Headscratchers / Dinotopia

• Confusing Retcon: The World Beneath states that a western doorway is as far as Arthur and Bix were able to get on their first trip. But, by the access they used near Canyon City, they would have already been behind the same door. They also use a salvaging submarine on loan from the series villain to get there, but said sub technology was supposedly just INVENTED/rediscovered by Arthur in the last book, only a year prior.
  • It's possible that they see the door as the benchmark for their exploration (a la old-world explorers)

• One thing that always bothered me is how the citizens of Dinotopia, which takes place in the 1860s, seem to know the names of animals that haven't been discovered by the scientific community yet. We know it's not a Translation Convention, because the etymology of Tyrannosaurus rex (discovered in 1905) plays a major role in the second book. Where it gets really confusing, though, is the prequel book First Flight. In it, we're introduced to "Northies", or more properly Quetzalcoatlus northropi. This species was named after airplane designer Jack Northrop, who was born in 1895 and would not become famous until decades later. So how do they know what to call an animal named after a person who wasn't even born yet?
  • Dinotopia is a Land Apart From Time. The narrator and his son come from the 1860s, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone does, or even that the island itself is based in the 1860s. It could be in the far future, the distant past, or even be a Place Beyond Time. In other words, the inhabitants of the island might somehow have access to knowledge far in advance of that possessed by the narrator.
  • Alternatively, it's possible that the Dinotopian civilization has that knowledge long before the world of humans came up with it. They know their own species, and it's blind fortune that humanity one day will use the same nomenclature that they'd been using for generations.
    • That still doesn't explain how they know the names of people who weren't born yet, though.
    • Perhaps it’s just a coincidence and the “Northies” are called that because they come from the north of Dinotopia?
    • That doesn't explain the in-universe use of the name Tyrannosaurus rex in the second book.
  • The book has been translated for a modern audience, with local names of the dinosaurs replaced with something we could recognize.
  • Ultimately, whatever the "referring-to-dinosaurs-which-weren't-discovered-by-the-time-the-story-is-set-by-their-given-name" equivalent of Translation Convention is, this is it. It's there purely for the convenience and ease-of-reference of the author and reader both, so that the author doesn't have to keep fictional names for real dinosaurs straight and so that the impressionable dinosaur-obsessed kids reading don't get confused or annoyed by the author constantly referring to dinosaurs by "wrong" names. You're supposed to recognise that it's a little artistic license employed to try and make everyone's life a little easier and apply a little Willing Suspension of Disbelief, and if the reader can't bring themselves to do that then a children's fantasy picture book series about a magical island populated by dinosaurs and people living together simply might not be for them.