MutantScalper
Dogmeat
God damn sexual tyrannosaurus.
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Back to dinosaurs for sec, I'm still wondering about the 'stance' of the T-Rex, I guess the contemporary view is that T-Rex stands on two legs and it's body is more or less horizontal most of the time. The front legs don't touch ground. I guess it can stand upright but mostly just to scan around. It didnt' walk upright like a human. I guess it's believable that young juvenile T-Rex's could have ran around fast even for long distances and cought suitable size prey that way. But how fast/agile would a fully grown T-Rex be?
I'm also wondering if the legs of a T-Rex were as they are shown now, like in the pic below, like the legs of an ostrich, except much more bigger and muscular? The body, tail and head of T-Rex were so huge and heavy, it would have needed enourmously strong legs to sprint even 100 m relatively fast. Not saying it couldn't do so but, still. I'm wondering.
Could the legs of T-Rex theoretically be angled to the outside like those of the Comodo Dragon, which actually can sprint quite fast but it has four legs to run with. Could the leg bones 'angle out' in a kind of 90 degree angle and the body would lie lower to the ground making it easier for T-Rex to haul it's bulky frame around?
All dinosaurs had thigh-bone attachment-to-pelvis that only permitted erect stances, and would probably be hurt if bent outwards like a lizard, the same way a dog would be hurt if you did.
The thighs could move outwards only by a certain degree - again, similar to dogs, so that the dinosaur could sit down onto the ground, but there is no way that they could "sprawl" like lizards, and also no reason for them to do that.
A fully grown Tyrannosaurus - in particular - would probably not be very agile or fast. Well, fast because it is huge, and took long steps, but compared to its body, no, not particularily fast. However, young subadult Tyrannosaurs were much slimmer and more agile, and probably lived entirely different lives, hunting different prey, and were very much "raptorian" in their agility. Also, more "primitive" relatives of Tyrannosaurus, such as Albertosaurus, were also more quick and agile.
Tyrannosaurus rex
Albertosaurus sarcophagus
(notice the tiny arm with 2 fingers, just like big cousin T)
Allosaurus, for comparison. A distant relative, large 3 fingered hands, and an apex predator of the Jurassic, 80 million years prior to Tyrannosaurus
Roughly same body-length, but much more agily body
After Allosaurids died out, Tyrannosaurids developed from small, discrete jackal-sized "raptors" to replace them as apex predators
Apart from these, there are dozens of species in both these families, as well as several other large carnivore families, of all kinds of proportions, such as the Carcharodontosaurids, which were stocky, Tyrannosaur-built Allosaurids of the Jurassic. The number of species and variation is way too great to be easily summarized
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Oh yeah, keep it coming with the dino discussion... um @zegh8578 what's your favourite period, if you have one?
I didn't know I had one untill you asked
But early Cretaceous fascinates me, because of the "restart" on dinosaur evolution. A lot of abrupt new forms and shapes emerge during this timeOh, and in case you wonder - from snout to back of the head, the fenestrae (the holes in the skull) are
1. nostril (for sniffing)
2. antorbital (basically to shave off weight, and for jaw-shutting muscle-attachment. the tiny hole right in front of it typically counts, so this is often a small-and-a-big-hole together)
3. orbital (the eye is located at the top of this narrow opening. the eye would be comparatively tiny, for such a huge animal)
4. postorbital (same as antorbital in function, muscle attachment + weight reduction)
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Cool, I don't know much of the periods but I think my favourite is the Jurassic Period.I didn't know I had one untill you asked
Jurassic was definitely a "climactic" period, where a lot of the species evolved to extraordinary dimensions, especially sauropods and their corresponding hunters
It is often refered to as the age of sauropods, because of their dominance. Both North America as well as China has yielded a staggering ammount of sauropod fossils from this time, not only gigantic sauropods, but MANY - and diverse. It's difficult to even imagine how so many gigantic animals could live, from day to day, in finite landscapes, but hey, it's a big world
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Which is unfortunate when you think about how they wouldn't be able to survive very well nowadays due to how much they would eat.Jurassic was definitely a "climactic" period, where a lot of the species evolved to extraordinary dimensions, especially sauropods and their corresponding hunters
It is often refered to as the age of sauropods, because of their dominance. Both North America as well as China has yielded a staggering ammount of sauropod fossils from this time, not only gigantic sauropods, but MANY - and diverse. It's difficult to even imagine how so many gigantic animals could live, from day to day, in finite landscapes, but hey, it's a big world
They kind of proved that themselves, by eating themselves into catastrophic extinction
In early cretaceous there is almost no sign of sauropods, but they did survive, probably in small pockets here and there, leading on to the confusing and poorly understood group of "Titanosaurs"
By the end of the cretaceous, and the dinosaur era, Sauropods were still not all the way back, except in southern South America and in isolated India (which was a huge island), and these were almost exclusively so-called Titanosaurs, which ranged from pony-sized to biggest-land-animals-ever-lived
mega-necked Alamosaurus, a North American Titanosaur
Btw, Scott Hartman is a fucking machine, he keeps producing these skeletal diagrams, non stop! They are highly reliable, as he tends to have first hand access to these fossils
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Dinosaurs are so weird and alien. I guess the Earth back then would have been alien to us because of the different plant life and trees.
