History Main / ArtisticLicensePaleontology

* The first ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' movie (and its remake) refers to a plesiosaur as "Nobita's dinosaur". Not that the franchise doesn't have other examples (ScienceMarchesOn aside). Thankfully, the 2020 film caught this on and refers to two feathered maniraptorans as "Nobita's Dinosaurs".

* ''ComicBook/TheJurassicLeague'' makes no attempts at scientific accuracy whatsoever. The main characters are intelligent, anthropomorphic, talking dinosaurs [[OneMillionBC who live alongside cavemen]] and have superpowers. One of them, [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Supersaur]], is from space.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' storyline ''ComicBook/TheGirlWithTheXRayMind'', Kru-El's devolutionary device -called Time-Reversal Ray- turns a flock of seagulls into pterosaurs...even though birds are descended from theropod dinosaurs, not pterosaurs.

* [[LovableCoward Rex]] from ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' is a green plastic ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' with three fingers on each hand instead of two like in real life. Justified, since he's a ''toy T. rex'', which is often portrayed incorrectly, and a cheap knock-off from a small company that went out of business and was bought by Mattel in a Thanksgiving auction, at that.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' features Bob the Dinosaur, and his wife Dawn and son Rex ([[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome though Rex and Dawn would eventually disappear from the strip]]) who interact with modern humans rather than cavemen. Dilbert ran a simulation and found out that dinosaurs weren't extinct,[[HesJustHiding they're just hiding]].

** "Red In Tooth And Claw" depicts the common fictional trope of large phorusrhacids existing alongside Smilodon populator - WordOfGod has admitted that this was artistic license done for the sake of RuleOfCool.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' features Bob the Dinosaur, who interacts with modern humans rather than cavemen. At least one strip has implied that he woke up after hibernating for millions of years.

A SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseBiology, and a SuperTrope to AquaticHadrosaurs and AquaticSauropods. See also EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs, DinosaursAreDragons, {{Slurpasaur}}, DumbDinos, GoofyFeatheredDinosaur, RaptorAttack, PteroSoarer, HeadButtingPachy, AquaticHadrosaurs, LivingDinosaurs and OneMillionBC. For mistakes pertaining to dinosaurs today, see ArtisticLicenseOrnithology.

A SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseBiology, and a SuperTrope to AquaticHadrosaurs. See also EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs, DinosaursAreDragons, {{Slurpasaur}}, AquaticHadrosaurs, AquaticSauropods, DumbDinos, GoofyFeatheredDinosaur, RaptorAttack, PteroSoarer, HeadButtingPachy, AquaticHadrosaurs, LivingDinosaurs and OneMillionBC. For mistakes pertaining to dinosaurs today, see ArtisticLicenseOrnithology.

A SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseBiology, and a SuperTrope to AquaticHadrosaurs. See also EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs, DinosaursAreDragons, {{Slurpasaur}}, DumbDinos, GoofyFeatheredDinosaur, RaptorAttack, PteroSoarer, HeadButtingPachy, AquaticHadrosaurs, LivingDinosaurs and OneMillionBC. For mistakes pertaining to dinosaurs today, see ArtisticLicenseOrnithology.

For common inaccuracies of prehistoric creatures in the media, please check out the [[Analysis/ArtisticLicensePaleontology Analysis]] page.

Subtrope of ArtisticLicenseBiology. See also EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs, DinosaursAreDragons, {{Slurpasaur}}, DumbDinos, GoofyFeatheredDinosaur, RaptorAttack, PteroSoarer, HeadButtingPachy, AquaticHadrosaurs, LivingDinosaurs and OneMillionBC. For mistakes pertaining to dinosaurs today, see ArtisticLicenseOrnithology.

!!Examples

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology/LiveActionFilms

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

Subtrope of ArtisticLicenseBiology. See also EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs, DinosaursAreDragons, {{Slurpasaur}}, DumbDinos, GoofyFeatheredDinosaur, RaptorAttack, PteroSoarer, HeadButtingPachy, LivingDinosaurs and OneMillionBC. For mistakes pertaining to dinosaurs today, see ArtisticLicenseOrnithology.

