| 1 | [[quoteright:330:[[ComicStrip/AlleyOop https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alley_oop_and_Dinny_397.jpg]]]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:330:He's got a chauffeur who's a genuine dinosaur.]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''"Many people (including some scientists) are confused about what is or isn't a 'dinosaur'. They think that flying pterodactyls or fin-backed ''Dimetrodon'' or seagoing plesiosaurs or woolly mammoths are dinosaurs. THEY ARE WRONG!"'' |
| 5 | -->-- '''[[http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/ Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.,]]''' ''Literature/DinosaursTheMostCompleteUpToDateEncyclopedia'' |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Dinosaurs are [[RuleOfCool pretty cool]], which is why they are frequently seen in fiction. However, creators do not always prioritize historical or scientific accuracy when dealing with these prehistoric creatures in works. As such, dinosaurs often appear in the [[AnachronismStew wrong time period, along with humans]] ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird unless appropriate]]), possess special abilities that they otherwise would never have had, or are treated as pets or friendly characters. They may also be presented with anatomic inaccuracies (such as being the wrong size, having the wrong number or shape of toes, teeth, horns or dorsal fins, having inaccurate proportions, etc.) |
| 8 | |
| 9 | In RealLife many of the most commonly-recognized dinosaurs lived in [[MisplacedWildlife different habitats]], continents or [[AnachronismStew time periods]].[[note]]The Mesozoic Era lasted about 186 million years. |
| 10 | The time gap between the last ''Stegosaurus'' and the first ''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. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | A SubTrope of ArtisticLicenseBiology, and a SuperTrope to AquaticHadrosaurs, AquaticSauropods, SnowySabertooths, and ToxicDinosaur. See also DinosaursAreDragons, {{Slurpasaur}}, DumbDinos, GoofyFeatheredDinosaur, RaptorAttack, TerrorDactyl, HeadButtingPachy, LivingDinosaurs and HollywoodPrehistory. For mistakes pertaining to dinosaurs today, see ArtisticLicenseOrnithology. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Compare UsefulNotes/{{Dinosaurs}}, UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursTrueDinosaurs, UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursNonDinosaurs, and UsefulNotes/PrehistoricLife. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | For a list of common inaccuracies of prehistoric creatures in the media, check out the trope's [[Analysis/ArtisticLicensePaleontology Analysis]] page. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | An extreme and unusually common form of this is [[YouKeepUsingThatWord when people conflate]] archaeology with palaeontology. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[noreallife]] |
| 21 | ---- |
| 22 | !!Example subpages: |
| 23 | |
| 24 | [[index]] |
| 25 | * ArtisticLicensePaleontology/{{Documentaries}} |
| 26 | * [[ArtisticLicensePaleontology/LiveActionFilms Films — Live-Action]] |
| 27 | ** ''ArtisticLicensePaleontology/JurassicWorldDominion'' |
| 28 | * ArtisticLicensePaleontology/{{Literature}} |
| 29 | * ArtisticLicensePaleontology/LiveActionTV |
| 30 | * ArtisticLicensePaleontology/{{Toys}} |
| 31 | * ArtisticLicensePaleontology/VideoGames |
| 32 | * ArtisticLicensePaleontology/WesternAnimation |
| 33 | [[/index]] |
| 34 | |
| 35 | !!Other examples: |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 38 | |
| 39 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 40 | * ''Manga/AfterGod'': Alula's statement that Human Stronger Than Gods existed 700 million of years ago is odd considering that's long before even Cambrian Explosion. |
| 41 | * {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Anime/MagicalShoppingArcadeAbenobashi'', when the characters land in "Scientifically Inaccurate Prehistoric Abenobashi". |
| 42 | * ''Manga/{{Gantz}}'' is a partial aversion. Its raptors (actually aliens masquerading as raptor models in a museum) are notably covered in feathers (though they lack wing feathers and have pronated hands). On the other hand, the ''T. rex'' [[DinosaursAreDragons shoots fireballs]]... well, they're aliens. |
| 43 | * ''Anime/GenesisClimberMospeada'' subverts this trope: Stick and Ray fall into an underground cavern, where they see a mishmash of various kinds of creatures from different periods, including ''Dimetrodon''s, apatosauri, and tyrannosaurs. At first, Ray mentions that something "seems odd" about it, but he can't put his finger on it. Later, he realizes that the dinosaurs are a spattering of dinos from different periods, and the 'cavern' is actually a laboratory where the Inbit are trying to determine the form of life best suited to their "new" planet. |
| 44 | * ''Manga/DragonBall'' features characters who either have the ability to fly or have a flying device with them. Convenient enough, there are some pteranodons or other prehistoric fliers around. Is someone still unable to fly? No problem, just bring in the ''T. rex''. To be fair, ''Franchise/DragonBall'' has a whole lot of other weird stuff so that the pterosaurs and such fit right in. In ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', there are the same dinosaurs...on ''Namek''. Another error is Toriyama's design of the ''Tyrannosaurus''--first off, it has what look like horns on its head--now there MIGHT be tiny brow ridges over its eyes, but the design he used is completely off. Secondly, ''Tyrannosaurus'' had tiny arms with two fingers--he seemed to have based the arms on ''Allosaurus''. And fourth, it is much too big. ''Tyrannosaurus'' would be 12-13 meters long (42-45 feet) and 4 meters high (13 feet), yet are drawn nearly 20-30 meters long and 10 meters tall. |
| 45 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'' |
