History ArtisticLicensePaleontology / Literature

* Jerry Pallota’s ''Dinosaur Alphabet Book'' zigzags this trope, as on the one hand, none of the dinosaurs are feathered (then again, it was published in 1991), ''[[SeldomSeenSpecies Xiaosaurus]]'' is seen dragging its tail, and the Q page features a sauropod called a “''Questrosaurus''” (They may have meant ''Quaesitosaurus'', which also was a sauropod, but maybe they’re just making one up, as no other information can be found on this genus) that appears to be comically tall compared to the trees (or are those some other kind of plant? The illustration makes it hard to tell) in the background. On the other hand, not only does he use ''Questrosaurus'' to illustrate how dinosaurs may have been brightly colored in real life, by having one picture of it be in grayscale and another show it with psychedelically vibrant magenta, yellow, and blue skin, but he also has several other brightly colored dinosaurs throughout the book, includes a few entries on some non-dinosaurs such as the pterosaur ''Ramphorynchus'' and marine reptile ''Kronosaurus'' before lampshading it and including an actual dinosaur entry, acknowledges the fact that ''Oviraptor'' was brooding its eggs rather than eating them, and includes several [[SeldomSeenSpecies Seldom Seen Genera]] such as ''Yangchuanosaurus,'' the aforementioned ''Xiaosaurus,'' Korean ''Ultrasaurus,'' and ''Riojasaurus.''

* The first page of Usborne's ''The Great Animal Search'' is set during North America during the late Cretaceous period. Much of the stuff is chalked up by ScienceMarchesOn. The presence of ''Stegosaurus'' on the other hand...

* A running theme in the massive coffee table artbook ''Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past'' is showing how many artists over the decades have decided to ignore or contort scientific evidence in favor of sheer artistic expression. Incidentally, the book also contains some clunkers of its own, like referring to mammal-relatives such as ''Dimetrodon'' and ''Cynognathus'' as dinosaurs and mis-identifying some pterosaurs as plesiosaurs in one caption. However, the author does make it clear that the book is about the examination of art, and is not a science volume.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheMagicTreeHouse'' movie: the dinosaurs featured lived at the same time and place, ''Pteranodon'' is anatomically accurate (toothless, quadrupedal, described as fuzzy, bulky, and has pteroid bones) and takes off with its wings, ''Alamosaurus'' has a brachiosaurid-like body instead of a diplodocid-like one, and ''Tyrannosaurus'' has non-pronated hands. On the other hand, ''Pteranodon'' is too big and is shown living inland and at the end of the Cretaceous, the hadrosaurs have visible fingers, the ornithomimids are seemingly featherless (though it may be because of the art style) and lacking wings, and pterosaurs were referred to as dinosaurs in a book.

* ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' book "At the Dinosaur Dig" averts this for the most part (humorously it’s written by the same people as the above work. Presumably they learned from their mistakes) save for two major mistakes: ''Dimetrodon'' was referred to as a reptile and ''Mosasaurus'' was described as being bigger than any shark (''C. megalodon'' was larger).

* The ''[[Literature/{{Animorphs}} Megamorphs]]'' book ''In the Time of Dinosaurs'' tried pretty hard to avoid this, with the only real anachronism given a HandWave (Tobias: "Who are you gonna believe, some scientist with a bunch of bones, or someone who was actually there?!") in the epilogue. (It was actually a case of ShownTheirWork meets RuleOfCool - K.A. Applegate was doing her research, found out that certain dinos weren't around at the time of the extinction, then came up with the HandWave so she could get away with keeping them around.) Then again, it starts out with a nuclear explosion causing TimeTravel and also had crab-aliens and ant-aliens in a minor war over the Earth at the same time, so...