** This is exaggerated with some of the prehistoric Zoan Devil Fruit users in the Beast Pirates crew. Sasaki, who has the power to turn into a ''Triceratops'', is able to fly like a helicopter by spinning his bony frill, while Queen, who has the power to turn into a ''Brachiosaurus'', is able to shoot his head, neck, and tail out of his body to become a giant serpent. The utter absurdity of both of these is lampshaded.

** The purple ''Chilantaisaurus'' (according to the book and second episode of the animated series) trying to eat Umasou [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSnuV3uRs-Y in this scene]] has a rather interesting case in which it may be {{hand wave}}d. It is depicted with bull-shaped horns, and yet at the same time no decent skull material of the animal was found yet (although its skull may be no different than other carnosaurs and could have stubby horns).
*** Although because of the horns, some viewers [[IAmNotWeasel refer to it as a]] ''Carnotaurus''. Never mind that it has huge arms and claws, which ''Carnotaurus'' ''lacked'' (and ''Chilantaisaurus'' did have).

* The entire storyline of ''ComicBook/{{Dinowars}}'' revolves around dinosaurs escaping into space to avoid the ice age, growing into a highly evolved civilization, and then returning to Earth to [[TakeOverTheWorld reclaim what is rightfully theirs]].
* Dr. Dinosaur in ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'' claims that "mammal energies" traveled back in time and granted him super-intelligence while wiping out all the rest of the dinosaurs, and then he built a time machine out of rocks, fronds, and crystals to travel to the present and get revenge. His inaccuracies (such as lack of feathers and presence of a larynx) are largely justified however, when Robo points them out and dismisses Dr. D's story as absurd, assuming he's just a genetic experiment based on a ''Film/JurassicPark'' dinosaur rather than a real one. In general, it's a RunningGag that Dr. Dinosaur works his science entirely by AchievementsInIgnorance, which means his appearance is more or less in keeping with it.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' features dinosaurs together (such as ''Apatosaurus'' and ''Tyrannosaurus'') that lived in different eras. The official explanation is that the movie is an AlternateTimeline of a almost-modern day where dinosaurs did not become extinct after a meteor strike 65 million years ago, but some of the dinosaurs depicted had gone extinct a hundred million years before that event. Not to mention the several anatomical inaccuracies (''Apatosaurus'' being confused for ''Brachiosaurus'', ''Styracosaurus'' having the horn arrangement of a ''Triceratops'', raptors not having enough feathers, pterosaurs walking on their knuckles and one of them resembles a ''Nyctosaurus'' with teeth and wingclaws, etc.).

* Music/IronMaiden's "Quest for Fire" mostly [[FilkSong retells the story of]] [[Film/QuestForFire the eponymous movie]]... except for the ([[{{Narm}} hilariously overblown]]) opening line "In a time when dinosaurs walked the earth..." It should be noted that this was probably the band being funny, as they are history buffs and would know about things like this.

* Prior editions of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' handle the various species of dinosaur better than it does [[SadlyMythtaken mythology]], even pointing out the differences between the ''Velociraptor'' and the ''Deinonychus''. They still list ''Pteranodon'' and ''Elasmosaurus'' under the same catchall of "dinosaurs", though; in the Fourth Edition, however, they are [[CallARabbitASmeerp renamed Behemoths]]. Plus still allowing the ''Quetzalcoatlus'' and ''Elasmosaurus'' to swallow humans whole (note: not only could they probably never do that without dislodging their entire lower beak, but a ''Quetzalcoatlus'' with a human in its gut would probably be too heavy to fly). ''Quetzalcoatlus'' is also routinely depicted as being very clumsy on the ground and barely able to move, when in fact it's now believed to have spent most of its time on the ground and capable of running much faster than a human.