| 46 | ** The series has at least one island with dinosaurs, not that this is out of place given the rest of the world. |
| 47 | ** 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. 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. King, who has the power to turn into a ''Pteranodon'', is able to use his head like a slingshot, pulling his crest back to build up tension and releasing it to launch his beak forward at high speed. They all claim that this behaviour was typical of their species in ancient times. The utter absurdity of these is lampshaded, but everyone who sees these genuinely believe what they're told. |
| 48 | --->'''Franky:''' I didn't know dinosaurs could do ''that''! |
| 49 | * Averted in the Gaiden chapters of ''Manga/{{Saiyuki}}''; what looks like a rampaging ''T. rex'' is proved to be genetically engineered to do just that by the BigBad. |
| 50 | * Pickle in ''Manga/BakiTheGrappler''. Holy heavens. Again, Itagaki Keisuke takes his "almost realistic extreme martial arts manga" and reminds us that it's a "freaking RuleOfCool extreme martial übermensch manga", with Pickle, the Jurassic man. Revived after being found frozen [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu kicking a]] ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu T. rex]]'' [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu in the mouth]]. |
| 51 | * ''Anime/YouAreUmasou'' has tyrannosauroids that shift from tripod stance to horizontal stance, the now dubious genus "Titanosaurus", a really bendy-necked elasmosaurid, and a mosasaur with a dorsal fringe, as well as a bit of AnachronismStew and MisplacedWildlife. [[ShownTheirWork On the other hand]], it has feathered maniraptors, hadrosaur nesting colonies, migrating herbivores, pack-hunting tyrannosauroids (a questionable speculation), and snow-roaming dinosaurs. |
| 52 | ** 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). |
| 53 | * ''Anime/DoraemonNobitasDinosaur'' (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". |
| 54 | * In ''Manga/CageOfEden'', creatures from different points in history, who all lived in very different habitats, live in the island where the characters are marooned at. [[spoiler: Justified since it is later revealed that the monsters are but man-made clones.]] |
| 55 | * ''Manga/{{Beastars}}'' claims that birds evolved from ''Tyrannosaurus'', when they're actually more closely related to dromaeosaurs like ''Velociraptor''. Of course, it's worth noting that the evolution of birds from dinosaurs is treated in [[CrystalDragonJesus a religious manner in this world, portrayed as their equivalent of Jesus's resurrection]]. |
| 56 | * In ''Anime/PrimitiveBoyRyu'', Tyranno (the Tyrannosaurus Rex) uses his arms like a human. |
| 57 | [[/folder]] |
| 58 | |
| 59 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 60 | * ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'': Dr. Dinosaur 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 by AchievementsInIgnorance, which means his appearance is more or less in keeping with it. |
| 61 | * ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': |
| 62 | ** 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. |
| 63 | ** [[https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Detective_Comics_Vol_1_255 This cover]] in ''ComicBook/DetectiveComics'' #255. Though the prehistoric beasts are robots, allowing for some errors, there is one completely unforgivable mistake: they misspell the word "dinosaur"! |
| 64 | * ''ComicBook/XenozoicTales'': Accuracy should not be expected from a series involving dinosaurs coming back several hundred years in the future. |
| 65 | * ''ComicBook/DevilDinosaur'': Jack Kirby's series was clearly about having fun more than being accurate. There's a friendly "devil beast" (theropod of some sort; it's probably for the best it isn't identified) fighting against ferocious ceratopsians and a ''carnivorous Iguanodon'', while coexisting with cavemen. |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/{{Dinowars}}'': The storyline 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]]. |
| 67 | * In the Franchise/MonsterVerse graphic novel ''Godzilla: Aftershock'', Emma Russell when expositing on the [=MUTOs'=] history and life cycle describes the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse Late Bronze Age collapse]] circa 1100 BCE[[note]]A widespread societal collapse across most of ancient human civilization[[/note]], which a past MUTO generation likely caused, as a mass extinction. Although the exact parameters of a mass extinction are subjective, it's ''universally'' defined as an '''increase in the rate of multiple-species extinction''' which leaves a dent in the planet's overall biodiversity[[note]]The standardized definition states that at least 75% of ''all'' multicellular species on Earth at the time has to go extinct for the event to constitute a ''mass'' extinction[[/note]]. In RealLife, the last recorded ''mass'' extinction was the one which killed the dinosaurs, at least 62 million years before humans even evolved much less before the Bronze Age, and the last recognized ''minor'' global extinction event ended in around 8000 BCE. The Late Bronze Age collapse was just a societal collapse which saw no decline in the planet's biodiversity. |
| 68 | * ''ComicBook/JurassicLeague'' makes no attempts at scientific accuracy whatsoever. The main characters are intelligent, anthropomorphic, talking [[HollywoodPrehistory dinosaurs who live alongside cavemen]] and have superpowers. One of them, [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Supersaur]], is from space. |
| 69 | * ''ComicBook/{{Marville}} #4'', is set on the "Jurassic ''Park''", not "Period". |
| 70 | * In one of Hamilton Comics' ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' early issues, Bulk and Skull are seen being Power Rangers, with Skull as Ranger with a ''Brontosaurus'' theme. However, Billy points out that it's incorrect and that it would be more scientifically correct "Apatosaurus". Skull, however, thinks it's a hilarious pun and ends up knocking Bulk over in the process. |