There would be no grass, anywhere, none
Fields would exist, but with non-grassy plants, that dinosaurs "grazed"Flowers and fruit did not exist untill the end of the cretaceous, and therefore a lot of the insects we think of as elemental in nature did not exist either, such as butterflies or bees.
Wading birds had allready evolved completely by the end of the cretaceous, so we might actually hear gull-cries in the time of Tyrannosaurus
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Not to forget a large lack of mammal life (not a total lack, but on a short trip we probably wouldn't find any).There would be no grass, anywhere, none
Flowers and fruit did not exist untill the end of the cretaceous, and therefore a lot of the insects we think of as elemental in nature did not exist either, such as butterflies or bees.
Wading birds had allready evolved completely by the end of the cretaceous, so we might actually hear gull-cries in the time of Tyrannosaurus
You might find more than you think
Mammals existed allready in basic form before the dinosaurs, and existed in the "sub growth" throughout the dinosaur age. Most were rodent sized (although more akin to shrews than actual rodents), and ate insects. Others reached the size of cats, and very primitive primates were allready developing at the end of the Mesozoic (although not quite as lemur-like as in Disney's Dinosaur)
Mammal fossils however have a tendency to not preserve very well, dunno why, I never specialized in them, but because of our milk-teeth, countless little molars and canines are found throughout the dinosaur "strata"
Little mammal skeletons have been found inside small dinosaur's guts, as well as vice versa, so they definitely interacted (ate each others), with the mammals more than likely harassing dinosaur eggs and newborns
Dr Fallout
Centurion
That the point, mammals were small and would be hard to find. I think that in a world full of dinosaurs they may do better by staying hidden.
This is a very nice fossil
It's a Sinosauropteryx prima, and it was about a metre long, with very small stubby hands. What looks like localized fuzz on the back, has since been re-interpreted as the darkly colored feather coat preserved, as opposed to the light colored, which makes a lot of sense: a black back, and a white belly, for "counter shadowing"
This also explains the tail - look - it has stripes! You're looking at the long, fuzzy, squirrely, striped tail of a little dinosaur. In its belly - the tiny, crunched up remains of a small mammal.
It's a Sinosauropteryx prima, and it was about a metre long, with very small stubby hands. What looks like localized fuzz on the back, has since been re-interpreted as the darkly colored feather coat preserved, as opposed to the light colored, which makes a lot of sense: a black back, and a white belly, for "counter shadowing"
This also explains the tail - look - it has stripes! You're looking at the long, fuzzy, squirrely, striped tail of a little dinosaur. In its belly - the tiny, crunched up remains of a small mammal.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Wow that is a really cool fossil. So well preserved... I can imagine scurrying around the undergrowth, though I wouldn't be surprised if it lived elsewhere.
Oh, you're totally right. The plate of rock is typical fine-grain sediment, it has somehow managed to find itself on the bottom of a lake (this preserving it so well)
the area at the time, in todays northern China, was densely forested, scattered with lakes, kind of like a tropical Finland, and teemed with wildlife
Sinosauropteryx would probably have scurried around, just like you imagine, in the undergrowth, snatching up whatever snack it could find, tearing it apart if it could, for then to swallow the pieces whole, like a little bastard (dinosaurs, like birds and crocs, did not chew, with the exception of hadrosaurs "duck billed dinosaurs")
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Damn it, now I want to binge watch Walking with the Dinosaurs all over again.
I never watched it, too OCD for that
I would just be annoyed at the anthropomorphized behavior in the animations Then again, I guess they kind of have to do that, to make it interesting, since real animals tend to just stand, sit, sleep and/or poop down their legs
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Yeah they made up a bunch of plausible stories on certain dinosaurs.I never watched it, too OCD for that
Then again, I guess they kind of have to do that, to make it interesting, since real animals tend to just stand, sit, sleep and/or poop down their legs