Dracontes' Odds 'n' Ends

In this here blog you can find my art and discussions of Science especially in what relates to paleontology and dinosaurs. Dracontes @ deviantART Dracontes @ Facebook Dracontes @ Twitter Email: Dracontes(at)gmail(dot)com

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

International Society of Time Crimes is finally letting Palaeoblr back onto the time machine. They say we can rename *one* thing in the past so that it was always that new name when we get back. What do we change?

Dinosauria (dinosaurs are neither terrible nor lizards)

Basilosaurus (whales are not lizards)

Oviraptor (that protobird was GUARDING the eggs, not stealing them!)

Velociraptor (turns out these guys were not so much "fast" as "jumpy")

Ornithischia & Saurischia (birds evolved from the "lizard-hips"... whoops)

Dracorex (JKR sucks and besides that it isn't even its own thing anymore)

Ammonites (my spouse and I would like to stop giggling when we study Torah)

Apatosaurus (just have it be Brontosaurus from the start)

Pterosauria (we could have called it Pterodactylia and avoided all issues)

Dinosaurus (why the hell did this name go to a protomammal)

Voting ended onJul 3, 2023

further explanation on the ammonite thing: there's an ethnic group FREQUENTLY mentioned in the Torah called the Ammonites and Max and I will never stop picturing them as just, floating-in-midair extaint sapient Ammonites that constantly get into conflict with the Israelites,

[dracontes]

Y'know, if I were 25 years younger I might have cared about all the rest, but I'll nothing if not consistent here.

It's "Dracorex". Not just because of Rowling being the contrarian she is now though. Back in the day (2007-ish), when the find was first announced, I just found the name ridiculous. To my Portuguese ear, the genus name sounded like the brand name for some type of medicine. It didn't feel like a particularly well-constructed name: just two words mushed together. "Drakanax" might have been a better choice in Greek. Also, come to think of it, couldn't the specific epithet have been translated? Latin has the words verruca, 'wart', and sus, 'pig, hog'; verrucosus would have been an amazing pun, as it's an actual Latin word and very relevant to boot. So, as the opinionated 24-year-old I was then, I wished the name were eventually sunk, in my own fit of contrarian pique. I'm certainly glad the word out in the street nowadays is that the specimen the description of "Dracorex" was based on is a juvenile of another species of Pachycephalosaurus.

Don't get me wrong though, I can certainly get behind the "Fuck her specifically" sentiment toward JKR in doing away with this name.

[markrosewater]

As a paleontologist, I'm glad to see how excited everyone is about a 'prehistoric' set. As a long time lover of fictional dinosaurs, I'd be interested to see what creative direction gets used for Muraganda dinosaurs, in comparison to the Monster-Island Ikoria dinosaurs, and the Everything-Feathered-to-the-Max Ixalan dinosaurs. (That feathered dimetrodon is hilarious...)

I’m curious, as a paleontologist, what would you like to see?

[dracontes]

Okay, I’ll butt in. I’m doing so as a Biology major with a minor in Earth Sciences and as someone for whom once work as paleontologist was a figment of hope.

It’s likely because Magic’s other issues had already turned me off it as a product ~15 years ago (proofread your production files!) but I found Orazca Frillback and Frilled Deathspitter in Rivals of Ixalan enough of a straw to break my proverbially overburdened camel’s back to get me to try to divest myself of my physical card collection. Tough luck there for me. Perhaps I can try again in a decade.

About ten years of Magic from Fourth Edition to Ravnica: City of Guilds, notably skipping Alliances. Not for sale as of yet: too much of a hassle, not enough return.

Maybe that makes my lapsed player/collector opinion wholly irrelevant here. But here’s my spilt spleen if you’ll care to divine something useful out of it. 

Generally, as concerns fiction inspired by paleontology, I’d like to see deeper cuts than the common denominator pop culture references. Those are something I’ve noticed Magic can be rather keen to base its general public appeal on. That’s why I didn’t care for either of the RIX cards I mentioned: the first Jurassic Park is a good movie but can we please move on? (Or be more clever with the callbacks if you must…)

The word on the street as I’ve understood it is that Muraganda will verse more on a classical reptilian depiction of dinosaurs. Maybe it’s Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion critters, more likely Jurassic Park, perhaps Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Fair. It’s WotC’s IP: it’s your playground, more than anyone else’s.