| 71 | * Horácio from ''ComicBook/MonicasGang''. A vegetarian baby T-Rex. Also, on ''Monica's Gang'' we have the Cavern Clan. Just imagine the Flinstones without all the American {{Sitcom}} situations to turn into something normal for prehistoric cavemen... [[AnachronismStew like hunting dinosaurs.]] |
| 72 | * 150,000 years ago, the title character of ''ComicBook/{{Rahan}}'' (a very well known caveman in France) encounters dinosaurs and sees them as survivors of a very distant past. It's not as outlandish as some of the other examples on this page. Still, Rahan's people are modern-looking Europeans in a time when modern humans had not yet left Africa, Rahan virtually invents every technology from rafts to windmills, and the MisplacedWildlife includes anything from lemurs to gorillas to ''Smilodon'' that look just like Charles R. Knight's art. |
| 73 | * ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'': |
| 74 | ** Subverted: 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 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, |
| 75 | ** 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. |
| 76 | ** It's also worth mentioning that Old Lace wasn't "born" in any sense, but was genetically engineered in the ''83rd century''. Anything odd about her appearance or physiology pales in comparison to her having a telepathic link with Gert. |
| 77 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': A lesser-known villain is Stegron the Dinosaur Man. The [[StevenUlyssesPerhero rather-too-conveniently-named]] Dr. Vincent Stegron steals the lizard formula from Curt Connors and (somehow) infuses it with dinosaur DNA, transforming himself into a half-man, half-''Stegosaurus'' creature... which also has a taste for human flesh and is often depicted with sharp, pointy teeth. Stegron's plots have included: Bringing dinosaurs back to life from their skeletons in museums, despite the fact that dinosaur skeletons in most museums are A) held together with wire, and B) are fibreglass replicas of fossils, which are bone-shaped rocks, or C) even if they're the authentic article, are bone-shaped rocks. Rock contains remarkably little genetic material (''i.e.'', none); Attempting to free the world for dinosaurs by having hundreds of humans in New York conveniently start acting more animalistic and killing each other... using a magic piece of meteorite that he found in a jungle. A particularly glaring error was where a modern lizard is regressed by exposure to the meteor and turns into a ''Velociraptor''. Lizards are not descended from dinosaurs, nor are they closely related to them. If it had been a mutated pigeon, it would have been reasonably accurate, relatively speaking, but for a lizard it's on the same scale as showing a human somehow "regressing" into a water buffalo or a dolphin. Given that Stegron himself is weakened by the cold and speaks in SssssnakeTalk, the writers clearly assumed dinosaurs were typical reptiles. |
| 78 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In the "ComicBook/ThePhantomSuperboy" story, a size-changing ray makes a lizard giant, and Superboy instantly starts calling it a dinosaur, even though lizards are not related to dinosaurs, and becoming giant would not change their taxonomic classification. |
| 79 | * In ''Tyrannosaurus Rex'', while there's dinosaurs and humans living together, the raptors are coated in feathers. |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Eastern Animation]] |
| 83 | * There is a Soviet cartoon called ''Mother For Little Mammoth''. It is about the eponymous woolly mammoth who thawed out in our age searching for his mom. He finds one, an elephant in Africa. A truly happy ending, except one of the traits by which she accepts him is the fact that, like her, he has big ears -- and the mammoth is pictured with such. Now, an elephant's big ears are heat sinks -- woolly mammoths didn't need nor have them. |
| 84 | [[/folder]] |
| 85 | |
| 86 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 87 | * In ''Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia}}: Lost World'', Jake [[DiscussedTrope discusses]] this while watching ''Film/JurassicPark''; during the scene where a character says a ''T. rex'' can't see them if they're standing still, Jake says that's not true, which he knows from first-hand experience. |
| 88 | * ''Fanfic/PrehistoricParkReimagined'': |
| 89 | ** [[AnimalsNotToScale Multiple animals are inaccurately sized]] - Rocco the teratornis is closer to Aiolornis-sized (his species was only slightly bigger than an Andean condor in real life) and the dromas are larger than the real animals. |
| 90 | ** "Red In Tooth And Claw" depicts the common fictional trope of large phorusrhacids existing alongside Smilodon populator -- WordOfGod has admitted that this was RuleOfCool. |
| 91 | * ''FanFic/TheWorldOfTheCreatures'' plays with the trope throughout. The story [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind takes place in the mind]] of someone obsessed with paleontology. As such, dinosaurs show up frequently. In many cases both accurate dinosaurs - such as a fully-feathered ''Utahraptor'' - and inaccurate ones like the featherless raptors of ''Jurassic Park'' appear side by side. |
| 92 | [[/folder]] |
| 93 | |
| 94 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 95 | * The "Rite of Spring" sequence in ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'' may be one of the TropeMakers here. It shows off a random cross-section of prehistoric life in the space of a few minutes. In part, it's ScienceMarchesOn: [[FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy it is proudly announced]] that this section is BasedOnATrueStory. |
| 96 | ** 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 theropod beside a violent lava flow. If the theropod is supposed to be a ''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]]. |