* Jerry Pallota’s ''Dinosaur Alphabet Book'' zigzags this trope, as on the one hand, none of the dinosaurs are feathered (then again, it was published in 1991), ''Oviraptor'' has teeth in its beak, ''[[SeldomSeenSpecies Xiaosaurus]]'' is seen dragging its tail, and the Q page features a sauropod called a “''Questrosaurus''” (They may have meant ''Quaesitosaurus'', which also was a sauropod, but maybe they’re just making one up, as no other information can be found on this genus) that appears to be comically tall compared to the trees (or are those some other kind of plant? The illustration makes it hard to tell) in the background. On the other hand, not only does he use ''Questrosaurus'' to illustrate how dinosaurs may have been brightly colored in real life, by having one picture of it be in grayscale and another show it with psychedelically vibrant magenta, yellow, and blue skin, but he also has several other brightly colored dinosaurs throughout the book, includes a few entries on some non-dinosaurs such as the pterosaur ''Ramphorynchus'' and marine reptile ''Kronosaurus'' before lampshading it and including an actual dinosaur entry, acknowledges the fact that ''Oviraptor'' was brooding its eggs rather than eating them, and includes several [[SeldomSeenSpecies Seldom Seen Genera]] such as ''Yangchuanosaurus,'' the aforementioned ''Xiaosaurus,'' Korean ''Ultrasaurus,'' and ''Riojasaurus.''

* There is a children's book called ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Day-Dinosaur-First-Time-Books/dp/0394891309 Day of the Dinosaur]]'' which commits this sin in spades. None of the dinos are illustrated correctly and [[AnachronismStew they all are depicted as living around the same time.]] Also, ''[[UsefulNotes/PrehistoricLifeNonDinosaurianReptiles Dimetrodon]]'', ''Mesosaurus'' and '''''[[UsefulNotes/PrehistoricLifeOtherExtinctCreatures Eryops]]''''' are called dinosaurs. (For those who don't know, ''Eryops'' was a newt-like amphibian that was roughly contemporary of ''Dimetrodon''. It's portrayed as a land animal in the book. Also, the three foot-long ''Mesosaurus'' resembled a crocodile and lived at the same time as ''Dimetrodon'' and ''Eryops'', but farther south. A filter-feeder, it was one of the first reptiles to return to an aquatic existence. A related coloring book [[CriticalResearchFailure makes it out to be a predator about thirty feet long]], probably getting it mixed up with ''Mosasaurus''.) To be fair, the book was from the eighties, so some of this is ScienceMarchesOn, but the rest is simply inexcusable, as [[http://www.amazon.com/review/RSJQ7KJ0HH8RW/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RSJQ7KJ0HH8RW this review]] points out.
* ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' book "At the Dinosaur Dig" averts this for the most part save for two major mistakes: ''Dimetrodon'' was referred to as a reptile and ''Mosasaurus'' was described as being bigger than any shark (''C. megalodon'' was larger).

* Jerry Pallota’s ''Dinosaur Alphabet Book'' zigzags this trope, as on the one hand, none of the dinosaurs are feathered (then again, it was published in 1991), ''Oviraptor'' has teeth in its beak, ''[[SeldomSeenSpecies Xiaosaurus]]'' is seen dragging its tail, and the Q page features a sauropod called a “''Questrosaurus''” (They may have meant ''Quaesitosaurus'', which also was a sauropod, but maybe they’re just making one up, as no other information can be found on this genus) that appears to be comically tall compared to the trees (or are those some other kind of plant? The illustration makes it hard to tell) in the background. On the other hand, not only does he use ''Questrosaurus'' to illustrate how dinosaurs may have been brightly colored in real life, by having one picture of it be in grayscale and another show it with psychedelic ally vibrant magenta, yellow, and blue skin, but he also has several other brightly colored dinosaurs throughout the book, includes a few entries on some non-dinosaurs such as the pterosaur ''Ramphorynchus'' before lampshading it and including an actual dinosaur entry, acknowledges the fact that Oviraptor was brooding its eggs rather than eating them, and includes several [[SeldomSeenSpecies Seldom Seen Genera]] such as ''Yangchuanosaurus,'' the aforementioned ''Xiaosaurus,'' Korean ''Ultrasaurus,'' and ''Riojasaurus.''