Still, as someone who still follows Magic out of a dogged compulsion to confirm that, while Magic’s creatives do indeed do neat work as concerns worldbuilding, it’s still “a product that’s not for me”, something that would dispose me to be as sanguine about Muraganda conceptually as I’m about, say, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty* would be if the creative team showed their research in not taking options just because that’s what they figure the audience expects (see the faux-Dimetrodon).

I mean, the justification I’ve come across for pterosaur-like critters being type-lined as Dinosaur for Ixalan block based on gameplay necessities is fine. The appeal to a perceived ignorance of the general public I’ve also seen reads really poorly though. The close relationship of pterosaurs and dinosaurs (or that some dinosaurs, birds, indeed flew) could have as easily been pointed out while commenting about difficulties in translation. “Dinosaur” is, after all, our own technical coinage. Maybe this is beating a dead horse, but I do hope the point I’m making here about Magic being charitable to its audience regarding their general aplomb is clear enough.

I can certainly get behind others’ comments in the notes about going beyond dinosaurs and showing the diversity of ancient life if through a fantasy lens. I’m not so narrow in my expectations that I think the creature concepts have to be 110% accurate but, once more, do cut a bit deeper. I’m only asking explicitly (twice!) because it’s rather common for media involving dinosaurs and other prehistoric critters to copy off each other with little regard to the actual source material, coasting on the general appeal of the subject matter (see Jenny Nicholson’s discussion of Land Before Time as a franchise). 

If I could at least get confirmation Zack Stella is on in a relevant position to at least assist creative direction if not oversee it, I’d look forward to Muraganda’s art more than I generally cared for Ixalan’s (his work and Jonathan Kuo’s were a highlight there). 

* NB: I enjoyed the original Kamigawa block’s flavor and I’m not so narrow about what feels “Magic” that I can only countenance high fantasy as the game’s flavoring. I’d be absolutely up for a cyberpunk-inspired world as far as it has been sold through teasers and whatnot, but the ship has sailed long ago on me being a loyal customer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[plotsjotsandespressoshots-deact]

Remember in 1993 when Jurassic Park was like…the end all, be all of special effects?

[suicunesrider]

not gonna lie that still looks intimately real

[drtanner-dickery]

I’m still somewhat convinced that someone sold their soul to create the special effects in Jurassic Park because that shit is over 20 years old and it still really, really holds up, better than the stuff in a lot of current movies, even.

Fucking witchcraft, man. 

[fanboyingoverdemigods]

fucking look at this shit though

[mauridianhallow]

Literally see this post flying around with a few different responses added to the bottom each time so I’ll say it for this one myself:

THEY ACTUALLY BUILT A GIANT MASSIVELY DETAILED FUCKING ANIMATRONIC T-REX FOR ALL OF THIS THAT’S WHY THE EFFECTS ARE SO GOOD. CAUSE IT AIN’T CGI. AND IT AIN’T GUY IN A COSTUME. IT’S A BIG FUCKING ROBOT DINOSAUR. AND EVERY PART IS DESIGNED TO MOVE. IT COST LIKE HALF THE BUDGET OF THE FILM.

[mizushimo]

amazing

[shadowthorne]

And they had the film it in small increments, especially in the outdoor scenes, because the rain fall kept soaking into the ‘skin’ of the rex and would slow down and mess up its movements. So they would stop filming and have a crew out there drying off this massive, fake dinosaur, and then they’d start filming again until it was too wet. Repeat until the end of the scene.

[mad-dyspunktional]

They used animatronics and detailed costumes for most if not all of the dinosaurs in the first movie.

The triceratops for instance, was also animatronic.

And the raptors were dudes in suits. I shit you not.

[datneeks]

One of my favorite anecdotes I’ve read on tumblr is how the t-rex robot from Jurassic park would malfunction while it was drying out. How did it malfunction, you might wonder?

Motherfucker randomly started moving.

So apparently if you were on the jp set you would sometimes hear people screaming bloody murder even though they were all well aware that it was a giant animatronic puppet and wouldn’t actually, you know, eat them.

[muck-raker-deactivated20181222]

(link to said post about malfunctioning t-rex)

[alessariel]

Did not know this, had to reblog for awesome movie history insights.