| 97 | *** [[WordOfGod Walt Disney]] stated that the carnivorous dinosaur fighting the ''Stegosaurus'' is indeed a ''Tyrannosaurus''. Paleontologists told him that ''T. rex'' should only have two fingers, but he told animators to draw three because it looked better. |
| 98 | * Extremely evident in [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}'', which had [[AnachronismStew dinosaurs from the Jurassic and the Triassic period interacting with Cretaceous-period dinosaurs]]. In an effort to [[ShownTheirWork show that the writers had done some research]], they included a ''Carnotaurus'' as the main predator -- too bad [[MisplacedWildlife Carnotaurus lived in South America, while all the other dinosaurs were North American species]], and furthermore were several times bigger than in reality. There was a HandWave when one character was astounded that the carnotaurs had come "this far North" (which doesn't work, since North and South America was separated by a sea at the time), and the Brachiosaur character was explicitly stated to be [[LastOfHisKind the only one of her species left]]. The main character had also been adopted by lemurs, when most mammals were superficially rat-like then. Also, iguanadons originally had their beaks, but Michael Eisner insisted that the dinos be able to talk, so the beaks were replaced by speech-friendly lips. |
| 99 | * When consulting paleontologists for ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'', the writers were reluctant about putting dodos in. They were told "Whatever, just please, no dinosaurs". Though there ''was'' a dinosaur in the film, it was frozen in ice, presumably for millions of years. Let's just hope those same paleontologists haven't seen the third installment... |
| 100 | ** Somebody should have told them that Dodos (and for that matter, all the other birds) are dinosaurs... |
| 101 | * Speaking of the third film, ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs'' has some inaccurately designed dinos and two made up pterosaur species (one is a stereotypical "pterodactyl" with a ''Pteranodon'' crest and ''Rhamphorhynchus'' tail, the other resembles oversized [[TerrorDactyl toothy and threatening ''Pterodactylus'' or ''Quetzalcoatlus'']]. both are scaly and have only one wing claw), as well as their sizes being way off compared to their real counterparts. |
| 102 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime''. Pity the professors of geology and paleontology who have small children at home, because all the errors in these films ''will'' indeed make a paleontologist weep. The original movie ''can'' be considered relatively accurate for its time (AnachronismStew aside, and then only for stegosaurs and pelycosaurs), at least as far as dinosaur depictions in popular media are concerned. But the sequels and TV series zig-zag this trope several times, with notable aversions including the anatomically correct (if improbably large) ''Liopleurodon'' from "[[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTimeIXJourneyToBigWater Journey to Big Water]]" and Ruby the ''Oviraptor'' having feathers. |
| 103 | * [[LovableCoward Rex]] from ''Franchise/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. |
| 104 | * ''WesternAnimation/WereBackADinosaursStory'' features ''Anatosaurus'', which is indeed a bona fide member of the duckbill group. Sadly, the duckbill is shown with a long bony crest on the back of its head more reminiscent of a ''Saurolophus'' or ''Parasaurolophus'' than a smooth-headed "''Anatosaurus''"... The ''Pteranodon'' is even worse, having a long tail and being bipedal. And she is mistaken for a bat, which is understandable given how ridiculously bat-like her wings are. |
| 105 | * ''Animation/DinoTime'' is not meant to be a biologically accurate film, but they did have one redeeming trait: a feathered baby ''Tyrannosaurus''. |
| 106 | * ''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 an 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. There are also 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.). |
| 107 | * The animators of ''WesternAnimation/TheMissingLink'' (AKA ''B.C. Rock'') evidently chose to completely forgo realism in favor of RuleOfFunny. Aside from having humans, dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals coexisting, many of the animals are completely made up. Examples include a single-legged being with a trunk, an underwater elephant that lives in a giant shell and at least two humanoid (but non-human) species: the bottom-heavy "No-Lobes" and a tribe of feral {{Catgirl}}s. |
| 108 | * It may come as a surprise that Communism, being scientific and that, would provide an example of the trope. Yet, the short GDR DEFA animation "Steinzeitlegende" ("Stone Age Legend") has a cart-pulling dino. |
| 109 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/TheMitchellsVsTheMachines'' in the scene where the Mitchells go to the "Dino Stop", which takes all sorts of liberties about dinosaurs (one display brontosaurus even has a human ''nose''). Aaron (being a dinosaur expert) is naturally pissed about this. |
| 110 | [[/folder]] |
| 111 | |
| 112 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 113 | * According to the song "Walking in Your Footsteps" by Music/ThePolice, the mighty ''Brontosaurus'' walked the Earth 50 million years ago. In reality, the most recent ''Brontosaurus'' remains are nearly 150 million years old, and the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred 66 million years ago. |
| 114 | * 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..." This was probably the band being funny, as they are history buffs and would know about things like this. |
| 115 | * [[http://dannysaucedo.bandcamp.com/ Danny Saucedo]]'s song "Dinosaur Bones" from the album ''Drawings of Dinosaurs'' includes a line about pterodactyls flying in "the Pleistocene sky." By the time of the Pleistocene epoch, pterosaurs had been extinct for nearly 64 million years. |