* Jerry Pallota’s ''Dinosaur Alphabet Book'' zigzags this trope, as on the one hand, none of the dinosaurs are feathered (then again, it was published in 1991), ''Oviraptor'' has teeth in its beak, [[SeldomSeenSpecies ''Xiaosaurus'']] is seen dragging its tail, and the Q page features a sauropod called a “''Questrosaurus''” (They may have meant ''Quaesitosaurus'', which also was a sauropod, but maybe they’re just making one up, as no other information can be found on this genus). On the other hand, not only does he use ''Questrosaurus'' to illustrate how dinosaurs may have been brightly colored in real life, by having one picture of it be in grayscale and another show it with vibrant magenta, yellow, and blue skin, but he also has several other brightly colored dinosaurs throughout the book, includes a few entries on some non-dinosaurs such as the pterosaur ''Ramphorynchus'' before lampshading it and including an actual dinosaur entry, acknowledges the fact that Oviraptor was brooding its eggs rather than eating them, and includes several [[SeldomSeenSpecies Seldom Seen Genera]] such as ''Yangchuanosaurus,'' the aforementioned ''Xiaosaurus,'' Korean ''Ultrasaurus,'' and ''Riojasaurus.''

* Averted in ''Literature/TheDinosaurLords'' when it comes to names confusion and biology. The many dinosaurs from different eras co-existing are explained by the fact that Paradise is likely an artificially-colonised world, and the premise of the story - medieval knights on dinosaurs - is just pure RuleOfCool.

** Both the "Cavemice" and the "Journey Through Time" spin-offs erroneously portray cave bears as carnivores instead of herbivores.

** Both the "Cavemice" and the "JoOurney Through Time" spin-offs erroneously portray cave bears as carnivores instead of herbivores.

* The back cover of the [[Literature/DoctorWhoNovelisations novelisation]] of "[[Recap/DoctorS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians The Silurians]]" (''Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters'') boasts that the story contains "a 40 ft. high ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', the biggest, most savage mammal which ever trod the earth!" No ''T. rex'' fossil ever found has been that big; the largest one is 40 feet ''long'' from nose to tail. And then there's that other bit -- while most of us aren't experts on the subject, we could probably tell you that T. rex was not a mammal..

* In 2010, National Geographic published ''The Ultimate Dinopedia: The Most Complete Dinosaur Reference Ever'', which, despite it being written by children's paleontology writer "Dino" Don Lessem, is full of errors. Observe:

* The ''BerenstainBears'' book "At the Dinosaur Dig" averts this for the most part save for two major mistakes: ''Dimetrodon'' was referred to as a reptile and ''Mosasaurus'' was described as being bigger than any shark (''C. megalodon'' was larger).

* The back cover of the [[Literature/DoctorWhoNovelisations novelisation]] of ''Series/DoctorWho and the Silurians'' boasts that the story contains "a 40 ft. high ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', the biggest, most savage mammal which ever trod the earth!" No ''T. rex'' fossil ever found has been that big; the largest one is 40 feet ''long'' from nose to tail. And then there's that other bit -- while most of us aren't experts on the subject, we could probably tell you that T. rex was not a mammal..

* There is a children's book called ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Day-Dinosaur-First-Time-Books/dp/0394891309 Day of the Dinosaur]]'' which commits this sin in spades. None of the dinos are illustrated correctly and [[AnachronismStew they all are depicted as living around the same time.]] Also, ''[[UsefulNotes/PrehistoricLifeNonDinosaurianReptiles Dimetrodon]]'', ''Mesosaurus'' and '''''[[UsefulNotes/PrehistoricLifeOtherExtinctCreatures Eryops]]''''' are called dinosaurs. (For those who don't know, ''Eryops'' was a newt-like amphibian that was roughly contemporary of ''Dimetrodon''. It's portrayed as a land animal in the book. Also, the three foot-long ''Mesosaurus'' resembled a crocodile and lived at the same time as ''Dimetrodon'' and ''Eryops'', but farther south. A filter-feeder, it was one of the first reptiles to return to an aquatic existence. A related coloring book [[CriticalResearchFailure makes it out to be a predator about thirty feet long]], probably getting it mixed up with ''Mosasaurus''.) To be fair, the book was from the sixties, so some of this is ScienceMarchesOn, but the rest is simply inexcusable, as [[http://www.amazon.com/review/RSJQ7KJ0HH8RW/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RSJQ7KJ0HH8RW this review]] points out.