[brainsforbabyjesus]

So, I knew about the animatronics bit but I did not know the raptors were guys in suits and the malfunctioning t-rex sounds terrifying.

And i just googled malfunctioning t-rex and was not disappointed. Apparently in order to put the skin on over the steel frame a guy had to crawl inside the t-rex while it was turned on and glue the skin down. And if somebody turned the t-rex off or the power went out the guy in the t-rex stood a very real chance of getting mangled and killed by the hydraulics.

So of course, the power goes out.

And this guy is still in there gluing the skin down.

Apparently the way to survive getting sheered to death by huge sheets of metal while you’re inside a giant t-rex robot is to curl into a ball and hope for the best.

And this guy hoped for the best and got it.

Some other people on stage pried open the t-rex jaws and glue guy crawled out of its mouth and was totally okay.

[alessariel]

This is getting better and better.

[red-dirt-roads-deactivated20161]

I think they only had like 6 minutes of CGI

[teslasturtle-deactivated2023011]

I’m just waiting for the T-Rex to come to life and leave its stand.

[perspectivemax-deactivated20181]

@spinosaurus-the-fisher is this the kind of content you love?

[myloverhammurabi]

Realism comes at a cost, it seems.

[gorsime]

i mean ok but why has nobody posted this:

[myloverhammurabi]

It’s a three piece raptor suit.

[flamingbluepanda]

Old movies had the best special effects

[skafuller-deactivated20180122]

The thing about this that gets my special effects nerd going is the fact that EVERY single dinosaur was sculpted by artists based on the current existent archeological evidence of the time.

[witwitch-deactivated20160508]

@jurassicparkandrecreation

[senkirowolf]

@shepfax

[prettyarb]

Even better than that, this movie ADVANCED our best understanding of dinosaurs at the time.  They were blowing out a budget bigger than anything Hollywood had ever seen, and along with employing almost the last hurrah of incredible physical FX, they had a bank of those newfangled digital SFX computers.  Nobody’d ever really created convincing dinosaurs in a movie before.  It’d all been stop-motion animation, and even when the models were exquisitely crafted, you could just tell there was something OFF about them.  Spielberg wanted THE BEST DINOSAURS EVER, and he figured on using the cutting edge of digital modeling and animation technology to build them for him.

So they got hold of some of the best paleontologists they could find and said, “We want you guys to take this tech that your labs could pretty much never afford and use it to build us the most realistic, accurate dinosaur models the world has ever seen.”

The paleontologists knew an opportunity when it bit them in the ass.  They plugged in everything they knew about dinosaurs, all the skeletons and their best guesses about soft tissue and all that.  And when they’d created those dinosaur models, they had the computer start moving them as they realistically would with anatomy like that.  One guy took a look at those walking t-rexes and velociraptors (really utahraptors, but whatevs, fam), and he said, “Wait a minute, I’ve seen movement like that before.”

He called up film of a chicken walking.  Everyone in the room said, “Holy shit.”

Prior to 1989, the idea that birds were descended from dinosaurs existed–we knew about archaeopteryx, we knew there was some minor connection there–but the idea that DINOSAURS LIVE IN THE MODERN WORLD AND THEY ARE CALLED BIRDS was not pre-eminent.  Jurassic Park changed our scientific understanding of dinosaurs.

[bastlynn]

That paleontologists’d be Kevin Padian. Who is awesome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Padian

[thistherapylife]

This post just gets better and better with time

[evilsquirrel18]

Always reblog this and it hurts my soul when they say old movies because I was like ten when this came out and… THIS WAS MY CHILDHOOD.

[dracontes]

I have to say @prettyarbitrary’s moniker is rather on point given their handling of truth of the matter.

While Jurassic Park was certainly important in making a wider audience aware of the main tenets of the Dinosaur Renaissance (up and to including that birds are dinosaurs), there was no direct influence of the movie’s creative process on the relevant science. It may have changed laypeoples’ perspectives, but it did very little for the scientists themselves, sooner being a source of much-needed funding through consulting fees. In fact, currently, the only benefit the JP franchise gives to paleontology by way of its popularity is research grants doled out by the Jurassic Foundation which is funded by Amblin and Universal.

