Zegh's Dinosaur Thread

zegh8578 said:
This old Tyrannosaurus is by yours truly, a work of brown and gray scale ink pens; notice the mouth, and how the line does not continue to the end of the skull; traditionally the mouth-line is depicted as going all the way past the ear-hole
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but it felt wrong, and so I envisioned more fleshyness to form a semi-cheek, covering up the final quarter/third of that line

I WAS VINDICATED, turns out a whole new muscle attachment zone was identified in all dinosaurs, that would have closed that gap up, and forever do away with the muppet/crocodile gape, for a tighter slightly more "mammalian" mouth

View attachment 36249
(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joa.14242)

(Also, there's a real Godzillasaurus, in fact called Gojirasaurus, but it is unfortunately a bit of a Nomen dubium, in other words - too fragmentary to definitely determine uniqueness either way, which is a bit sad. If legit, it is a large size Coelophysoid (4-5 metres in length?) or some sort of random Neotheropod (very primitive/early theropod))
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Well done it kinda reminds me of some of the materials done by Scott Hartman and Dan Folkes.
 
Post-War Tribal said:
Well done it kinda reminds me of some of the materials done by Scott Hartman and Dan Folkes.
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nice namedrops! I've been following Scott Hartman around for years, and we were mutuals on DeviantArt, before I nuked my account in political activism

Fun fact, the X-ray style skeletal diagrams were popularized by forever non-professional dino-expert Gregory Paul, author of many truly authoritative books, and a rolemodel to anyone who want to be a serious amateur in the field; he then went a little megalomaniac and tried to "register" that style, threatening lawsuits, but then it was like - he's gonna lawsuit literally millions of kids and teens and other amateurs for adopting his style of skeletons? Dude. Not cool.
But funnier yet, he was Robert Bakker's protege, and that style of X-ray skeleton... originates with Bob Bakker.
:D
 
What do you think of scientists efforts to revive the Woolly Mammoth by 2028? I know it's not a dinosaur but the idea they may have been able to find some intact dna of a Mammoth and are finding a way clone it potentially via IVF sets a high goal post for future endeavors. Maybe they'll find a way to revive dinosaurs but use their closest living relatives (the birds) to do it.
 
Sn1p3r187 said:
What do you think of scientists efforts to revive the Woolly Mammoth by 2028? I know it's not a dinosaur but the idea they may have been able to find some intact dna of a Mammoth and are finding a way clone it potentially via IVF sets a high goal post for future endeavors. Maybe they'll find a way to revive dinosaurs but use their closest living relatives (the birds) to do it.
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It's an interesting idea to explore, I don't really see the point beyond making some sort of "Mammoth Park", and as for forecasts, I have zero trust :D they are usually thrown around as funding-bait, like, isn't the gestation of a regular elephant 2 years? That alone, makes 2028 very unlikely, unless they mean something other than what they're saying.

As for dinosaurs, I reaaally don't know! Take the Jurassic Park premise for example; you extract intact blood from a mosquito; you have NO idea what dinosaur that blood belongs to, even IF you'd be able to revive one; that blood would most likely come from a species we have never known from fossils, since fossils are near-impossibly rare compared to the total lived population, so it's a very blind approach.

And getting it from fossil bones, that are mineralized, and *any* ammount of molecular info is inferred by other minerals, their replacement rate, etc - like, there's no blood there, cus there's no organic matter there. There's probably tons of theoretic near-solutions, but applying them irl is very optimistic, imho.
 
In b4 resurrected dire-wolf; no, it's a publicity stunt and yet another example of funding-bait, they have NOT resurrected the direwolf, they are lying.
Now, what they did might seem "close enough" for most people, apparently it's MORE than close enough for mass media, but they essentially just genetically manipulated dogs/wolves (the same species) and added genetic tweaks that would make the offspring *appear* closer to dire-wolves, visually, than regular dogs/wolves.

Genetic manipulation is intriguing and all, but if I mate a human w a monkey OR I genetically manipulate a human foetus to make it more monkey like, I can't then claim to have resurrected the specific species of Homo habilis, because I did no such thing; I did a different, separate, unrelated thing.

The "resurrected" dire-wolf has 0 dire-wolf genes; ze ro.

(Lol, some observers comment that the number of genes changed (14) fall well inside the scope of individual variation :D also, dire-wolves are not even related to Canis - which is the genus of wolves and dogs, they're not even next-in-kind, they are more closely related to jackals - not that this matters the LEAST to regular people, I understand that all too well)

I don't like being a buzzkill, when it comes to these things, but even less do I want to celebrate scammy gene-techs pulling PR stunts for cheap applause, sorry :V
 
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Morgan_ said:
https://x.com/trey_explainer/status/1909309467293823335?s=46
What does it mean to "REWRITE the genetic code of wolves", or "MATCH dire wolf dna"?

Zheg has turned me into such a crispr skeptic.
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The company has promised answers...

Either way, it appeaaars they have modified Canis lupus DNA, in such a way that it would create offspring that visually resemble their(?) perception of a direwolf (the marketing stunt part of it)

What they did, was essentially create a whole new breed of doggo, through targeted genetic manipulation - which is impressive!!!
But has nothing to do with direwolves. At all.
 
So they are trying to get additional funding, etc and are using Game of Thrones as a way to generate excitement with the public. Minus the misinfo, I kinda respect it honestly.

Wow, look everyone. DIRE WOLVES ARE BACK!! please give us money
 
This is weird
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They seem to very deliberately mislead
Apparently, researchers part of the team, have written prior papers about Aenocyon dirus, so they certainly know the difference between dire wolf (cultural reference) and dire wolf (real animal), not surprising, just making sure
And they do seem to admit exactly what I suspected; the end result should *resemble* and be "genetically similar" to the extinct species; this could mean anything - a chimpanzee in fact both resembles and is genetically similar to human ancestors such as Proconsul, but a chimpanzee is not and can never be Proconsul - which in itself might come off as nitpicky, but you know... I enjoy details.

Two dire-wolf genomes have apparently been sequenced, but they already admitted to not splicing any actual genetic material, so it again comes back to manipulating the genes of a Canis lupus (doggo) in order to "resemble" a "dire wolf" (whatever that entails)

Similar approaches have been floated before, such as breeding large, hairy Indian elephants in order to "create" a mammoth (closely related); which would obv. not create a mammoth, but instead a very hairy (and inbred) Indian elephant.
(That said, Indian elephant would be a good surrogate candidate for an actual mammoth embryo, if that ever comes to fruition)
 
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