* The ''Literature/GeronimoStilton'' book "Valley of the Giant Skeletons" managed to pass a ''Psittacosaurus'' skeleton as a ''Tarbosaurus'' skeleton. Most of the palaeontology stuff is okay, though.

* ''Dinosaurology'' (a 2013 installment in Dugald Steer's ''Dragonology'' series) attempted to subvert this trope, with the inaccuracies that may pop up being HandWaved in that the book is meant to be the translated copy of a traveler's journal.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheMagicTreeHouse'' movie: the dinosaurs featured lived at the same time and place, ''Pteranodon'' is anatomically accurate (toothless, quadrupedal, described as fuzzy, bulky, and has pteroid bones) and takes off with its wings, ''Alamosaurus'' has a brachiosaurid-like body instead of a diplodocid-like one, and ''Tyrannosaurus'' has non-pronated hands. On the other hand, ''Pteranodon'' is too big and is shown living inland and at the end of the Cretaceous, the hadrosaurs have visible fingers, the ornithomimids are seemingly featherless (though it may be because of the art style), and pterosaurs were referred to as dinosaurs in a book.

* Creator/StevenBaxter's book ''Literature/{{Evolution}}''. While most of the time he gets the science right, and the speculative leaps he takes are somewhat within the bounds of plausibility, a few examples must be mentioned. The story about primates coming to North America has some anachronism and MisplacedWildlife in it. Not only does it have indricotherid rhinos (native only to Asia), camels (who were only found in North America at this time), and such, it has gastornithid birds inhabiting Oligocene-Miocene Africa... yes, even after these animals were supposed to have died out in the middle Eocene. The story involving ''Purgatorius'' has some flaws too. While Baxter does get it right by cloaking his troodonts in feathers, he leaves them off his dromaeosaurs. To add insult to injury, he makes the raptors cold-blooded, despite the fact that raptors are the very dinosaurs which ignited the cold blood, warm blood debate. In fact, even paleontologists who doubt endothermy in ornithischians and sauropods don't deny that raptors were most likely endothermic. And then there are the ''Giganotosaurus'' and ''Suchomimus'' in North America, many millions of years late and/or on the wrong continent; though this could be handwaved as them being different, not-yet-discovered species from those genera. In the story about the sapient Ornitholestes, he mentions that the only evidence humans had of these species is the disappearance of "the giant sauropods" in the Late Jurassic, since the sapient species bones and technology are too fragile to preserve. Now it's true that ''Diplodocus'', the only species depicted in the story, did become extinct at the end of the Jurassic; but there were other giants, such as ''Sauroposeidon'' and ''Argentinosaurus'', right through the Cretaceous.