Going by commentary closer to the time of the movie’s release available on the Dinosaur Mailing List, the interest of the producers in having very accurate dinosaurs was willful at best.

Here, Darren Naish retells how a clip distributed to broadcasters for marketing purposes showed a raptor flicking its tongue as a snake would, which John Horner had advised against and was later removed from the movie. Another poster confirms this as being mentioned on a “Making of...” video.

Here, here and here, Luis Rey reports that Michael Trcic, while working for JP , struggled to get to a JP Tyrannosaurus that was, in his evaluation ~60% accurate because, for Spielberg, the objective was a movie monster. Another poster further adds that Spielberg initially wanted to pay homage to his favorite iteration of King Kong through Tyrannosaurus’ depiction. Trcic prevailed and that initial decision was likely forgotten for marketing purposes.

Here, a poster reports on John Horner’s description of Spielberg’s attitude towards varying levels of support for what we can know/infer regarding dinosaurs. Apparently Spielberg took anything less than 100% certainty as a prompt to do as he wished.

If you notice a pattern of John Horner being mentioned a fair bit in these, it’s because he was the sole consultant for the movie(s). Sure, some production team artists contacted Bob Bakker on the side for further input, but there was hardly team of paleontologists/paleoartists on the job. Any participating artists’ interest in dinosaurs was mostly incidental to the whole thing and probably a detracting from it since they’d be more likely to call bullshit as Trcic did.

In any case, I’d say Spielberg and co.’s leaning into the Dinosaur Renaissance was more to inform the characterization of believable threats in-universe than any particularly firm intent to communicate the science. Non-fiction books are better for that anyway.

[albertonykus]

Richard Stallman (not a palaeontologist, keep in mind) says birds should not be called dinosaurs (and stopped being dinosaurs, because he doesn't think they didn't evolve from dinos) because they're not traditionally called dinos, or something like that. I can't link to it, but look up his article on "dinavians".

I wonder if Stallman would say the same about sauropods, which were originally thought to be marine crocodylians and only classified as dinosaurs later on.

I’ve always found the argument from social convention particularly weak when applied to the word “dinosaur”. It would hold more water if it was applied to terms that had originated in vernacular contexts like “reptile” or, yes, “fish”. “Dinosaur” was coined as a technical term, and has essentially always been used in technical literature to refer to “a member of the group Dinosauria”. And though the dinosaur subgroups Saurischia and Ornithischia were long thought to be only distantly related to each other, Dinosauria was widely understood to be a monophyletic group and used accordingly by the time cladistic analyses found birds to be nested within dinosaurs in the 80s. It’s not that Dinosauria was redefined specifically to include birds,* but instead that cladistics found support for the pre-existing hypothesis that birds are dinosaurs. If anything, the time to propose discarding “Dinosauria” as a taxon and calling the clade something else would have been in the 70s and early 80s when the evidence for dinosaurian monophyly was building up.

*To be clear, a phylogenetic definition of Dinosauria similar to the format used today would not be proposed until the 90s, but the use of Dinosauria for a monophyletic group has existed for longer than that.

(I find it funny how Stallman claimed in 2018 that it is “radical paleontologists” who consider birds to be dinosaurs. No, this use of “dinosaur” has been mainstream in the field of vertebrate paleontology for decades at this point.)

Regarding the usefulness of “non-avian dinosaur” (as used equivalently to “non-avialan dinosaur”), it’s true that it is commonly used even in scientific literature. However, I would argue that it is primarily useful on historical grounds, such as discussing the significance of Sinosauropteryx as the first non-avialan dinosaur that was found preserved with feathers. I can think of few if any contexts in which it is biologically meaningful to refer to a group uniting Diplodocus and Microraptor but not Archaeopteryx. Do we want to discuss only dinosaur groups that didn’t survive past the K-Pg? Then the precise term to use would really be “non-neornithean dinosaur”. Do we only want to discuss non-flying dinosaurs? Then “non-flying dinosaur” (or “flightless dinosaur”) probably would be the most convenient one to use, actually, given the controversies about when and how many times flight evolved in dinosaurs. I strongly suspect that the reason “non-avian/avialan dinosaur” gets used so much is out of precedent and familiarity, and not because it is always the most appropriate term to use.

