Dinosaurs!!!

[AspieOtaku]

Hi although i like anime alot, I have always been interested in dinosaurs and find them really cool! I love the Jurassic park series even though it was not scientifically accurate as well as Jurassic world, but I do love the dinosaurs! I play Jurassic world on my Android phone and its really addicting, its like Pokemon only its with Dinosaurs!

 

[Warmheart]

Do you think Triceratops is really just the juvenile form of Torosaurus, or another critter altogether? If Triceratops is the juvenile form, where are the transitional forms in the fossil record? I wish scientists would MRI longbones to see if the growth plates look any different, and also MRI the molar surfaces to see if the diets were identical or differed. Ummm.. okay... this is what's on my mind about dinosaurs today.

Plus, I want one of these!

and a Stegasaurus...

annnnd definitely a Plesiosaur!

 

[AspieOtaku]

I used to for a brief period of time until a recent discovery was made that it has been the remains are too old to be a juvenile as well as the distribution was wider than that of Torosaurus, nice plushies though!http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...s-identity-crisis-continues-111952707/?no-ist

 

[jfk]

I was and still am totally obsessed by dinosaurs. as a kid I had loads of books on dinosaurs, used to draw them, had toys of them

 

[Datura]

I'm not obsessed with dinosaurs like I used to be, but I still find them rather fascinating. What amazes me is how much the science of palientology has advanced since I was a child. The notion that birds and dinosaurs were related was still contentious, let alone that T. Rex might have had feathers.

I am rather lucky, actually. I recently made the aquaintence of a palientologist and she has offered to give me a tour of the lab she works in. Her specialty is ice age mamals (not dinosaurs) but either way the prospect is really exciting.

 

[StephF]

OMG I want the Plesiosaur !!

I already have the plush Triceratops and the Stegosaur. I also have the small plastic model dinosaurs.

I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a child, still am really.

 

[AspieOtaku]

 

[AspieOtaku]

Im addicted to playing Jurassic World on my phone, I have a plisiosaurus btw and hes badass I also have a T-Rex lv 30 atm.

 

[Jonathan Lees]

Well I am a geology student at the university of Leicester so I actually study palaeontology and palaeobiolgy so I guess you could say dinosaurs are an interest, we normally focus on marine fossils through geological time though as they are far more abundant. Next year I'm the Secretary of the student palaeobiolgy society and I even have fossil tattoos (no dinosaurs but a Charnia masoni and an Icthyosaur which was a jurassic swimming reptile and not a dinosaur, in the same way pleisiosaurs are also not dinosaurs as to be a dinosaur you have to be terrestrial). People feel free to ask me questions and I'll try and answer

 

[Datura]

If I ever got a tatoo of an ancient species it would probably be opabinia. Any species with the audacidy to have five eyes and a pincer tipped proboscis deserves commemoration.

 

[Jonathan Lees]

If I ever got a tatoo of an ancient species it would probably be opabinia. Any species with the audacidy to have five eyes and a pincer tipped proboscis deserves commemoration.

that's a good choice, i probably need a Cambrian fauna fossil as well, but i would choose anomalocaris as it was the top predator of the time. i cant really afford anymore tattoos for a while but coming up will be an Irish elk (neither Irish or an elk) and an archaeopteryx, that will probably be all the fossil tattoos after that ill get a bunch of non fossil ones.

 

[Warmheart]

Plesiosaurs and Ichthyosaurs are not Dinos because they are not terrestrial? COOL info! What word may be a better descriptor for our aquatic prehistoric buddies? ( and yes, I also want the cuddly plush Plesiosaur!)