* Creator/StevenBaxter's book ''Literature/{{Evolution}}''. While most of the time he gets the science right, and the speculative leaps he takes are somewhat within the bounds of plausibility, a few examples must be mentioned. The story about primates coming to North America has some anachronism and MisplacedWildlife in it. Not only does it have indricotherid rhinos (native only to Asia), camels (who were only found in North America at this time), and such, it has gastornid birds inhabiting Oligocene-Miocene Africa... yes, even after these animals were supposed to have died out in the middle Eocene. The story involving ''Purgatorius'' has some flaws too. While Baxter does get it right by cloaking his troodonts in feathers, he leaves them off his dromaeosaurs. To add insult to injury, he makes the raptors cold-blooded, despite the fact that raptors are the very dinosaurs which ignited the cold blood, warm blood debate. In fact, even paleontologists who doubt endothermy in ornithischians and sauropods don't deny that raptors were most likely endothermic. And then there are the ''Giganotosaurus'' and ''Suchomimus'' in North America, many millions of years late and/or on the wrong continent; though this could be handwaved as them being different, not-yet-discovered species from those genera. In the story about the sapient Ornitholestes, he mentions that the only evidence humans had of these species is the disappearance of "the giant sauropods" in the Late Jurassic, since the sapient species bones and technology are too fragile to preserve. Now it's true that ''Diplodocus'', the only species depicted in the story, did become extinct at the end of the Jurassic; but there were other giants, such as ''Sauroposeidon'' and ''Argentinosaurus'', right through the Cretaceous.

* Creator/StevenBaxter's book ''Literature/{{Evolution}}''. While most of the time he gets the science right, and the speculative leaps he takes are somewhat within the bounds of plausibility, a few examples must be mentioned. The story about primates coming to North America has some anachronism and MisplacedWildlife in it. Not only does it have indricotherid rhinos (native only to Asia), camels (who were only found in North America at this time), and such, it has gastornid birds inhabiting Oligocene-Miocene Africa...yes, even after these animals were supposed to have died out in the middle Eocene. The story involving ''Purgatorius'' has some flaws too. While Baxter does get it right by cloaking his troodonts in feathers, he leaves them off his dromaeosaurs. To add insult to injury, he makes the raptors cold-blooded, despite the fact that raptors are the very dinosaurs which ignited the cold blood, warm blood debate. In fact, even paleontologists who doubt endothermy in ornithischians and sauropods don't deny that raptors were most likely endothermic. And then there are the ''Giganotosaurus'' and ''Suchomimus'' in North America, many millions of years late and/or on the wrong continent; though this could be handwaved as them being different, not-yet-discovered species from those genera. In the story about the sapient Ornitholestes, he mentions that the only evidence humans had of these species is the disappearance of "the giant sauropods" in the Late Jurassic, since the sapient species bones and technology are too fragile to preserve. Now it's true that ''Diplodocus'', the only species depicted in the story, did become extinct at the end of the Jurassic; but there were other giants, such as ''Sauroposeidon'' and ''Argentinosaurus'', right through the Cretaceous.

*** Interestingly, though, there ''was'' a giant shark species that did live contemporaneously with the Cretaceous mosasaurs, and ''did'' prey on them, with ample fossil evidence from mosasaur bones (though the big Mosasaurs also preyed on them in return as well). It was ''Cretoxyrhina'', the Ginsu Shark, and could grow over 30 feet long, and a 30 foot marine animal could potentially reach up to twice the mass of a ''T. rex'', if not twice the length. Though the Ginsu Shark did go extinct before the end of the Cretaceous and would not have been contemporary to ''T. rex''.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheMagicTreeHouse'' movie: the dinosaurs featured lived at the same time and place, ''Pteranodon'' is anatomically accurate (toothless, quadrupedal, described as fuzzy, bulky, and has pteroid bones) and takes off with its wings, ''Alamosaurus'' has a brachiosaurid-like body instead of a diplodocid-like one, and ''Tyrannosaurus'' has non-pronated hands. On the other hand, ''Pteranodon'' is too big and is shown living inland and at the end of the Cretaceous, the hadrosaurs have visible fingers, and pterosaurs were referred to as dinosaurs in a book.

** Classification brainfarts abound (ceratosaurs are often confused with ceratopsians, while dromaeosaurids are said to include many non-dromaeosaurids).

* In the Edgar Rice Burroughs 1930 novel ''Literature/{{Tarzan}} at the Earth's Core'', a ''Stegosaurus'' is described as jumping from a height and using its plates as a gliding mechanism. Funnily enough, there was a [[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-fantastic-gliding-stegosaurus-107838636/?no-ist hypothesis in 1920]] which proposed that ''Stegosaurus'' used its plates to glide.