If we really wanted “dinosaur” to conform to a popular understanding of the term, maybe it should mean “anything that looks vaguely prehistoric to a layperson”, which might include anything from pterosaurs to mammoths to crocodiles to horseshoe crabs to horse skeletons. One could make an argument for that, but it would neither have much connection with the original meaning of “dinosaur” nor be particularly useful, in my opinion. I don’t know about you, but I think it is probably less confusing to continue using “dinosaur” as “a member of the group Dinosauria”.

Stallman’s proposed term “dinavian” reminds me of clade names that get coined simply because a group that was previously considered outside a clade is discovered to actually be nested within said clade (like how “Cetartiodactyla” was coined when whales were found to be artiodactyls), and I consider it equally unnecessary.

That’s my take, at least. To be frank, I’ve long lost interest in debating this subject, and probably will not respond to followups unless they’re about the underlying facts of the case. These same arguments were already hashed out on the Dinosaur Mailing List in the 90s. Much of it comes down to subjective judgments about what factors to value when deciding how a word is used, and I find that conversations about those are rarely interesting or productive.

[dracontes]

Disruption by dracontes on DeviantArt

Disruption by dracontes

[dracontes]

Over recent months it has come to my attention that an ostensibly anonymous blog, @palaoeblr-answered​ , has been substituting themself to knowledgeable members of #palaeoblr in replying to questions submitted to ask-palaeoblr, with a decidedly questionable approach.

Case in point, see this side-by-side comparison of their reply on a question regarding sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs and the relevant Wikipedia article. 

It’s clear that palaoeblr-answered's reply quotes the Wiki article word for word, save the caveat at the top because, apparently, uncertainty is a bummer. Even the top-cited reference for the article, a 2014 dissertation by Holly Barden, points out repeatedly that a salient issue with studies claiming evidence for sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs is that their samples aren't statistically significant. See Maiorino et al. (2015), Mallon (2017) and Hone & Mallon (2017) for relevant discussion in the peer-reviewed literature. What we have now are at most enticing inklings that may not necessarily be the case.

From pages 2 and 4-5 of Barden, Holly. (2014) "Sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs: a review of the evidence and approaches". APS 402 Dissertation. Red highlights for clarity.

But then we come to what is to me the clincher in lack of academic aplomb and general courtesy: using Creative Commons illustrations without crediting their authors. In this reply to a question about gregariousness in ceratopsids, we can see work by Tom Parker (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike), Fred Wierum (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike), Mariana Ruiz Villarreal aka. LadyofHats (Public Domain), and a collage by English Wikipedia user Sainsf (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike), all unattributed to their authors.

I get trying to be helpfully informative, I'd even wish more people were so, but this is not how you do it. Please do better than this. Both palaoeblr-answered and everyone else reading this. All have a place at the table of scientific discourse as long as they display reasonably proper behavior. 

[dracontes]

Digital Clay Dragon #1 by dracontes on DeviantArt

Digital Clay Dragon #1 by dracontes

[ask-palaeoblr]

Why do crocodilians have their ears in their fenestra and not behind their head like a normal animal?

[dracontes]

It’s not that crocodiles have their ears in their infratemporal fenestrae exactly,   though I can understand why it would seem that way. What happened is that along the lineage to extant crocs, the eardrum became enlarged and, for lack of a better option for structural support, it became enclosed withing the bony bar at the back of the skull which consequently widened covering in part the infratemporal fenestra.

Here’s some labelled images for further instruction:

Side view of an Allosaurus skull. From Savali, Udo M. (2017, 22 December). BIO 370 — Vertebrate Zoology — Dinosaur Skeletons. 

Views of an alligator skull. From Savalli, Udo M. (2009, 22 December). BIO 370 — Vertebrate Zoology — Alligator Skeleton.

You should consider that in general, relationships between bones and soft tissue structures are maintained over the course of evolution. The eardrum in diapsids is closely associated with the quadrate. The quadrate along with the quadratojugal and the squamosal form the bony bar behind the infratemporal fenestra. You can see that the quadrate has a position closer to the midline of the animal than the quadratojugal for the crocodilian: on the dinosaur the quadrate is hidden by the quadratojugal from side view for the most part. You’ll also note, as alluded before, that the aforementioned bony bar at the back of the skull on the alligator has a much greater width front to back than on the Allosaurus. It expanded forward, forming a wall over part of the infratemporal fenestra, but also backward to enclose the eardrum completely.