 

[Jonathan Lees]

Plesiosaurs and Ichthyosaurs are not Dinos because they are not terrestrial? COOL info! What word may be a better descriptor for our aquatic prehistoric buddies? ( and yes, I also want the cuddly plush Plesiosaur!)

marine reptiles would be a better descriptor, they have an interesting evolutionary history, tetrapod's where some of the first animals to colonise the land, from them reptiles and mammals evolved, we call any terrestrial reptile from the Mesozoic era (comprising of the Triassic, Jurassic and cretaceous periods) a dinosaur (literally means big lizard) however the flying reptiles of this era i.e Pterosaurs and the marine reptiles i.e the plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs (and more) are not called dinosaurs. now these marine reptiles evolved from the terrestrial reptiles so they went from land back to sea just like in mammals whales and dolphins evolved from the land to the sea, which is something i find at least a little interesting.

IMG_20160107_181718921[1]

• Jonathan Lees
• Jan 10, 2016
• 1

and here's my ichthyosaur because i love showing it of.

 

[Datura]

we call any terrestrial reptile from the Mesozoic era (comprising of the Triassic, Jurassic and cretaceous periods) a dinosaur

This is not true. Crocadylians, turtles, lizards, and all sorts of non-dinosuarian archeosaurs existed contemporously with dinosaurs.

There was even a group called Rauisuchia that independantly evolved a dinosaur-like gait prior to the advent of dinosaurs. In fact they were more closely related to crocodiles. Some of these species were belived to be dinosaurs untill closer analysis of their foot bones indecated a different liniage.

Cracraft & Donoghue 2004, p. 452

 

[Jonathan Lees]

This is not true. Crocadylians, turtles, lizards, and all sorts of non-dinosuarian archeosaurs existed contemporously with dinosaurs.

There was even a group called Rauisuchia that independantly evolved a dinosaur-like gait prior to the advent of dinosaurs. In fact they were more closely related to crocodiles. Some of these species were belived to be dinosaurs untill closer analysis of their foot bones indecated a different liniage.

Cracraft & Donoghue 2004, p. 452

well yes you are correct i wasn't trying to get technical purposely, its actually the hips that determine dinosaur or not as they are split into two groups saurischian and ornithischian. we don't really study dinosaurs though (it only comes up in passing conversation) we instead focus of marine fossils and microfossils as they are far more useful for telling the palaeo environmentss and far more useful for biostratigraphy.

 

[Warmheart]

Jonathan, thanks for your input. Dinosaurian gait? I'm intrigued.

Datura, LOVE that visual, thank you!

 

[Datura]

well yes you are correct i wasn't trying to get technical purposely, its actually the hips that determine dinosaur or not as they are split into two groups saurischian and ornithischian. we don't really study dinosaurs though (it only comes up in passing conversation) we instead focus of marine fossils and microfossils as they are far more useful for telling the palaeo environmentss and far more useful for biostratigraphy.

I'm sorry, I do tend to get a bit obsessive about technical details, even if I don't have the memory to recall them all.

On an other technical note, dinosaurs are not technically extinct as the theropod liniage lives on in birds. Yay! ^_^

 

[AspieOtaku]

I wish I could transform into a T-Rex, I used to make up my own imaginary superhero when I was a kid that was a T-Rex!Well? technically he was a modern day human but was a T-Rex trapped in a humans body that managed to transform into a T-Rex to devour and fight crime!

 

[AspieOtaku]

Well I am a geology student at the university of Leicester so I actually study palaeontology and palaeobiolgy so I guess you could say dinosaurs are an interest, we normally focus on marine fossils through geological time though as they are far more abundant. Next year I'm the Secretary of the student palaeobiolgy society and I even have fossil tattoos (no dinosaurs but a Charnia masoni and an Icthyosaur which was a jurassic swimming reptile and not a dinosaur, in the same way pleisiosaurs are also not dinosaurs as to be a dinosaur you have to be terrestrial). People feel free to ask me questions and I'll try and answer

Yep there are categories of descendants of archosaurs the dinosaurs the marine reptiles, the pterosaurs, the dinosaurs, and crocodiliomorphes aka crocodilains. The modern descendants that survived the KT event of the dinosaurs are birds.

 

[AspieOtaku]

I also love reptiles, the ancestors of dinosaurs who live to this day!