* In the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel ''Literature/{{Tarzan}} at the Earth's Core'', a ''Stegosaurus'' is described as jumping from a height and using its plates as a gliding mechanism. Funnily enough, there was a [[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-fantastic-gliding-stegosaurus-107838636/?no-ist hypothesis in 1920]] which proposed that ''Stegosaurus'' used its plates to glide.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheDinosaurLords'' when it comes to names confusion and biology. The many dinosaurs from different eras co-existing are explained by the fact that Paradise is likely an artificially-colonised world, and the premise of the story - medieval knights on dinosaurs - is just pure RuleOfCool.
[[/folder]]

* Parodied in ''Film/{{Caveman}}''. Yes, there are cavemen and dinosaurs in the same film, but few scientists would be able to cry for the laughter. Not only does the movie occur "One Zillion Years Ago", but the main dinosaur seen in the movie is a geriatric ''T. rex'' that is alternately denied delectable cavewoman meat, stoned off a burning cannabis plant, and [[GroinAttack fondled and then smacked where it counts]] by a blind caveman (note that dinosaurs would have their goolies internal, like everything other than mammals does). The other prehistoric creatures include a pteranodon which has its (10ft long! Ouch!) egg stolen and a stop-motion creature resembling some outlandish {{Slurpasaur}}.
* The original ''Film/KingKong1933'' and its sequel ''Film/TheSonOfKong'' feature many prehistoric animals portrayed as overly aggressive carnivores even if they were herbivorous (''Apatosaurus'', ''Styracosaurus'', and ''Stegosaurus'', to name a few) and one dramatically oversized pterodactyl to help ruin the image of its eponymous, misunderstood ape.
* Creator/PeterJackson's remake does the same, with the justification that they have been evolving the whole time and it's pure coincidence they look like popular depictions (but some don't, like the ''Ferrucutus'' or the ''Atercurisaurus''). They even came out with a tie-in book exploring the unique fauna of the island -- which shows the usual errors like the lack of any plumage on any non-avian dinosaurs - even the ''birds'' seem to have as little feathers as possible, pronated hands, live birth etc.; as well as many non-dinosaurian biological impossibilities.
* Subverted with the ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' films in that Toho doesn't even ''try'' to ''pretend'' to be remotely accurate in any way whatsoever.
** A case can however be made for the first movie, ''Film/{{Gojira}}'', which ''was'' to be taken seriously. In it, a paleontologist deduces that the titular monster hails form the Jurassic period by finding a trilobite in one of its footprints. Trilobites died out about 50 million years before that period, but this can be {{hand wave}}d, given that in the movie's universe, prehistoric creatures still exist in modern times. The true error is that the supposed paleontologist places the Jurassic at 2 million years BC. He's off by about 150 million years. Even in 1954, scientists knew a lot better than this. And yes, there was serious paleontology done in Japan.
** There is one thing Toho got right: Godzilla (as well as his pre-mutated form Godzillasaurus) is often portrayed with his hands facing inwards, just like a real theropod.
** Paleontological accuracy was actually discussed behind the scenes during the production of the second generation of Godzilla films. Special effects director Koichi Kawakita suggested redesigning Godzilla into a more realistic dinosaur in tune with 90s science, an idea that producer Tomoyuki Tanaka angrily shot down, arguing that he's supposed to be a monster. Some critics take the somewhat more realistic-looking Godzillasaurus' transformation into the highly unrealistic, upright Godzilla as the studio declaring their stance on the matter, making it clear that he's unrealistic on purpose.
* Somewhere a paleoanthropologist and an archaeologist are crying: in ''Film/TheXFilesFightTheFuture'' movie, we see a Neanderthal in North Texas 60,000 years ago. Not only were there no Neanderthals in the Western Hemisphere ''ever'', there is strong dispute about whether there were hominids of any kind in the Western Hemisphere 60,000 years ago. Maybe they were all abducted by aliens?
