The dinosaur thread

This thread is for discussing all things paleontological (yeah, I named it the Dinosaur Thread, but anything prehistoric, from trilobites to terror birds, are up for discussion).

Let's start off with an awesome paleoart gallery.

I went to a dinosaur museum on the weekend. I played with dinosaur toys when I was a little kid. Dinosaurs are awesome. I don't have much else to say about them, though.

Extinct mammal megafauna is just awesome, too. Like, mega awesome. Huge bears, huge armadillos, huge sloths, huge deer, huge wombats, huge kangaroos, all with enough of a twist to make them exotic. And gomphotheres. Oh wow, gomphotheres. Actually, the terror birds and the moa (and Haast's Eagles, who freaking ate them) , while not mammals, are mega awesome.

edited 4th Oct '11 9:33:53 AM by ekuseruekuseru

If we're going to talk about dinos, don't forget to make the feathered ones properly feathered:

http://tomozaurus.deviantart.com/gallery/24973645#/d2ygvtg

http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/art/How-Not-to-Draw-Velociraptor-256161061?q=gallery%3Aalbertonykus&qo=1

http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/art/Still-Not-a-quot-Raptor-quot-178135137

http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/art/quot-Feathered-Dinosaur-quot-202655987

http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d31v73u

Speaking of feathered dinosaurs, I'm annoyed at how everybody keeps on bitching about they look less scary and more like lame chickens with feathers. I'd like to point out that scary and badass animals with feathers exist in modern times.

Like eagles. Or if you want scary, try vultures.

Perhaps more importantly, however, is that animals look like they do because they have to survive, not because they want to be the sexual fantasies of idiots.

People who think that feathered creatures cannot be scary clearly haven't heard of terror birds.

The L.A. Natural History Museum has a great new dinosaur hall. They have actual fossil dinosaur eggs on display...that you can touch. And three T. rex skeletons—one baby, one juvenile, and one subadult, set up as though the three critters were encountering each other over a hadrosaur carcass.

Also, they have this show, mostly for kids, where a museum employee comes out and asks you to imagine what it would be like to be there in the Creataceous period, and then a friggin' baby T. rex comes through a side door and leaps up onto the stage. It's actually a dude wearing a sort of puppet costume, but it's pretty damn compelling.

You've gone and reminded me of Ursula Vernon's absolutely adorable fluffy T-Rex.

They let visitors touch the fossils? That doesn't damage them?

Well, we have had here an exposion with Liaoning fossils (very famous thanks for being well preserved; it was from Liaoning that the first unambiguously feathered dinosaurs were found) that also allowed the visitors to touch the fossils, although well supervised.

It does damage them, but only to an acceptable extent. We're not talking rare fossils here—these are eggs of a type that they've found thousands of. And it's not like you get to pick them up and fling them around; they're epoxied to a base.

There's also a triceratops toe bone that you can touch.

And they have a velociraptor skeleton so well preserved that there is still some skin on the tail.

edited 4th Oct '11 10:59:11 AM by Karalora

Dinosaurs. Fuck yeah.

/thread

I personally think that other prehistoric animals deserve a "Fuck yeah!" as well.

Check Fasolasuchus. A crocodile (well, crocodile relative, but still) almost as big as T.rex!

Well, there was also Deinosuchus and Sarcosuchus.

Really, any creature large enough to attack a ◊T. rex is pure badass.

edited 4th Oct '11 3:14:39 PM by RL_Nice

Check Deinosuchus if you really want to see awesome. Or Sarcosuchus Imperator. Or just read the book Supercroc, which is a catalogue of awesome crocodiles. Utahraptor was also a pretty neat beast.

Attack nothing. There's evidence that Sarcosuchus Deinosuchus were the natural predators of T. Rex.

EDIT: I got my epic crocs confused. Kudos to RL Nice for correcting my mistake.

edited 4th Oct '11 3:17:23 PM by ATC

I think you mean Deinosuchus. Sarcosuchus lived on a different continent.

And for a mammalian example there's Repenomamus.

While not very big, it occupied the same niche modern wolverines and honey badgers, which are the meanest motherfuckers the earth has ever seen. Also, turns out a mammal twice as big has been found in China and is awaiting description. A mammal twice as big. Yeah.

Deinosuchus was featured in Walking With Dinosaurs, if I recall correctly. I think it stole an Anatotitan kill from a Tyrannosaurus.

I loved that programme.

I don't remember Deinosuchus being featured in Walking With Dinosaurs. I've seen that show approximately five times. It did however show a Tyrannosaurus chasing down and killing an Anatotitan. Now I've got the Anatotitan's distinctive cry stuck in my head.

While we're on the subject of Walking With Dinosaurs, there's a remake coming to theaters next year. I hear it's going to have updated science, like feathered dinosaurs and such.

I like to watch that.

edited 4th Oct '11 9:15:37 PM by Blurring

Here, at 5:45 onwards and here from 1:15 onwards. I think that's a Deinosuchus. Unfortunately the only You Tube video I could find of it is in Polish so I can't really be sure.

edited 5th Oct '11 1:45:02 AM by pagad

It is a Deinosuchus, but the choice of model was awfull. Instead of a huge alligator, we get some sort of crocodile/gharial thing painted red. Then again, the same episode had a Quetzalcoatlus that was an Ornithocheirus with a different colour.

A Walking With Dinosaurs remake? Sounds awesome.

0_0

Fuck yeah!

Is the Brachiosaurus still the biggest?

/Knowledge of the earthshakers has largely fossilized