#ornithopsis

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

people who know nothing about dinosaurs: Sauropods are the least bird like dinosaurs! They're so big and weird they are nothing like birds! Dinosaurs and Birds are distinct things because Sauropods!!!

Seeley in 1870, examining some sauropod bones: Wow, these are so bird like. I think I'll name this animal, literally, "Bird-Like".

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

@fezraptor I now present, Deinocheirus mirificus, Trevorrowised!

Not how the distinctive giant arms and claws of Deinocheirus are replaced with slightly long Generic Theropod Arms, with pronated wrists no less! The unique and bizarre head was also way too interesting, so we switched it out with a Generic Theropod Head, with just the slightest hint of a toothless beak. The skin is also shrunk down right onto the bones and muscles so that it looks strong and dangerous.

The body is a beautiful dull beige, and the sail has just a touch of red. After all, it’s obviously a display structure. All of these artistic changes ensure that our creature designs remain true to the look and feel of Jurassic Park and the Stan Winston style.

What’s that? It’s not accurate you say? We’re being faithful to the spirit of the original Jurassic Park that people love! After all, it’s not like Jurassic Park was built on showcasing a new and exciting portrayal of dinosaurs to the general public, with thoughtful and careful designs that were accurate to the science at the time (with a few exceptions)!

Oh wait, that’s exactly what Jurassic Park was. Nvm then.

[ornithopsis]

A generic basal titanosauriform intended to represent Ornithopsis, a questionable sauropod whose name I use as my Twitter and Deviantart usernames.

Ornithopsis has an interesting history. It was the first large vertebrate fossil to preserve skeletal pneumaticity, which led its discoverer, Harry G. Seeley, to suggest that it had bird-like lungs and air sacs and must be a giant terrestrial reptile related to pterosaurs and birds. For this, he named it Ornithopsis, “bird appearance.” He also suggested it may be related to the then poorly-known dinosaurs. Somewhat remarkably, his initial prediction was correct, as both it and birds are dinosaurs, and together with pterosaurs they form a clade which seem to have ancestrally shared a system of air sacs.

As you can tell, it clearly resembles a bird.

[on my deviantart]

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Ornithopsis hulkei

By John D’Angelo on @fezraptor

Name: Ornithopsis hulkei

Name Meaning: Bird likeness

First Described: 1870

Described By: Seeley

Classification: Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Sauropodomorpha, Plateosauria, Massopoda, Sauropodiformes, Anchisauria, Sauropoda, Gravisauria, Eusauropoda, Neosauropoda, Macronaria, Titanosauriformes

You know how sauropod have been pretty much exclusively terrible? Well this one is no exception! The original fossil was two vertebrae, and Seeley thought that the animal bridged the gap between pterosaurs, birds, and dinosaurs, based on the vertebrae. Really, he wasn’t wrong, but you know who thought he was? Richard Owen, our problematic fave, who named Dinosauria and refused to think that birds were dinosaurs. Wanker. He split the vertebra into two genera, Iguanodon and Bothriospondylus, ignoring the priority of the name. As time went on, more and more species of Ornithopsis were named, and honestly it was such a chaotic mess that I don’t... I don’t even... Nope. The badly eroded type specimen is pretty much the only one we’re certain belongs to Ornithopsis, and it had very pneumatised vertebrae with large cavities (like birds), and it was similar enough to other members of this group to be called a titanosauriform. It was found in East Sussex and in the Wessex Formation in England, from the Barremian age of the Early Cretaceous, sometime between 125 and 129 million years ago, and is another great example of how 1800s paleontology was ridiculous and terrible. 

Sources: 

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

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

Shout out goes to ginyilove!

[dapperdinos]

Ornithopsis is a feathered, bow-tied, bowler-wearing party-o-saurus.