Here’s an interpretation I drew up: 

Modified from figure 2.B of Montefeltro, F. C., Andrade, D. V., & Larsson, H. C. (2016). “The evolution of the meatal chamber in crocodyliforms”. Journal of Anatomy, 228(5), 838-863, showing the back of the skull of a dwarf crocodile.

As to the why, it seems hearing was fairly important to crocodile ancestors in their daily lives to justify the investment up and to including evolving ear lids to protect the now large eardrums as reported on the above-cited Montefeltro et al. (2016) paper. You can also find there an ample discussion of the background for the above summary.

I do hope this clears up matters. If you have any more questions feel free to ask.     

[hummingyogurt]

T. rex relative could become Washington’s official state dinosaur

Regardless of whether the Legislature sees fit to bestow that official designation, Suciasaurus is the state’s only dinosaur – at least in terms of having some fossilized part of an extinct reptile found within the boundaries of Washington.

Wow what an absolutely fantastic idea to make a press release illustration for Suciasaurus that is in a running screaming lateral view making it seem like an almost complete skeleton is known so other reconstructions will just blindly copy this one while in reality all that is known is a fragment of a femur

Now I don’t have anything against reconstructions of fragmentary taxa but if it is portrayed in such a diagram-like pose it makes it seem that almost all of the animal is known, allowing such a diagram-like reconstruction

The purpose of such lateral view reconstructions is after all to show the exact proportions and measurements but here it is all just copied from related taxa

In a case like this the animal should be portrayed in a 3-dimensional space in a unique pose with the part that is known highlighted in the front so that it is not possible to copy the exact proportions for other reconstructions

[dracontes]

I feel I should point out that the illustration is rather that of Daspletosaurus torosus and was cribbed without credit and with some modification from Wikimedia user Steveoc 86:

Image by Steveoc 86, released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

That’s excellent reporting right there! (/s) 

On other matters, I can’t say I care all that much for giving such a fragmentary fossil an unofficial name that sounds official apparently so a state dinosaur bill can be passed. To be clear, “Suciasaurus rex” hasn’t been published anywhere of note with that name (A few first online mentions; the actual paper billing it as an indeterminate theropod). Still, fair recommendations, Stolpergeist. I’d further submit that one should avoid reconstructing such fragmentary fossils beyond the immediate anatomical vicinity of what was actually found.

[the-awesome-quotes]

Photographer  Chen Chengguang’s Photos Of Ospreys In Hunting Mode Show How Calculated Everything In Nature Is.

[holyconflagration]

Can anyone explain why all of them are chasing each other? Is that normal avian behavior?

[dracontes]

No, the ospreys aren’t chasing each other because this is the result of editing several photos of the same bird as it plunged into the water into the same image. Something, I should add is done to great effect, so kudos to Chen Chengguang (link to his Instagram profile) for the striking imagery. Comparing head markings within each image should allay any doubts in this regard. See strobe light use in a relevant photographic series by Paulo Bico for a related effect. 

[raptorcivilization]

I wonder when pop culture’s current nostalgia addiction will finally burn out, when people will finally get tired of “here’s the same thing you liked 10-30 years ago! give us your money”

[dracontes]

Hopefully not too soon because it’s saving me quite a bit of money and time :V

@mononykus77​ , hasn’t that already been done and much to the author’s chagrin? I remember watching one or two relevant items on the telly at least.

[jurassicsunsets]

How come you love dinosaurs so much? Wouldn’t you rather dedicate your time to living animal families like Cetaceans, Mustelids, Pinnipeds or Primates, all of which have countless members alive today? Like, I can google my favorite animals (Lowland Gorilla, Killer whale) and see countless photos and videos. But with dinosaurs, you are at the mercy of other people’s drawing skills and cgi technology. Seems a bit inhibiting.

How come you love being rude to people on the internet so much? Wouldn’t you rather dedicate your time to things like drawing, writing, reading, or archery, all of which are fun ways to spend your time and don’t make you seem like a dick? Like, I can read papers on my favourite dinosaurs (Pachycephalosaurs, Spinosaurs) and have a marvelous time. But with sending rude anonymous messages on tumblr, you are simply wasting your time being unpleasant and making yourself miserable instead of being productive. Seems a bit inhibiting.

