Zegh's Dinosaur Thread
- Thread starter zegh8578
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Isn't it Din-a-sauce?
Yes, that's the delightful pronounciation you hear in the Jurassic Park DNA-cartoon, "dina-saws!"
By the way:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...leeps-bone-paleontology-conference-180976086/
Hell Creek is now "Heck Creek" for the time being. Chinese researchers must prepare to have their names turned to asterisks, and any mention of "bone" must be kept to a minimum during the Paleontology Conference.
God knows how the Human Anatomy Conference is faring
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I feel like zegh could appreciate this one.
Beautiful!
Pterosaurs are fantastically weird, with insaaane proportions, take this for example
in case you got no idea whats going on - the skull is facing right way, it has two spike crests with a visible membrane between the two. The large fenestra is common in Archosaurs, and is for lightening of the skull as well as functioning as nostril (in dinos, birds and mammals, the nostril is separate, and in birds and mammals, the antorbital fenestra has closed up entirely and no longer exists anyway), the small drop-shaped fenestra right behind is the orbit.
The torso of this pterosaur (and most like it) is smaller than the skull!
All of this weirdness, and you get "renegade lone wolf scientists" like David Peters insisting "but wait - they were WEIRDER!!!", insisting he can see features nobody else can, because he has a very, very special mind, and uses VERY special computer programs (photoshop + filters) to find things nobody else (such as nobody in the entire scientific community) can find!
When you google ANY pterosaur, David Peters' ramblings are usually the first to show - *especially* in the image searchers, since he is such a relentless illustrator of his ideas. He is, sadly, quite talented - so his bullshit routinely is taken for serious, because his illustrations look very professional.
"Renegade scientists" really tickle the fancies of people who do NOT understand science. They see "the hero" "the silenced" "the messiah" "david vs goliath", when in reality peer review is essential for scientific value. For people who understand science, the "lone wolf renegade researcher speaking against the storm" is a *huge red flag*. David Peters - as SquidVan's post shows - is a huge headache for the entire community, and he is out of his mind, he is adament and he is paranoid - and he is obviously also aggressive in his interaction with others. Like any crazy cook, he refuses to back down.
Hmmmm.
Response from one of the foremost veterans in vertebrate paleontology
Morgan_
Duckerz
Reminds me of a dinosaur themed comic book I found as a kid. Being a very serious little boy, I usually didn't appreciate such stuff. I was the kid who was angry at Jurassic Park inaccuracies, only learning to appreciate the film 20 years later "ohhhhh, it's not even about dinosaurs, it's about capitalism. Neat!"
This comic had all the tropes, like dinos always comitting to dramatic poses, the sky always being fiery red cus it's the mesozoic, and the sun apparently never properly sets, but some of the artwork was SO good! In particular one story, where I could sense even a care for anatomy in a way I could tell that the artist is comic artist first, "paleo artist" second, but still someone who truly wants to depict dinosaurs in a real way. Kind of similar to Bill Watterson's approach - comic artist first, but his dinosaurs were always spot on and highly accurate - down to particular species anatomical details (he for example would showcase Chasmosaurus and its distinctive anatomical features, instead of the better known Triceratops)
The magazine was a dud, found only one issue, and none ever again.
This comic had all the tropes, like dinos always comitting to dramatic poses, the sky always being fiery red cus it's the mesozoic, and the sun apparently never properly sets, but some of the artwork was SO good! In particular one story, where I could sense even a care for anatomy in a way I could tell that the artist is comic artist first, "paleo artist" second, but still someone who truly wants to depict dinosaurs in a real way. Kind of similar to Bill Watterson's approach - comic artist first, but his dinosaurs were always spot on and highly accurate - down to particular species anatomical details (he for example would showcase Chasmosaurus and its distinctive anatomical features, instead of the better known Triceratops)
The magazine was a dud, found only one issue, and none ever again.
I fully appreciate the fully birdy raptor, and I also appreciate the little heel-sit pose in the last panel there.
While sitting down on the heels like this is fairly common in mammals, like dogs and cats, its much rarer in birds, but can be seen in larger birds, when they try to relax a bit. It has - incidentally - been found in imprints, footprints, basically heel-prints, complete with a butt-print right behind.
While sitting down on the heels like this is fairly common in mammals, like dogs and cats, its much rarer in birds, but can be seen in larger birds, when they try to relax a bit. It has - incidentally - been found in imprints, footprints, basically heel-prints, complete with a butt-print right behind.
Bird-like dinosaurs in general are cooler imho. Add feathers onto anything and it’s 10 times better, especially when mixed with tar and dumped on politicians.
An as of yet undescribed specimen of Tianyulong, it's a tiny Ornithischian, and a late surviving representative of very early, primitive forms - as in, the earliest grandfathers of dinos like Iguanodon, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops - that whole group, the herbivores with plates and spikes and duck-bills.
