InsomniacAttack

wtf did u say about me u little mcnuggit?
Joined
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Gender
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Yeah. Dinosaurs were the bomb growing up. In fact, I got almost the same awe-struck feeling I got when i first watched Jurassic Park when I saw Jurassic World yesterday.
 

Batman

Not all those who wander are lost...
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Dan-kin
When I was a kid, I was in love with dinosaurs and paleontology. The fact that this passion left me as I got older is something I actually really regret sometimes. Who knows though, I may get back into it someday.

AnicentPoe, what are some books you'd recommend for someone who wants to get a pretty full dose of all things dinosaurs?
 

Emma

The Cassandra
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
Location
Vegas
Public Service Announcement:
The dinosaurs you see in the Jurassic Park film series are not true dinosaurs. Dr. Grant stresses this in the third film insisting that the real discoveries come from fossils and that the "dinosaurs" at Jurassic Park were just genetically engineered theme park monsters. Dr. Wu confirms in the forth film that none of the dinosaurs had pure DNA and all of them were mixed with amphibian and lizard DNA to give them a "cooler, meaner" look and that Dr. Wu's proposals to create more authentic looking dinosaurs with avian DNA were rejected for not looking scary enough. He insisted that if they did have pure DNA that all of the dinosaurs would probably look different. This is a point that the first novel explicitly covered yet was improperly covered in the film, much to the confusion of the critics who complained about the accuracy of the dinosaurs.
 
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Location
Michigan
When I was a kid, I was in love with dinosaurs and paleontology. The fact that this passion left me as I got older is something I actually really regret sometimes. Who knows though, I may get back into it someday.

AnicentPoe, what are some books you'd recommend for someone who wants to get a pretty full dose of all things dinosaurs?
Doogle Dixon's Dinosaurs. It's likely to be at least a little bit outdated, but the illustrations are great and it does a good job of giving you a sense for when and how they lived. I still reread bits. Online resources are great as well, not just stuff like Wikipedia (though it makes a good starting point). When I'm in the mood, I tend to search around for paleontological articles. Looking up models of complete or nearly complete skeletons is great as well, especially if they're labeled correctly. I enjoy drawing the skulls to get to know them better. However, if you're not keen on the idea of memorizing terms like 'antorbital fenestra' or 'premaxilla' then maaaaybe that's not the approach for you. Also, if you have access to a digital library archive through a college or some such institution, you can search them for individual articles. Just pick a dinosaur or two that you really love and start reading.

Oh and in the fictional book Raptor Red, not only does the author lay out a very compelling narrative, but infuses much of the book with his paleontological theories. It's a great way to read an amazing and imaginative story while working in plenty of tangential learning opportunities.

Oh oh, and the book Dinotopia. It doesn't go into real theories… but… but it is just… really a beautiful and wondrous book.
 

CrimsonCavalier

Fuzzy Pickles
Joined
Mar 27, 2015
Location
United States
Gender
XY
Public Service Announcement:
The dinosaurs you see in the Jurassic Park film series are not true dinosaurs. Dr. Grant stresses this in the third film insisting that the real discoveries come from fossils and that the "dinosaurs" at Jurassic Park were just genetically engineered theme park monsters. Dr. Wu confirms in the forth film that none of the dinosaurs had pure DNA and all of them were mixed with amphibian and lizard DNA to give them a "cooler, meaner" look and that Dr. Wu's proposals to create more authentic looking dinosaurs with avian DNA were rejected for not looking scary enough. He insisted that if they did have pure DNA that all of the dinosaurs would probably look different. This is a point that the first novel explicitly covered yet was improperly covered in the film, much to the confusion of the critics who complained about the accuracy of the dinosaurs.

Yes, this is something I appreciated about the 4th film. Because the books cover this, but the films really don't.

I really like the movies because they're well-made and fun, but the books were infinitely better. Definitely recommend to anyone who hasn't read them.
 

Emma

The Cassandra
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
Location
Vegas
Yes, this is something I appreciated about the 4th film. Because the books cover this, but the films really don't.

I really like the movies because they're well-made and fun, but the books were infinitely better. Definitely recommend to anyone who hasn't read them.
The books are definitely darker and edgier. The first movie omitted or changed quite a bit from the first book. The discussion about how the dinosaurs were never authentic for example. I recall a couple characters having an argument about it actually. The book is very political too, with an extremely loud stance against capitalism infecting science. It was the whole moral of the plot and the primary message it tried to convey and the movie distilled that message down to nothing but a couple sentences from Malcom.

Michael Crichton really didn't want to write a sequel, but was pressured into it by his publisher and by Spielburg. So, he decided to troll them and wrote the sequel specifically hinging on plot details that the film changed from the book, ensuring that the second adaptation couldn't follow the second book that well and it didn't. I really like both the films and the books though. The second one is so different from book to film that it's hard to say it's the same story. The only real similarities were that someone went to the second island and had to be rescued, and then they at some point got a baby t-rex and the parents weren't pleased. And that's about it. Everything else is different, even all the characters. Most of the protagonists were merged into another character, and the film made up another one. The first book had Ingen fold and go bankrupt and shut down so they were not on the island with a group of dinosaur catchers at all, just a few guys that were part of that rival company that was bribing Nedry in the first film/book that were rather pathetic, but in an entertaining way.
 

CrimsonCavalier

Fuzzy Pickles
Joined
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Location
United States
Gender
XY
The books are definitely darker and edgier. The first movie omitted or changed quite a bit from the first book. The discussion about how the dinosaurs were never authentic for example. I recall a couple characters having an argument about it actually. The book is very political too, with an extremely loud stance against capitalism infecting science. It was the whole moral of the plot and the primary message it tried to convey and the movie distilled that message down to nothing but a couple sentences from Malcom.

Michael Crichton really didn't want to write a sequel, but was pressured into it by his publisher and by Spielburg. So, he decided to troll them and wrote the sequel specifically hinging on plot details that the film changed from the book, ensuring that the second adaptation couldn't follow the second book that well and it didn't. I really like both the films and the books though. The second one is so different from book to film that it's hard to say it's the same story. The only real similarities were that someone went to the second island and had to be rescued, and then they at some point got a baby t-rex and the parents weren't pleased. And that's about it. Everything else is different, even all the characters. Most of the protagonists were merged into another character, and the film made up another one. The first book had Ingen fold and go bankrupt and shut down so they were not on the island with a group of dinosaur catchers at all, just a few guys that were part of that rival company that was bribing Nedry in the first film/book that were rather pathetic, but in an entertaining way.

Yeah, and the fact that it seemed that the 2nd movie took some of what happened in the first book and added it to it. Like the little girl being bitten by the compys, that was in the first book.

I also like the deaths/survivals in the book better. I think it's more just. People in the movie die, but live in the book, and vice versa.

Like I said, I really like the movies, I own the original trilogy on DVD and just saw the 4th, and loved it, but the books are far, far better ... the scariest part to me, in all of the books, was the 2nd book, in the compound, with the dinos that camouflage. The first time I read the book (I was fairly young), that part genuinely scared me.
 

Aku

Joined
Apr 3, 2014
Favorites are: Deinonychus and Troodon, along with Triceratops.

I like to draw Dinosaurs in science-fiction, and one of my favorite drawings was of cyborg Utahraptor, grown in highly augmented creatures to be used as military weaponry and base security. I know, I'm kind of weird :P
 

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