The dinosaur thread

Ultimately, I think the real bad assumption is that this is a hypothetical which can be reasonably fleshed out without piling on all sorts of bad assumptions in the process.

Touche.

When I was young (and not co-incidentally just after I had seen Jurassic Park for the first time) I remember having an argument with my dad about which would win - a Tyrannosaurus rex, or a Tiger tank? Back then I was under the impression that T. rex was an unstoppable killing machine, because films never lie, right?

This thread is better suited to the current conversation.

Early man had tanks and machine-guns?

edited 9th Oct '11 7:40:18 AM by ekuseruekuseru

The general consensus there is that early man could wipe out the dinosaurs with spears. If they could do that, just imagine what such short work we would make of them with modern weapons.

Also, I sometimes wonder why the name Brontosaurus remains so popular, considering that it has been invalid for over a century.

Because it's more colorful and euphonious than Apatosaurus.

I still stand by my proposal of leaving Apatosaurus as the Linnaean name but using brontosaurus as the common name. Kind of like how most people know Ornithorhynchus as the platypus even though Platypus was discredited as its Linnaean name shortly after being assigned.

As far as I can tell, all (non-avian) dinosaurs are known by their genus names. In fact, the only prehistoric animals I can think of that have common names are sabertooth cats, wooly mammoths, wooly rhinos and giant ground sloths.

Who says it has to stay that way?

I grew up knowing Apatosaurus as Apatosaurus, and Brontosaurus sounds kind of clumsy and silly to me.

I kinda think we should keep Predator X as a common name, though. The scientific name will have to be pretty badass to top that.

I'm sure there are some pretty badass Latin name possibilities out there. I for one think they should just translate Predator X to Latin and make that the scientific name.

Isn't "predator" already a Latin-based word? It looks structured along the same lines as "senator."

I would also like to point out that no less an authority than STEPHEN JAY GOULD preferred "brontosaurus" over "apatosaurus." So nanny nanny boo boo, haters.

edited 12th Oct '11 11:26:49 AM by Karalora

Might not be a coicidence.

From Andrew Sullivan Dish :

Giant prehistoric krakens may have sculpted self-portraits using ichthyosaur bones

paleontologist Mark Mc Menamin of Mount Holyoke College says :

http://io9.com/5848192/

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2011AM/finalprogram/abstract_197227.htm

Unlikely to be true, but very interesting.

That was a "troll paper"; sometimes academics submit bullshit so that they can laugh at the stupidity of the publishers.

"Why does this sound like total bullshit?"

...

"Uh... it's got 30 years of research behind it!"

"Oh, that's ok, then."

EDIT: Nevermind!

edited 13th Oct '11 8:38:09 PM by Locksley20

Brontosaurus makes me think of an old black and white monster movie using obviously fake stop-motion spliced with an actress screaming.

Apatosaurus sounds pretty graceful, really.

...and apparently Firefox's spellcheck only recognized Brontosaurus as a word.

edited 14th Oct '11 5:57:17 AM by Clarste

This is interesting:

Nevermind, I can't post links and apparently posting one negates my entire post. IO 9 has an interesting article on T. Rex's size. Check it out.

Just watched the latest ep of Planet Dinosaur last night. Awesome. I love Sarcosuchus! And Carcharodontosaurus. Only nitpick I have is they said Mapusaurus is bigger than T. Rex, but I couldn't find any other sources that agreed. Sarcosuchus rules! Or, at least it did.

edited 14th Oct '11 10:11:54 AM by loganlocksley

Carcharodontosaurus and Mapusaurus (well carcharodontosaurids in general) are longer and taller than T. rex, but they are not as heavy.

I knew that about Carcharodontosaurus, but all the info I found on Mapusaurus said it was shorter in length as well. It was just Wikipedia though so it was probably just wrong or outdated. Thanks for the info.

I like Carcharodontosaurus a lot more than T. Rex - probably because it was the first theropod I heard of that was bigger than T. Rex.

It's been interesting learning about different hunting styles on Planet Dinosaur - 'slashers' like Mapusaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, 'crushers' like Daspletosaurus and other tyrannosaurids, 'grippers' like Majungasaurus, and Allosaurus' unique axe-like bite.

The last episode of Planet Dinosaur has aired, and it showed one of my favourite animals: the giant pterosaur Hatzegopteryx, doing exactly what I hoped it would do: killing the dwarf island dinosaurs!

Take that, dinosaurs! Pterosaurs rule!

I found Hatzegopteryx genuinely unnerving. Might just be the scariest predator that ever lived. Thankfully it's dead.

Hasn't it been suggested that Hatzegopteryx is in fact a misidentified Quetzalcoatlus?

It has, yes.

Although when Planet Dinosaur is going around inventing names for tyrannosaurids and pretending they're genuine, they're unlikely to be fussed about having used what will possibly become a junior synonym.