Look at the contour around its body, you will see the remnant of the fluff-o-sphere, as a slight darker yellow shade. Once you spot it, look at how deeply fluffy this animal was! It's almost how you imagine a rodent, where the shape of the body becomes entirely obscured by all that fluff. The tail seems to start very fluffy, then slim up a bit, then poof out again towards the end.
This animal was the size of a cat, roughly, so the deep fluffy poof is warranted.
I'll say for the sake of clarification, that "wow, you're wrong!"-type vids, showing a "chicken-ized tyrannosaurus" are likely incorrect. Tyrannosaurids ARE inside the feathery theropod bracket, and small-to-medium Tyrannosaurs DID have feathers, famously the quite large Yutyrannus had thick feathers, feathered toes, and a thick eagle-like coat covering its neck. But Tyrannosaurus rex was twice that size, and more likely to overheat if covered in such a coating.
Tyrannosaurus would therefore, more likely exhibit feathers in a way that elephants or rhinos exhibit fur: They posess hair-growth, but it is undetectable by a quick glance.
Now - a young T. rex could indeed have been fully feathery, especially since younglings of animals often retain features seen in ancestral forms - and, of course, the animal would be much smaller, perhaps shedding its floof as it grows.
In short, it was probably similar to fur in mammals: the larger, the less, the smaller, the more poofy. Since dinos featherless default is a thick, scaly skin, that's what would be on the menu - feathers and/or scales, often both - just like birds today have scaly feet, for example.
A recent find shows that Sauropods, for example, had a huge variation in the scale patterns on a single individual, it would have robust, armor-like scales on its feet and ankles, for example, to protect against randomly kicking stuff, it had various types of patterns covering the body, and in some cases, tall, dragon-like spines following the neck, back and tail. These spines would be entirely keratinous, as there is zero bone-remains of such spines, so they would not be like crocodile-spines, which are part of the skeleton, but rather like a rhino-horn.
Thick, robust scales covering the body, are also known in some Theropods, especially the Abelisaurs, and actually ossified osteoderms (like crocodile spikes) are known in the Theropod Ceratosaurus. So, even in Theropods, a fully scaly, even spiny body existed, mostly among the more "primitive" types - but these MAY in fact be secondarily fluff-less, as in - their ancestors might have been fluffy.
Here's the kicker, see - Pterosaurs were all furry. Pterosaurs and Dinosaurs share very close recent ancestry - the so-called Ornithodirans, who split into Pterosauriforms and Dinosauriforms, all of them very small, very agile animals, swift like small bipedal cats. Here's where the question appears: Fluff is known in Pterosaurs, and it's known in primitive Ornithischians (so far not in primitive Theropods, and even less primitive Sauropods) - but if Pterosaur fluff and Ornithischian fluff become linked in a future discovery of Ornithodiran fluff - then it means ALL of Dinosauria falls inside the fluff-bracket, and any flufflessness beyond, would be secondary.
Anyway, nuff fluff for now, just admire the poof of little Tianyulong there! As well as its long, little squirrel tail!
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On that note, surely you've seen all the Spinosaurus controversy the past few years, with Ibrahim et al., discoveries in Morocco?
Spinosaurus is now known to have had a very tilted head, from the base of the neck, almost like a stork. Its tail was tall and flat, almost like a taller-flatter crocodiles tail, as if the back-sail re-emerges alongside the tail, making it perfect for swimming. The hind legs turns out to have been very short and stocky, giving the animal a *very* awkward look on land. Spinosaurus was very probably an aquatic dinosaur.
Plesiosaurs, Pliosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs etc are NOT aquatic Dinosaurs, the same way Pterosaurs are NOT flying Dinosaurs. Birds and Scansoriopterygids are flying dinosaurs, and Spinosaurus (as well as possibly the iguanodontid Lurdusaurus, and also the ankylosaurid Liaoningosaurus) were aquatic dinosaurs.
Lurdusaurus could have been analogous to hippopotamuses, having an unusually robust skeleton, suggesting a lot of body weight per bone, while Liaoningosaurus was possibly some kind of weird herbivorous armored otter-turtle-dino
Spinosaurus is now known to have had a very tilted head, from the base of the neck, almost like a stork. Its tail was tall and flat, almost like a taller-flatter crocodiles tail, as if the back-sail re-emerges alongside the tail, making it perfect for swimming. The hind legs turns out to have been very short and stocky, giving the animal a *very* awkward look on land. Spinosaurus was very probably an aquatic dinosaur.
Plesiosaurs, Pliosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs etc are NOT aquatic Dinosaurs, the same way Pterosaurs are NOT flying Dinosaurs. Birds and Scansoriopterygids are flying dinosaurs, and Spinosaurus (as well as possibly the iguanodontid Lurdusaurus, and also the ankylosaurid Liaoningosaurus) were aquatic dinosaurs.
Lurdusaurus could have been analogous to hippopotamuses, having an unusually robust skeleton, suggesting a lot of body weight per bone, while Liaoningosaurus was possibly some kind of weird herbivorous armored otter-turtle-dino
Eeeh ... Dinosaurs ... rule?
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Lulz.
*Edit
Lulz.
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