* In ''[[TabletopGame/DinosaursAttack Dinosaurs Attack]]'', herbivorous dinosaurs like ''Parasaurolophus'' and ''Stegosaurus'' eat people frequently [[LudicrousGibs and messily]], plesiosaurs have bendy necks instead of the stiff ones they had in real life, and trilobites are described as "flesh-eating worms" (real trilobites were not worms and even the predatory ones could not harm something as large as a human). This is in part intentional parody, though, since the 50's movies the cards spoof made similar mistakes. Given the reveal that [[spoiler:all this was organized by what can only be called ''Dinosaur Satan'']], accuracy was likely never one of their goals.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'': Subverted. During the ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'' storyline, Batman and Commissioner Gordon find a dead man inside the skeleton of a dinosaur. Gordon calls the dinosaur a "''Brontosaurus''" before being corrected as ''Apatosaurus'' by a curator, who tells them the story of how the skull of one dinosaur matched the head of another and the other way round (giving its "two-head" clue about the culprit: Two-Face). However, Brontosaurus was never one dinosaur with another's head, it was simply two different specimens being described and assigned names by different scientists; when it was decided they were actually the same species the slightly older name took precedence as is standard practice. In fact, no head was known for ''either'' dinosaur - the first Apatosaurus skull was found 4 years after the famous American Natural History Museum exhibit had been built, and was not confirmed and generally accepted for another 70 years (the first skull was not attached to a skeleton, so many questioned which dinosaur it actually belonged to). The "wrong" head for Brontosaurus was simply a best guess at reconstructing it, and was thought to be a pretty good fit for either one.

* {{Subver|tedTrope}}sion: In ''Comicbook/{{Runaways}}'', Gert has a pet genetically engineered dinosaur named Old Lace. Everyone calls her a "raptor" and she does look ''exactly'' like a ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' raptor (Identified as a ''Velociraptor'' in the film, but very similar to the the later-discovered ''Utahraptor''). However, as soon as Victor joins the team he points out that it is a ''Deinonychus'', and raptors as depicted in ''Jurassic Park'' do not exist. Old Lace is still incorrectly depicted as featherless, but is nonetheless referred to as a real species with a plausible (for time-traveling, MadScientist-filled comic books) reason for existing. Also,
** Played straight: During the ''Runaways''[=/=]''Comicbook/YoungAvengers'' crossover, the young supers find themselves hit by a mini-blizzard. While the humans quickly shrug it off, Old Lace is rendered practically catatonic, and almost dies, because she's "cold-blooded". However, it was John Ostrom's study of ''Deinonychus'' which largely brought on the "Dinosaur Renaissance", which drastically altered the scientific and popular conception of dinosaurs. This renaissance has ultimately resulted in, at the very least, a consensus that some dinosaurs (such as ''Deinonychus'') were closer to modern, warm-blooded birds than to modern, cold-blooded reptiles, physiologically speaking.

* Subverted in a Franchise/{{Batman}} comic. During the ''Comicbook/{{Knightfall}}'' storyline, Batman and Commissioner Gordon find a dead man inside the skeleton of a dinosaur. Gordon calls the dinosaur a "''Brontosaurus''" before being corrected as ''Apatosaurus'' by a curator, who tells them the story of how the skull of one dinosaur matched the head of another and the other way round[[note]]Although this is actually a common misconception. It's true that Brontosaurus was a spuriously assigned new genus for what only qualified as a new Apatosaurus species, and that it had the wrong head, but these are two ''separate'' issues with the fossil that have become conflated in the public consciousness[[/note]], giving its "two-head" clue about the culprit: Two-Face.
** Although in a case of ScienceMarchesOn, more recent classifications say that Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus are different genera after all.
** Even before this reclassification, the comic was wrong about its clue. Brontosaurus was never one dinosaur with another's head, it was simply two different specimens being described and assigned names by different scientists; when it was decided they were actually the same species the slightly older name took precedence as is standard practice. In fact, no head was known for ''either'' dinosaur - the first Apatosaurus skull was found 4 years after the famous American Natural History Museum exhibit had been built, and was not confirmed and generally accepted for another 70 years (the first skull was not attached to a skeleton, so many questioned which dinosaur it actually belonged to). The "wrong" head for Brontosaurus was simply a best guess at reconstructing it, and was thought to be a pretty good fit for either one.
* Though the prehistoric beasts in [[http://web.archive.org/web/20051103034449/http://www.superdickery.com/other/255.html this Batman comic]] seem to be robots of some sort, allowing for some errors, there is one completely unforgivable mistake: they misspell the word "dinosaur"!

* 150,000 years ago, the title character of ''Rahan'' (a very well known caveman in France) encounters dinosaurs and sees them as survivors of a very distant past. It's really not as outlandish as some of the other examples on this page.
* The entire storyline of ''Comicbook/{{Dinowars}}'' revolves around dinosaurs escaping into space to avoid the ice age, growing into a highly evolved civilization, and then returning to Earth to [[TakeOverTheWorld reclaim what is rightfully theirs]].