| 116 | * The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7jSp2xmmEE music video]] for Music/FatBoySlim's ''Right here, right now'' obviously has no pretense to be an accurate portrayal of human evolution. For one, it begins 350 billion years ago (much longer than ''the universe has existed''), but it shows nothing but multicellular animals, which didn't evolve until about 600 million years ago. |
| 117 | * "Worlds Within The Margins" by ''Music/InFlames'' contains the line "coded within the spinal cord of the trilobite". Trilobites were invertebrates, they did not have spinal cords. |
| 118 | [[/folder]] |
| 119 | |
| 120 | [[folder:Newspaper Comics]] |
| 121 | * An early series of ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' comic strips had Jason filming a dinosaur movie, with his pet iguana Quincy as the dinosaur. He called the film "''Iguanadon'' Terror", even though Quincy looked nothing like an actual ''Iguanodon'' (Jason was aiming for something like a ''Dimetrodon'', though when asking if Quincy could pass for a dinosaur he was told that Quincy only looked like an iguana with a fan taped to its back). |
| 122 | ** A later strip had Jason doing a {{claymation}} movie called "Mesozoic Park"; he pointed out that ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' was mostly about dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period. |
| 123 | ** In another strip, he was seen writing a letter explaining the brontosaur/apatosaur controversy to a cookie manufacturer that used the former term in the "Fun Facts" of their dinosaur cookie boxes. He then immediately tries to blackmail them into sending him 12 free boxes of cookies. |
| 124 | ** Another strip perpetrated the giant ''Liopleurodon'' meme started by ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs''. |
| 125 | ** PlayedForLaughs in one Sunday strip, where [[DitzyGenius Jason]] claims ''Pachycephalosaurus'' might have hypnotized its predators because its head was so similar to [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Talosians]] (despite the fact Talosians have a very large brain whereas pachycephalosaurs are famous for having thick skull roofs which is where they got their name from) and that dinosaurs went extinct because of time-travelling big-game hunters. |
| 126 | ** In a 2021 Sunday strip, Jason attempts to convince Andy to turn on the air conditioning by claiming the heat will trigger ''T. rex'' genes in Quincy. Obviously, it doesn't work, but he should have known dinosaurs are not related to lizards. |
| 127 | * Bill Watterson, the author of ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', admits that his earliest strips involving dinosaurs were pretty embarrassing. After doing some research, and getting as excited about dinosaurs as Calvin, his drawings of dinosaurs became more and more accurate and realistic (as an aside, tellingly, most fantasy sequences in ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' are drawn in a more [[RealityIsUnrealistic realistic]] way than Calvin's day-to-day life). If you have a collection of ''Calvin and Hobbes'' anthologies, note that by around 1994, it's obvious that Watterson invested in a Gregory S. Paul book for anatomy and in a set of "Jurassic Park" action figures for posing and staging. One strip involved such realistic dromaeosaurids that they would scare small children. It didn't help that Calvin was ''talking'' about them eating small children. The little freak! |
| 128 | ** Shortly after that strip, ''Jurassic Park'' came out, and Watterson stopped putting dinosaurs in the strip for a time so that they wouldn't be negatively compared to the CGI. |
| 129 | ** Watterson doesn't let accuracy get in the way of RuleOfCool. Say it with me: [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot ''TYRANNOSAURS IN F-14s!'']] |
| 130 | --->'''Calvin:''' "This is '''''so''''' cool!"\ |
| 131 | '''Hobbes:''' "This is '''''so''''' stupid." |
| 132 | ** Despite Calvin normally having a callous disregard for scientific accuracy, this trope is amusingly subverted and lampshaded when Calvin and his parents visit a natural history museum. Calvin's mom asks him (in that typical way that moms do when they're trying to encourage their kids to talk about something they like) to tell her about the life-sized ''Stegosaurus'' statue outside. Calvin goes into a long (and scientifically accurate) explanation of the most likely habits and characteristics of stegosaurs, until his mom tries to humor him further by asking if the ''T. rex'' and the ''Stegosaurus'' used to fight each other, leading to this outburst: |
| 133 | --->'''Calvin:''' Of course not, Mom! The ''Stegosaurus'' lived millions of years before the ''T. rex''! [[SeriousBusiness Jeez, try not to embarrass me when we go inside, okay?]] |
| 134 | ** An in-universe case of artistic license occurs when Calvin has an ImagineSpot of himself discovering the fossil of a new theropod, the Calvinosaur. It's as big in comparison to a ''T. rex'' as a ''T. rex'' is to a human being. The sort of monster any kid would love to give his name to. |
| 135 | * '' ComicStrip/{{BC}}'', perhaps one of the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} examples of a newspaper comic that has both dinosaurs and humans. Incidentally, though the creator, Johnny Hart, was a self-proclaimed Christian fundamentalist, the scientific shortcomings seem to be less because of his beliefs and more for AnachronismStew PlayedForLaughs[[note]]The strip was started about two decades before he even had his conversion anyway.[[/note]]. |
| 136 | ** After Hart's death in 2007, the strip started to feature dromaeosaurids, which are as usual featherless and no different than the ones in ''Franchise/JurassicPark''. One strip did, however, point out how birdlike it was [[http://www.johnhartstudios.com/bc/2010/06/sunday-june-6-2010.php in a rather dark way]]. |
| 137 | * ''ComicStrip/AlleyOop'', starting in 1932, with his pet, Dinny. Before Television! |