** Ice Age Texas also probably would not have looked anything like that scene depicted it as. The Ice Age glaciers [[http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAMERICA.html never got anywhere near that far south]].
*** Modern North Texas doesn't look as dry [[TelevisionGeography as in the film]], either. Not even ''West'' Texas does.
* '' Film/TenThousandBC'': An AndroclesLion type situation with a ''Smilodon''. "Terror Birds" about 2 million years after they went extinct.[[note]]Though, we should at least be grateful that Creator/RolandEmmerich didn't use a ''Deinonychus'' or ''Utahraptor''.[[/note]] And woolly mammoths being used to move bricks to build the Pyramids in Ancient Egypt. RuleOfCool taken to the very limit.
** Neither ''Smilodon'' (clearly the species/genus being represented on film[[note]]Though either the main character is really small, or [[BiggerIsBetter this particular cat]] has gigantism[[/note]]) nor "Terror Birds" ever lived in Africa. Both animals were restricted to North and South America. Then again, [[ArtisticLicenseGeography given how the characters seem to WALK from South America to Africa]]...
*** In the beginning when hunting the mammoths; they refer to the head of the herd as the "Lead Bull", meaning that the leader of the herd is male. All indications are that mammoths behaved very similarly to modern elephants... who are led by matriarch females. The males travel separately from the herd.
*** It would seem that sometimes [[ScienceMarchesOn Science Marches Backwards]]. A partial specimen of what appears to be a small relative of the terror birds was recently discovered in North Africa. So that one "mistake" might not be ''as'' wrong as it seemed at the time... if we ignore that it lived several million years before the beginning of mankind anyway.
* The [[SyFyChannelOriginalMovie Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie]] (which should give you a hint as to its quality) ''100 Million BC'' has the humans unable to detect the rampaging ''Giganotosaurus'' through a heat sensor because "dinosaurs are ectothermal" (sic). Even if ''Giganotosaurus'' was an ectotherm, its body temperature and metabolism by sheer virtue of its size would be like that of an endotherm (due to a little thing called inertial homeothermy). It ''would'' have showed up on a thermal sensor.
** Also, the heroes visit South America 70 million years ago (despite the fact it's 100 Million BC...) and ''Gigantosaurus'' became extinct around 90 million years ago.
** Nevermind an ectothermic animal is one that can't ''produce'' its own internal heat. It doesn't mean it can't accumulate heat from its environment and be warm as a result. As any introductory book to Biology would say, a lizard that has been basking under the sun for hours will be warmer than a mouse.
* ''Franchise/JurassicPark'': film-only issues include the ''Dilophosaurus'' being too small and having a retractable frill (for the practical purpose of distinguishing them from the ''Velociraptors''), and repeatedly misspelling the dinosaurs' names... though technically, they're "genetically-engineered" based on reptile and amphibian DNA; their resemblance to real dinosaurs is purely superficial.
** The first time we see Grant and Sattler is at a dig in Montana uncovering a ''Velociraptor'' skeleton, which never existed anywhere near there. What's more, the skeleton is still assembled correctly, even though most fossils are found with the bones scattered all over the place.
* In ''Film/JurassicParkIII'', ''Pteranodon'' (literally "toothless wing") are given tooth-filled beaks, grasping feet, and [[KidnappingBirdOfPrey the ability to pick up a grown man that had to outweigh them by a good fifty pounds at least]]. Meanwhile, the raptors are "smarter than primates".
** While the ''Spinosaurus'' was indeed bigger than the ''T. rex'', it would never have been able to take one on in a fight. A ''rex's'' heavy jaws and thick teeth were built for crushing bone while a ''Spinosaurus's'' thin jaws and teeth were better suited for hunting fish. The first time the ''rex'' clamped down on its slim bony neck should have crippled it, if not outright decapitated it.
** Alan Grant refers to the dinosaurs made by [=InGen=] as "Genetically engineered theme park mutants", pointing out that [=InGen=] deliberately made their dinosaurs to be more awesome than real dinosaurs just for the crowds, and that anything learnt about real dinosaurs from them would be distorted.
* ''[[Film/SuperMarioBros Super Mario Bros. The Movie]]'' hits a few common dinosaur-related errors, though the filmmakers seemed to be going for RuleOfCool. These include:
** The meteorite that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs is implied to have done so immediately, while also hitting Earth where present-day New York City is located. To be fair, this was before the actual location of the meteorite's impact and its affect were commonly known or proven.
** The humanoid dinosaurs in the parallel world, such as Koopa and Lena, display qualities and behaviors more typical of modern lizards, such as tongue-flicking and prehensile tongue-use. However, it is implied that the dino-humans developed these traits over time as they became more like modern reptiles, while the prehensile tongue-use was taken from the games (Yoshi).
* Pioneering filmmaker Creator/DWGriffith's 1914 film ''Brute Force'' shows a group of cavemen attacked by a dinosaur.
* A throw-away line of dialogue from '' Film/PumaMan'':
-->So dinosaurs became extinct because they no longer knew how to love each other?
* In ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', Mr. Freeze knows ''[[IncrediblyLamePun absolute zero]]'' about what killed the dinosaurs.
-->'''Freeze''': ''The Ice Age!''
::Ironically, as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum That Other Wiki]] points out, the climate in the epochs immediately following the K-T extinction was substantially ''warmer''.
* The main villain of ''Film/DevilFish'' is a mutated ''Dunkleosteus''/octopus hybrid. In the movie, [[MixAndMatchCritters ignoring]] [[LEGOGenetics the obvious issues]], ''Dunkleosteus'' is described as a prehistoric [[ThreateningShark shark]]. Real ''Dunkleosteus'' were members of a now-extinct family, the Anthrodira, which left no surviving descendants and was only distantly related to sharks. They also claimed that the pliosaur ''Kronosaurus'' ''[[CriticalResearchFailure was a shark]]'' that lived during the "Cetaceous period" [sic], which was about 200 years ago (the 1770s?). Another fish that they describe as a prehistoric shark is a very modern, harmless basking shark.
* The 1960 movie ''Dinosaurus!'' featured the discovery and unintentional revival of a Brontosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus rex, and a caveman. Obviously these are the most well-known pre-historic creatures today, but lived tens of millions of years apart.
* The page image for PrehistoricMonster, taken from ''[[Film/OneMIllionYearsBC One Million Years B.C.]]'', depicts a kangaroo-stance ''Allosaurus'' that stands only slightly taller than the humans in the picture. In real life, even the smallest ''Allosaurus'' would stand about a foot and a half taller than an average-sized human being. (Also, assuming the title of the film is accurate, dinosaurs would have gone extinct some 64,000,000 years ago.)
* In ''Film/PacificRim'', the Kaiju are stated to be so big that they require two brains "like a dinosaur". While some early paleontologists thought some dinosaurs (particularly the stegosaurs and sauropods) had two brains, virtually no paleontologist believes it today.
** This is a special case though, since it's just a line spoken by a scientist (but not a paleontologist) to a crime lord and thus it's possible that neither of them know that it's incorrect. The film never actually shows a two-brained dinosaur. Though it does imply that either the Kaiju killed the dinosaurs, or ''were'' the dinosaurs, and Kaiju do have two brains in the movie.
* In the comedy ''Film/BringingUpBaby'', one of the main subplots involves paleontologist Actor/CaryGrant retrieving a missing dinosaur bone with the help of ManicPixieDreamGirl Actor/KatherineHepburn. The bone in question is described as an "Intercostal clavicle". There is no such thing as an "intercostal clavical". Intercostal means "between the ribs" and the clavicle is a collar bone.
** The dinosaur in question is called a ''Brontosaurus''. Even at the time the film was made, the scientific community would have called it ''Apatosaurus''.
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