[jurassicsunsets]

In all seriousness, though…I love living animals! My bookshelf is filled with books about them, I’m an avid birdwatcher, I spend ages in the anatomy collections of museums, I annoy my family by my constant zoo visits. 

For me, the appeal of dinosaurs is similar to the appeal of a jigsaw puzzle. I love looking at pictures of landscapes, or cottages, or little kittens getting up to mischief, but there’s another layer of discovery and wonder to be added when you have to assemble this picture from scratch. And sometimes some of the pieces are missing. That’s okay! The joy comes from putting the puzzle together, trying to figure out what it’ll be when they all come together. And being able to imagine what might be happening in that section of the puzzle where pieces are missing…the mind races. 

I hope that you can one day appreciate the beauty of an incomplete picture, because imagination and discovery have been two of the greatest sources of joy throughout the whole of my life.

[hummingyogurt]

An interest in palaeontology often comes with an interest in modern lifeforms Seeing how things have evolved in the past gives one a bigger picture of how life on Earth got to its current state The fossil record connects the dots, one sees how all is related, how it all makes sense, how animals adapt to catastrophies, how finite and fragile species are in an ever changing world

No one I know who has an interest in fossil animals isn’t interested in living ones as well One is interested in fossil animals to see how living animals came to be and how to preserve them so they wouldn’t have to join the ranks of extinct ones prematurely

If you truly care about animals you can’t ignore the fossil record and what stories it has to tell

[dracontes]

Undersigned.

“But with dinosaurs, you are at the mercy of other people’s drawing skills and cgi technology. Seems a bit inhibiting.”

I don’t know if you have looked around the paleontological community of interest that closely but there are a lot of people that take matters into their own hands to depict more or less plausible notions they have or have encountered about extinct critters (me for instance). It’s more often a prompt for creativity (and some ferment truth be told) and therefore not that inhibiting.

I would counter that even if you have abundant photographic/videographic material regarding extant species, it is fare as well limited by the skill, interest and opportunities of their authors. I’m reminded of how what I’ve seen on lions overwhelmingly deals with pride life, with little attention given to nomadic individuals. For some more obscure taxa, a drawing may be all there is to see.

While we’re at it, I figure it’s relevant since there’ll likely be some people commenting on how they don’t know where to start, here’s a pair of guides I’ve collated on:

Research skills

Visual art skills  

(I hope you’ll allow that these are links to Facebook.)

[dracontes]

Miscellaneous Mammal Nr. 1 by dracontes

[dracontes]

Not-A-Fish by dracontes

[dracontes]

Stern Allosaur by dracontes

[ask-palaeoblr]

Does anyone know of a website/resource with a list of ALL prehistoric/fossil animals? Like all dinosaurs, synapsids, trilobites, insects, etc that have ever been discovered/named? The best I've got is Wikipedia but I'm sure many, many things are missing.

[raptorcivilization]

No. This would be a Sisyphean effort that would never be completed due to the sheer amount of species involved and the fact that none of the contributors would be able to agree on how to classify them and what is or isn’t synonymous

[jurassicsunsets]

That said, the closest thing to it might be the paleobiology database!

[dracontes]

Might as well add that the best catalogue of all species (fossil and living) I’ve found so far is the Catalogue of Life (CoL). It includes PaleoBiology Database data but it’s a bit weird as to how it’s organized: 

Screenshot from the CoL’s 2019 Annual Checklist showing fossil bird superfamilies filed under class Reptilia, order Dinosauria, while there is also a class Aves (birds).

@itwas-thelag said: “The closest thing I can think of is the phylogeny explorer project being down by Aron Ra. https://youtu.be/OIFPqe03hVE ”

That’s the hope at least but it’s going to take some time. I found the CoL volunteer-consulting for PEP. If you want to help out (and the project sure needs it), apply at the Facebook group or at the site itself.

[dracontes]

Sometimes the answer is all of them! 

Original Facebook post by me here. Genus list derived from this old DA journal of mine, also expounding on why I find this sort of question a hassle. List meant only as an example: your faves, non-dinosaurian or otherwise, are also valid.