| 138 | * '' ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' had many strips that showed or implied dinosaurs and cavemen living at the same time. However, the strip describing the "thagomizer" has been endorsed by actual paleontologists for giving a name to a certain part of stegosaur anatomy, even though it implied that said part posed a danger to primitive hominids. Gary Larson has said that he is well aware of the anachronism and while part of him justifies the cartoons on the RuleOfFunny, part of him feels very guilty about using this trope, especially given the high regard in which he is generally held by the scientific community. |
| 139 | * One ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'' strip implies that life has existed on land for only five million years. |
| 140 | * ''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]]. |
| 141 | * ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'' lampshades this in a strip where [[TheDitz Pig]] writes in his report on paleontology that "Dinosaurs and humans lived together many, many years ago". [[TheSmartGuy Goat]] calls him out on it explaining dinosaurs and humans were separated by millions of years, which led to this exchange. |
| 142 | -->'''Pig''': What do I do with this chapter on ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones''? |
| 143 | [[/folder]] |
| 144 | |
| 145 | [[folder:Pinball]] |
| 146 | * Invoked to the hilt in Creator/{{Gottlieb}}'s ''Pinball/{{Caveman}}'', where the player maneuvers the caveman to hunt brontosaurs and pterodactyls while avoiding the Tyrannosaurus rex. |
| 147 | * Unsurprisingly, ''Pinball/TheFlintstones'' doesn't take "artistic license" with paleontology as much as it recklessly abandons it. |
| 148 | [[/folder]] |
| 149 | |
| 150 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 151 | * Karl Pilkington from ''Radio/TheRickyGervaisShow'' often makes mistakes when it comes to pre-historic life (as he does with everything else), referring to how they lived with dinosaurs and other "facts" he picked up from fictional works. Ricky repeatedly tells him he's wrong and that he's either picked this up from ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' or ''Film/TenThousandBC'' and mistaking it as fact. |
| 152 | [[/folder]] |
| 153 | |
| 154 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 155 | * 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 (not only could they probably never do that without dislodging their 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. |
| 156 | ** They honestly go in a lot of different directions with this, depending on the edition. At one time, dinosaurs were classified as Beasts (a different creature type from Animals, in much the same way that humans are Humanoids and most invertebrates are Vermin). |
| 157 | * ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' features a [[ScienceMarchesOn Bardo]] based on discredited theories of the Hollow World, which seems to be filled with every paleontological mistake ever made, such as brontosaurs (no, not apatosaurs, ''brontosaurs''), the old Victorian notion of what an iguanodon looked like, and Piltdown Men. |
| 158 | * There is this very obscure, very low-quality board game sold in Hungary that goes by the name ''Küzdelem a dinoszauruszok földjén'' (Battle in the Realm of the Dinosaurs). Has only a handful of pictures, all of which contain horrible depictions of the dinosaurs -- one ''Brachiosaurus'' with a backwards knee, and one with shorter forelegs than back legs, standing as erect as a human; toothed, bat-winged ''Pteranodon''s with the bat fingers sprouting from the ''back'' of the wings; and gigantic, scaly ''Velociraptor''s with ''Therizinosaurus''-like claws. In short, it is the board game equivalent of "Chinasaurs" (see lower). |
| 159 | * [[TabletopGame/YuGiOh Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game]] has a "Dinosaur" type as one of its monster types: the type is mostly made up of the popular dinosaurs listed above, and unfortunately includes a mammoth. An ''undead'' mammoth. Fortunately, later, non-zombie Mammoth monsters (such as Big-Tusked Mammoth) are more correctly listed as Beast-Type. They also thankfully averted the "nekkid Raptor" trope with Black Veloci. A lot of the earlier dinos, though, were the classic "nekkid" version (but see also DinosaursAreDragons). The older cards were victims of ScienceMarchesOn as noted above; those cards were first released before the feathers thing had been discovered. |
| 160 | * While we're on the subject of dinosaurs being given powers and placed on trading cards, ''VideoGame/DinosaurKing''. |
| 161 | * In ''TabletopGame/DinosaursAttack'', 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 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. |
| 162 | * The following is a note under "Brontosaurs" in the Sample Stuff under "Dinosaur" in ''TabletopGame/CartoonActionHour: Season 3:'' |
| 163 | --> Note: '''Currently, the correct term for this dinosaur used by real paleontologists is “apatosaurus”, and “brontosaurus” is scientifically outdated due to a fossil being falsely identified. However, the name “brontosaurus” is the word more commonly known and recognized in popular culture, no matter what the actual scientific classification might be. It was certainly the name that [=would-have=] been in common use in a cartoon in the 1980s.''' |
| 164 | [[/folder]] |
| 165 | |
| 166 | [[folder:Theme Parks]] |
| 167 | * At Ride/UniversalStudios: |
| 168 | ** In ''Ride/BackToTheFutureTheRide'', the size of the ''Tyrannosaurus'' is greatly exaggerated. In reality, the [=DeLorean=] would be twice the length and width of a ''T. rex'''s head. |
| 169 | ** In ''Ride/JurassicParkRiverAdventure'', ''Ultrasauros'' (real name ''Supersaurus'' and should be a diplodocid rather than a brachiosaurid) is shown bending its neck in a way that would be impossible for a real life sauropod. |