* ''WesternAnimation/DinoTime3D'' is not meant to be a biologically accurate film, but they did have one redeeming trait: a feathered baby ''Tyrannosaurus''.

* TV tropes itself is guilty of this with the trope Main/StockDinosaurs which categorizes creatures that are not dinosaurs as well. This also leads to the funny contradiction in the subsection UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursNonDinosaurs.

* The following a note under "Brontosaurs" in the Sample Stuff under Dinosaur in CartoonActionHour: Season 3.

The time gap between the last ''Stegosaurus'' and the first ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus]]'', for example, is about 75 million years. This is 10 million years longer than the gap between ''Tyrannosaurus'' and humans. But since "they're both dinosaurs" it's quite common to see depictions of ''Tyrannosaurus'' preying on ''Stegosaurus''.[[/note]] Some prehistoric creatures, like pterosaurs and plesiosaurs, are technically not even considered dinosaurs. Fortunately, some educational programs attempt to avoid these pitfalls.

** 25 years later, the Disney Imagineers created a Primeval World diorama for the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, with many of the individual scenes apparently inspired by ''Fantasia''. This diorama, which is currently installed at Disneyland in California, is a slight improvement on the film -- the first scene shows dimetrodons in a Coal Age forest of giant horsetails (and giant dragonflies), and then moves to a Jurassic swamp with some generic sauropods, followed by scenes featuring ''Pteranodon'', ''Triceratops'', and ''Struthiomimus'' (all Late Cretaceous, although the precise ages differ somewhat). So far, so good; the sauropods look ridiculous and should not be munching water weeds in a swamp, but that can be put down to a combination of 1960's paleontological ignorance and artistic license. But then the final scene depicts a ''Stegosaurus'' battling some large carnosaur beside a violent lava flow. If the carnosaur is supposed to be a ''[[TyrannosaurusRex T. rex]]'', as the narrator usually states, why does it have three fingers per hand, and [[AnachronismStew what is the stego doing in the Cretaceous]]? You could ignore the narrator and assume that the setting has reverted back to the Jurassic for some reason, and the stego is fighting an ''Allosaurus''... but that doesn't explain why stego has ''five'' tail spikes on its [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer thagomizer]].

* [[LovableCoward Rex]] from ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' is a green plastic ''TyrannosaurusRex'' with three fingers on each hand instead of two like in real life. Justified, since he's a ''toy T. rex'', which is often portrayed incorrectly, and a cheap knock-off from a small company that went out of business and was bought by Mattel in a Thanksgiving auction, at that.

The time gap between the last ''Stegosaurus'' and and the first ''[[TyrannosaurusRex Tyrannosaurus]]'', for example, is about 75 million years. This is 10 million years longer than the gap between ''Tyrannosaurus'' and humans. But since "they're both dinosaurs" it's quite common to see depictions of ''Tyrannosaurus'' preying on ''Stegosaurus''.[[/note]] Some prehistoric creatures, like pterosaurs and plesiosaurs, are technically not even considered dinosaurs. Fortunately, some educational programs attempt to avoid these pitfalls.

* In ''[[TabletopGame/DinosaursAttack Dinosaurs Attack]]'', herbivorous dinosaurs like ''Parasaurolophus'' and ''Stegosaurus'' eat people frequently [[LudicrousGibs and messily]], plesiosaurs have bendy necks instead of the stiff ones they had in real life, and trilobites are described as "flesh-eating worms" (real trilobites were not worms and even the predatory ones could not harm something as large as a human). This is in part intentional parody, though, since the 50's movies the cards spoof made similar mistakes.

* The first ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}'' movie (and its remake) refers to a plesiosaur as "Nobita's dinosaur". Not that the franchise doesn't have other examples (ScienceMarchesOn aside). Thankfully, the 2020 film caught this on and refers to two feathered maniraptorans as "Nobita's Dinosaurs".

* ''Manga/{{Gantz}}'' is a partial aversion. Its raptors (actually aliens masquerading as raptor models in a museum) are notably covered in feathers (or maybe fur, but we'll be optimistic). On the other hand, the ''T. rex'' [[DinosaursAreDragons shoots fireballs]]... well, they're aliens.