They are the coolest, aren't they?
What's a cool fact about dinosaurs you know?
The Craziest Of The Crazy
These monstrosities were alive millions of years ago. Without actually being there, it's hard to picture some of the things they were capable of or what we've decided about them in the current day.
Eh...You Got A Better Name?
Cartoonist Gary Larson named a dinosaur part.
In one of his strips, a caveman scientist described the spikes on a stegosaurus tail as "the thagomizer, named after the late Thag Simmons".
Real life paleontologists realized this part had no name... so they started calling it the thagomizer.
Clever Girl
Velociraptors are a lot smaller than depicted in movies
This. The raptors in Jurassic Park are more similar to a related dinosaur, Deinonychus.
Don't Shoot Him. You'll Just Make Him Mad.
T. Rex was actually really tough. Some skeletons have been found with major injuries that show evidence of years worth of healing.
A skeleton named Stan in particular had a hole in his skull, and he may have lived up to a decade after having his skull punctured if the bone healing is any indication.
Protect Your Teeth
Predator dinosaurs probably had lips covering those impressive teeth as the enamel of the teeth was not of the kind that could stand a dry environment. So no toothy smiles from T-rex and such.
As well, their head was probably more rounded with more flesh, instead of having hollow faces. Their nostrils were probably on a fleshy snout.
Colors And Science
We actually know the color of some dinos! Scientist found melanosomes (cells that make the color of animals) in very well preserved fossils. Microraptor for example was black just like a crow. Or Sinosauropteryx (relative of compsognathus ) was reddish brown with an bandend tail and a dark mask [around] its eyes.
The Things We Thought We Knew (Usually From Movies) Were Wrong
Most of what we know about dinosaurs comes from film. While many of us might have walked around elementary school with a near-tatters copy of a dinosaur fact book, a majority of us know what we know about dinos because of movies and television. Odds are, most of us are wrong.
Not As Loud As You Think
Scientists have studied the nasal and throat structure of the tyrannosaurus rex and as it turns out it was completely incapable of vocalizing a roar like those seen in movies, rather they would have made deep growling noises similar to alligators.
Using The Claw For Its Intended Purpose
If large Raptors actually put their weight on their toe claw it would rip out of it's socket. Rather than being used to mount on Hadrosaurs in media, their toe claw would have been used to swipe arteries like in the dualing dinosaurs fossil; and probably retreat to let their prey bleed out to minimize risk of injuries.
Who's Up For A Swim?
Recently spinosaurus was discovered to have a tadpole-like tail. It has been known for a while that it was mostly an aquatic animal, even Jurassic Park III showed that, but it was always depicted with the standard lizard-like dinosaur tail. Recently new fossils have emerged that show that the creature had a tail like that of a tad pole, suggesting that it spend much more time in water than previously thought.
FEATHERS! Just, Not As Many.
Many know dinosaurs likely had feathers also known as dino fuzz. However, now many scientists are discovering that the feathers on many dinosaurs have likely been overdone as a result of the feather craze.
Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Raptors couldn't walk around with its hands hanging palm down like most toys and movies show, their bone structure wouldn't allow it. They had to keep their palms facing each other.
Random Things To Tickle Your Dino Brain
Then there's those facts that are so cool, so interesting, you need to hear about them right away.
Seriously. All These Names Have To Come From Somewhere.
I could name you a myriad of dinosaur facts, as I've been studying paleontology all my life (informally however cause I cannot afford the schooling.) Some of my favorites include: The Thagomizer of Stegosaurus is from a comic strip called 'The Far Side' by Gary Larson, and has since become informally adopted by many scientists, including people at the Smithsonian Institutions.
Another is that there is in fact a semi-aquatic dromeosaur (raptor) called Halszkaraptor that had webbed feet, similar to ducks and geese, which allowed them to spend time in both land and water. Apart from this, they had sensory neurons in their snout which would allow them to detect vibrations in water, and thus detect prey. It is said they are most similar to modern day mergansers, a group of piscivorious birds.
Gross? But Also, Thank You.
Brachiosaurs produced such earth-shattering terrorfarts they practically terraformed the planet. They ripped out about 520 million tons of methane per year which is one par with the current amount produced by both natural and man-made sources
You Know What's Funny? Time.
They were around for longer than they've been extinct. Which means that there were dinosaur fossils when dinosaurs existed.
I imagine it would've been pretty cool if Dinosaur archeologists existed. But I guess since it would be pretty weird to dig through skeletons of their own kind, maybe a cemetary would be more likely.
Dodged A Bullet - Or In This Case A Bomb
There was an ultra rare skeleton of a dinosaur called spinosaurus that was the only one of its kind( not complete, but only evidence of it) and it got destroyed during ww2 when bombs fell on the museum in Germany. Only recently another intact skeleton has been found in North Africa. Which was more complete and gave some clues about where it lived and how it got so big--it was bigger than a T. rex
Not As Many As There Must Have Been
The fact that the entire fossil record accounts for less than 1% of all life that has lived on earth.
BIRDS!...Kind Of...
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago, although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research. They became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates after the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event 201.3 million years ago; their dominance continued through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The fossil record demonstrates that birds are modern feathered dinosaurs, having evolved from earlier theropods during the Late Jurassic epoch.
As such, birds were the only dinosaur lineage to survive the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event approximately 66 million years ago. Dinosaurs can therefore be divided into avian dinosaurs, or birds; and non-avian dinosaurs, which are all dinosaurs other than birds.
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