| 170 | ** The dinosaur cloning activity at Islands of Adventure’s Discovery Center portrays hadrosaurs as solitary animals and sauropods as herd dwellers (the opposite is true). |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 174 | * ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': "The Millionzoic Era" segment in "Summer Short Shorts" shows both cavemen and dinosaurs. |
| 175 | [[/folder]] |
| 176 | |
| 177 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 178 | * There's another "Raptor" who looks like he's just walked off the set of ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' in the Webcomic ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja''. However, given that the story that introduces Yoshi also includes Raptor-riding banditos, a conspiracy involving Ronald [=McDonald=] and [=MySpace=], and a man whose incredible abdominal muscles have somehow transformed into a built-in jetpack (and the eponymous character, the only physician in a long line of legendary Irish Ninjas whose office is in the middle of a haunted forest and whose secretary is a gorilla), once again, the MST3KMantra is in full effect. |
| 179 | ** The "birdasaurus" in a later plot line, lampshaded with the mouseover "I hope my completely made up out of my mind with no reference whatsoever way of drawing the birdosaurus doesn't upset any of you junior paleontologists." |
| 180 | ** Apparently the author still gets regular emails complaining about this, as he defensively mentions in a NoteFromEd in [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/20p15 this comic]]. |
| 181 | ** Taken to absurd extremes with the horrorsaurus, a wingless, flying, [[CombatTentacles tentacled]] monstrosity with four eyes. That one may have been artificially created by the other dinosaurs though. |
| 182 | * ''WebComic/DinosaurComics'' has a ''T. rex'', a Dromiceiomimus, and a Utahraptor, grossly out of scale. The fact that they're talking is a good sign that it's not supposed to be exactly realistic. There's also the house, car, and woman getting stepped on to indicate something's not right with the timing. It often lampshades the concept, as well: |
| 183 | -->'''T-Rex:''' Guess what I got last night? A dog! Did you know that dogs and dinosaurs co-existed? |
| 184 | -->'''Dromiceiomimus:''' Yes, I accepted it without questioning! |
| 185 | ** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and more or less (anachronism aside) averted in the [[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=996 guest comic]] by Aaron Diaz. And then it is deliberately double subverted... |
| 186 | ** It's actually possible to avert this by typing "&butiwouldratherbereading=somethingmorehistoricallyaccurate" after the comic of your choice. (Or at least avert to a greater degree. Pennaceous feathers on ''T. rex'' is unlikely, but at least they ''have'' feathers.) [[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2&butiwouldratherbereading=somethingmorehistoricallyaccurate Here's an example.]] |
| 187 | * ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' has ''Franchise/JurassicPark''-style Velociraptors, which the author found traumatizing upon seeing said film. |
| 188 | ** Averted in [[http://xkcd.com/1104/ Feathers]] and [[http://xkcd.com/1211/ Birds and Dinosaurs]]. |
| 189 | * ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'' does a ''brilliant'' LampshadeHanging in [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/10/11/episode-610-logic/ this]] strip. |
| 190 | * ''Webcomic/KarateBears'' finds dinosaurs sometimes. [[http://www.karatebears.com/2011/08/whats-all-this.html like here]] [[http://www.karatebears.com/2011/07/creationism.html they also supposedly once coexisted with dinosaurs]] |
| 191 | * Played for laughs in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' when Roy is confused by the appearance of a Brontosaurus, when he knows it's a mixup of parts from different animals. His host points out he didn't have a problem with the hippogriffs. |
| 192 | * ''Webcomic/DawnOfTime'' demonstrates that this trope can be also deliberate rather than a result of ignorance as creator Michael Steams as explains in the following quote: |
| 193 | -->"I generally have stayed away from them [feathered dinosaurs] because even though we know that a lot of dinosaurs have feathers, exactly where they go and what they were like still seems very unclear, or at least it's unclear to me. There are a lot of different interpretations, and I want my dinosaurs to read as clearly as possible. [...] Alternately, why would anyone even expect feathers in a comic where [[AnachronismStew dinosaurs and humans live at the same time?]]" |
| 194 | ** It's worth noting the same strip in which Steams' comment comes from featured [[http://www.dawnoftimecomics.com/index.php?id=146 the comic's first feathered dromaeosaur]]. Later comics also featured ground-hunting pterosaurs and bird-like dinosauroids. |
| 195 | * ''Webcomic/TooMuchInformation2005'' has Ace meet featherless, humanoid descendents of therapods who were taken by aliens in the Triassic period and uplifted. He somehow correctly guesses that they'd be unable to eat him based on the fact that modern eagles sometimes suffer from iron poisoning from eating too much mammalian meat. Ignoring the fact that this is a very rare occurance to begin with and many eagles are specialist mammal hunters, given how distanly related the dino-aliens are to modern birds it's like trying to make a guess about a modern human's dietary requirements based on knowledge of the dietary habits of the platipus. He also questions why they lack feathers, despite that story arc being set in the early 90s, before it was known that feathers were found on dinosaurs outside the Maniraptors (which didn't appear until the Jurassic period). |
| 196 | [[/folder]] |
| 197 | |
| 198 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 199 | * [[http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/coming-soon-to-your-screens-dinosaur-hyperbole/ Several]] [[http://theropoda.blogspot.com/2011/09/planet-theropoda-revolution.html paleontologists]] have satirized the sensationalist nature of typical dinosaur documentaries on their blogs. |
| 200 | ** [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160406154407/http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2011/04/01/science-meets-mokele-mbembe/ This]] April Fools' joke on Blog/TetrapodZoology sets out to "prove" that old-school dinosaurs are correct after all, and contains a number of jabs at some infamous fringe groups. |
| 201 | * {{Parodied|Trope}} in ''WebAnimation/{{asdfmovie}}'', where a sauropod keeps calling itself a Stegosaurus. |
| 202 | * The ''Website/{{Brainpop}}'' minigame "Life Preservers" explicitly states that birds are dinosaurs but are dinosaurs themselves. [[http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/art/Why-Birds-are-Dinosaurs-193639479 This makes absolutely no sense]]; even though birds can fly and are the only dinosaurs alive today, there's no objective reason to consider birds special compared to other dinosaurs in this regard. You'd think an educational website would know better. |
| 203 | |
| 204 | * Website/{{Cracked}} is all over the place with this. Since it's not written by one person, articles about paleontology can range from well-researched to downright ridiculous: |
| 205 | ** [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16117_6-formerly-kickass-creatures-ruined-by-evolution_p1.html This article]] makes tons of mistakes with animal relationships (claiming that ''Gastornis'' is close to kiwis and ostriches when it's really closer to ducks, and ''Hyaenodon'' close to raccoons when it's equally close to all carnivorans), [[TaxonomicTermConfusion confuses]] the "classic" saber-toothed felids with the saber-toothed sparassodont ("marsupial", in the article's words) ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacosmilus Thylacosmilus]]'', serves up an unhealthy serving of AnachronismStew (''Gastornis'' and ''Andrewsarchus'' actually died out long before the Pleistocene), makes [[EvolutionaryLevels unwarranted assumptions]] about ancestor-descendant relationships, and implies that dinosaurs are cold blooded. |
| 206 | ** Their video about the cassowary not only suggests that pterosaurs are dinosaurs...but it goes on to suggest that pterosaurs evolved into birds. About the only similarity between pterosaurs and birds is the fact that both groups can fly. |
| 207 | ** [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19845_8-prehistoric-creatures-ripped-directly-from-your-nightmares.html This one]] is better, though it implies tyrannosauroids to be carnosaurs (universally rejected since TheNineties). |
| 208 | ** The article [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20078_5-weird-directions-human-evolution-could-have-taken.html "5 Weird Directions Human Evolution Could Have Taken"]] treats the existence of "the Boskop Man" as a fact, which in reality it [[http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/paleo/lynch-granger-big-brain-boskops-2008.html most likely]] [[http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/paleo/return-amazing-boskops-lynch-granger-2009.html isn't]]. |
| 209 | ** In addition to implying the basal archosauromorph ''Sharovipteryx'' to be a dinosaur, [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20247_6-hilariously-stupid-prehistoric-versions-modern-animals.html this article]] uses a highly fanciful reconstruction of the taxon taken from [[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/07/03/world-must-ignore-reptileevolution-com/ an extremely unreliable source]]. |
| 210 | * Lampshaded during the loading screen of an older Franchise/{{LEGO}} game, ''Dino Quest'', based on the ''Dinosaurs'' toy-line, which has [[Toys/LEGOAdventurers Dr. Kilroy]] commenting on the inaccuracies of the game and spouting [[ShownTheirWork well-researched]] paleontology trivia. But even he gets one thing wrong: flowering plants ''were'' around in the Cretaceous. |
| 211 | * [[http://tomozaurus.deviantart.com/art/Meet-The-Pseudosaurs-282772529 "Meet the Pseudosaurs"]] parodies this trope all over. A GodModeSue ''T. rex'', bendy-necked [[SeaMonster sea serpent-like]] ''Plesiosaurus'', [[RaptorAttack deadly featherless Raptor]], vicious bird-footed [[TerrorDactyl "Pterodactyl"]], KillerRabbit ''Compsognathus'' and [[Film/JurassicPark1993 "spitting"]] ''Dilophosaurus'' are all included. |
| 212 | * Blog/PalaeoFail was ''made'' in order to [[PointAndLaughShow mock]] occurrences of these all over the internet. |
| 213 | * ''WebVideo/StampysLovelyWorld'': In Episode 100, "Cat to the Future", Stampy travels back in time so he can eat the most delicious cake, and accidentally ends up travelling 5 million years backwards and running into a pack of dinosaurs... although the time he traveled to was in the Pliocene, when (non-avian) [[AnachronismStew dinosaurs have been long extinct]]. |
| 214 | * Website/TVTropes itself is guilty SmallTaxonomyPools which categorizes creatures that are not dinosaurs as well. This also leads to the funny contradiction in the subsection UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursNonDinosaurs. |
| 215 | * ''Blog/TheTyrannosaurChronicles'': Mostly averted. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Layla Oviraptor, who mentions that Desdemona Deinonychus and Larry the Tyrannosaur [[DyeingForYourArt shaved off their feathers]] so they could star in ''Franchise/JurassicPark''. |
| 216 | * ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'': |
| 217 | ** Lampshaded in one episode. Cecil initially refers to ''Pteranodon'' as dinosaurs; later (after being re-identified as pterodactyls), Cecil is informed that ''Pteranodon'' and pterodactyls are not, in fact, dinosaurs. |
| 218 | ** [[DoubleSubversion Doubly subverted]] in a much later episode. Lauren, like Cecil, refers to ''Pteranodon'' as dinosaurs. Kevin immediately informs her that ''Pteranodon'' are not dinosaurs. [[DontBeRidiculous They're arachnids]]. |
| 219 | [[/folder]] |
| 220 |
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